Health insurers want you to keep smoking, Harvard doctors say

Health insurers want you to keep smoking, Harvard doctors say

www.scientificamerican.com

Health and life insurance companies in the US and abroad have nearly $4.5 billion invested in tobacco stocks, according to Harvard doctors.

The largest tobacco investor on the list, the 160-year old Prudential company with branches in the US and the UK, has more than $1.5 billion invested in tobacco stocks. The runner-up was Toronto-based Sun Life Financial, which apparently holds over $1 billion in Philip Morris (Altria) and other tobacco stocks.

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[edit on 6-6-2009 by artvandalay]

1- Sell cancer sticks
2- Sell treatment for cancer
3- PROFIT !

Now, I understand that from a business stand point it might make sense to invest in various successful businesses even if they seem to be going towards different goals...because the goal here is PROFIT !

As shown in the documentaries "The Corporation" and "Zeitgeist 2", Businesses are entities that somehow can never be held accountable for any ethical choices since it is understood that their goal is to sustain and develop themselves (PROFIT!)

Health insurance providers, like any other businesses are not your friends, their only reason to exist is to squeeze you out of money and of course, selling you the ailment and the cure to it looks like a great business move.

ps: I like the about the vet/taxidermist metaphor...




[url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=health-insurers-want-you-to-keep-sm-2009-06-03]www.scientificamerican.com[/u rl]
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 6-6-2009 by artvandalay]

Good find! Yes, I agree the corporation are money grubbing scum! How dare they charge phenomenal premiums for smokers when they are padding big tobaccos' pockets to churn out the cancer sticks. That is a clear conflict of interest and violates ethical standards Insurance companies should have in place. It's robbing Peter to pay Paul. Each passing day my disgust grows to a fever pitch.

I am flabbergasted by the story and shame on the Insurance companies for doing this.

[edit on 6-6-2009 by Jakes51]

Many years ago I once worked for Abbott Labs in north Chicago. We were working on Alzheimer's Disease. We were told NEVER EVER to work on a "cure". We were only to work on "treatments".

00.02

reply to post by mikerussellus


Would you mind telling us a little more about that?
Did you sign any documents?

reply to post by mikerussellus


Your post is very interesting. Would you be so kind and elaborate on it. I would like to know more about it. I've always thought they aren't looking for cures like they should in terms of diabetes, cancer, aids, and other chronic ailments because there is so much money to be made in keeping people sick. As long as the people are ill they can make off like "robber barons," with the profits from the medications for treatment.

reply to post by artvandalay


I signed a ton of documents. Non-disclosure agreements, and the such. I had a seven year limit as to what I could publish and/or work on in any lab I ended up in.

My training was in developmental neurobiology. Our job was to try to find an inhibitor that would stop the cascade effect (similar to an autoimmune response)that was destroying cells in the hypocampal region of the brain. Specifically the amygdula (sp?). This cascade effect being triggered by an A-Beta amyloid with a particular tertiary structure and molecular weight.

My specific job was to harvest and culture brain tissues from different regions of the brain and to set up in vitro experiments with a variety of "candidate" compounds.

reply to post by Jakes51

The people I worked with were honorable, dedicated people who wanted nothing more than to help people. The "suits" were the ones that made the decisions as to whether or not "go" with a candidate drug. In their defense it takes MILLIONS to put any candidate drug into the pipeline of the FDA. From start to finish it takes (on average) 5 to 7 years before a drug makes it to the marketplace.
They just want the biggest bang for their bucks.
And yes, they do look at treatments over cures. Cures don't pay bills if the patient recovers.
Along the lines of this thread, it just makes good business sense to keep the patient on the line so that there is a never ending demand for whatever they are marketing.

reply to post by mikerussellus


Kind of MBP (Munchausen By Proxy)...for profit

Munchausen By Profit !

reply to post by artvandalay



Yeah, it's also another reason why I chose a different carreer path, still doing tech work, research but for different reasons now. Pharmaceuticals is a cut-throat business.

reply to post by mikerussellus


Thanks for trying to help us buddy. I'm sorry the corporate master's inhibited you and your colleagues from making the groundbreaking discoveries that could one day benefit all of humanity. I salute you and your colleagues and keep up the fight.

reply to post by Jakes51

It's a weak fight. You tend to get very jaded early on. Sadly, it's not the exciting, fast-paced stuff they protray in films, but thanks all the same. Where I work now, we're trying to save the folks fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, medical programming, TBI (traumatic brain injury) related stuff.

reply to post by mikerussellus


All the same, it's still a fight and thanks for trying. All you can do is try to do good things. Keep up the good work! Oh yeah, check the thread I started about the Marine that is sick from a vaccine. Very sad story. Any comments would be great.