Tag Archives: prescription drugs

Drugs, Efficacy, & Safety

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Pharmaceuticals: A market for producing ‘lemons’ and serious harm, analysis finds

Date:
August 17, 2010
Source:
American Sociological Association

The pharmaceutical industry is a “market for lemons,” a market in which the seller knows much more than the buyer about the product and can profit from selling products less effective and less safe than consumers are led to believe, according to an analysis that will be presented at the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.

“Sometimes drug companies hide or downplay information about serious side effects of new drugs and overstate the drugs’ benefits,” said Donald Light, the sociologist who authored the study and who is a professor of comparative health policy at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. “Then, they spend two to three times more on marketing than on research to persuade doctors to prescribe these new drugs. Doctors may get misleading information and then misinform patients about the risks of a new drug. It’s really a two-tier market for lemons.”

Three reasons why the pharmaceutical market produces “lemons” are: Having companies in charge of testing new drugs, providing firewalls of legal protection behind which information about harms or effectiveness can be hidden, and the relatively low bar set for drug efficacy in order for a new drug to be approved, Light said.

According to his study, independent reviewers found that about 85 percent of new drugs offer few if any new benefits. Yet, toxic side effects or misuse of prescription drugs now make prescription drugs a significant cause of death in the United States.

Light’s paper, “Pharmaceuticals: A Two-Tier Market for Producing ‘Lemons’ and Serious Harm,” is an institutional analysis of the pharmaceutical industry and how it works based on a range of independent sources and studies, including the Canadian Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, the Food and Drug Administration, and Prescrire International.

The foundation for the paper is the work Light did for a forthcoming book he edited, titled ‘The Risk of Prescription Drugs,” which is scheduled for publication this fall by Columbia University Press.

In both his paper and his book, Light describes the “Risk Proliferation Syndrome” that is maximizing the number of patients exposed to new drugs that have relatively low efficacy and effectiveness but have greater risk of adverse side effects. Building on clinical trials designed to minimize evidence of harm and published literature that emphasizes a drug’s advantages, companies launch massive campaigns to sell it, when a controlled, limited launch would allow evidence to be gathered about the drug’s effects. Companies recruit leading clinicians to try using the drug for conditions other than those for which it is approved and to promote such off-label or unapproved uses. Physicians inadvertently become “double agents” — promoters of the new drug, yet trusted stewards of patients’ well-being, said Light. When patients complain of adverse reactions, studies show their doctors are likely to discount or dismiss them, according to Light.

Despite the extensive requirements for testing the efficacy and safety of each new drug, companies “swamp the regulator” with large numbers of incomplete, partial, substandard clinical trials, Light said. For example, in one study of 111 final applications for approval, 42% lacked adequately randomized trials, 40% had flawed testing of dosages, 39% lacked evidence of clinical efficacy, and 49% raised concerns about serious adverse side effects, said Light.

“Just recently, major reports have come out about biased, poor trials for Avandia and Avastin,” Light said, who noted that orphan drugs are tested even less well.

“The result is that drugs get approved without anyone being able to know how effective they really are or how much serious harm they will cause,” Light said. The companies control the making of scientific knowledge and then control which findings will go to the FDA or be published.

“A few basic changes could improve the quality of trials and evidence about the real risks and benefits of new drugs,” Light said. “We could also increase the percentage of new drugs that are really better for patients.”

The paper, “Pharmaceuticals: A Two-Tier Market for Producing ‘Lemons’ and Serious Harm,” was presented on Aug. 17 in Atlanta at the American Sociological Association’s 105th Annual Meeting.

Story Source:

Materials provided by American Sociological Association. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

from:    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817111825.htm

American Sociological Association. “Pharmaceuticals: A market for producing ‘lemons’ and serious harm, analysis finds.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 17 August 2010. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817111825.htm>.

Drugs – Safety, Profitability, etc.

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Serious Risks And Few New Benefits From FDA-Approved Drugs

July 6, 2015 10.1377/hblog20150706.049097

Over the past year, the U.S. Senate and The New York Times have been investigating the failure of the nation’s auto safety regulators to protect citizens from cars with occasionally dangerous faulty devices.

But neither august institution has paid attention to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) failure to protect the 170 million Americans who take prescription drugs from adverse reactions that are killing more than 2,400 people every week. Annually, prescription drugs cause over 81 million adverse reactions and result in 2.7 million hospitalizations.

This epidemic of harm from medications makes our prescription drugs the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. Including hospitalizations and deaths from prescribing errors, overdosing, and self-medication, drugs move up to third place.

Below I describe the biases that appear throughout the drug development process, from initial research to FDA review and approval. I conclude with recommendations that would reduce drug development costs and ensure that drugs are only approved if they are safe and significantly more effective than already existing medications.

A Me-Too Business Model

Every drug has risks, so any drug considered for FDA approval should demonstrate clinical advantages that justify those risks. Yet public, independent advisory teams of physicians and pharmacists in several countries found over 90 percent of new drugs approved by the FDA and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) offer few or no advantages over existing drugs to offset their risks of serious harm.

Figure 1 shows the scorecard for 979 newly approved drugs over a 10-year span, based on detailed assessment of clinical benefits and risks by Prescrire, one of the world’s most distinguished, independent review bodies of physicians and pharmacists. (The exhibit focuses on France, a country whose consumer-oriented drug market features an array of products similar to the U.S.)

