BUSTING BIG PHARMA
From: Dr. Jai Maharaj (usenet_at_mantra.com)
Date: 12/28/04
- Next message: Dr. Jai Maharaj: "Re: TOP 10 DRUGS - Safe, Natural, Alternatives"
- Previous message: Dr. Jai Maharaj: "Fwd - BIG PHARMA'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 05:15:59 GMT
BUSTING BIG PHARMA
Forwarded message from fidyl@yahoo.com
[ Subject: Busting Big Pharma
[ From: fidyl@yahoo.com
[ Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004
Busting Big Pharma
By Robert Lusetich
December 16, 2004
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11701595%5E28737,00.html
WHAT happens when a slick sales force of 87,000 is set loose with
billions of dollars to wine and dine, entertain and educate the US's
600,000 doctors?
The short answer is that six years ago Americans spent $US89 billion
on prescription drugs. Last year the amount exploded to $US149
billion. In the year to March 2004, Australia spent $5.8 billion on
prescription drugs.
The US accounts for half of all global profits for Big Pharma, as the
pharmaceutical corporations are known.
"The result of all those attractive women in short skirts armed with
pseudo-science invading the practices of doctors is that Americans
are over-medicated, taking far too many drugs, most of which they
don't even need, and they are paying too much for them," says Jerome
Kassirer, a former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine and
prominent critic of Big Pharma.
Beyond the skyrocketing profits, however, lies a darker picture of a
virtually unregulated omnipotent industry whose questionable
practices - some call them criminal - in the quest for higher
revenues has turned Big Pharma into the latest corporate villain.
As a growing army of critics - and the courts - fling open the doors
of the world's leading drug companies to reveal unfavourable buried
studies, the parallels to Big Oil, Big Banking and, the most
notorious of all, Big Tobacco are striking.
"These guys and their ethics are precisely where Big Tobacco was 20
years ago," says Peter Breggin, a prominent New York psychiatrist who
has campaigned against the spread of controversial antidepressants.
Scandals, such as US pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co yanking its
$US2.5billion ($3.3 billion) a year blockbuster painkiller Vioxx off
the market on September 30 after the company belatedly conceded it
was causing heart attacks and strokes, have led to an unprecedented
erosion in public trust.
In the past year 300,000 Australians - about one-third of patients
suffering osteoarthritis - used Vioxx. Since its September withdrawal
more than 600 Australians who suffered heart attacks, strokes and
blood-related illnesses after taking the drug have joined a
multi-billion-dollar class action against Merck.
"For decades both the public and physicians thought the
pharmaceuticals were looking out for the health and welfare of
society and never challenged what the industry claimed," says Arnold
Relman, emeritus professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
"Now everyone is starting to wise up to an industry [that] is hugely
profitable and driven, obsessed with making more profits and to do
that by any means it can, even if it means stretching laws,
stretching ethics."
A flurry of new books by high-profile authors - including Kassirer
and Marcia Angell, another former editor at The New England Journal
of Medicine - as well as court cases, such as the one against the
antidepressant Paxil brought by New York's crusading Attorney-General
Eliot Spitzer, reveals the way in which Big Pharma has managed to
generate profits and cover up its skeletons.
The system is enabled, say reform-minded doctors, by the US Food and
Drug Administration - which generates most of its budget from drug
companies and has proven to be "nothing but a lapdog", Angell says –
as well as by physicians who blithely accept dubious studies provided
by drug company sales representatives.
"Suppose you are a big pharmaceutical company. You make a drug that
is approved for a very limited use. How could you turn it into a
blockbuster?" Angell says.
"You could simply market the drug for unapproved, or off-label, uses
even though it's against the law to do so. You do that by carrying
out 'research' that falls way below the standard required for FDA
approval, then 'educating' doctors about any favourable results. That
way you circumvent the law [because doctors can prescribe whatever
drugs they see fit].
"You could say you were not marketing for unapproved uses; you were
merely disseminating the results of research to doctors, who can
legally prescribe a drug for any use. But it would be bogus education
about bogus research. It would really be marketing."
Nowhere is this better illustrated than with the antidepressants
known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, a class of drug of
dubious benefit that, through savvy marketing, has become a
multi-billion-dollar cash cow.
A staggering one in 10 women in the US are on these drugs. In
Australia, there was a 350 per cent increase in prescriptions for
SSRIs - such as Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil - between 1990 and 2002.
