Would you believe that while 60 percent of Americans buy generic drugs and medicine when they get sick, more than 90 percent of Filipinos who get ill prefer the more expensive branded drugs and medicine?
Read this and weep: The poor majority who cannot afford drugs prefer not to buy any medicine when they get sick. As a result, the World Health Organization claims that fewer than 30 percent of Filipinos have access to medicine.
The reasons for these are multiple and difficult to imagine in a country which exports doctors and nurses.
One reason is that there’s a dearth of information and education about the difference between generic drugs and branded medicine. Actually, there’s none. It is really just because Filipinos have been used to be taking branded medicine all these years, as a result of the deluge of advertisements by the well-funded multinationals in the pharmaceutical industry which continue to hold the country hostage. (Emil Jurado, Manila Standard Today)
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