Figure 1. Few Clinical Advances in a Decade and Hundreds of Other Drugs Approved for Promotion

Light-Figure 1

Only two were breakthrough advances and fewer than 10 percent offered substantial clinical advantages over existing drugs. Yet approved drugs have a 20 percent risk of producing enough harm for regulators to add a serious warning or have them withdrawn.

Flooding the market with hundreds of minor variations on existing drugs and technically innovative but clinically inconsequential new drugs, appears to be the de facto hidden business model of drug companies. In spite of its primary charge to protect the public, the FDA criteria for approval encourage that business model. The main products of pharmaceutical research are scores of clinically minor drugs that win patent protection for high prices, with only a few clinically important advances like Sovaldi or Gleevec.

This business model works. Despite producing drugs with few clinical advantages and significant health risks, industry sales and profits have grown substantially, at public expense. Companies spend 2-3 times less on research than on marketing to convince physicians to prescribe these minor variations.

Industry figures show the public pays companies about six times R&D costs through high prices on drugs. According to a study by Consumer Reports, high costs to patients lead them to postpone visits to physicians, avoid medical tests, and be able unable to afford other, effective drugs. For society as a whole, a leading health economist found that 80 percent of all new expenditures for drugs was spent on the minor variations, not the major advances.

Institutional Corruption

These startling results reflect studies from the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, where research fellows have investigated “institutional corruption” in the pharmaceutical industry. “Institutional corruption” refers to systemic, legal ways that social institutions such as medical science, the medical profession, and the FDA become compromised by corporate and special-interest funding and influence.

Peer-reviewed studies already demonstrate how pharmaceutical companies manipulate FDA rules to generate evidence that their new drugs are more effective and less harmful than unbiased studies would show. The industry then recruits teams of medical writers, editors, and statisticians to select and repackage trial results into peer-reviewed articles that become accepted as reliable medical knowledge.

Based on his investigations, Marc Rodwin concludes, “Scholarly studies have revealed that drug firms design trials that skew the results and that they distort the evidence by selective reporting or biased interpretation.” This distorted evidence goes into clinical guidelines that become, Lisa Cosgrove and Emily Wheeler note, “essentially marketing tools for drug companies.”

Often Neither Safe Nor Effective

The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER – pronounced “C-DER”) is the FDA division responsible for determining whether new drugs should be approved. Its funding, however, now largely comes not from taxpayers but from the companies submitting their drugs to CDER for review.

This clear conflict of interest and approving so many new drugs with few clinical benefits serve corporate interests more than public interests, especially given the large risks of serious harm. Direct and indirect costs to society far exceed the cost of funding the FDA as a public, independent review body.

New FDA policies to get more drugs reviewed faster so that they can reach patients sooner result ironically in even more drugs being approved with less evidence that they are either safer or more effective. Faster reviews mean the chance that a drug will generate an FDA warning of serious harm jumps from one in five to one in three.

A systematic study of shortened reviews found that each 10-month reduction in review time produced an 18 percent increase of serious adverse reactions, an 11 percent increase of drug-related hospitalizations, and a 7.2 percent increase of drug-related deaths. Only 72 out of 1,300 CDER staff are charged with investigating drug safety, hard evidence that drug safety is a low priority at the FDA.

A recent review of FDA policies in Health Affairs describes how the FDA creates initiatives that ostensibly demonstrate its concern for safety from faster approvals. But the authors then describe how these initiatives frequently fail or backfire. They report no evidence of reduced harm or improved benefit to patients receiving these expedited drugs.

People imagine the FDA has stringent standards that take months or sometimes years for companies to meet. To a degree, that’s true. But the external independent evidence cited here of few new benefits and substantial risks of harm, calls into question what all this costly, lengthy review process is about.

An anthropologist might conclude it’s an elaborate ritual to make the FDA look like a tough watchdog against unsafe and ineffective drugs while it’s an industry-funded lapdog. Consider the easy ride that the FDA gives cancer drugs, requiring little evidence of improved patient outcomes.

For example, approving that new drugs are better than placebo is a low standard when other effective drugs already exist. Placebo trials are also unethical in these situations because they deny subjects in the control arm the use of an effective drug.

Another FDA standard, to prove that approved drugs are “non-inferior,” or not too much worse than an existing drug, does not allow patients to know if the new drug is better than the one they are taking. Using substitute measures for real benefits to patients makes approved drugs look more effective than they are. Allowing randomized trials to be drawn from biased populations that exclude many people who are likely to take the drug and experience an adverse reaction makes new drugs appear safer than they are.

Why does the FDA allow paymasters to design such trials?

Failure To Warn

The FDA is charged with providing physicians and the public with objective, scientific evidence showing that new drugs are safe and effective. Conveniently for drug companies, it carries out this responsibility narrowly by focusing on the label and not on alerting physicians or the public about biased evidence from those trials in leading medical journals that go into guidelines.

The FDA could alert the profession and public about how end points and other details get switched by industry ghost-writing teams, about unpublished negative results, and about positive results published twice; but it does not. Ghost writing and the ghost management of medical knowledge thrive.

To protect the public from unsafe and ineffective drugs and earn public trust, the FDA and Congress must acknowledge the biases described here that result from pharmaceutical corporations financing the public regulator. They should also require two changes: that new drugs demonstrate patient-based clinical advantages through comparative trials, and that these trials be based on the population that will actually take a drug.

