New medications could lead to higher costs

It is an unfortunate fact of ageing that we tend to need increasing medications and boosters as we fight our bodies’ tendency to run down. Indeed, some older people are so adamant to maintain what health and life they have left that they pay little attention to either the cost or the dangers of the medications that they purchase and ingest so readily.

The problem is that older people, who are generally more concerned about maintaining their health than others, are often an indirect target for manufacturers of new medications. These people are then trapped into paying more than they need to for medications they do not need, according to recent research findings.

According to Professor Donald Light, professor of comparative health policy at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey, most new drugs – up to 85 per cent – are hyped to convince doctors to prescribe them, while their side effects are downplayed.

Being dependent upon more medications than their younger counterparts, older patients are the most common victims of this phenomenon.

The main reason for this, according to an article in The Telegraph, is that pharmaceutical companies are more inclined to honour their responsibility to shareholders than to patients. The industry’s main aim is to increase profits, while any improvements in medication are seen as an added bonus.

Companies therefore tend to spend two or three times more on marketing than on developing the drug itself, or to ensure that it is safe and effective for use by the public.

In order to ensure a steady flow of profits, one strategy is that pharmaceutical companies modify an existing medication slightly, label it as different than the original, and market it as considerably more expensive than its counterpart.

Older people should therefore be especially wary of the trap of new, “improved” and “miracle” medications for their particular ailments: staying with one’s existing medication can keep one healthy while saving money as well.

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