Tag Archives: Pharmaceutical industry

Anthony Gucciardi ~ Poll: 47 Million Believe Big Pharma Creates Disease

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Natural Society April 4 2013

Poll: 47 Million Know Big Pharma Keeping People Sick [Video]

A new major poll from the organization Public Policy Polling over what United States citizens believe to be true about their government and beyond has revealed that a whopping 47 million citizens are privy to the fact that the Big Pharma pharmaceutical industry and the current medical health paradigm are actually generating further sickness within the nation. And that’s just within the United States.

The poll, which asked questions about everything from the use of sodium fluoride in the water to the assassination of JFK, has been popping up in the media where reporters are lumping together concerns about Big Pharma with the belief in Bigfoot. The issue with the poll, however, is that there is really some strange wording within the questions that I think altered the actual response of the individuals who were surveyed due to the oftentimes confusing or more ‘sinister’ wording utilized by the Public Policy Polling agency.

For example, the question regarding the medical establishment working together with Big Pharma reads as follows:

“Do you believe that the pharmaceutical industry is in league with the medical industry to “invent” new diseases in order to make money, or not?”

And 47 million people, based on the poll stats, agree that this is the case. But if the wording were to be changed even slightly, I think that we’d see even more widespread acceptance within the public — of which 15% of the entire United States population would agree according to this poll. For example, the wording here could be confusing with the usage of the word invent with quotations, as it could imply that these industries are creating new diseases that are previously unheard of instead of just generating sickness within the population.

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War On Health [Video]

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Life Extension February 8 2013

This new film from award-winning documentary-maker Gary Null delivers irrefutable evidence as to why we have so few cures for killer diseases … and how pharmaceutical companies slaughter tens of thousands of Americans each year with impunity with deadly FDA-approved drugs.

See for yourself why clinical medical practice is advancing at a snail’s pace, while the federal government goes to extraordinary lengths to stamp out those who seek natural and more innovative approaches to disease prevention and treatment.

The war against our health has penetrated government, academia, and the media to such a degree that no sound-bite explanation will expose the magnitude of the problem we face. But this film does!

So do yourself a huge favor. View War on Health* here and now… because you need to know. Then Share it with your friends … because they do, too!

*Funded in part by an educational grant from the Life Extension Foundation®.

Elizabeth Renter ~ Guess Who’s Viewing Your ‘Confidential’ Medical Records?

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theintelhub.com | January 16th, 2013

cartoon_medicalinsurerYour health insurance company has access to your bills and charges in order to know what they are paying for. But should they also have access to all of your medical history?

They do. And what about pharmaceutical companies who are seeking new clients? They might have access too. In a world where nothing is private, it seems even your most personal information can be bought.

“You sell your privacy for the cost of your care,” says Dr. Steward Segal. This private information is being sold to companies who profile doctors’ prescription habits. It’s all done to boost pharmaceutical sales.

While your identifying information is not supposed to be present in these purchased reports, there may be loopholes. Just ask the people who have received advertising postcards from drug companies specific to their medical condition.

Sure, Big Pharma claims to have your best interests at heart. After all, they only want to know your doctor’s prescribing habits so they can better tailor their drugs to his or her, and your needs. This isn’t about the money; it’s about your health. Actually, if you believe that, well…don’t.

“But wait, doesn’t that HIPAA form I sign mean they can’t sell my information?”

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Elizabeth Renter ~ Big Pharma Testing Oxycontin On Children As Young As 6 To Keep Patent

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Natural Society | November 9 2012

You’ve likely heard of OxyContin; it’s that heavy duty narcotic painkiller, the one that has spurred the prescription drug addiction problem to new heights over the past several years. It’s highly addictive. So addictive, in fact, that it is said to lead people to using heroin in order to get a cheaper high when their budget can’t keep up with their Oxycontin habit. (This move only became more pronounced after the maker of Oxy changed their formula to reportedly discourage addiction).

Well, the maker of this wonder-drug, responsible for countless overdose deaths, is so concerned with their patent running out, that they’ve decided to test the drug on children as young as six years old.