These changes would reduce the flood of minor variations shown in Exhibit 1 and the subsequent billions spent on them.

from:    https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20150706.049097/full/

Health Myths

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The Top 15 Lies You’re Being Told About Health and Mainstream Medicine

 

Valued sources of information are hijacked by much bigger interests than you can imagine

The Top 15 Lies You're Being Told About Health and Mainstream Medicine

Do you ever question what doctors, nutritionists, institutions and even science tells you about your health, food, environment and lifestyle? You should, because we live in an era of deception and duplicity where the most trusted and valued sources of information are hijacked by much bigger interests than you can imagine. The internet is one of the last frontiers for truth, informing and educating billions on why our systems of health, agriculture, medicine and many other areas we depend on are failing us. The reason they’re failing us is because corrupt governments, corporations and the media are constantly feeding us lies on a daily basis, which through repetition, the public eventually accepts as truth.

LIE #1. GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS (GMOs) CAN FEED THE WORLD
A lot of food that we eat today contains genetically modified ingredients and usually without our knowledge. Supporters of this technology maintain that it ensures and sustains food security around the world as the population increases. As well as scientific debates on the merits of genetically engineered food, there are equally, if not more important, debates on the socioeconomic ramifications of the way such science is marketed and used.

The dangers of GMO foods can no longer be denied. Researchers havelinked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto’s GM maize.

Biotechnology companies erroneously claim that their manipulations are similar to natural genetic changes or traditional breeding techniques. However, the cross-species transfers being made, such as between fish and tomatoes, or between other unrelated species, would not happen in nature and may create new toxins, diseases, and weaknesses. When genetic engineers insert a new gene into any organism there are “position effects” which can lead to unpredictable changes in the pattern of gene expression and genetic function. The protein product of the inserted gene may carry out unexpected reactions and produce potentially toxic products. There is also serious concern about the dangers of using genetically engineered viruses as delivery vehicles (vectors) in the generation of transgenic plants and animals. This could destabilise the genome, and also possibly create new viruses, and thus dangerous new diseases.

Unlike chemical or nuclear contamination, genetic pollution is self-perpetuating. It can never be reversed or cleaned up; genetic mistakes will be passed on to all future generations of a species.

LIE #2. ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS AND WIRELESS RADIATION ARE NOT HARMFUL TO HUMANS

The danger of magnetic, electric, wireless, radio (microwave), ground current, and high frequency radiation is that it is mostly invisible until great damage is done – like the increased risk of some brain tumors in long term cell phone users.

Sensitivity to electromagnetic radiation is a very big health problem of our youngest generations. The media and medical community dismiss it, but it is imperative health practitioners, governments, schools and our entire society learn more about the risks because the human health stakes are significant.

Studies suggest that women briefly exposed to very high-intensity EMFs have an increased risk of miscarriage, especially EMFs emitted by power lines and electrical appliances.

A growing percentage of people are now heeding the advice of holistic health experts and disposing of their microwaves due to the dangers of microwaved food.

The effect of EMFs on biological tissue remains controversial. Virtually all scientists agree that more research is necessary to determine safe or dangerous levels. It’s like one big human experiment which we won’t know the results of for several decades. Now, with the increasing proliferation of wireless handheld and portable devices, it is literally impossible to escape EMFs in any major city.

What they do know is that iron, which is necessary for healthy blood and is stored in the brain, is highly affected by EMFs. The permeability of the cell membranes of nerves, blood vessels, skin and other organs is also affected, as well as the intricate DNA of the chromosomes. Every bodily biochemical process involves precisely choreographed movement of EMF sensitive atoms, molecules, and ions.

Not only do EMFs impact your own health and that of your children and pets, but also the Earth as a whole, as our overuse of electricity contributes greatly to pollution from coal-fired electricity plants. Those who are wise will heed the warnings of the electrically sensitive and reduce the EMF radiation in their homes through good design and reduction of dependence on electric appliances.

LIE #3. MEDICAL SCREENING AND TREATMENTS PREVENT DEATH

Even though the medical community advocates for regular screenings for those with illnesses, they may bring little benefit and may actually pose harm to your health. This applies to almost every type of medical screening for cancer and several other diseases. Medical screening carries an immense risk in itself, not only due to the damage inflicted by screening techniques on the human body, but by the very nature of medical follow-up protocols. These protocols usually encourage patients to enter deeper into more invasive techniques, which further cripple health and lead to a very high percentage of fatalities.

Doctors are often criticized for prescribing unneeded tests and procedures that harm more than they help and add to medical costs that could otherwise be avoided. 12 medical tests and procedures now being questioned worldwide as unnecessary and potentially cause — sometimes harmful results to patients.

Radiation-induced cancers have tripled in the last two decades and diagnostic imaging has been already been admitted as a cause by the U.S. government.


There is a secular trend between breast cancer mortality and screening programs specifically medial diagnostic techniques such asmammography. In a Swedish study of 60,000 women, 70 percent of the mammographically detected tumors weren’t tumors at all. These “false positives” aren’t just financial and emotional strains, they may also lead to many unnecessary and invasive biopsies. In fact, 70 to 80 percent of all positive mammograms do not, upon biopsy, show any presence of cancer.

A prostate (PSA) blood test looks for prostate-specific antigen, a protein produced by the prostate gland. High levels are supposedly associated with prostate cancer. The problem is that the association isn’t always correct, and when it is, the prostate cancer isn’t necessarily deadly. Only about 3 percent of all men die from prostate cancer. The PSA test usually leads to overdiagnosis — biopsies and treatment in which the side effects are impotence and incontinence. Repeated biopsies may spread cancer cells into the track formed by the needle, or by spilling cancerous cells directly into the bloodstream or lympathic system.

