Nexus - 0213 - New Times Magazine-pages

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ta as Sweden and far more than the US and Britain".' The situa­ tion in the United States and Britain sixteen years ago was bad enough for lllich to write: "In the United States, the volume of the drug business has grown by a factor of 100 during the current century:'" 20,000 tons of aspirin are consumed per year, almost 225 tablets per person." In England, every tenth night of sleep is induced by a hypnotic arug and 19 per cent of women and 9 per cent of men take a prescribed tranquillizer dur­ cing anyone year.. In the United States, central-nervous­ system agents are the fastest-growing sector of the pharma­ ceutical market, now making up 311 per cent of total sales." Dependence on prescribed tranquillizers has risen by 290 per cent since 1962, a period during which the per capita consumption of liquor rose by only 23 per cent and the estimated consumption of illegal opiates by about 50 per cent''*'.' At the time ofI1lich writing this (1976), it is estimated that 50 to 80 per cent of adults in the United States and the United Kingdom were consuming a medically prescribed chemical every 24 to 36 hours.' In his book Confessions of a Medical Heretic (1980), famed medical writer and paedi­ atrician, Dr Robert Mendelsohn, accused doctors of having ' ', A ' , ." . "seeded the entire population with these powerful drugs". Mendelsohn further states that "Every year, from 8 to 10 mil­ lion Americans go to the doctor when they have a cold. About ninety-five percent of them come away with a prescription ­ half of which are for antibi­ otics...• A recent report by the National Health Strategy (1992) has pointed out that 160 million prescriptions are being dis­ pensed from Australian pharma­ cies every year, and an estimat­ ed further 20 million from hos­ pital pharmacies.' This figure represents a 640 per cent increase since 1949, during which time 280,719 prescriptions were dispensed. • As reported in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (1976), a study in a large country town in Australia has revealed that peo­ ple who reported no illness took as many drugs as those who reported a chronic and acute illness. The authors noted that "the rate of increase in drug usage at around 25 per cent per year can only ,be explained by increased drug usage of both prescription and OTC [over-the-counter] drugs by the majority of the population".' At the time of the report Australians were consuming half the number of prescription drugs compared to today.1O Recent figures of how many OTC or non-prescription drugs consumed by Australians are difficult to obtain. industry sources are reluctant to divulge this information. However, a, study by the Health Commission of NSW in 1979 that stated that "at present Australia has one of the leading rates of per capita consumption of analgesil:s in the world", quoted 1973 figures for sales of OTC medications at $166 million. 11 It is estimated that in 1991 $1.4 billion was spent on OTC med­ ications!' which, when added to the $2 bil'lion spent on prescription drugs," totals a staggering $3.4 billion. Drugs In The Food We Eat Apart from the vast number of drugs taken directly, people are also unknowingly consuming large amounts of drugs and other chemical substimces indirectly from the food they eat. Most food industries rely on chemical substances from soil to supermarket and the animal products industries are by far the most excessive users of these substances." The avalanche of drug and chemical usage by these ind~r.ries occurred with the shift in production methods from free-range fanning to factory and feedlot fanning in the last 20 to 30 years." Over 15 years ago, there were more than 1,000 drug products and as many chemicals in use by the livestock and poultry produc­ ers in the United States.I' Also, more than 40 per cent of the antibiotics and other antibacterials produced every year in the US were used as animal feed additives and for other animal pmposes. Almost 100 per cent of poultry, 90 per cent of pigs and veal calves, and 60 per cent of cattle have regular amounts of antibacte­ rials added to their feed" Seventy-five per cent of hogs have their feed supplemented with sulphur drugsl' and almost 70 per cent of US beef is from cattle fed on hormones to promote growth." The amount of drugs and chemical substances used on farm ani­ mals in the industrialised nations is enormous. . '.,.0" . w How Common Are Drug Adverse Reactionsl According to the Adverse Drug Reactions Advisory Committee (ADRAC), the official federal government body responsible for monitoring the safety of drugs already in use: "There is a dearth [scarcity] of published information on the medical and economic importance of adverse drug reactions in Australia,'''' However, a recent study (1991), cited Iby the National Health Strategy report on drug use, claims that in 1987-88 there were between 30,000 and 40,000 hospital admissions in Australia because of drug-taking and also that adverse drug reactions (ADRs) would have been a major :factor for between 700 to 900 deaths a year.zs There are some who are highly critical of the official estimation of the extent of drug reactions within communities. Dr Juljan Gold, head of the National Health Surveillance Unit of the Commonwealth Institute of Health, whose job as a medical epi­ demiQlogist is to collate information on the total health environ­ ment, estimates that yp to 40 per cent of all patients in Australia may a,ctually be victims of doctor-induced (iatrogenic) illnesses.'" A 40 per cent figure has also been estimated for the United Kingdom." Generally, of this amount half are from drug reac­ tions.:UO Vol 2, No 13 -1993 NEXUS·25