More bad news today for drug companies. It couldn’t happen to a bunch of nicer guys.

Today’s front page continue the bad press about nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. It started with Vioxx, then came Celebrex, and today Naproxen, the active ingredient in the over-the-counter drug Aleve.

The headaches this is causing drug companies, regulators, and doctors is only a small part of the worries yet to come.

Forbes magazine recently ran a front page spread on the coming drug company crisis. The pharmaceutical industry’s credibility in delivering safe, effective silver bullets for illness is seriously tarnished. Diet and exercise are on the rise, according to the Forbes article. In case you don’t know, Forbes is where people with money find out about making more money. And they’re clearly worried about the drug companies.

My thanks to listener Steve Scalmanini for the heads-up on this article.

One of the things the Forbes article gets wrong is the claim that doctor’s have been yammering at their patients forever to change their diet and get more exercise. In fact, doctor’s offices are the delivery system for the 40% increase in prescription drug use over the last 15 years.

Overprescribing drugs is only part of what you face at the doctor’s office. You also face overdiagnosis and overtreatment.

This is not a diatribe against doctors and their offices. It’s a diabtribe against a system that equates health care with medical care. A real health care system would be dominated by prevention and public health, with medical care the part that deals with actual disease and injury.

We don’t have that system. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find your own alternatives for health care. It’s just swimming upstream against the dominant institutional current.

That’s hard work. Start by reading more than the headlines. Think of your doctor as a resource, not as a minor deity. And watch out for pharmaceutical silver bullets.