Every day, I witness the effect of my parents' diabetes diffuse into my whole family. They immediately go to the medicine cabinet to take their first pill in the morning, and begin a ritual that will lead to pre-selected meals for the day. The tortilla, a staple food for a Mexican home is removed from its function as a utensil and replaced by a longer list of medicine. Therefore, illnesses related to food consumption, specifically diabetes seems to be increasingly preventable as the issue’s roots may be more about access to knowledge and growing corporate power of the pharmaceutical system.
The issue of pharmaceutical drug pricing continues to be a problem that remains a threat to the public and countries. David Henry, Joel Lexchin (2002) discusses the rising prices in medicine that are putting individuals beyond the reach of essential drugs. This suggests that the drug development is failing to address the major health needs of these individuals and countries. This applies to the issue of depriving individuals and entire countries from accessibility to essential drugs without understanding the consequences of limiting. For example, the prices of patented medicines usually far exceed the marginal cost of their production; the industry maintains that high prices and patent protection are necessary to compensate for high development cost of innovative products (David Henry, Joel Lexhin, 2002). This illustrates the capitalistic mentality of the pharmaceutical industry; the only way of maintaining high cost and patented medicines is by depriving those already trapped in oppression. These medicines are going to continue to exceed marginal prices because in business the pharmaceutical industry needs to financially benefit but those that have the capacity to understand that keeping these high prices is their escape from this industry completely will introduce a new development of products that are not interconnected to the pharmaceutical industry.
The issue of ineffective medicine being produced continues to be a problem that remains a threat to the public. John Abraham (2002) discusses how the pharmaceutical industry produced many drugs that have benefited man. This suggests that the capitalistic mentally of mankind has destroyed the pharmaceutical industry because the consumers are not benefiting from the medicine rather it is keeping them trapped because they are reliant on the unnecessary medicine. This applies to the issue of regulation where the pharmaceutical industry can influence governments and regulatory industries. For example, regulation needs to be sufficiently robust to protect public health from drugs that are unsafe, ineffective, or unnecessary (John Abraham, 2002). This illustrates the inefficiency of the pharmaceutical industry because they want to keep prices high yet they need to benefit from it so they continue to keep sick by selling one drug with many other side affects that also needs treatment. Therefore, it is a cycle for people to remain in for their own business profits without sick people this industry would collapse but it is their job to maintain the industry strong by keeping people sick otherwise they will lose their profits.
The image is making fun of America for the increase in Diabetes rates in young people. It may not seems as a hug issue but the reaslity is that as the rates increase the rates of death increase aswell.
The video shows different facts about Diabetes and the impact of it in America. It is important to understand all of these facts because Diabetes is not a joke it is a serious illness.