Money Talks

No, that's not me pontificating -- that's a great documentary about the malignant tentacles of the Pharmaceutical Industry (Via Pharmagossip)

Two great quotes:

"More than half of the budget of the division of the FDA that approves new drugs and oversees drug safety is being funded by the drug companies…" said Dr. John Abramson. "The watchdogs are largely drugged."

"Right now, our government is not terribly interested in making any reforms that would be useful, because they’re so beholden to drug companies," said Dr. Jerome Hoffman. "We have to have the clout, influence and the organization to make it so that they can’t blithely go along making the FDA be something that has been widely and famously called a servant of the drug industry. We have to make the FDA a servant to us."

So, the FDA is incompetent -- like Barney Fife in charge of San Quentin -- while Big Pharma goes around maiming its own research subjects /slash paid human guinea pigs and pimping its toxic snake oil to the rest of us. How quaint.

Get the DVD!

UPDATE!

Here's another DVD -- Big Bucks, Big Pharma. Same damn genre -- buy it,too!

Comments

[noreen martin]

Hank, your blog the first thing in the mornings is as great as coffee to get me ralled up. The FDA needs a good housekeeping as they do not seem to be doing their job, protecting the people. However, this is nothing new as we have had fluoridated water supplies since the 1940's and in toothpaste since the 1950's. Hazardous products and drugs stare them in the face and they go blindly about their business, whatever that might be?

Read the back of any standard tube of toothpaste. Most people are unable of the hazard warining to contact a posison control center or seek medical attention if injested. Why, because of the fluoride content. Fluoride is extremely detrimental to the human body.

Another bucket of worms is mercury which the main exposure to humans is via amalgam fillings. The dentists are as mum to this as the Aids doctors about the anti-virals.

We, the people, must demand better results from these civil servants. We must write our elected officials and demand change or else put up with the status quo. I think that a good representative to contact is Grassley who seems to be at least concerned about the FDA.

[Insider]

Just popped by to say hi and thanks for the hat tip.

Like your blog

Would be happy to trade links with you.....

Cheers

[noreen martin]

So what does the FDA do to justify their existence? They are afraid to tackle the Big Pharma Bully so they go after the small kid on the block, our vitamins and herbal supplements which were placed on Earth for us to use. We must be protected from these harmful products which have never killed as many as most legalized, prescribed drugs.

[lawstud6]

Hank:

Usually I would argue that the more our government and its employees take drugs, the less chance there is that they can actually do some harm. For my money congress should be constantly hooked up to the world's biggest bong. Unfortunately that rationale may not apply to the FDA. Maybe they just need stronger intoxicants! Calgon, take me away!

Lawstud out.

[HankBarnes]

Hi Insider,

You bet. My crack techno geek staff is already on the ball.

Pharmagossip is a heluva blog.

Barnes

[Dean Esmay]

I used to be a big supporter of the pharma industry but now, not so much. I think it's important to realize that they are a business and their first and foremost concern is making money, period. That doesn't make them intrinsically evil but it should make us remember that they don't have halos.

[HankBarnes]

Two distinctions between Big Pharma and big business.

1. Big pharma can't sell their product directly to consumers. They have to pimp/bribe/coerce/persuade doctors to do their bidding.

2. Many of the drugs cause side-effects to be treated by .....more drugs. It's a strange ad infinitum progression.

Example:
1. AIDS came -- so Glaxo made AZT.
2. AZT causes anemia, so Orthobiotech makes Procrit to treat anemia, and targets AIDS patients on AZT.

God knows what side effects Procrit has and what other companies make what other drugs to treat said effects.

Barnes

[George]

Hank,

Is that ad infinitum or ad nauseum, delirium, tremors, night sweats, loose bowels, add more until the endpoint so relished by Dr. Sam Mengele Broder* arrives?

*I was in attendance at the 1986 (?)CSH Vaccine meeting and overheard Sam say with some glee to colleagues the afternoon he learned by phone that the AZT trial had been stopped for "compassionate reasons" that there could be no doubt about the efficacy or outcome since "ze endpoint vas death, and therefore unmistakable".

[Claus]

Dean,

you just gave as good a definition as any of 'intrinsically evil' - or if one doesn't believe in 'evil', at least intrinsically ihuman in so far as Dr. Mengele can be termed thus.

