“Side” effects are still effects

The Huffington Post ran a great article recently which asked some serious questions about whether prescription drugs are worth the side effects that they create.

The author, in fact, says that she is “appalled” that medical students are taught more about pharmacology in medical school than about nutrition.

Amen, sister.

“Side” effects, are, after all, just “effects.”  They are consequences of taking the drug.  They are only labeled as side effects because they aren’t the effects that the drug is being marketed for – a fact which doesn’t make them any less real.

Unfortunately, taking care of a body requires work.  A body doesn’t develop a disease overnight – and neither does it return to health overnight.

In a way, the pharmaceutical establishment’s fixation with selling a “quick fix” and a “magic” pill is contributing to superstition and backwards thought.  It isn’t logical that one can create chemicals that aren’t native to a body, add them to the body and suggest that they will return a body to normal.  “Normal” never included the substance in the first place!  However, that doesn’t keep them from trying.  It is, after all, an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars.