OPINION:
“Democrats’ bill trades fewer cures for lower drug prices” (Page I, June 2) is unfortunately a lie. It is also not a Democrat-versus-Republican issue. Former President Trump was no great fan of the drug industry.
Perhaps you ought to consider the public-health situation in the U.S. and in virtually all developed countries. It makes little difference how you pay for so-called health care; the results are pretty much the same. The U.K., Australia, Canada, even Sweden, etc., are not all that different from the U.S. Population health is declining and it is not due to a lack of drugs.
Health care can be divided between chronic disease and acute care, although much of the acute care results from chronic disease. Drugs do not cure chronic disease. In the vast majority of the cases they just cover up a symptom. So you have an industry that provides nothing but a palliative measure. There is no cure and certainly no prevention.
Chronic disease rarely, if ever, results from your genes. It is overwhelmingly environmental in origin. Doctors are trained and directed by the pharmaceutical industry. They dispense drugs that are advertised to heal, but rarely do so, and this amounts to fraud. The medical profession needs to reform itself, and public health is going nowhere until it does.
Half the population is either diabetic or pre-diabetic. Cancer, coronary heart disease and all kinds of neurological diseases are closely related to diabetes. Drug prices have not had any effect on public health, and things are only getting worse.
SAMUEL BURKEEN
Reston, Va.
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