Drugs versus diets: disillusions with Dutch health care

Biology incorporated into other disciplines is often distorted, alarmingly so in some areas of medicine. Together with other forms of bias, this may have detrimental effects for patients depending on medical research for their health. A case study concerning omeprazole (Losec), one of the acid-suppressive drugs against gastric ulcers, and NSAIDs, non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs, confirms that distorted biology together with biased health care policies foster disasters in current biomedicine and medical practice. In our country, The Netherlands, omeprazole is presumably the most commonly used medication. NSAIDs are also used in large quantities, increasingly since they have become available as analgesic over-the-counter drugs. Unofficial and official sources tend to inform the general public that the drugs promote human health. We argue that their being used on a massive scale is actually a medical disaster. The health of many patients would be served better if the drugs they take were replaced by proper forms of diet, but the pharmaceutical industry, the most potent force affecting medication policies, appears to prevent a shift in the balance from over-medicalization towards healthy life styles. The shift should come from government agencies responsible for regulation in the medication market. Policies of these agencies are now a dismal failure.