Blogger and radio host Erick Erickson penned a long, emotional column in The Free Press on Thursday complaining that critics of the modern medical establishment built on sick care have “scapegoated” the pharmaceutical industry.
“Big Pharma Saved My Life,” he titled the essay, with a story of how pharmaceutical interventions have saved both Erickson and his wife after they suffered life-threatening episodes. “We are still both here, thanks to God and the much-maligned ‘Big Pharma.’”
“That disparaging label got a workout from both Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his Senate interrogators during confirmation hearings this week,” Erickson said. “But let me tell you about the other side of this now-hackneyed phrase. Without innovative drugs developed with great scientific skill at tremendous cost by the pharmaceutical industry, my family and I would not be here today. There are countless other people who can say the same.”
His argument, however, is bad faith and ridiculous. Criticism of “Big Pharma” isn’t a denial of the miracles of modern medicine that help keep us alive longer and, in some ways, healthier than ever before. Rather it is an indictment of the industry’s exercising corrupt influence over politicians while operating with insidious incentives to engineer a model of sick care instead of genuine health care.
The American lifespan might be extending beyond that of previous generations, but health span is certainly not, despite the innovations in medicine to increase both. Dartmouth College Professor Susan Roberts told CNBC last fall Americans can now expect to spend roughly 10 years coping with myriad chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and dementia — a period that is twice as long as the duration expected in the 1960s. Roberts blamed the “widening gap” between life and health span on the medical industry’s success in “keeping sick people alive” without solving their underlying problems. In other words, Americans are suffering an unprecedented epidemic of chronic illness as conditions managed by a pill for every ill continue to pile up…