News coverage of many diseases focus too much on treatments and not enough on prevention, a trend that could prove risky in the long run for most people who don’t understand how to take care of their health.

LIE #4. FLUORIDE PREVENTS TOOTH DECAY

A growing number of communities are choosing to stop adding fluoride to their water systems, even though the federal government and federal health officials maintain their full support for a measure they say provides a 25 percent reduction in tooth decay nationwide.

There are now serious facts and health risks regarding fluoridation which can no longer be ignored and the practice itself is being questioned by most of the world.

Austrian researchers proved in the 1970s that as little as 1 ppm fluoride concentration can disrupt DNA repair enzymes by 50%. When DNA can’t repair damaged cells, we get old fast.

Fluoride prematurely ages the body, mainly by distortion of enzyme shape. All systems of the body are dependent upon enzymes. When fluoride changes the enzymes, this can damage every system and function of the body.

Dr. Paul Connett, PhD stated “When historians come to write about this period, they will single out fluoridation as the single biggest mistake in public policy that we’ve ever had.”

David Kennedy, DDS President International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology said that “water fluoridation is the single largest case of scientific fraud, promoted by the government, supported by taxpayer dollars, aided and abetted by the ADA and the AMA, in the history of the planet.”

LIE #5. FOCUS ON LOWERING BAD CHOLESTEROL TO PREVENT HEART DISEASE

Perhaps one of the biggest health myths propagated in western culture and certainly in the United States, is the misuse of an invented term “bad cholesterol” by the media and medical community. Moreover, a scientifically-naive public has been conned into a fraudulent correlation between elevated cholesterol and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Cholesterol has not been shown to actually cause CVD. To the contrary, cholesterol is vital to our survival, and trying to artificially lower it can have detrimental effects, particularly as we age.

We have become a culture so obsessed with eating foods low in cholesterol and fat that many health experts are now questioning the consequences. Could we really maintain a dietary lifestyle that was so foreign to many of our ancestral populations without any ill effects on our health? Many researchers are now concluding that the answer to that question is “NO.” Current data is now suggesting that lower cholesterol levels predate the development of cancer. Scientific papers prove that people with high so-called “Bad” LDL cholesterol live the longest.
The ‘noddy-science’ offered by marketing men to a generally scientifically-naive public has led many people to believe that we should replace certain food choices with specially developed products that can help ‘reduce cholesterol’. Naturally this comes at a price and requires those who can afford it to pay maybe four or five times what a ‘typical ordinary’ product might cost. But is this apparent ‘blanket need’ to strive towards lowering our cholesterol justified? And, indeed, is it healthy?

The cholesterol itself, whether being transported by LDL or HDL, is exactly the same. Cholesterol is simply a necessary ingredient that is required to be regularly delivered around the body for the efficient healthy development, maintenance and functioning of our cells. The difference is in the ‘transporters’ (the lipoproteins HDL and LDL) and both types are essential for the human body’s delivery logistics to work effectively.

Problems can occur, however, when the LDL particles are both small and their carrying capacity outweighs the transportation potential of available HDL. This can lead to more cholesterol being ‘delivered’ around the body with lower resources for returning excess capacity to the liver.

We need to reform education on what really causes heart disease and why cholesterol, whether high or low, is not an evil process in the body, but a natural part of our biology. When we stop listening to medical doctors, suddenly we start listening to what our bodies crave… to be the healthiest version of ourselves.

LIE #6. SUNLIGHT IS HARMFUL AND SUNSCREEN IS YOUR BEST DEFENSE

Sunscreen is full of some of the most toxic chemicals known. Yet both the cancer and sunscreen industries insist on their use to ironically prevent cancer from “bad” sunlight. People still fall for this nonsense, slather on the sunscreen in hopes to protect against a non-existent foe. If the sun was really that harmful, we’d all be dead long ago. Meanwhile, a growing body of evidence shows that blocking the sun’s rays from reaching our skin dramatically influences our optimal vitamin D levels, leading to higher mortality, critical illness, mental health disorders and ironically, cancer itself. Here’s why you need to make your own sunscreen.

There are well over 800 references in the medical literature showing vitamin D’s effectiveness–both for the prevention and treatment of cancer.

Blocking the sun’s rays from reaching our skin dramatically influences our optimal vitamin D levels, leading to higher mortality, critical illness and mental health disorders. Ironically, sunscreen itself causes cancer.

Exposure to sunlight and ultraviolet light has been repeatedly shown to NOT be the cause of skin cancer. Scientists from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported UVA exposure is unlikely to have contributed to the rise in the incidence of melanoma over the past 30 years.

The idea that sunscreen prevents cancer is also a myth promoted by pharmaceutical companies, conventional medicine and the mainstream media for one purpose…profit. The sunscreen industry makes money by selling lotion products that actually contain cancer-causing chemicals. It then donates a portion of that money to the cancer industry through non-profit groups like Cancer Societies which, in turn, run heart-breaking public service ads urging people to use sunscreen to “prevent cancer.”

LIE #7. VACCINES PREVENT DISEASE AND INCREASE IMMUNITY

The term “immunization”, often substituted for vaccination, is false and should be legally challenged. Medical research has well established that the direct injection of foreign proteins and other toxic material (particularly known immune-sensitising poisons such as mercury) makes the recipient more, not less, easily affected by what he/she encounters in the future. This means they do the opposite of immunize, commonly even preventing immunity from developing after natural exposure. There are 5 phases of awakening to the dangers of vaccination and many lie in different phases.

