25 Shocking Facts About the Pharmaceutical Industry

25 Shocking Facts About the Pharmaceutical Industry

"Researching and snagging an adequate, wallet-friendly health care plan is tough these days, despite its high-profile presence in political debates. A large part of the controversy over expensive health costs stems from criticism of high-priced medications marketed by powerful pharmaceutical companies. From Medicare fraud to CEOs worth billions of dollars, big drug companies are accused of putting profits above patients, spinning false PR campaigns and more. We've uncovered 25 of the most shocking facts about the pharmaceutical industry in this list.

1. The price of drugs is increasing faster than anything else a patient pays for: Marcia Angell writes in her book The Truth About Drug Companies that "drugs are the fastest-growing part of the health care bill which itself is rising at an alarming rate." Dr. Angell argues that patients are spending more on drugs simply because they are being prescribed more drugs than ever before and that "those drugs are more likely to be expensive new ones instead of older, cheaper ones, and that the prices of the most heavily prescribed drugs are routinely jacked up, sometimes several times a year."
2. Your health care provider may have an ulterior motive behind your prescription: In 2007, the St. Petersburg Times reported that drug reps often give gifts to convince medical professionals to prescribe the medications that they represent. Dr. James P. Orlowski tries to teach his students that interaction with drug reps is not in the best interests of patients. Even though many doctors may believe solicitation from drug reps is unethical or at the very least impractical, gifts like free meals, pens, posters, books, and free samples are offered to physicians in an effort to influence their prescription practices.
3. Pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than research: According to ScienceDaily, a "new study by two York University researchers estimates the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends almost twice as much on promotion as it does on research and development." Despite pharmaceutical companies' claims that Americans pay such high prices for prescription medications because they're really paying for research and development costs, the industry spent $33.5 billion on promotion costs in 2004...."
From Nursing Online Education Database. Read the other 22 shocking facts at this Link
And using "new media", Pharma is coming up with new ways to influence consumers to buy - all the time. Link
Drug makers cash in on DC lobbying
Politicians seek curb to drug ads
Pharma lobbying, from OpenSecrets; click to see larger version

Are you wondering who's running the show - and the country?
You may find some surprising answers at Congrelate.

CONTACT your Congressperson
here.

Varying the concentrations of substances normally present in the human body may control mental disease.

Science. 1968 Apr 19;160(825):265-71. Links
Orthomolecular psychiatry. Varying the concentrations of substances normally present in the human body may control mental disease.

Pauling L.
"The functioning of the brain is affected by the molecular concentrations of many substances that are normally present in the brain. The optimum concentrations of these substances for a person may differ greatly from the concentrations provided by his normal diet and genetic machinery. Biochemical and genetic arguments support the idea that orthomolecular therapy, the provision for the individual person of the optimum concentrations of important normal constituents of the brain, may be the preferred treatment for many mentally ill patients. Mental symptoms of avitaminosis sometimes are observed long before any physical symptoms appear. It is likely that the brain is more sensitive to changes in concentration of vital substances than are other organs and tissues. Moreover, there is the possibility that for some persons the cerebrospinal concentration of a vital substance may be grossly low at the same time that the concentration in the blood and lymph is essentially normal. A physiological abnormality such as decreased permeability of the blood-brain barrier for the vital substance or increased rate of metabolism of the substance in the brain may lead to a cerebral deficiency and to a mental disease. Diseases of this sort may be called localized cerebral deficiency diseases. It is suggested that the genes responsible for abnormalities (deficiencies) in the concentration of vital substances in the brain may be responsible for increased penetrance of the postulated gene for schizophrenia, and that the so-called gene for schizophrenia may itself be a gene that leads to a localized cerebral deficiency in one or more vital substances.'
PMID: 5641253 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5641253

Also see
The Healthy Brain - Orthomolecular Treatment of Depression by Jonathan E. Prousky, BPHE, BSc, MSc, ND
Chief Naturopathic Medical O!cer
Associate Professor, Clinical Nutrition
The Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine
Power Point/ PDF Link

No Escape - Prison Rape

MATURE SUBJECT MATTER
Too many of the incarcerated are mentally ill, and institutional treatment in both prisons and hospitals - crowded conditions, bad nutrition, poor or nonexistent medical treatment, indifference and violence - will not improve their health. Rape happens in asylums and mental hospitals as well.

Found at
http://arch1design.com/blog/?p=1571

Decapitated baby's mother had psychosis diagnosis, left meds behind

Awful things are sometimes done by new mothers who struggle with postpartum depression, but this is yet another case where psychoative meds were involved in a horrible murder. We remember Andrea Yates and our hearts go out to these young women - we all share their loss and grief.
Warning - not for the faint of heart.
Link

Video on stopping the USA's Mothers Act -

OUR LINKS ON STOPPING THE MOTHERS ACT -
Pharmaceuticals Anonymous: Stop the Dangerous and Invasive Mothers Act

'There are now 3,218 cases on SSRI Stories. Are these enough tragedies to compare to a "clinical trial" for SSRI & SNRI antidepressants or as Dr. Joel Kaufman said in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons: Volume 14: number 1: Spring 2009, in regard to SSRIstories.com "Since no clinical trial involving multiple homicides is ever likely to be run, no firmer evidence is likely to be found. Healy noted that much of the evidence for suicide and murder came from the efforts of journalists and lawyers'." - Comment from FURIOUS SEASONS
To read the full article go to:
http://www.jpands.org/vol14no1/kauffman.pdf

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland Movie

An article with lots of great photos is at the Daily Mail: Link

WSJ: Surgeon Didn't Disclose Company Ties

... a sweet news item ...
"UCLA Says Surgeon Didn't Disclose Company Ties


By DAVID ARMSTRONG

A top surgeon at the University of California at Los Angeles has lost his position as executive director of its spine center and faces an investigation by the school into his research after allegedly failing to disclose he was being paid by several companies whose products he was studying.

