The Menacing Mathematics of Multiple Meds
By Gary Craig
There's something scary about drugs that concerns a growing number of physicians
and should wobble the knees of every patient on the planet. It's obvious to any
mathematician but somehow has escaped the general scrutiny of the health
industry.
It has to do with combining meds.
Ever since I can remember I have been fed the perception that drugs are
governmentally evaluated and thus are safe if taken under the guidance of
competent physicians. However, even if we accept the presumed safety for the
ingestion of one drug, we must ask ourselves how might that safety change if we
take multiple drugs?
For safety assurances, proper testing should be done for every drug combination
we are advised to take. If we take Prozac and Tylenol, for example, we should
be presented with all the possible benefits and consequences before allowing
these two foreign substances to mix with the chemicals our bodies already
create. Same thing goes for combining Paxil with Viagra or Interferon with
Lipitor.
The list of possible problems here is monstrously long because there are a
b'zillion drugs and mega b'zillions of combinations. Nonetheless, I've never
seen or heard of any studies that test any of these combinations ... have you?
Thus, if you take two drugs, the odds of their combination having been
adequately tested for safety are skimpy at best. But if you take 3 or more
drugs the danger possibilities multiply even faster.
Here's how the mathematics work: If you take 3 drugs then adequate safety
testing of the various combinations require 7 separate tests. If you take 4
drugs the combinations require 25 separate tests. If you take 5 drugs it
amounts to 121 tests. If you take 10 drugs the number of required safety tests
total 362,881.
The conclusion here should be obvious. Namely, there is questionable safety
testing if you take 2 drugs and nominal, if any, safety testing if you take 3.
Beyond that you are clearly into the land of, "I have no idea what these
combinations of drugs will do."
To me, this tosses our dedicated docs into a tenuous position. They have
patients with problems who aren't willing to exercise, eat right, do EFT for
emotional issues ( http://www.emofree.com/a/?2603 ) or much of anything else to
help their own health. Instead, the patients hope the physicians will produce a
magic pill (or pills) to make their problems go away.
I have met many patients who are on several drugs and take some drugs to
counteract the effects of other drugs. As a non-physician I look at this with a
shudder. These folks are being fed chemical cocktails with little or no safety
testing behind the combinations. Maybe I need some help with my perceptions here
but, to me, they are playing drug roulette.
I don't know if lawyers have picked up on the simple, but compelling, math
here. But I do know that I wouldn't want to be a doctor in court facing these
clear facts.
In the 15+ years I have been involved in the health field, I have had the good
fortune to count many physicians as my personal friends. With few exceptions,
they agree that it is our lifestyles, diets and emotional stresses that cause
most of our health problems ... and ... the vast majority of these problems
would vanish if people would live common sense lives. Yet patients repeatedly
abuse their bodies and ask for more and more "miracle drugs" as the convenient
solution. I don't envy the docs at all as I often hear them complain that this
is a highway to NobodyWinsVille.
Maybe what we really need are good salespeople to persuade folks to take care of
themselves. I suspect that, if truly persuasive, they would do more good than
the ocean of drugs at our disposal.
Love, Gary
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