Yet, says Breggin, who has appeared at trials on behalf of people who
commit crimes or of families who have lost a family member to suicide
while under the influence of SSRIs, "not only do these drugs not work
but they're [also] dangerous".
Karen Barth Menzies, a Los Angeles lawyer who is perhaps the leading
antidepressant litigation attorney in the world, explains the disease
is marketed and sold in order to sell the drugs.
"That's why it's been so successful," she says. "The drug's a
narcotic, it's an upper, so no wonder you feel better."
Kassirer says drug companies - the most powerful special interest in
Washington, with an army of 700 lobbyists - have public relations
firms draw up "research papers" based on selective studies, conducted
by medical researchers who dare not go against the company line, to
promote their drugs and then have "experts" put their names to them,
often just parroting what the company wants disseminated.
"These councils with the official sounding names, the alliance of
something or the foundation for something, what are they doing?" he
asks. "They're doctors who are being paid to promote awareness of
some condition [that] invariably is treated by a drug made by the
drug company [that] is bankrolling the council.
"The system is awash in drug company money and it's corrupt. All this
money and favours is forcing doctors to do things that I think are
pretty terrible. It creates deception, erodes professionalism and is
destroying the profession.
"If anybody is up to their ears in conflicts of interest, it's
psychiatrists."
Critics say some mental illnesses are invented by panels of
psychiatrists - who in turn are paid large sums by drug companies -
to sell drugs. Kassirer cites the example of executive dysfunction, a
new-found disease supposedly marked by fatigue, apathy, bad mood and
an inability to communicate clearly. Yet even those who diagnose
executive dysfunction say that it has no standard medical definition
and is better regarded as a concept, he says.
"But it doesn't stop them prescribing drugs for the so-called
condition," Kassirer says.
Barth Menzies says she has seen evidence for years that the drug
companies knew their antidepressants not only didn't work but were
causing suicidal or violent tendencies among some users, yet tried to
hide the evidence for fear of financial loss.
"The internal documents we've found through discovery show what a
total sham these antidepressants are," she says. "The science is
bought and paid for, experts are willing to sell their names and
their souls, the whole thing's been an amazing web of lies and fraud.
"I used to think, 'How many people have to die before someone does
something about it?' And then I saw the answer. In their greed to
find new markets, they started pushing SSRIs on kids. I knew that
once kids started dying, someone would finally say enough is enough."
Authorities in Britain were the first to ban the prescribing of SSRIs
- except Prozac, although even the FDA now agrees that Prozac works
in the same way and has the same inherent dangers - to children and
adolescents.
In the US - where more than 1 million youngsters are on these drugs -
the FDA was forced to issue a black box warning on the SSRIs, while
Spitzer has filed fraud charges against GlaxoSmithKline, the world's
second largest drug maker, for blatantly hiding or trying to spin
negative findings of clinical trials of Paxil's effects on children
and teenagers.
GSK settled the suit but is facing an avalanche of lawsuits from
people whose children hurt or even killed themselves - or others -
while on the drugs. Part of GSK's settlement forced it to publish
findings of all trials on its website, though critics say this needs
to be independently monitored. Meanwhile, Big Pharma is fighting
efforts in Washington to force all trials, irrespective of their
results, to be made public.
"I'm not that hopeful for any real change," Angell says. "They have
bought politicians and doctors. They've looked at everyone and anyone
who could stand in their way and they've thrown money at them. The
only hope we have is a grassroots revolution that will make the
politicians decide they love votes more than drug company money."
It is little wonder that Michael Moore, whose scathing films on the
gun lobby and President George W. Bush have been among the most
successful documentaries in history, is pointing his lens at Big
Pharma. And the working title of his proposed documentary? Sicko.
Robert Lusetich is The Australian's Los Angeles correspondent.
- - - - -
Should You Trust What Your Doctor Prescribes?
http://www.mercola.com/2004/dec/25/doctors_drugs.htm
Some people take doctor recommendations with high regard; however,
when the drugs being suggested are potentially life threatening, such
advice is anything but professional.
Big Pharma, as pharmaceutical corporations are known, has been dubbed
"the latest corporate villain" for its questionable -- some even say
criminal -- practices in search of higher revenues. In fact, the
United States is responsible for half of Big Pharma's global profits.
