Understanding Big Pharma
(Part One of Two, the background)
The first thing that must be understood is these are corporations dedicated to maximizing profit. Therefore, a cure is a strategic nightmare of lost income while a treatment is a solid cash cow. That is the starting point and must be completely understood. Cures are bad, treatments are good, but only if they are on patent, vaccines are best.
The Profit Model
Cure: Kills the cash cow, eliminates the disease and suffering, makes no real profit.
Treatment: Steady supply of income from the people who are suffering from the problem.
Vaccine: Cash cow as the entire population gets the vaccine for maximum, maximum profit.
Tactics
Acceptable Standard of Care is the key. This is a requirement for doctors and (for example) if a person has high blood pressure, they must at least attempt to prescribe blood pressure medication. If they do not prescribe such meds, they are at risk of a malpractice suit or eventually having their medical license taken away.
So, to maximize drug sales, they have the AMA redefine the healthy standard for conditions such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels, depression, testosterone levels and other physical conditions. After that, the Acceptable Standards of Care takes over and doctors are forced to prescribe drugs for conditions that were previously not considered problematic.
The mechanism for this is carefully crafted studies that "prove" a problem exists in order to treat said problem with a patented drug that generates profits for big pharma. The AMA, FDA and NIH all work for big pharma.
The Acceptable Standard of Care will ALWAYS reflect the most profitable solution for the medical industry and research funding will ALWAYS go toward developing patented solutions that maximize profits for the medical industry. Where does the majority of the money come from to do medical research? The government. The National Institutes for Health (NIH) invests $32.3 Billion a year in so-called medical research.
https:// www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/budget
More info, private foundations/charities don't contribute much
https:// www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/50962/title/Philanthropic-Funding-Makes-Waves-in-Basic-Science/
Explaining the grant system is too complex for a post like this, but suffice to say that medical universities are the recipients of the vast majority of the money, followed by private (non-profit) foundations and companies. This is a giant slush fund that helps the medical industry maintain its profits by developing new and patented therapies that do not cure disease but rather treat conditions. There are a lot of good, honest and sincere scientists out there who are hamstrung by the system that is in place.