14 DAY TRIAL // Over the past years, doctors in Asia have begun to prescribe impressive amounts of medication, giving patients who enter their practices drugs for conditions that they do not suffer from. Some of the physicians think too far and prescribe pills for complications that might appear if the usual drugs do not work. In one of these cases, a child with fever and soar throat has received more than 7 types of drugs, including antibiotics and medication to prevent febrile seizures, even though the last two have not been necessary.
This phenomenon is driven entirely by the fact that medics see a lot of profit from giving patients more medication than they need, a practice called polypharmacy. A number of pharmacists and doctors that Reuters contacted said that the practice was very detrimental to individuals in the long run. “Polypharmacy is very popular here, it means they use a lot of medicines which are unnecessary, like giving you many types of antibiotics for a cold,” University of Hong Kong Clinical Trials Center Honorary Associate Professor William Chui explained.
“Every time they sell a drug, they get a profit, it is a profit motive. When they give lots of medicine, parents feel happier, more happy than when they are told to go home to sleep,” he went on to say. Drugs are not meant to be mixed, except in certain combinations, doctors advise, and breaches in the precautions inscribed on the labels can give birth to serious side effects, including resistance to that certain class of pills and the creation of very strong bacterial infections.
“They harm the patient. The more drugs, the worse the compliance, especially for old people. They fall easily because of drug interaction and side effects. They get dizzy, hypotension, it is something we don't recommend,” Chui added. “Most parents rush to treat symptoms, not the disease. Doctors may feel pressure to give treatments, even when it is not necessary or in the best interests of the child's health,” Purnamawati S. Pujiarto, an Indonesian pediatrician who is currently trying to advocate a more responsible use of drugs in his country, said of common cold medication.