This is because doctors are being paid to promote an awareness of
health conditions that need to be (ironically) treated with drugs
made by Big Pharma. Critics claim that panels of psychiatrists are
being paid large sums of money to invent mental illnesses, solely for
the purpose of selling drugs. Such deception could be destroying the
integrity of the medical profession.
Fortunately, the public is beginning to see the light, thanks to the
recent scandals surfacing regarding drug companies. A prime example
is how arthritis-drug Vioxx was pulled off the market after the
company belatedly admitted the drug induced cardiovascular
conditions. Such instances have stuck a thorn in the public's trust
for drug companies.
After years of never questioning what the drug industry "claimed,"
the public is beginning to see that the industry is:
Hugely profitable and driven
Obsessed with making profits
Willing to stretch the law in order to make a buck
And Big Pharma is being called out, as a mass of new books by
high-profile authors and court cases have revealed the ways these
companies have managed to produce profits and cover up its secrets.
Though as long as politicians and doctors keep getting money, it is
hard to tell if Big Pharma will ever be defeated.
- - - - -
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
While I have absolutely no problem with capitalism and the ability to
earn a profit, if revenue is NOT made with honesty and a deep desire
to serve the person who is receiving the product, then it is nothing
short of wrong and deceitful.
It is unfortunate that many drug companies are driven by greed,
leading them toward deceptive and unethical actions.
But, as noted in the article, people are finally beginning to wise up
-- the entire conventional system is posed to fall. You simply cannot
pull the wool over the public's eyes much longer. People want real
solutions to their health challenges -- solutions that don't cost
them an arm and a leg or harm their health in the long run. That is
one of the primary intentions of this site: Providing consumers with
this information and education so that the flawed paradigm will
shift.
I find it interesting that one of the most prominent articles on my
site is Doctors are the Third Leading Cause of Death. Well, that
article was written in 2000 and now it appears that, based on a
variety of references, doctors are in fact the LEADING cause of death
in this country. Not heart disease, not cancer -- doctors. In all
fairness, doctors themselves are not to blame for all of this. The
entire modern health care system, however, is to blame for allowing,
even promoting, so many unnecessary procedures, drugs and mishaps.
This illustrates precisely why the system is so desperately in need
of change, and why facilitating this change is, and will continue to
be, such a substantial portion of my vision.
Further, I can't emphasize enough that so much you hear about health
care through the media is merely a product of medical conglomerates
and pharmaceutical corporations trying to hold onto market share by
advertising the next pill or publicizing some wonder surgery meant to
cure all ails. In my experience, I've found all the money
conventional medicine throws at disease management, focused on
short-term fixes such as drugs and surgery, never delivered the
return on investment to my patients.
The point to take home here is, and if you're a regular reader of my
newsletter you've heard me say time and again, using drugs as
temporary bandages to cure symptoms rather than addressing the root
cause of your problems does far more harm than good. The Vioxx case
is a crystal clear example of this.
For these reasons, it is important that you understand there are
concrete steps you can take NOW to combat the drug companies' greed,
save yourself loads of money, and improve your health so you can
avoid unnecessary drugs in the first place.
Take control of your health by learning how to stay healthy. Find out
more about how to implement healthy measures in your daily life by
reading my TOTAL HEALTH Program. By incorporating these changes into
your life, you will take control of your health and no longer have to
rely on drugs to cover up your symptoms. This is a very empowering
step that can extend beyond your health and give you the strength to
take control of other aspects of your life as well.
End of forwarded message from fidyl@yahoo.com
Jai Maharaj
http://www.mantra.com/jai
Om Shanti
Hindu Holocaust Museum
http://www.mantra.com/holocaust
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
http://www.hindu.org
http://www.hindunet.org
The truth about Islam and Muslims
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate
The terrorist mission of Jesus stated in the Christian bible:
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not so send
peace, but a sword.
"For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the
daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in
law.
"And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
- Matthew 10:34-36.
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational
purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not
have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the
poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for
fair use of copyrighted works.
o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,
considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current
e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.
o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are
not necessarily those of the poster.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of
which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed
that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by
subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of
your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner.
- Next message: Dr. Jai Maharaj: "Re: TOP 10 DRUGS - Safe, Natural, Alternatives"
- Previous message: Dr. Jai Maharaj: "Fwd - BIG PHARMA'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Relevant Pages
|
