Do We Take Too Many Pills?

Millions of Americans have resorted to smuggling to obtain prescription drugs, CNN TV says in a three-day series titled "Over-Medicated Nation" that began November 29. The series also discusses how prescription drug ads have changed the doctor-patient relationship, and a proposal to have a board outside the U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversee the safety of drugs already on the market.

What Is The Doctor's Reaction?

Where there is an "ill," there is a way. Americans are optimistic people, particularly when it comes to health and physical symptoms.

Most of the patients I see have faith that I can quickly solve their problems. The medical center where I practice is jokingly called "Pill Hill." But as a doctor and an American, I wonder, are we truly finding better living through chemistry?

Currently the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is in an unflattering spotlight - critics are questioning the adequacy of its drug safety monitoring. Financial incentives for drug companies are being blamed for the delay in withdrawal of several potentially harmful medications from the market. Additionally, this week Cable News Network (CNN) is broadcasting a three-day series entitled, "Over-Medicated Nation." This series discusses the large amount of advertising that is directed by drug companies to the consumer and questions the benefit and wisdom of this advertising trend.

If you are a woman over 65, you are probably taking more than five medicines on a regular basis - most women your age are. In fact, 12 percent of women of this age take more than 10 medicines regularly. (Overall, if you average all adults, 25 percent of us are taking more than five medicines).

There are several reasons that Americans take more pills today than ever before. More drugs are available, and most of them serve a useful purpose. This makes my job as a doctor satisfying, but it is not the only reason that Americans take so many medicines. A worrisome reason, I think, is the culture in which we live.

We have become much less tolerant of suffering. The doctor in me can see this as a good thing - stamping out suffering is the premise of my profession! But intolerance to suffering is not all good, because suffering can build character and bind communities.

Advertising contributes to a sense that suffering is not normal or necessary. And advertising works. Do we suffer from more depression or more pain now, than we did a decade ago? Personally, I doubt it. I think advertising is the force behind the fact that there were 157 million prescriptions for anti-depressant medications written in the United States (also dubbed the "Prozac Nation") in 2002, when only 11 million prescriptions seemed to be enough just 10 years earlier. I think advertising has a lot to do with the fact that in my home state of Oregon, prescriptions for most narcotic pain medicines more than doubled between 1997 and 2001 - for heavily marketed oxycodone, available by the brand-name of OxyContin, prescriptions were up by 550 percent.