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The New Freedom Initiative

Clearing a Path for Big Pharma’s Marketing Machine

The pharmaceutical industry’s contributions to our national health during the past fifty years can't be denied. Antibiotics have turned infections that were once fatal into mere inconveniences. The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (the precursor to AIDS) was considered a death sentence no more than ten years ago. Now, with the help of pharmaceutical advances, the once inevitable progression from HIV to full blown AIDS can be held at bay indefinitely. Thanks to drugs like Lithium and Prozac, schizophrenics and those suffering from bipolar disorder can now keep their conditions in check and lead productive lives. Even more minor physical grievances (such as impotence and hair loss) can be treated with a pill. For major and minor antidotes alike, the pharmaceutical companies that are responsible for these innovations have deservedly made billions of dollars over the years.

But despite such progress on both a fiscal and humanitarian level, it’s also clear that the big pharmaceutical companies have been corrupted by their success and are engaging in reckless behavior in the pursuit of profits. More than ever, today’s pill makers concern themselves with market-share and high visibility, as if they were selling DVD players, video games or cars rather than medicines that irreversibly affect human mental health and biology. They aggressively market new medicines using flashy commercials, sponsorship of sporting events and the paid-for testimonials of doctors. They want people using their products, whether they really need those drugs or not.

And to top it all off, now they would like to have a word with your kids.

Columbia University has initiated a program called “TeenScreen,” which is ostensibly a teen suicide prevention program, but is in reality a marketing cattle call with the objective being to get as many children on psychotropic drugs as possible. Parental involvement is deftly side-stepped by using what is called a “passive permission form,” in which parental consent is implied if the student brings the permission slip home and the parents fail to send it back. Students as young as nine years old are lured in with coupons for movie rentals and free pizza and are asked by “experts” a series of extraordinarily teen-specific questions such as:

• Has there been a time when you felt you couldn't do anything well or that you weren't as good-looking or as smart as other people?
• How often did your parents get annoyed or upset with you because of the way you were feeling or acting?
• Have you often worried a lot before you were going to play a sport or game or do some other activity?

When the answers to these questions are answered with inevitable “Yes,” “Very Often,” and “Very Very Often”, the “expert” recommends treatment with the aid of pharmaceuticals. If this sort of marketing were taking place with marijuana or cocaine, prison would be the result. Columbia University has refused to divulge the sources of its funding for this program, although the TeenScreen Program in Tennessee was funded by Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly.

In witnessing Columbia University at work, one can imagine what Americans of all ages can expect now that President Bush’s “New Freedom Initiative” has been unveiled. The initiative encourages comprehensive mental health screening for what the report tellingly calls “Consumers” of all ages (as opposed to “citizens” or “Americans”), including pre-schoolers.

The NFI recommends that the studies be “Community-Based” rather than “Institution-Based,” meaning that the money would have to come from sources other than Federal dollars. It is doubtful that most States or Municipalities have that sort of revenue, so that means that the money would have to come from other sources. The State of Tennessee had no difficulty in locating a sponsor.

Such an open-ended recommendation from the White House might seem hard to believe, but when you consider that the Pharmaceutical Industry has donated over $52 million to Republican candidates since the year 2000, the pill gets a little easier to swallow (although it doesn’t taste any better.)

Its one thing to offer free samples of cola, laundry detergent or breakfast sausage in order to expand your customer base. That’s capitalism. That’s the American Way. But playing politics so you can “hard-sell” mind and behavior altering pharmaceuticals as if they were just another product is a low way to make a buck.

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