Publications
Partners
AS HONORARY world chairperson of Hypochondriacs Anonymous, your ancient scribe is from time to time invited to address groups of medical doctors. To maintain their licences to practise, apparently doctors must attend a minimum number of meetings annually that are addressed by speakers from different fields, including medical.
Thus journalists, experts in nothing, are sometimes invited to speak.
Your ancient scribbler feels himself to be quite well qualified to address medical practitioners. For example, this crumbling human form has been placed under general anaesthetic well over 40 times – or roughly once every two years – for my entire lifetime.
On one occasion death was induced by a theatre sister who mistakenly injected a local anaesthetic directly into my heart, thus instantly paralysing it. A large, black paramedic was hastily summoned and he attempted to break some ribs, an effort that didn't quite succeed – but he did manage to get the old ticker turning over again. Whoever he was I'm grateful to him for the extra years, though there are no doubt some who would have welcomed another outcome.
All this brings us to the matter of generic drugs, which – because they're far cheaper than the original products – are increasingly desirable to sufferers as medical costs climb inexorably. Pharmaceutical companies – known as Big Pharma by certain activists who accuse them of all sorts of mayhem, from inventing and inflicting disease on poor people to robbing governments of billions – expose themselves to great financial risk in their search for drugs that will assist medical science in treating illnesses.
In passing, it's instructive to note most medical advances have come from societies with market-related economies.
Thus we come to the issue of risk and reward. It must be remembered not every drug researched and tested exhaustively at a cost of billions is approved for use. Many are not and those sunk costs must eventually be recovered from drugs that do succeed.
In addition, if private drug companies are to survive, market their successful drugs and undertake research to develop more new, approved medicines, those must make a profit to recover the costs not only of their failed attempts but of their successful ones.
Then there are the shareholders who, as owners with capital at risk, expect rewards in the shape of dividends, bonus shares, return on capital or whatever. Thus the final cost to the ill consumer reflects all those aspects that often make new drugs very expensive.
Understandably, drug companies seek protection in patents for their valuable products and those can last for up to 20 years. After the patent period expires, other companies can copy the process and ingredients of the original ethical drug and market it under another name. Not having expended billions on developing those drugs, the generic producers can charge much less and still make useful profits.
Now for those who, like yours truly, take an active interest in remaining healthy it's strongly recommended you access a website known as Health24.com – an offering from the same company that produces this magazine. No incentives were offered or asked for in making this recommendation.
Health24.com will give you access to health matters that will enable you to be as well-informed as possible when you go to your doctor or pharmacist. The site offers a generic meds tool enabling the user to find the generic version for the medicines being taken and the savings that can be made.
One can, via Health24.com, access the list of drugs SA's Medicine Controls Council says may not be suitable for generic substitution. However, it's generally accepted that the bulk of generic medicines are as good as the original and they, too, must undergo official and stringent testing before being marketed.
Also, via Health24.com you can seek expert medical advice, which enables those with medical problems to explore different forms of treatment and to approach medical practitioners with at least some background provided by their peers.
In my long and chequered career as a patient, your scribe has too often encountered doctors who treat you like a kindergarten child attending a university lecture. Enough of that.
Thus journalists, experts in nothing, are sometimes invited to speak.
Your ancient scribbler feels himself to be quite well qualified to address medical practitioners. For example, this crumbling human form has been placed under general anaesthetic well over 40 times – or roughly once every two years – for my entire lifetime.
On one occasion death was induced by a theatre sister who mistakenly injected a local anaesthetic directly into my heart, thus instantly paralysing it. A large, black paramedic was hastily summoned and he attempted to break some ribs, an effort that didn't quite succeed – but he did manage to get the old ticker turning over again. Whoever he was I'm grateful to him for the extra years, though there are no doubt some who would have welcomed another outcome.
All this brings us to the matter of generic drugs, which – because they're far cheaper than the original products – are increasingly desirable to sufferers as medical costs climb inexorably. Pharmaceutical companies – known as Big Pharma by certain activists who accuse them of all sorts of mayhem, from inventing and inflicting disease on poor people to robbing governments of billions – expose themselves to great financial risk in their search for drugs that will assist medical science in treating illnesses.
In passing, it's instructive to note most medical advances have come from societies with market-related economies.
Thus we come to the issue of risk and reward. It must be remembered not every drug researched and tested exhaustively at a cost of billions is approved for use. Many are not and those sunk costs must eventually be recovered from drugs that do succeed.
In addition, if private drug companies are to survive, market their successful drugs and undertake research to develop more new, approved medicines, those must make a profit to recover the costs not only of their failed attempts but of their successful ones.
Then there are the shareholders who, as owners with capital at risk, expect rewards in the shape of dividends, bonus shares, return on capital or whatever. Thus the final cost to the ill consumer reflects all those aspects that often make new drugs very expensive.
Understandably, drug companies seek protection in patents for their valuable products and those can last for up to 20 years. After the patent period expires, other companies can copy the process and ingredients of the original ethical drug and market it under another name. Not having expended billions on developing those drugs, the generic producers can charge much less and still make useful profits.
Now for those who, like yours truly, take an active interest in remaining healthy it's strongly recommended you access a website known as Health24.com – an offering from the same company that produces this magazine. No incentives were offered or asked for in making this recommendation.
Health24.com will give you access to health matters that will enable you to be as well-informed as possible when you go to your doctor or pharmacist. The site offers a generic meds tool enabling the user to find the generic version for the medicines being taken and the savings that can be made.
One can, via Health24.com, access the list of drugs SA's Medicine Controls Council says may not be suitable for generic substitution. However, it's generally accepted that the bulk of generic medicines are as good as the original and they, too, must undergo official and stringent testing before being marketed.
Also, via Health24.com you can seek expert medical advice, which enables those with medical problems to explore different forms of treatment and to approach medical practitioners with at least some background provided by their peers.
In my long and chequered career as a patient, your scribe has too often encountered doctors who treat you like a kindergarten child attending a university lecture. Enough of that.
