How Pharmaceuticals Mask Health and Social Inequity

Abstract

Medications, like all interventions, shape the ways in which physicians see disease, provide care, define successful outcomes, and organize health care systems. Pharmaceuticals make symptoms and biological drug targets more visible while rendering individuals and their social suffering invisible, thereby focusing our profession on the intracellular effects of an unequal society. This article uses psychopharmacology as a probe to trace a more general problem within contemporary medicine: the pervasive influence of biomedical narratives and therapeutic rationales extending from clinical practice, to medical education, to health care finance.To claim one AMA PRA Category 1 Credit TM for the CME activity associated with this article, you must do the following: (1) read this article in its entirety, (2) answer at least 80 percent of the quiz questions correctly, and (3) complete an evaluation. The quiz, evaluation, and form for claiming AMA PRA Category 1 Credit TM are available through the AMA Ed Hub TM .

Complex Trauma and the Wounded Spirit: Incorporating Spirituality Into Social Work Practice

“…While both have a place for acute injuries, emergencies, and maintenance to provide the space to heal, pharmaceuticals only mask the pain, suffering, and symptoms that result from trauma (Castillo & Braslow, 2021;Ivanov & Schwartz, 2021).…”

“…Mental health medications are no different from the allot of other mainstream pharmakeíā, and fear, fraud, force, and coercion are no stranger to the collaborators and interplay of big pharma. Unfortunately, the focus of the psychopharmacology was never about getting to the root of the pain and suffering (Castillo & Braslow, 2021), but rather about masking symptoms by taking patients out of their bodies and halting the human capability to naturally heal. This contributes to those with mental health challenges becoming in debt to big pharma and the biomedical model.…”