The actual frequency of health problems has been estimated by authorities to be possibly up to 100 times, or more, greater than that reported by government agencies. That difference is due to the lack of enforcement or incentive for doctors to report adverse effects. With the anti-vaccination movements now exposing the truth on the internet, the medical community is now on high alert, defending their claims and being told by vaccine manufacturers that they must never let their patients (or parents) think that the risks could outweigh the benefits, when in reality, it is precisely the opposite that is true.

Convincing evidence is finally coming forward from peer reviewed studies which show that the rapid increase in the number of vaccines given to children is creating synergistic toxicity and a state of immune overload in the majority of vaccine recipients manifesting in related health issues including epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and autism.

The benefit risk ratio is an important decision in anyone deciding whether to vaccinate or not. Contrary to popular belief and marketing, childhood diseases in a developed country are not as dangerous as we are led to believe. Catching a particular disease does not mean you will die from it. Vaccines were actually introduced at a time when diseases had already declined to a low risk level. This fact is proven, scientifically.

The main advances in combating disease over the last 200 years have been better food and clean drinking water…not vaccines. Improved sanitation, less overcrowded and better living conditions also contribute. This is also borne out in published peer reviewed research which prove that vaccine did not save us. The is irrefutable evidence which shows that the historical application of vaccines had no health benefit or impact on prevention of infectious disease.

All vaccines contain sterility agents, neurotoxins, immunotoxins, and carcinogenic compounds. Some examples include formaldehyde, a carcinogen found in almost every vaccine, neurotoxins such asmonosodium glutamate, potassium chloride, thimerosal, sterility agents such as Triton X-100, octoxynol-10, polysorbate 80, and immuntoxins such as neomycin, monobasic potassium phosphate,sodium deoxycholate to name a few of many.

It is no coincidence that the more educated you are, the less chance you will vaccinate which contradicts the misconceptions of many health professionals who profess that parents don’t vaccinate because they are under-educated, poor or misinformed. Those who become fully informed of the dangers of vaccines never see them in the same light again, as their motives then become clear.

LIE #8. CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE AND THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM HELPS SICK PEOPLE

Perhaps the biggest health myth today is the public’s misconception that mainstream medicine and the healthcare system helps sick people. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Why do people follow medical authorities who prescribe toxic vaccinations, medications and treatments which only serve as a detriment to human health?

The freedom of people to choose natural healing, alternative medicine and methods of disease prevention could soon be threatened by corporate lobbyists who will do anything to protect their wealth at the expense of your health.

90 percent of all diseases (cancer, diabetes, depression, heart disease, etc.) are easily preventable through diet, nutrition, sunlight and exercise. None of these solutions are ever promoted by conventional medicine because they make no money.

No pharmaceuticals actually cure or resolve the underlying causes of disease. Even “successful” drugs only manage symptoms, usually at the cost of interfering with other physiological functions that will cause side effects down the road. There is no such thing as a drug without a side effect.

There is no financial incentive for anyone in today’s system of medicine (drug companies, hospitals, doctors, etc.) to actually make patients well. Profits are found in continued sickness, not wellness or prevention.

The main error of the biomedical approach is the confusion between disease processes and disease origins. Instead of asking why an illness occurs, and trying to remove the conditions that lead to it, medical researchers try to understand the biological mechanisms through which the disease operates, so that they can interfere with them. These mechanisms, rather than the true origins, are seen as the causes of disease in current medical thinking and this confusion lies at the very centre of the conceptual problems of contemporary medicine.

Almost all the “prevention” programs you see today (such as free mammograms or other screening programs) are nothing more than patient recruitment schemes designed to increase revenue and sickness. They use free screenings to scare people into agreeing to unnecessary treatments that only lead to further disease.

Nobody has any interest in your health except you. No corporation, no doctor, and no government has any desire to actually make you well. This has served the short-term financial interests of higher powers in the west very well. The only healthy, aware, critically thinking individuals are all 100% free of pharmaceuticals and processed foods.

LIE #9. THERE ARE ACCEPTABLE LEVELS OF CHEMICALS

The levels are “acceptable” by industry and regulatory standards, but our exposure to other “acceptable levels” of toxic chemicals that then interact with each other and dance with our cells within our bodies is never taken into consideration.

We have over 200 synthetic chemicals in our bodies right now. Our exposure to toxins is that pervasive. Most of us do not detect their presence every moment of every day, but we have to wonder–how are they affecting us? What does this mean for future generations? This is all ignored by all industries.

Chemicals account for an annual $3.7 trillion in sales across the globe–the United States makes up almost 19 percent. Many jobs rely on this industry, yet 85 percent of the chemicals in commerce today have not been tested. How are the products containing those chemicals impacting our health? What’s the impact on those who work or live near the chemical plants?

Is it really that hard for most people to believe that we are being assaulted on a daily basis by chemical terrorism? Genetically modified foods, artificial flavours, colors, preservatives, emulsifiers, and sweeteners all made with toxic chemicals, all of which are proven toxic to human health.