[Claus]

To appreciate what the shift in priorities means, one only has to consider that in the preferred symbol of the pharmaceutical industry what may at first deceiving glance resemble the Staff of the Healer has been exchanged for that of Hermes, god of thieves and merchants.

[Lise]

Dean,

‘Don’t wear halos’. That’s the understatement of the year! Claus’s mythological reference comes nearer the truth. They are thieves and confidence tricksters.
I’m sitting here with something called ‘Fluconazole’ that I see now is being used to treat infections in AIDS patients. Its liver toxicity is so high that you need to have your blood constantly monitored. My husband's doctor prescribed it for fungus in a toenail, saying he may have to stay on it for up to a year. My husband's liver for FUNGUS IN A TOENAIL!
Thanks Dr. Mengele, hope your stocks go up.
How can anybody have been a big supporter of this?

Oh and by the way, on my mother's advice we've tried topical application of inexpensive tea tree oil and white vinegar instead. After 3 weeks there's already clear improvement.

[Danny Haszard]

I took zyprexa which was ineffective for my condition and gave me diabetes.

Zyprexa, which is used for the treatment of psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, accounted for 32% of Eli Lilly's $14.6 billion revenue last year.

Zyprexa is the product name for Olanzapine,it is Lilly's top selling drug.It was approved by the FDA in 1996 ,an 'atypical' antipsychotic a newer class of drugs without the motor side effects of the older Thorazine.Zyprexa has been linked to causing diabetes and pancreatitis.

Did you know that Lilly made nearly $3 billion last year on diabetic meds, Actos,Humulin and Byetta?

Yes! They sell a drug that can cause diabetes and then turn a profit on the drugs that treat the condition that they may have caused in the first place!

I was prescribed Zyprexa from 1996 until 2000.
In early 2000 i was shocked to have an A1C test result of 13.9 (normal is 4-6) I have no history of diabetes in my family.
----
Daniel Haszard http://www.zyprexa-victims.com

[George]

What's the beef? Seems like a perfect bottom-line business strategy that any MBA would be proud to call his own.

And before you get all "you evil capitalist you" with *me*, allow me to remind that it's not like this drug causes diabetes the same way AZT causes AIDS.

According to the FDA that approved it, diabetes is a small and acceptable risk in this marvelously ineffective at treating neuron-based conditions chemical, which is nonetheless better as a put you on the moon drug than thorazine.

And since it has this small liability. is it anything but 100% ethical and correct, and is it not indeed their very duty as makers of the nation's best selling drugs to make another 'green', prescription-only pill and simultaneously treat the dreaded diabetes (they *might* have caused) and of course add a little to the sacred bottom-line?

I for one think not. Otherwise it wouldn't be America.

[Lise]

George, I admire your rational insight unclouded by short sighted sentiment.

Where would America, and with it the rest of the free, democratic world, be if the drug companies were not allowed to make money? What would be the incentive for developing new and better drugs, if they were not allowed to sell with profit the best available to date? Perhaps what's on offer now is not perfect, but what's the alternative? Should we just let them go bankrupt, effectively putting a stop to a lot important research in the future

Very true, the pharmaceuticals may not wear halos. Very true they, like any free enterprise, operate with strategies that'll allow them to maximize their profits within the restraints imposed on them by our great democracy. But that doesn't mean they'd poison us on purpose, even if they were free to do so. In the end they are people with families that can get sick just like the rest of us. Why wouldn't they want all us to be free of the fear of disease?
What we need to understand is that this is a process of trial and error, and in order to keep the wheels of progress turning we must all make certain sacrifices.

[George]

Lise,

I am very pleased to discover that you are, afterall, a right-thinking American and not some anti-pharma nutjob like the Groucho who runs this blog.

[HankBarnes]

Welcome Lise!

I'm not some communist, anti-corporate, anti-pharma, tree-huggin' wuss!

I just think Big Pharma has extended well beyond its natural reach. See, Marcia Angell book on the drug companies.

George,

Say, who was the least funny Marx, Zeppo or Gummo?:)

Hank

[HankBarnes]

Welcome Danny Haszard!

Fascinating story -- good luck pushing those bastards at Eli Lily.

Hank