The company is Purdue Pharma LP. And their concern isn’t in helping children overcome some deadly illness or debilitating pain, but instead lies (not surprisingly) with their bottom line. The patent of OxyContin is set to expire in August of 2013; when that occurs, other Big Pharma companies will be able to make generic versions of the pricey narcotic and sell them for much cheaper, taking some away from Purdue’s pockets.

By starting new trials on children, Purdue Pharma is able to extend their patent by six months. They are able to do this with a program from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that actually encourages drug companies to test their poisons on the youngest members of our communities.

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Ben Hirschler ~ British Medical Journal Moves To Flush Out Secret Trial Data

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Reuters | October 31 2012 | Thanks, Carolyn

(Reuters) – The respected British Medical Journal (BMJ) will refuse to publish research papers on drugs unless the clinical trial data behind these studies is made available for independent scrutiny.

The requirement to make anonymised patient-level data available “on reasonable request” will apply to all clinical trials of drugs and medical devices from January 2013, the BMJ said in an editorial.

The move increases the pressure on drug companies to lift the lid on data secrets amid growing criticism that lack of disclosure hampers the ability of doctors and medical researchers to assess the true value of products.

Patient-level data, which sits behind the published results of clinical trials, is a potential treasure trove for scientists wanting to test drug company claims and expose product deficiencies.

Companies have been reluctant to release this information, but GlaxoSmithKline set a precedent this month by announcing that it would make such data available from its trials.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by David Goodman)

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Elizabeth Renter ~ FDA Looking To Ban B6 Supplements, Give Boost To Big Pharma

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Natural Society | September 22 2012

Vitamin B6, naturally present in a variety of foods, is necessary for proper nerve function, protein synthesis, regulating blood sugar, and producing antibodies and hemoglobin. In other words, it’s pretty important stuff. But, while many people get their B6 through supplements, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is looking to make things a lot more difficult—by slowly taking all forms of B6 supplements off the market so Big Pharma can make millions off of prescriptions instead.

According to the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), the FDA has already begun their crusade. They removed Pyridoxamine (a natural form of B6) supplements from the market at the request of BioStratum, a pharmaceutical company. Why? Because BioStratum thinks it might be nice to use Pyrdoxamine in a prescription drug. They haven’t developed the drug, we don’t know what it is, and who knows when it will come to fruition, but the FDA honored a request from the big corporation to protect the company’s interest.

Now, the FDA is poised to pull another B6 product: P5P.

You see, the human body must convert B6 to P5P to make it usable within the body. Fortunately, some supplement companies have created P5P and it is currently available as a natural supplement. But, another pharmaceutical giant has petitioned the FDA to “protect its interests”.

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Mike Adams ~ The Last Antibiotic: Drug Companies Run Out Of Weapons Against The Very Same Superbugs They Helped Create

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Natural News | August 30 2012

Natural News ~ The age of antibiotics is over. It’s history. There are no more patented chemical antibiotics in the pipeline. The drug companies have all but abandoned antibiotics research, leaving humanity to suffer the fate of a wave of drug-resistant bacteria — superbugs — that the drug companies actually helped create.

The industry is down to one last-ditch chemical: colistin, a toxic bug-killing chemical discovered in 1949. It kills superbugs, but it also causes kidney damage. So if you’re infected with a superbug in a hospital, you can choose to either die from an infection, or die from the cure.

…There’s a lot of that going on in medicine these days, it seems…

Nearly all antibiotics are now obsolete

In the last 34 years, Big Pharma has only come up with two new classes of antibiotics. Both are now obsolete. And the drug companies are walking away from the research needed to produce new antibiotics even as they run television ads claiming they “put patients first.”

“Last year, Pfizer, the world’s biggest drug company, closed its Connecticut antibiotics research center, laying off 1,200 workers,” reports the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nih-superbug-ou…). “The company said it was moving the operation to Shanghai. …Pfizer is struggling to open the Chinese facility and has largely abandoned antibiotics.”