Artificial sweeteners, preservatives, nitrates, artificial colors, MSG…if it’s processed, chances are it contains one or more of these ingredients. Sodium benzoate and potassium benzoate are preservatives that are sometimes added to sodas to prevent mold growth, but benzene is a known carcinogen. Butylated Hydroxynaisole (BHA) is another preservative that’s potentially cancer-causing. Reading labels is an easy solution–if you don’t recognize an ingredient, don’t buy the food product.

There are no acceptable levels of any chemicals that belong in our foods and it’s time we get the chemical industry out of our foods.

LIE #10. DISEASE CAN’T BE REVERSED WITHOUT DRUGS

Many combinations of natural products are as effective as man-made drugs, but without the side effects when acting against specific diseases. For empirical evidence, look no further than the indigenous tribes and cultures which still use many formulations pre-dating the historical record and with great success. A comprehensive study and first of its kind published in PLoS One assessed 124 natural product combinations and found that in the right combinations, they can match drug level potency.

Plants are better than drugs on many levels. Specific herbs, fruits and vegetables have been found on many instances to work better than medication for specific diseases. For example, Soursop Fruit has been found to kill cancer up to 10,000 times more effectively than strong chemotherapy. Consuming apples daily has been found in some studies to be more effective than statin medications at reducing heart disease.Cranberry juice, garlic and turmeric are just three of dozens of other foods which beat drugs in treating and preventing disease.

There are herbs that boost and heal the lungs, others which increaseenergy and vitality, many that stabilize the thyroid and even lower blood pressure.

** The 7 Most Prescribed Drugs In The World And Their Natural Counterparts **

Despite the medical model which relies on pharmaceutical intervention for every known illness, there are well over one hundred common diseases that can be reversed naturally. That’s the difference between treatment for profit and healing for wellness. Arthritis (both rheumatoid and osteo) diabetes (both Type I and Type II), hypertension and cancer are all reversible with proper herbal strategies, nutrition and exercise.

LIE #11. THE BEST WAY TO TREAT CANCER IS WITH CHEMOTHERAPY AND RADIATION

Doctors and pharmaceutical companies make money from it. That’s the only reason chemotherapy is still used. Not because it’s effective, decreases morbidity, mortality or diminishes any specific cancer rates. In fact, it does the opposite. Chemotherapy boosts cancer growth and long-term mortality rates. Most chemotherapy patients either die or are plagued with illness within 10-15 years after treatment. It destroys their immune system, increases neuro-cognitive decline, disrupts endocrine functioning and causes organ and metabolic toxicities. Patients basically live in a permanent state of disease until their death. The cancer industry marginalizes safe and effective cures while promoting their patented, expensive, and toxic remedies whose risks far exceed any benefit. This is what they do best, and they do it because it makes money, plain and simple.

The reason a 5-year relative survival rate is the standard used to assess mortality rates is due to most cancer patients going downhill after this period. It’s exceptionally bad for business and the cancer industry knows it. They could never show the public the true 97% statistical failure rate in treating long-term metastatic cancers. If they did publish the long-term statistics for all cancers administered cytotoxic chemotherapy, that is 10+ years and produced the objective data on rigorous evaluations including the cost-effectiveness, impact on the immune system, quality of life, morbidity and mortality, it would be very clear to the world that chemotherapy makes little to no contribution to cancer survival at all. No such study has ever been conducted by independent investigators in the history of chemotherapy. The only studies available come from industry funded institutions and scientists and none of them have ever inclusively quantified the above variables.

LIE #12. SCIENCE IS REPUTABLE AND HONEST

The pursuit of truth in modern scientific query is marred by greed, profit and only a concept of truth built on the assumption of an unexamined good. While pharmaceutical drug approvals, genetically modified foods and various other controversial technologies may appear to be based on “science”, corporate interests and profits often interfere with the true meaning of what science represents to both academics and the public.

The primary methodology of science is to prise apart reality into its component parts in order to better understand how the whole functions. Cartesian logic began with the separation of mind and matter and the scientific method depends upon the separation of the observer from the observed. The absolute separation between mind and matter has now been shown to be entirely fictitious the importance of objectivity within the scientific method remains undiminished.

There is little real science to be found in the common practice of mainstream medicine. Rather, what passes for “science” today is a collection of myths, half-truths, dishonest data, fraudulent reporting and inappropriate correlations passed off as causation. Correlational studies can NOT prove causation, yet the end result of most scientific studies in mainstream medicine make a causal claim without any proof and then pass those suggestions to the public to sell the medical model to the public.

Advertisers and product manufacturers have certainly used this inherent cognitive bias towards trusting “scientific facts” in order to market products which they claim have a scientific basis in their effectiveness. The same is of course true within ideologies and politics. While many choose to focus on the large scandals such as the drug research fraud, countless fraudulent scientific claims are made every day in advertising, often with no repercussions.

LIE #13. THERE ARE SAFE DOSES OF CHEMICALS IN MEDICATIONS

Ask any scientist in the field of health and safety and they will tell you that toxicity is all about the dose. Not really. While you can die from anything taken in excess, even water, you can also run into serious fatal complications from any poison at any dose if you take it long enough. There is no safe dose of a poison because the body recognizes even the smallest dose and immediately creates inflammatory cascades and immune responses to combat these foreign entities. Toxic chemicals are now invading every facet of our lives from our schools to our workplaces. They are gradually deteriorating every single system in our bodies and causing so many diseases, that it’s now difficult to isolate exactly which chemicals are causing each disease.

