Imagine If, Like COVID-19, Eczema Was a Threat to Humanity?

Today is the 20th of May 2021 and I have now been fully vaccinated. It is a great day. I feel I can walk among other humans without fear of a slow protracted death! The things that the medical world can achieve if they all pull together are truly remarkable. Ordinarily, it can take up to four or five years for a vaccine to be produced. Including going through all the necessary steps of approval. The UK has managed to do in less than a year. Makes you wonder what else they could achieve if pushed?

There isn't an urgency to change things

In my humble opinion, and it is of course only an opinion, I believe there is no urgency to change the way eczema is treated for the common person. The big pharmaceutical companies make huge yearly profits from the meds they produce so why change? If a million people say they work well for them versus 60 million that say they don’t, that’s all they need to hear to keep on keeping on! I am not saying this is the actual ratio of peoples' feelings towards the current medications but there does seem to be a huge divide where the majority of eczema patients seem unhappy with the current meds. Especially where topical steroids are concerned.

Chronic disease on the rise

According to Data Bridge, a market research organization, they forecast that the global corticosteroids market is projected to reach USD 4,440.38 million by 2024 putting the rise down to a combination of factors.¹ (This figure might be higher because this forecast was published in 2017 and since then we have gone/going through a pandemic which may have caused the figure to be considerably higher.)

“The major factors driving the growth of the market are increasing prevalence of chronic disease or condition, rise in aging population, growth in topical drug delivery.”  - Data Bridge

A moral duty

Do not get me wrong, I am all for people being able to make money and industries to thrive and prosper, but when there are huge swathes of people screaming from the shadows that not only do certain medications not work, they are actually having a detrimental effect on their condition, I believe the big pharma companies, as well as the dermatology world, should have a moral duty to come together to listen to the majority and make the necessary changes.

Can you imagine if, like COVID-19, eczema was a threat to humanity? It makes me chuckle to think that if eczema was a threat to humanity (which is a funny idea itself), the first thing that would get binned would be the use of steroid creams and ointments! I like to imagine that the experts would be urgently looking into the genetics and root causes of the problem.

What needs to happen?

I really do not have the answers to what needs to happen. Perhaps it needs medical professionals on the inside to be brave and voice the opinions of atopic dermatitis sufferers like us who all use empirical experience and the knowledge we have of our own bodies to stand up and acknowledge us. They all secretly agree with us, don't they?