Great Construction

Pharmaceuticals Are Not Scientific

     On first hearing, this title may sound peculiar, but when the facts are given full consideration, the meaning should be quite understandable. Let me take the example of the production of a new medicine. Development starts not based on precise scientific grounds but on speculation that the drug will probably work for such and such a symptom or so-and-so a disease. In most cases, the course for development proceeds to testing on animals such as mice, guinea pigs, and monkeys. When the drug is thought to appear to have a certain level of efficacy, it is then tested on human beings. The longer the drug could be tested the better, but due to the pressure of time, whether the drug would be suitable or not is almost always judged on the results of testing for only a few weeks or a few months. When suitability is determined, the drug is tried on human beings and when the results appear to be favorable, the drug is announced to the world as in the large advertisements carried in the newspapers and so forth. The person on the street then sees these announcements and is both impressed and grateful that pharmacology has indeed made so much advancement, but there is really no sophistication involved in the process at all.
     In truth, even if it happens that what is being considered as a medicine presents with some degree of result after only a few months, the real problem will develop later. Pharmaceutical addiction occurs, so in most cases, the expected result comes to nothing. The futility of pharmaceuticals over a long period of time, sometimes as much as several years, can be seen in many examples, but the best proof of this failure is that new medicines disappear almost as fast as they appear on the market. It should be no mistake to speculate that any of the new so-called miracle drugs for tuberculosis now being welcomed by the general public will last only a few years. Thus, to think that diseases can be healed by medicines is an illusion; the only result of the use of medicines is that the pockets of pharmacists are filled, so as long as this illusion is not perceived, it can be said that the development of pharmacology and such is perfunctory and irresponsible. Well known is the phenomenon in which recently the appearance of a new medicine, just as the appearance of any new popular product, create quite a stir at first, but before long is not remembered at all, which should show how obvious is the pharmaceutical illusion.

Eikô, Issue 227, September 23, 1953
 translation by cynndd