Drugs versus diets: disillusions with Dutch health care.

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Acta Biotheor 2001;49(2):125-40

Drugs versus diets: disillusions with Dutch health care.

van der Steen WJ, Ho VK.

Department of Theoretical Biology, Faculty of Biology, Vrije

Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Biology incorporated into other disciplines is often distorted,

alarmingly so in some areas of medicine. Together with other forms

of bias, this may have detrimental effects for patients depending on

medical research for their health. A case study concerning

omeprazole (Losec), one of the acid-suppressive drugs against

gastric ulcers, and NSAIDs, non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs,

confirms that distorted biology together with biased health care

policies foster disasters in current biomedicine and medical

practice. In our country, The Netherlands, omeprazole is presumably

the most commonly used medication. NSAIDs are also used in large

quantities, increasingly since they have become available as

analgesic over-the-counter drugs. Unofficial and official sources

tend to inform the general public that the drugs promote human

health. We argue that their being used on a massive scale is

actually a medical disaster. The health of many patients would be

served better if the drugs they take were replaced by proper forms

of diet, but the pharmaceutical industry, the most potent force

affecting medication policies, appears to prevent a shift in the

balance from over-medicalization towards healthy life styles. The

shift should come from government agencies responsible for

regulation in the medication market. Policies of these agencies are

now a dismal failure.

PMID: 11450808 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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