Are Biomedical Drugs So Widely Used Around The World Because They Are The Most Effective?

Are biomedical drugs so widely used around the world because they are the most effective?

This essay question suggests a causal relationship between the widespread usage of biomedicine and its efficaciousness; therefore, two potential topics of debate are worth discussing: Are biomedical drugs the most widely used form of healing? Why do people use biomedical drugs around the globe? In thefollowing paragraphs, I will elaborate on these matters by drawing upon anthropological literature on biomedicine, economics and public health.

Pharmaceuticals and power
The first query of this paper can be answered straightforwardly. Biomedical drugs seem to be the most used form of healing around the globe. In suggesting a causal relationship between massive usage and effectiveness I proposean analysis about the relationship between pharmaceuticals and: biomedicine; marketing and daily realities.

Pharmaceuticals and biomedicine
Globalization has located biomedicine in a privileged position being exported to almost everywhere around the planet. In fact, this is a result of a process of modernization that began in the 18th century. This process, which consisted in thesystematization and professionalization of the biomedicine, sought the “bureaucratization and rationalization of everyday life” (Lock and Nguyen 2010:68).
The power of biomedicine is related to the strong relationship with the governments. Biomedicine is the official provider of national health services and the governments seek to safeguard the political order wherein professional practice is sustained.This political power places the discipline in a favorable position of visibility towards the general public (West 2006). In this sense, the encounters between biomedicine and alternative healing systems are worth discussing. Borders have been produced and reproduced between systems of thought in order to preserve biomedical authority. And where alternative healing systems have been assimilated intoclinical contexts, they are usually transformed into a “scientifically intelligible traditional medicine”, instead of being valued for themselves (Langwick 2006).

“The status of rejected knowledge relies more on questions of power than on standards of truth and effectiveness” ( Laguerre 1987:11).

Biomedicine preserves such authority with the collaboration of pharmaceuticals companies whichthrough biomedical drugs have the ‘valuable role’ to channel this power to the bodies and to the lives of the population. As Van der Geest (1996) points out pharmaceutical’s main purpose lies in their effect on the well-being of the person who took them.
Unfortunately, it is known that, sometimes, to keep a certain level of authority, hierarchy, in short, power, people could act mindless ofethical behavior. The tragedy lies not with the medicines but with the marketing campaigns and the striking power that these pharmaceutical companies now have over the practice of medicine.

Pharmaceuticals and Marketing
“We’ve come to a time when decisions on how to treat a disease have as great a chance of being hatched in a corporate marketing department as by a group of independent doctorsworking to improve the public’s health” (Petersen, 2008:11).

As Petersen (2008) points out, at one time, the most successful pharmaceutical companies were those with the brightest scientists searching for cures. However, currently the drug companies have become marketing machines to grow profits and power. They are selling medications (such as anti-depressant pills, heart medications and so forth)with the same methods that Coca-Cola uses to sell its products. It seems that now selling prescription drugs has become the pharmaceutical industry’s obsession.
According to business analysis, the pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable sector of commerce (Angell 2000: 1902). In 2000, the global market for prescription drugs was $320 billion, and this figure is rising by about 10 per...