Acid Reflux Disease?

So I was wondering. When did heartburn become a disease? When did heartburn become "acid reflux disease" and what the hell did people do with their scarred esophoguses before Nexium existed? Did people live these horrible short lives where their throat was completely destroyed by the acid of their stomach? Did they have to go to the hospital when this happened? Is this horrible affliction life-threatening? Should I have an esophogus check every 2 years or something? Nexium sales totalled 3.9 billion dollars in 2004. Zoloft (depression) 3.4 Billion. The top two selling drugs in the world are cholesterol drugs. Cialis-760 million. Viagra-1.6 billion. Levitra-350 million. I don't really wanna talk about allergy medication. The pharmaceutical industry grossed 500 billion last year. Almost half that money was spent by North Americans. So Americans, we can't live with heartburn, allergies, and impotence. Sub-Saharan Africans, well, they just can't live. Hundreds of thousands of people, of children, die in Africa of curable diseases, but pharmaceutical companies are all about that dollar. Hey, I'm not saying I'm not. Afterall, it's not like I'm going into social work or the peace corp or anything. I just think it's kind of sickening when we you look at the statistics. It's sad. I mean there's no solution, you can't expect a company to develop drugs and sell them to no one. People in Africa can't feed their kids much less afford medicine. Malaria, African sleeping sickness, tuberculosis, respiratory diseases, dysentery, these are all curable diseases. Hell, most of them are preventable. I mean AIDS gets this huge push and huge press because it's the poster child of poverty for former Presidents, Bono and I'm pretty sure The Gap, but let's be realistic. AIDS is not curable. AIDS medications are outrageously expensive. AIDS medications aren't affordable in the United States and we can't really hope to have some government program subsidize AIDS treatments for Africans. We can't expect a drug company to treat all of Africa for free, out of the goodness of their hearts. But can't we, shouldn't we expect and demand our leaders do something about curable diseases in Africa? We wonder why people around the world hate us. How can anyone hate us, the land of the free AND the home of the brave. I mean honestly we have freedom, and we're brave. What more could a person ask for? How about throwing, oh maybe 10% of those hundreds of billions spent in Iraq Africa's way. We couldn't spare a billion or two here or there? But seriously how could people hate us? And about people hating us, I love how our politicians are able to turn what should be a feeling of self-loathing about what our country does wrong, into this notion of fear. This "they're all after us" mentality which warrants that we vote for learning disable Presidents, corrupt Senators, and former defense contractor VP's. But if we don't, we're going to be attacked because Democrats are "soft." The second a democrat talks any sense about thinking about why people are so hostile to us, they're automatically on "their" side. See before, being on "their" side was different. There were countries that hated the US (see Cuba, China, most of the Middle East). Now if we're on "their" side, it pretty much consists of the entire world. We need to take a step back and evaluate our country. I would never say I'm ashamed of my country, because I'm not. But there are things I'm ashamed of. And what makes me even more ashamed is that I'm not really doing anything about it. I mean I have this plan, that law school will some how, miraculously, catapult me into politics and then I can do something. But I should probably get off my ass and do something now. Not really sure what, but something. And by the way. Do we really need impotency drugs? I really don't want to see one more commercial that makes me think of two 70 year olds fucking. There's a reason men go impotent, and that reason is that 70 year olds having sex is disgusting.
Lyric
"Just the essence of a lullabye."
Badly Drawn Boy Another Pearl