The same epidemic that is partially responsible for the decline in life expectancy. Which means big pharma's recent net contribution to public health was a net negative 🤑 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/17/opioid-crisis-drug-makers-pills-federal-data-epidemic
Big pharma's contribution has been net negative for a long time. Not enough investment in real research, overcharging, selling drugs that are largely ineffective for many people who take them etc.
The pain suffered by people in America is real - either physical or psychological damage or hopelessness. Marketing and reckless pushes for profits by Pharma are important factors, but they are not the whole story of the epidemic. Millions of people in the US have no future beyond pointless work and debt. When lab rats were given on demand access to opioids, a study found that most of the rats would take the opioids, neglect food and water, and eventually die. This was used as the scientific basis for “tough love” “lock em up” approaches to drug abuse and drug related crime. But in a later study, the test was replicated but with some rats in larger cages with lots of other rats and things to climb and so on. The rats stuck in small individual cages still killed themselves while the rats who had other forms of stimulation and social interaction sometimes took the opioids but still ate and interacted and behaved as normal rats. Life in the US is like a cage for millions of people. An economy that offered a future and a life worth living and enough free time to actually live it would go a long way towards solving this.
# MAGA 2020. We want bigger epidemic for next 4 years!!!!