Dangers of overuse of prescription medication

The dangers of overuse of prescription medication "The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but Will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease." Thomas Edison The more we read about prescription medicines the more convinced we are that if at all possible, stay away. Western medicine is concerned solely with treating the symptoms of a condition after they become visible. Treatment of these symptoms mostly involves prescribing some kind of product produced by "Big Pharma". Truth be told most doctors don't know what the drug contains and get most of their information from the drug reps that call on them. "Kinda" the fox watching the hen house. Deaths from prescription drugs have moved to the number four killer of Americans with over 100,000 dying annually. This is roughly three times the number killed each year in automobile accidents. Eastern medicine on the other hand deals primarily with disease prevention. In historic China a doctor was considered incompetent if one of his patients fell ill. We as Americans need to begin to take a more active prevention stance when it comes to our health. Many of the chronic conditions that affect us are now thought to be diet and nutrition related. Quite frankly a lot of the information being presented to the general public is nothing more than marketing junk. People aren't aware of what is or isn't bad information if they don't have a basic understanding of nutrition, toxins, and their impact on the body. This misinformation deals with all supplementation including weight loss or diet pills, cures for "new conditions", such as restless leg syndrome, etc. People must become more knowledgeable about what goes into their body, what the side effects are, and what the risk / benefit scenario looks like. Even the overuse of antibiotics is causing a major concern among researchers. Since our bodies see these drugs so often some bacteria are developing a resistance to them. The fear is a mutant strain of infection that is immune to antibiotics could be catastrophic. Once again, people need to become educated and take responsibility for their wellness. We are so used to instant gratification; we are unwilling to look at anything that requires effort on our part. Someone will provide a pill for whatever ails us, whether it be obesity, or cancer, or restless legs, whatever that is. People simply must take responsibility for what happens to their bodies and stop allowing marketing firms to make their decisions for them.