Drugs Don't Work

An odd thing is happening and has recently come to the attention of former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. Drugs don't work . . . unless you take them.

I don't think a lot of money was spent to come to this conclusion, but I could be wrong.

only about half of people with chronic health conditions continue to take medication as directed.

Half stop taking meds.

Must be just those who cannot afford their meds, right?

Doctors say the problem cuts across all socioeconomic groups,

Drug costs sometimes can be a problem, but even at Kaiser Permanente and Veterans Affairs medical centers, where co-pays are minimal, "there's still a high percentage who don't routinely fill their medications," Ho says.

Apparently not.

Heart attack survivors don't take their medicine for high cholesterol or high blood pressure. Epilepsy patients skip their anti-seizure drugs. Breast cancer patients stop taking pills that reduce their risk of a recurrence. Osteoporosis patients forgo medication that will be able to reduce their risk of a fracture.

Patients stop taking meds for any number of reasons.

part of the problem is misconceptions about medications, says Gbenga Ogedegbe, an internist at Columbia University. "Patients have all kinds of crazy beliefs about how medications can be poisonous."

Someone must be spending way too much time on the internet.

Irish researchers reported 22% of the breast cancer patients they had studied stopped taking tamoxifen by the end of a year, even though they had been told to take the drug for five years. By the end of 3½ years, more than a third of the women had stopped taking their tamoxifen.

Wonder how much this affects survival rates as is widely reported in the MSM?

Strangely, I have encountered people on a regular basis who tell me they were taking a certain med, but no longer take it.

Why would someone buy meds and then not take them?

I have some exercise equipment in the basement that hasn't been used in years. Wonder if that is why my clothes are getting smaller?