“To the Point” discusses the pharmaceutical sales
To the Point, an NPR program from KCRW in CA, featured one of the authors of Selling Sickness which is a volume discussing the landscape of pharmaceutical sales in the U.S. Central to the thesis of this book is a critique of the drug industry’s intent to market many pharmaceutical products to North America.
Recent ads on television have introduced medication for restless legs syndrome which was one of the medical conditions questionably mentioned by the hosts of the To the Point which illustrates that a number of dubious conditions have emerged in the North American ethnomedical vernacular. Although this condition may have legitimate roots it stands to reason that the specificity and focus of the wide variety of pharmaceutical products available speaks to an aggressive effort on the part of drug companies to “create� consumers of niche drugs.
It may be that restless leg syndrome cannot be contested as a bona fide ailment. The question that should be asked is “where did this ailment come from?�…�Why does it occur?� Obviously there exists nascent health or medical issues that deserve attention and medication, but what are the social, political, and economic roots of such sickness?
