A revealing new Gallup poll has found that the pharma business is now viewed as the worst industry in the United States. So poor has the American public’s approval rating for drug companies become, the poll places them even lower than the U.S. federal government (the second worst ranked entity in the survey). Based on a list of 25 industries that Gallup studies annually, the finding suggests Americans are now more than twice as likely to rate the pharma industry negatively than positively.
The poll shows that 58 percent of respondents rated pharma companies poorly. A mere 27 percent indicated they saw them positively. The figures amount to an all-time low for the U.S. drug business, the ratings for which have collapsed spectacularly over the past 4 years. Significantly, the only sectors to have received a lower overall rating since Gallup began polls of this type in 2001 are the oil and gas, real estate and automotive industries, and the U.S. federal government. Given that this latest poll was conducted just a few days before a judge in Oklahoma fined drug maker Johnson & Johnson $572 million for its role in America’s opioid crisis, there can be little doubt that, had the survey taken place a few days later, pharma’s rating would have been even worse.
Clearly demonstrating that the American public are dissatisfied with the healthcare they receive, the healthcare industry itself came third from bottom in the Gallup poll. With almost half of respondents rating the healthcare industry negatively, the findings send a clear signal that public demand for healthcare reform in America is widespread. Tellingly, the abysmal ratings for pharma and healthcare contrast markedly with the images of other industries analyzed in the poll, most of which have improved in recent years.
While the current political debate over healthcare in the United States mostly centers around the high prices of drugs and astronomical profits made by pharma companies, addressing these issues alone does not get to the root of the problem. Drugs are not the answer to health problems as they fail to tackle the root causes of disease. As Dr. Rath’s scientific discoveries have shown, the malfunctioning of the body does not arise through a lack of affordable drugs, but through micronutrient deficiencies occurring at the cellular level. Ultimately it is only by preventing and correcting these deficiencies that the development of diseases can be stopped.
A recent critical article in the Los Angeles Times provides further evidence that attitudes are hardening against the pharma industry. Titled ‘Legal judgments against big pharma are not enough. Consumers need to change their drug habits’, the article was published just a few days prior to the release of the latest Gallup poll. Describing multimillion-dollar fines brought against American pharmaceutical firms as simply “business as usual”, the article openly accuses the industry of having “carpet-bombed communities with drugs.” Reference is also made to the human suffering drugs cause. But arguably the most significant observation made in the piece is that people over-rely on pharmaceutical approaches “for symptoms that can be addressed through habits such as regular exercise, good nutrition, plenty of sleep and weight control.”
It is one thing to read such statements on independent websites such as ours. But when one sees them on a mainstream media website whose newspaper has one of the highest circulations in the United States, it is clear that change is in the air. The demise of the Pharma Cartel may not yet quite be imminent, but the days when it could operate unhindered in seeking obscene profits from death, disease and misery are already numbered.