It turns out that drugs for erectile dysfunction, baldness or cholesterol are ten times more profitable than antibiotics. So while a wave of drug-resistant bacteria burns through our hospitals, killing patients by the tens of thousands, Big Pharma is far more interested in making sure some middle-aged guy on statin drugs can still get an erection. There are more profits to be had, after all, in giving people boners rather than cures.

99,000 Americans a year killed by superbugs, says CDC

Meanwhile, superbugs are killing Americans at a rate that rivals wartime casualties. A decade ago, the CDC estimated that superbugs infected 1.7 million Americans and killed 99,000 Americans each year (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nih-superbug-ou…).

That’s about twice the number of Americans killed in the entire Vietnam War, by the way. And those numbers are a decade old. By many accounts, the superbug problem is far worse now than it was ten years ago. For example, superbug infections among newborns have risen over 300% in a similar timeframe (http://www.naturalnews.com/026587_infections_infection_superbug.html).

Why are infections getting worse? Because over the last decade, superbugs have evolved. Nature has found resistance to nearly every known antibiotic on the market: Tetracyclines, Fluoroquinolones, Cephalosporins, Sulfonamides and more.

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Ethan A Huff ~ GlaxoSmithKline Pleads Guilty To Criminal Fraud Charges, Pays Massive $3 Billion In Fines

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Natural News | July 9 2012

(NaturalNews) U.K.-based pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a corporate “person” in the eyes of the federal government (http://blog.timesunion.com/occupyalbany/corporations-are-people/394/), has pleaded guilty to criminal charges in what even the mainstream media is calling the largest healthcare fraud case in history. And though the company is having to fork over $3 billion in collective fines for its illegal activity, no actual GSK employees or executives are being held personally responsible for their crimes.

A roughly nine-year federal investigation has exposed GSK’s rampant abuse of the law by illegally marketing drugs, forging drug safety data, bribing doctors to promote dangerous and expensive drugs, ripping off Medicare and Medicaid, and lying about the effectiveness and safety of drugs. And all this deception has generated tens of billions of dollars in profits for GSK over the years, while thousands of patients who used the drug products involved have suffered horrific side effects and even death.

But rather than pursue any of the individuals responsible for purveying such crimes, the federal government instead agreed to have GSK simply fork over $1 billion in criminal fines and $2 billion in civil fines. This $3 billion sum is but a fraction of the amount GSK raked in as a result of its illicit behavior, and the company’s employees are now essentially free to continue engaging in such behavior without having to worry about facing any real repercussions.

Big Pharma considers legal settlements to be just another cost of doing business

Though it may sound like a lot of money to most people, $3 billion is not really all that much for a company that generated more than $42 billion in revenues just last year. In fact, according to Reuters, GSK has agreed to pay the $3 billion in fines from company cash reserves that appear to be specifically earmarked for such uses.

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D. Holt ~ GlaxoSmithKline Admits To Criminal Pharma Fraud In 3 Billion Dollar Case

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Natural News | July 4 2012

Natural News ~ British registered company, GlaxoSmithKline, faces $3 billion in penalties after pleading guilty to the biggest health care fraud case in history. GSK admitted that physicians had been bribed to push potentially dangerous drugs in exchange for Madonna tickets, Hawaiian holidays, cash and lucrative speaking tours. They also admitted distributing misleading information regarding the antidepressant Paxil. The report claimed that it was suitable for children, but failed to acknowledge data from studies proving its ineffectiveness in children and adolescents.

GSK faced charges that they had used the gifts to sell three drugs that were either unsafe, or used for purposes that were not approved. The first drug, Paxil also known as Seroxat, was touted as safe and effective for children and adolescents. The ineffectiveness of Paxil, and the link to suicides, meant that it was banned for kids under 18-years-olds in 2008.

The second drug, Avandia was used in Britain to treat diabetes until it was withdrawn due to safety fears, including increased risk of heart attacks. The US government claimed that GSK had attempted to conceal the data surrounding the dangers.

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