The Change Mariner: The Altered Human Is Already Here

April 06, 2004

The Altered Human Is Already Here

Many people, however, have already made a different kind of leap into the posthuman future.
Their jump is biochemical, mediated by proton-pump inhibitors, serotonin boosters and other drugs that have become permanent additives to many human bloodstreams.

Over the past half century, health-conscious, well-insured, educated people in the United States and in other wealthy countries have come to take being medicated for granted.

More people shift to the pill-taking life every year, to the delight of pharmaceutical manufacturers. Indeed, drug sales suggest how willing people are to pursue better living through chemistry.

Last year retail drug sales worldwide were $317 billion. In the United States alone, consumers spent $163 billion on drugs. In North America, the use of drugs that affect the central nervous system, antidepressants and others, increased 17 percent. No group has escaped. Last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 10 million children took prescription medication for three months or longer in 2002, and preschoolers, another study found, are now the fastest growing group of children receiving antidepressants.

This is a social change on the same order as the advent of computers, but one that is taking place inside the human body. Just 50 years ago, according to a report by IMS Health, a company that tracks the pharmaceutical industry, the two biggest-selling over-the-counter drugs were Bufferin and Geritol. The prescription drug business was tiny. In 1954, according to IMS, Johnson & Johnson had $204 million in revenue. Now it is about $36 billion. In 1954, Merck took in $1.5 million in drug sales; in 2002, that figure was $52 billion.

Editor's Note: Here's an interesting President's Council report which was mentioned in New York Times article: Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness

-Tim

The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers (Publicaffairs Reports)
PublicAffairs

Amazon Price: $10.50

The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It
Random House

Amazon Price: $16.47

The $800 Million Pill : The Truth behind the Cost of New Drugs
University of California Press

Amazon Price: $15.72

On The Take: How Medicine's Complicity with Big Business Can Endanger Your Health
Oxford University Press

Amazon Price: $18.48

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