How Prozac killed poetry: Leonard Cohen on antidepressants

"It's been 15 years since I stood up on the stage. Fifteen years ago when I was 60 - a young kid with a crazy dream - then I took a lot of Prozac." Then he reeled off the names of other prescription mood-enhancers he had taken over the years.

Did Leonard Cohen lose 15 years to antidepressants?

Jacob's Ladder Redux: Military being used as pharma guinea pigs

Washington Times report is here.

H/T and thanks to Furious Seasons.

The Chemical Dumbing-Down of America

The Globalization of Pharma

Click on image to enlarge
India, China Becoming Centers of Pharmaceutical R&D, Study Finds

Big pharmaceutical companies such as Merck, Eli Lilly, and Johnson & Johnson are increasingly relying on China and India for advanced research and development, a new study funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation finds.

According to the study, The Globalization of Innovation: Pharmaceuticals; Can India and China Cure the Global Pharmaceutical Market? (67 pages, PDF), Indian and Chinese scientists are rapidly developing the ability to innovate and create their own intellectual property as a result of multinational pharmaceutical companies moving R&D operations to their countries. The symbiotic relationships have enabled multinational firms to cut costs and broaden capacity while pharmaceutical firms in China and India gain revenue and develop expertise. In 2006, 5.5 percent of all global pharmaceutical patent applications named one or more inventors located in India, while 8.4 percent named one or more located in China — a fourfold increase from 1995.

In the study, the authors analyzed the business models, value-chain activities, partnerships, and technology capabilities of more than a hundred Chinese and Indian pharmaceutical firms. They found Indian and Chinese companies were making strides in the most lucrative segments of global value chains, while also prevailing in less lucrative segments, such as preclinical testing, animal experimentation, and manufacturing. However, since firms in those countries rarely have the capital and the regulatory expertise to develop a drug beyond phase II clinical trials, the commercial development of new intellectual property necessitates relationships with major multinational corporations.
from http://foundationcenter.org

pdf here

From Heroin to Methadone

Heroin used to be a big - and legal - seller for Bayer. Now a big moneymaker for Eli Lilly and other Pharma companies is Methadone.
However, Methadone is not needed if addicts are permitted to withdraw with Vitamin C.
Look at this introduction to the work of Dr. Alexander Schauss - pdf here - and learn about the Opium Wars here - and follow the money.

From the New York Times: Legal drugs cause more deaths than illegal ones.
No surprise....

Students relying on Ritalin at College: Generation Rx

Graduation is one of the most exciting events students have to look forward to this time of year. Before they can take the big walk in cap and gown for a diploma, they have to suffer through a rite of passage with which every student is familiar: finals week.

Cramming for those last few papers and exams can mean pulling all-nighters with lots of caffeine. But, rather than starting another pot of coffee, today's students are getting a much more efficient – and dangerous – push toward the finish line.

Since the debut of Ritalin, reliance on prescription analeptics, a class of amphetamines that is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, has become as commonplace as the traditional cup of strong coffee, according to an article by the New York Times.

As many as 20 percent of college students have used Ritalin or Adderall to study, write papers and take exams when the going gets tough, turning students with legitimate prescriptions into small-time campus drug dealers.

Article continues here

A Mighty Judgement Coming: Medical system responsible for sickness

Mr.Bean Hell - No pharma or med folks here yet, but there's "a mighty judgement coming".


Article at Sepp's place - go here

Most Diseases Caused by Medical System?

Medical treatments, pharmaceutical drugs and decisions based on wrong information are responsible for causing an epidemic of disease throughout the western world.
This is how Nexus Magazine introduces an article by Walter Last, a biochemist and research chemist who worked at several German universities and at Bio-Science Laboratories in Los Angeles. Last analyzes some of the glaring inconsistencies which a unique combination of pharmaceutical funding and a business approach to disease have produced in western medicine.

The article as published by Nexus is available on Walter Last's website and I suggest you take the time to read the original with citation of the documents it is based on. You can find it here:

http://www.health-science-spirit.com/medicaldisease.html

Now you can say that Ive grown bitter but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And theres a mighty judgement coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the tower of song
~ Leonard Cohen