The chemical testing we currently do to establish if a chemical is safe may not be sufficient. In particular, we may not be targeting nor understanding the effects of extremely low levels of chemical contaminants during critical phases when the organism is “listening” for chemical messengers. This occurs, for example, during fetal development and during changes that occur in puberty. The first question we need to be asking is: does this chemical mimic any of the messenger chemicals that organisms depend upon for survival?

What most of these chemical management companies, their regulatory agencies and scientists do not apprecite, is what a delicately balanced organism we are especially at the molecular level. At this level, chemicals act more like a handshake than like that third pint of beer.

LIE #14. PEOPLE ARE HEALTHIER TODAY THAN IN PREVIOUS GENERATIONS
Life expectancy at birth rose by a few years for both men and women in the last two decades of the 20th century. This has come at an enormous cost in the quality of life of our elders, for they are suffering with more pain and greater disability than ever before in last 15 years of life. People globally are living longer but chronic debilitating conditions are becoming more prevalent.

A recent Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 involved 486 authors in 50 countries who aimed to offer a comprehensive update on diseases and injuries since the last such report in 1990. It found the leading risk factor accounting for the disease burden in most developed nations is diet.

Perhaps most worrisome is the medicalization of childhood which is leading us to illness if adulthood. If children cough after exercising, they have asthma; if they have trouble reading, they are dyslexic; if they are unhappy, they are depressed; and if they alternate between unhappiness and liveliness, they have bipolar disorder. While these diagnoses may benefit the few with severe symptoms, one has to wonder about the effect on the many whose symptoms are mild, intermittent or transient.

Each successive generation is sicker and more diseased than its predecessor. Autism, learning disabilities, ADHD, asthma, diabetes and many other diseases continue to skyrocket. No government agency has ever done, or will ever do anything about it except continue to compile statistics.
LIE #15. THERAPEUTIC PLANTS ARE DANGEROUS DRUGS

The reason cannabis is so effective medicinally is directly related to its ability to interact with receptors in the body which inhibit inflammation and prevent disease. Cannabis does this so well, that few drugs can compete with its level of potency which come essentially with no side effects. Consquently cannabis is labeled a threat to mainstream medicine.

The question is no longer which disease cannabis can cure, but which disease can’t it cure? A study published in Nature Reviews-Cancerprovides an historic and detailed explanation about how THC and natural cannabinoids counteract cancer, but preserve normal cells.

It’s no surprise that the United States has decreed that marijuana has no accepted medical use use and should remain classified as a highly dangerous drug like heroin. Accepting and promoting the powerful health benefits of marijuana would instantly cut huge profits geared towards cancer treatment and the U.S. would have to admit it imprisons the population for no cause. Nearly half of all drug arrests in the United States are for marijuana.

According to MarijuanaNews.com editor Richard Cowan, the answer is because it is a threat to cannabis prohibition “…there really is massive proof that the suppression of medical cannabis represents the greatest failure of the institutions of a free society, medicine, journalism, science, and our fundamental values,” Cowan notes.

Many researchers have noted that there was “inadequate” data for decades to determine whether smoked marijuana was safe or effective in treating symptoms of pain and preventing disese. The primary reason for the s lack of data had to do with the National Institute on Drug Abuse, or NIDA, which was the only source of cannabis for research and they were blocking the most meaningful studies due to close ties with pharmaceutical companies.

This view was supported by Dr. David Bearman, the executive vice president for the Academy of Cannabinoid Medicine/Society of Cannabis Clinicians. “Part of the problem in the United States is that the NIDA has blocked almost all meaningful studies on cannabis,” Bearman said. Bearman argues that while synthetic cannabis pills do offer pain relief, marijuana is cheaper, has fewer side effects and can be more effective.

Now decades of propaganda is being reversed as scientists and the public are being exposed to the true potential of cannabis and its ability to both heal and prevent disease.

Marco Torres is a research specialist, writer and consumer advocate for healthy lifestyles. He holds degrees in Public Health and Environmental Science and is a professional speaker on topics such as disease prevention, environmental toxins and health policy. 

from:    http://www.newrealities.com/index.php/articles-on-health/item/3379-the-top-15-lies-you-re-being-told-about-health-and-mainstream-medicine

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Pharmacy Exposed: The Most Dangerous and Over-Prescribed Medications

Written By:

Rob Kress, RPh

Pharmacy Exposed: The Most Dangerous and Over-Prescribed Medications

As a pharmacist I am very encouraged with the growing sentiment of our culture, that yes, we are in an over-medicated society, and medications are often unnecessarily prescribed and don’t come without consequences.

 “The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”

-Albert Einstein

I like to believe that we are heading towards the different levels of thinking to avoid what I believe is the next great issue of our time – being poisoned by pharmaceutical drugs. So let’s begin rethinking some of the pro-pharma practices which are taking us in this direction.

In a previous article I spoke of the 100 year haul of industrialized medicine, and how we need to approach health care from a different perspective. Part of this new approach must be related to shunning the narrow minded symptom management approach of prescription therapy, avoid treating side-effects of medications with more medications, while searching to address the root cause.

I firmly believe that the majority of medications prescribed today could be avoided via diet, lifestyle, mind-body, and natural medicine. This would avoid the side-effects, drug-to-drug interactions, drug induced nutrient depletions, and the financial drain that comes with uncontrolled prescribing of medication therapy.

Where there are thousands of drugs on the market, in the coming posts I am going to focus on what I believe are some of the worst offenders based on how common they are utilized and the problems they can lead to. Of course there are valid indications where drug use is appropriate and needed, although what I will be delving into are the instances of over-used medications in which there are often better options.

