The misuse or nonuse of prescribed medications has been reported to add about $200 billion a year to the cost of medical care n the U.S. according to a recent report in the New York Times.

In his report in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings last summer, Dr. Edward C. Rosenow III of the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine reported that at least half of patients fail to comply with treatments their doctors prescribe. Usually this means taking too much or too little or none of the prescribed drug.

Here’s the setting (American): First there’s rushed communication from the M.D.; with an average seven-minute visit, you (the patient) aren’t listening well under the time-clicking, illness-stressing setting, and the M.D. doesn’t have time to say much, never mind listening to your concerns.

Now there are patterns among these aberrant patients’ behaviors. Patients with chronic diseases without (sometimes) symptoms (high blood pressure, diabetes, etc) tend to quit taking medicines after six months. Those with relapsing disorders like gastro reflux disease and asthma tend to stop meds when they feel well, as do those with depression and mental disorders.

Limitations of Pharmaceuticals
The Noncompliants may be following their intuitive intelligence: (1) After two weeks the body responds to any drug as a “foreign invader” and continued use keeps the body in an unbalanced (i.e., unhealthy) state. (2) Drugs rarely cure diseases, especially chronic diseases. Herbs cure diseases but they can’t be patented and marketed for 1000x profit, and American M.D.s are uneducated in every area of health except drugs.

How was the figure of $200 billion/year derived? Was this the price of drugs unused in home medicine cabinets? The cost of other medical treatment due to consequences of not using drugs (or anything else)? Or (my most cynical) the cost of unpaid-for drugs ordered but not picked up?

The fact is, when M.D.s go on strike, death rates plummet. This has been true in Israel and in U.S. cities. So are lives saved by Noncompliance? In reviewing Rosenow’s original article and his references, I found that half of the $200 billion was due to deaths. So my original question still stands—are we measuring life insurance payments? Lost contribution to the economy?

One issue in taking prescribed drugs is the dosage and length of time ordered by U.S. doctors. Prescription dosages and the 10-day period are not written on heaven-inspired clay tablets. Other nations’ physicians, when they resort to scripts, prescribe lower dosages and for five days, not 10. I have never taken a drug for more than seven days (usually five), and I’ve never experienced the MD-promised “more virulent” bacteria swooping back at me. But, then, I’m an experiment of one—just like you are with every drug, herb or supplement you take.

A European Concordance Model
The European medical literature, writing about noncompliance, has a “concordance model” for the doctor-patient relationship. The key to the model is the patient as decision-maker, and a cornerstone is professional empathy. The patient’s agreement and harmony in the doctor-patient relationship goes a long way in compliance because there’s true two-way communication. This would be a start in improving medical care in the US, but European MDs prescribe homeopathic remedies, ayurvedic treatments and acupuncture before drugs, and this understanding of the patient’s health and attitudes requires more than a 7-minute visit.

But, back in the US, are members of the AMA on the same planet as the rest of us? With 40 percent of television advertising in the US on pharmaceutical drugs (the only country that permits direct-to-consumer advertising), for eight years now, 12 minutes/hour every night the message is loud and clear: DRUGS INJURE & KILL.

Some of us already knew this, but now millions hear the messages every day and night. The side-effects of severe abdominal pain, back pain, headaches, stroke, heart attack, tuberculosis (yes, I heard it) and death. The side-effects are far worse than abdominal gas and bloating or twitching legs. And after so many drug commercials (are there any drugs without severe side-effects? Unlikely) all the public sees in a black skull and cross-bones. No wonder we’re Noncompliant!