Published on September 29, 2021

This document aims to explain the fundamental principles of pharmacology in a simplified manner, while also addressing myths and fallacies propagated by pseudo-scientists seeking to advance their careers.

Readers may observe numerous repetitions of paragraphs, phrases, or expressions. This is intentional, as the goal is to instill the content through repetition, analogous to the way ritualistic practices facilitate learning and discipline.

1. First and foremost: "One does not interfere with an organism with impunity." Drugs can induce alterations that lead to the emergence of unpredictable (paradoxical) effects, even to the point of making life unviable.
2. The effect of a drug is mathematical: 2+2=4, but the organism's response can be anything between 2 and 5, passing through 4, that is, the effect is predictable, but the organism's response is unpredictable, depending on various factors such as sex, age, ethnicity (race), and also the comorbidities that the individual carries, anything can happen, even a catastrophe, or nothing at all. It depends solely on each organism. For this, multicenter, randomized, double-blind pharmacological trials are conducted, with or without the use of placebo or standard drug.
3. The effect of a drug depends solely on its mechanism of action and not on who prescribes it. A drug prescribed by a doctor, healer, spiritual leader, or medium possessed by the spirit of evil will have to have the same effect, otherwise it becomes magic, no longer science. The insane and unfounded belief spread everywhere by the media, medical associations, and regional medical councils that only the doctor knows the "remedy" that is good is a tremendous fallacy, serving only as a market reserve through the dissemination of lies. Doctors do not have magic wands or talk to the drug ordering it to have the effect that he, the doctor, wants. This simple presumption is something of an idiot, of a feeble-minded person.
4. Although pharmacology is not a science exclusive to doctors, pharmacists, dentists, and veterinarians, the difference between these professionals and the layman (spiritual leader, healer, etc.) and professionals from other areas is that the first four mentioned have a much greater chance of making an accurate clinical diagnosis because they are specially trained for this, and also, only doctors, dentists, and veterinarians are authorized, BY LAW, to prescribe pharmacotherapeutic treatments ("prescribe remedies").
5. Every drug acts on a receptor, an enzyme, or by binding to some protein or even "sequestering" (binding) a certain ion or particle and produces the expected effect and not the desired effect. There is no magic in the effect of a drug. As described above, the effect is mathematical: 2 + 2 = 4, and there is no use in struggling. The "off-label" effect results from the binding or interaction of the drug with some other metabolic pathway not observed or predicted during the experimental phase.
6. Every drug is developed and tested for the treatment of one or more very specific symptoms or diseases, but it may happen that it has an effect on other pathologies (diseases) very different from that for which it was originally intended, designating this characteristic as an "off-label" effect. A classic example of this is sildenafil (Viagra®), which today is more used in the treatment of malignant pulmonary hypertension OF the newborn, a disease that killed practically all the GIRLS who were born with it, but with the advent of Viagra® (sildenafil) the number of deaths resulting from this neonatopathy (disease of the neonate or newborn) dropped to almost zero. If Viagra® is missing in the maternity pharmacy, there is a big problem. It's worse than its absence in a brothel or motel.
7. Remedy is an erroneous name to designate a substance with effects at the molecular level because any action that produces well-being can be a remedy, such as a massage, music, food... Medication is also not a very correct term because it alludes to a profession, medicine, which does not have 1000 years of existence yet (learn more about the history of medicine here). The original term that names the substances used in treatments is drug (fármaco) and comes from the Greek word pharmakon or φαρμακόν, which was an ancient, very primitive festival, where a couple of healthy and virgin young people were chosen and burned in a bonfire as a sacrifice to the gods to protect the people from plagues and diseases. A little macabre, isn't it?
8. Basic research or advanced research in pharmacology, which is the most important? Without the slightest shadow of a doubt or uncertainty, basic pharmacological research is the most important, the phase where the chemical structure and the possible receptors or metabolic pathways of the drug are discovered and its molecular structure is improved to exert a more accentuated effect and with a lower incidence of secondary and undesirable effects. Advanced research, also called cutting-edge research, is nothing more than the application of drugs in the population, the so-called pharmacological trials, when only the adverse and undesirable effects of the new drugs will be recorded and tabulated and the "off-label" effect can also be discovered, although this appears only with time and large-scale administration and in diverse populations of different ethnicities, in the phase called phase IV or pharmacovigilance.
9. Vaccine X serum, Serum is a concentrate of antibodies used to prevent the installation of a disease after acute exposure, such as in the case of SAT or anti-tetanus serum of the past and the current Antitetanic IGG, which are used in cases of injuries in people who are not vaccinated against tetanus; antiofidic serum (unspecific used when the snake that bit is not known), antibotropic (jararaca) anticrotalic (rattlesnake), to avoid the propagation of the venom in the organism, while vaccine produces long-term immunity, preventing a disease from developing after exposure. A drug that does not provide a minimum of 10 years of immunity cannot be considered a vaccine, as in the case of the pseudo-vaccines against Covid-19 that are already in the fourth booster dose and whose immunity does not last 180 days.
10. Risks of Self-Medication. This represents the most significant of all corporatist fallacies propagated by the medical profession, bordering on the absurd and demonstrating a disregard for the fundamental principles of pharmacology. The probability of an adverse reaction occurring from a drug used in self-medication is equivalent to that of a drug prescribed by a physician, spiritual leader, healer, etc. This deceptive rhetoric violates the fundamental right to freedom of any human being to manage their life and body as they see fit, a guarantee enshrined in the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil. This same right is invoked by individuals who advocate for the legalization of illicit drugs, as well as by various groups to justify practices considered contrary to established legal and social norms within Brazilian society.