Are pharmaceutical companies merely giant, evil corporations intent on manipulation for profit?
Can we trust them?
The Irish Independent newspaper recently quoted a Red C poll which stated that 29% of Irish people would not take the vaccine.
What warrants this distrust in pharma, and the vaccine?
- Is it because they are profit making corporations?
- Maybe it's the oft reported lack of accountability?
- Or are pharma companies guilty by association, due to a current lack of faith in the government and health service in general?
I can understand why many people withhold their trust. I can see how many people see the profits and negative publications, albeit related to a limited number of companies, and conclude the worst.
But let's hold on a second! Has the modern public forgotten where healthcare has arisen from or what it has achieved?
Have obvious facts and statistics from the past been forgotten...
- Average life expectancy 50 years ago?
- Incurable diseases 50 years ago?
- General health and hygiene 50 years ago?
Are too many people blind and ignorant to the ceaseless movement upwards in population health. Our health.
What the pharma, med tech and medical research sector have achieved, and have been achieving, for more than 50 years has been amazing.
Have people forgotten they are walking past dead people everyday.
I say that because I should have been dead at the age of 21, having been diagnosed with End Stage Kidney Disease. I am now in my 40’s, happy and healthy, married with 2 children, a job, and an active involvement within my community.
I see through the eyes of merely one of the hundreds of similar ‘death sentence’ illnesses that today are preventable, treatable or no longer exist.
kidney disease is an illness that affects thousands of people. An illness that is fatal if left untreated, yet, we are alive.
Why is this? Simple, the pharma and healthcare industry.
When I was told I would need to begin dialysis, as a 20 year old Sports & Fitness student, I asked, NO, I pleaded, is there no alternative to going to hospital to get dialysis treatment 3 days a week. I said it would ruin my sporting participation, my college, my life! His response educated me on my reality very clearly.
He said yes, of course there is an alternative, death!
We live in a time of prejudice and bias, loosely based around a concoction of fact and fiction. This is fueled by countless opinions, viewpoints and conspiracies propelled at us incessantly through social media.
The vast majority being woefully ill informed.
Being ill informed then, it is obvious that we are not really viewing opinions, we are viewing peoples prejudices.
This being the case I offer my own "positive prejudice”. Positive in that I am alive today, married with children and an active member in my community.
This is possible because of the legacy of creativity, innovation, and resourcefulness, stemming from pharma, med tech, research and the medical community.
Will I take a vaccine produced by big pharma? Yes.
Why? Because of the ordinary people who work within this sector (up on 50,000 in Ireland alone). Those people who work with integrity, with purpose and with experience, to alleviate suffering in whatever guise it appears before them.
I believe they approach their work from the viewpoint that “Every Product IS a Person”. With this philosophy they see their own family, friends and community in the work they do everyday. I trust them.
So, to ask do I trust what is produced within this sector is an insult to the thousands of people who work to alleviate the pain and suffering of others.
They want what I want, for both themselves and others. Good health.
In the end, I’m not even sure my words count. I’m biased, I should be dead!