Medications can be sneaky, they might not cause a major side-effect now, and instead they whittle away, weaken your body, opening the door to a cascade of health issues.

The first class of drugs I want to speak about is in the family of antacids, Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPI’s.) You will recognize the family of proton pump inhibitors by medications such as Prilosec, Prevacid, Nexium, Protonix, Dexilant and others. These can be found in both over the counter and prescription medications.

Acid reflux and heartburn are very common complaints that lead to countless doctors’ visits, missed days of work, and billions of dollars spent in diagnosis and treatment, much of which could be avoided.

In allopathic medicine the standard answer to treating acid reflux has been to neutralize, reduce, or block the natural hydrochloric acid (HCL) production in the body, and PPI’s are often the first line of treatment.

Proton pump inhibitors inhibit the production and release of hydrochloric acid, thus drastically wiping a needed acidic environment, which plays a critical role in digestive health. This might serve a short term purpose in healing or reducing the irritation of an ulcer, although an acid free environment is not how your digestive tract is designed to operate.

A symptom such as acid reflux is often a sign of a greater problem brewing, and thus by quieting the symptom you could be ignoring a much greater issue, or even creating a new one.

What many people do not realize is that a large portion of people who suffer from heartburn and acid reflux do so due to too little hydrochloric acid (HCL) production and secretion, not too much.  This is contrary to the commercials for the “purple pill”, and what I believe has become one of the biggest deceptions in marketing by mainstream medicine.

Hydrochloric acid production and secretion can be suppressed due to lifestyle, diet, and stress.  This is why the recommendation of taking apple cider vinegar often helps to relive acid reflux since we are adding an acid to the system. Not having enough hydrochloric acid can lead to insufficient digestion of foods, leading to the symptom of heartburn.
We need hydrochloric acid, it serves a great many purposes. Hydrochloric acid acts as a primary defense against food borne pathogens and helps promote a healthy microbial balance. (Good bacteria (probiotics) –vs. – yeasts, bad bacteria, and even parasites).

If we are low on hydrochloric acid production or secretion, we set the stage for infections to take over. This leads to the killing off or overwhelming the good bacteria in the digestive tract since good bacteria has trouble surviving the altered pH of an over-alkalinized environment. This opens the door for bad bacteria, yeasts, and molds to proliferate; thus you can see how long term antacid treatment could be adding insult to injury.

In fact, a recent study was released showing that proton pump inhibitors may increase the chance of Clostridum Difficile Diarrhea (Often referred to as C. Diff or CDAD) by 65%, and that’s when only taken for a few months.

In decreasing the hydrochloric acid, the use of proton pump inhibitors can lead to an inability to digest critical nutrients. Hydrochloric acid helps the body digest, absorb and assimilate proteins and calcium.  Proton pump inhibitors can also directly deplete nutrients including magnesium and vitamin B 12, which has lead researchers to suggest that long term use of PPI’s can influence or predispose someone to osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease.

What are the alternatives?

If you take an acid reducing or neutralizing medication under the direction of your physician, do not stop taking the drug without talking to your physician. Where I do believe there is a very real problem within the over-prescribing of such medications, in many instances they could have a valid indication, and discontinuing them can lead to a host of other problems.

There are a number of natural options for reflux and heartburn, as well as complementary therapies which we could look at for getting rid of bad organisms such as bacteria, viruses, yeast and parasites which don’t belong.  For this conversation I would like to stick with the foundational elements of (1) diet, (2) supporting the digestive process, (3) recolonizing good bacteria, (4) sooth and promote the integrity of the digestive lining, which can all help support common digestive symptoms of gas, indigestion, acid reflux, heartburn, diarrhea and constipation.

There are many dietary issues which can lead to the symptoms of heart burn, although I find that food intolerances and genetically modified foods (GMO’s) are two of the worst offenders for a wide array of digestive disorders. As far as intolerances go, you can have an intolerance or allergy to any food, although dairy and gluten are at the top of my list.

Glyphosate is the herbicide which is used on GMO seeds and it kills organisms such as weeds by disrupting what is known as the shikamate pathway which is present in plants and bacteria. The good bacteria that is in your gut also contains the shikamate pathway, and this is where GMO seeds can be detrimental to your digestive health. I have personally seen, when people incorporate a GMO free, all organic, plant heavy diet, issues of acid reflux can often disappear in just a few weeks.

Reason would suggest supplementing with hydrochloric acid (HCL), which is often a great option, although due to issues such as known or unknown digestive ulcers or even people taking medications such as anti-inflammatories and steroids, I like to consider a more conservative approach first.

In stimulating and supporting the digestive process we are looking at supplements such as digestive enzymes, including amylase, which helps digest sugars, protease to digest proteins, and lipase to help digests fats.

Recolonizing good bacteria through probiotics is imperative, even in a healthy digestive tract where symptoms are not prevalent.  I recommend high quality probiotics which have been tested to ensure that they will stick to the intestinal linings and actually colonize in the digestive tract.

To repair, sooth, and support the integrity there are a number of great natural ingredients including DGL (deglycyrrhizinated licorice), aloe, slippery elm, marshmallow root, and glutamine, to name a few. These ingredients can be found in combination or individual supplements, and as always, choose only high quality supplements from companies with transparency and integrity at their core

from:    http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/pharmacy-exposed-most-dangerous-and-over-prescribed-medications?page=2