Between 2002 and 2008, Jeffrey Wang repeatedly failed to report on forms filed with the state and with the medical school that he was receiving consulting payments, stock options and royalties from five companies on whose products he was conducting research, according to the university. The failure to report these relationships "violated university guidelines," the school said.

"UCLA regrets that in the case of Dr. Jeffrey Wang, associate professor of orthopedic surgery, a pattern of non-disclosure could have persisted without our knowledge," the school said in a statement. "We are committed to examining our processes to determine how, as an institution, we will prevent similar problems in the future."

Dr. Wang didn't return a telephone call to his office seeking comment. He remains on the school faculty.

Dr. Wang was removed as co-executive director of the UCLA Comprehensive Spine Center. A university spokeswoman said the school is considering further sanctions against him.

The university also has appointed a committee to investigate Dr. Wang's work and determine whether the payments from companies affected his research and "if there are any mitigating actions needed to ensure the integrity of the research results." UCLA said it would make the results of that inquiry public, but that so far it has not found evidence of research misconduct. His research involved studying the products in both animals and humans.

UCLA alleges that Dr. Wang failed to disclose financial interests in connection with research projects sponsored by DePuy Spine Inc., a unit of Johnson & Johnson, which paid Dr. Wang $125,900 in royalty and consulting payments from 2002 through 2008; Facet Solutions Inc., a company in which Dr. Wang acquired options for 18,000 shares in 2004; Paradigm Spine LLC, an entity related to another company in which Dr. Wang received options for 20,000 shares; FzioMed Inc., which paid Dr. Wang $144,000 from 2002 through 2008; and medical-device maker Medtronic Inc., which paid Dr. Wang $275,000 in royalty and consulting payments from 2003 through 2008.

In the case of Medtronic, Dr. Wang did report some, but not all payments from the company, according to the school.

Dr. Wang published at least two favorable evaluations of Oxiplex, a product from FzioMed to prevent spinal adhesions. In 2004, he was the author of a study published in Neurosurgical Focus that found Oxiplex "easy to use and safe." That study noted FzioMed provided funding for the study, but didn't cite the payments to Dr. Wang.

A 2008 abstract published in the Spine Journal by Dr. Wang and a co-author found "consistent clinically significant improvement in outcomes resulting from the use of Oxiplex gel in lumbar spine surgery." While the abstract doesn't indicate Dr. Wang had a financial relationship with FzioMed, he is listed as a consultant to the company elsewhere in the journal.

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee in July 2008 voted against approving Oxiplex for sale in the U.S. because it wasn't convinced the product was effective.

Most medical schools require doctors to report financial relationships and often have rules limiting how much they can receive from companies whose products are being studied. But medical schools often have difficulty verifying whether financial information filed by doctors is accurate.

A handful of states, including Massachusetts and Minnesota, have instituted public-reporting requirements in which drug and medical-device companies must disclose payments to physicians for many kinds of services, including consulting.

Two U.S. senators, Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa and Democrat Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, are pushing for a federal law that would require companies to report payments to doctors of more than $100."

WSJ -What s doctor did that was worth $1M

This is just a little gator - cleaning up the whole swamp will be a big job.

Vaccination: The Hidden Truth

'This is the first half of the shocking but extremely and timelessly informative video documentary "Vaccination - The Hidden Truth" (1998) where 15 people, including Dr. Viera Scheibner (a PhD researcher), five medical doctors, other researchers, and parents' experiences, reveal what is really going on in relation to illness and vaccines. With so much government and medical promotion of vaccination for prevention of disease, ironically the important facts presented here come from the orthodox medicine's own peer-reviewed research, of which a total of well over 100,000 pages has been studied by those interviewed. The result is a damning account of the ineffectiveness of vaccines and their often harmful effects. It shows that parents are not being told the truth by the media, the Health Department and the medical establishment, with a medical doctor, Dr. Mark Donohoe, confessing that "It is a problem for me that I am part of a profession that is systematically lying to people." Find out how vaccines are proven to be both useless and have harmful effects to your health and how they are often erroneously believed to be compulsory. Many people simply refuse to believe the truth regardless of how clear it is, but the impeccable documentation presented in this amazing video has changed the minds of many who have seen it. This first half explains most, but not 100%, of the reason for counterproductive effect of vaccines. The last part of the reason, which also is published in medical research, is in the second half of the video. To view or purchase the whole DVD/video, go to www.vaccination.inoz.com. Please note that this video was very expensive to make and sales and donations support the freely provided Vaccination Information Service, which exists only for the benefit of you and your children.'