We have a celebrity in our community! He's a published author and a doctor. His first book, "Terminal Neglect" is a medical thriller. He came to speak at our Singles' Meeting tonight.
One of his main topics was the amount of new drugs on the market and the fact that doctors are accepting free samples from drug company sales reps and they are giving them to their patients without checking into possible side effects and interactions with other drugs. After his talk, he held a Q&A session and there were a number of good questions, but no one asked what I think is a very important one.
I had wanted to ask it, but I thought it would sound too argumentative. Later on, I asked him face to face if he thought that one of the reasons drugs are pushed through the FDA was our insistance on a "quick fix". He agreed that is one of the problems. He mentioned that on average, the people in Britain take one pill for three taken by Americans. They even have an expression, "In America, there's a pill for every ill".
It was a very interesting and informative evening. Of course, I bought the book and I'm looking forward to reading it.
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