In yesterdays New York Times, Elisabeth Rosenthal published on article on the amount of advertising that is done in the U.S on medicine. After examining the facts, it is scary how money hungry hospitals and healthcare providers are, when in reality they should be more focused on what they are meant to be for, providing health care to rid the world of sickness.
As Rosenthal states, The United States and New Zealand are the only two countries that allow advertising for medicine. When we are sitting on a subway, watching t.v, or driving down the highway, we always seem to see some sort of advertising which is promoting a drug that we may not need, and its affects will be minimal, while its price is maximal. Drug companies are promoting drugs that may be only needed for one hundred people, while even those one hundred people may not actually benefit from it. They are too focused on a customer based market, as opposed to a patient based market. Even in 2016, two Superbowl sponsors were health care providers, advertising their service to a market much broader than the patients that need their medical service. We have come to the point in our world where CEO's would rather make an extra million dollars to their worth by advertising their products, as opposed to spending the money they would spend on advertising on something worth while, like further medical research to make medicine even more effective than it is now.
Pharmaceutical companies to healthcare providers have lost focus on what is right about the service that they provide. They focus on advertising their products in mass, drawing in customers, and making the profit. Doctors have been well respected professions in the past, as they contribute to society to make the world healthier. Yet in a world where now all they care about is making their own money, healthcare is changing for the worse. Healthcare providers should be more focused on what they are meant be more, which is improving the world and getting rid of illness.
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