During the dot-com bubble of the 1990s, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan famously used the term “irrational exuberance” in what was interpreted as a warning that the stock market was overvalued. In my opinion, TV advertising creates a similar “irrational exuberance” or unrealistic expectation for pharmaceuticals in our society. That helps explains why we were so poorly prepared for a pandemic.
Why We’re Poorly Prepared for a Pandemic:
Americans are not prepared for pandemics because we have been force-fed through TV drug advertisements a model of health based on treating individuals once they become sick, rather than on fundamental disease prevention. We look down our noses at Asian societies with their widespread use of masks as if those people are weaklings or wimps in comparison to mighty Americans. Maybe we should re-think that attitude.
Medical School vs. School of Public Health:
At universities that have both a medical school and a school of public health, the medical school is typically held in higher esteem. That’s partly because our medical system is market-based. Our medical system is about profits, not health. The focus of our medical system is on pathology within individuals, rather than on the pathological aspects of modern societies. The individual is treated with pharmaceuticals. However, the pathology in society is not addressed. That is part of the reason we are so poorly prepared for a pandemic.
The university where I attended pharmacy school also has a medical school and a nursing school, but it does not have a school of public health. Only years later, after becoming a pharmacist, did I fully realize that I would have been much happier with a degree in public health rather than a degree in pharmacy. I’d rather focus on preventing disease in populations rather than focus on utilizing pills to treat disease in individuals.
A Hyperindividualist Ideology:
We live in a society based on material accumulation, rather than one based on the needs of the population as a whole. Capitalism is a hyperindividualist ideology that doesn’t focus on the community as a whole. Countries with a national health service are at least theoretically better prepared to deal with pandemics because the national health service serves the population as a whole.
Parties on the political right prefer private-sector (market-based) solutions to health, whereas parties on the political left like government to take a more prominent role. Parties on the right typically do a poor job marshaling a large governmental response to a pandemic because the right fundamentally distrusts government.
Societies that focus on individuals pay a high price when confronted with epidemics and pandemics because these societies are accustomed to addressing pathology within individuals rather than society-wide pathology.
High-Density Living Facilitates Viral Spread:
One big factor in the causation of pandemics is the high population density in modern societies. Clearly Homo sapiens has not evolved with the capacity for such high-density living in which viruses can spread like wild fire. Another factor that facilitates rapid viral spread is the increased travel and mobility in modern societies.
Social distancing and social isolation are foreign concepts to Americans because we have been force-fed a model of health based on pills to treat individuals rather than on a population approach to illness. That’s why Americans are so eager and willing to accept President Trump’s endorsement of a magic bullet in the form of a pill known as hydroxychloroquine.
Americans are not accustomed to social isolation or staying six feet apart, frequent hand-washing, wearing masks and gloves, and disinfecting surfaces with soap/water or alcohol-based cleaners. Because disease prevention has not been stressed in the media, we are poorly prepared for a pandemic. It’s so much easier to swallow a pill to treat a virus (if there is such a pill) rather than learn to avoid exposure to that virus through public health measures.
Thus it is not surprising that, when President Trump promotes hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronovirus, the population has already been primed to accept solutions for disease based on pharmacology rather than on population-based prevention such as social isolation.
Americans have been primed by drug advertising on TV to expect a pill for every ill. When Americans become ill, they immediately ask themselves what pill they need to take rather than ask themselves how they could have prevented the condition to begin with.
Pharmacy Schools Focus on Pills Rather Than Prevention:
I was very unhappy in pharmacy school starting on Day One because of the near complete absence of focus on prevention. My pharmacy education was based largely on pill solutions for diseases of modern civilization such as elevated blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, and elevated blood sugar (in type 2 diabetes). We had very few classes in pharmacy school on prevention of disease, with the exception of a few lectures on the biochemistry of the various vitamins.
Pharmacy schools by and large embrace a mechanistic and reductionistic approach to health and illness. They view the human body like a rickety old machine that is constantly subject to breakdown and constantly in need of shoring up with synthetic substances known as pharmaceuticals.
Thus, Americans are very poorly prepared for a pandemic because we have been indoctrinated with a model of health based on treating individuals once they become sick, rather than a focus on fundamental disease prevention across our society.
Focus on Cancer Treatment Rather Than Prevention:
Take cancer for example. A more rational medical system would focus on a society-wide effort to prevent cancer rather than focus on treating cancer in individuals. Because the treatment of cancer is a gold mine, Big Pharma does not want you to know that The Merck Manual (17th edition, pp. 2591-2592) essentially states that up to 90% of cancer is preventable.
To quote:
“Environmental or nutritional factors probably account for up to 90% of human cancers. These factors include smoking; diet; and exposure to sunlight, chemicals, and drugs. Genetic, viral, and radiation factors may cause the rest.”
With our for-profit medical system, the focus is on treating individuals who develop cancer rather than on removing toxic and carcinogenic substances which are so pervasive in modern societies. The focus is on developing new and expensive chemotherapy drugs rather than on limiting our exposure to substances such as pesticides on our crops and lawns and chemicals that are abundant in our homes. This includes carpets that are loaded with chemicals, and vinyl and linoleum floor tiles that off-gas toxic chemicals. It includes fabric protectors and flame retardants and the probable human carcinogen formaldehyde that is widely used in office furniture made of particle board.
There’s No Money in Disease Prevention:
It is clearly more profitable to treat individuals with pills rather than prevent illness. Health professionals know very well that there’s very little money in prevention. Most people are not willing to pay health professionals handsomely for advice we could get from our grandmothers for free (such as eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, avoid being sedentary, avoid tobacco and alcohol, etc.). Health professionals who treat disease are held in much higher regard than those individuals who promote prevention.
Thus we have the sorry medical system that we deserve. As long as profits are given priority over health, Americans will suffer. And we will continue to be poorly prepared for a pandemic, not just this one but the next one as well. Perhaps this 2020 pandemic will instill a greater appreciation and support for our nation’s schools of public health. They should be held in the same esteem as our medical schools.
