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Pharmaceutical Industry Fraud
The corporate defrauding of taxpayers (eg. Medicaid and Medicare) and prescription drugs with skyrocketing prices was the subject of a report by Public Citizen's Dr. Sidney Wolfe and his associates (see citizen.org).
Dr. Wolfe's team compiled a total of 165 federal and state settlements since 1991 totaling $19.8 billion in penalties. A key finding is that the drug industry's penalties under the Federal False Claims Act exceed even those assessed against the overcharging defense industry for fraud.
Before we become overly impressed with the cumulative amount of the penalties, specialists in corporate crime law enforcement believe that adding more federal cops on the corporate crime beat, backed by a determined law and order Justice Department with White House backing, would have greatly increased the number of cases and imposition of penalties on these drug industry giants.
Nonetheless, Dr. Wolfe's study shows that the pace of penalties has picked up over the past five years. This is due to "a combination of increased violations by companies and increased law enforcement on the part of federal and state governments," says the report.
Many of these cases were initiated by company whistleblowers, who under the False Claims Act can receive a share of the settlements. Since the corporate bosses of these drug firms are almost never prosecuted, what these executives fear the most are company employees who go public with the evidence of corporate misdeeds.
These violations do more than financial damage to consumers and government health insurance programs. One of the worst violations involves companies promoting unproven, often dangerous uses for their medicines. Last year, Pfizer paid $1.2 billion for illegal off-label promotion -- the largest criminal fine in U.S.history. Other major corporate violators were GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Schering-Plough, Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca, TAP Pharmaceutical, Merck, Serono, Purdue, Allergan, Novartis, Cephalon, Johnson & Johnson, Forest Laboratories, Sanofi-aventis, Bayer, Mylan, Teva and King Pharmaceuticals.
The violations by these and other drug companies point to the wide range of impacts, including taking many lives of patients, which stems from these recurrent activities. These criminal or civil illegalities cover (1) overcharging government health programs, (2) unlawful promotion, (3) monopoly practices, (4) kickbacks, (5) concealing study findings, (6) poor manufacturing practices, (7) environmental violations, (8) financial violations and (9) illegal distribution.
Outside the purview of the Public Citizen study are the ravages of counterfeit drugs and poorly inspected ingredients in drugs, now mostly coming from China and India, due to the outsourcing by U.S. and European drug companies in their thirst for even greater profits.
Drug company sales are huge, growing from $40 billion in 1990 to $234 billion in 2008, and far exceeding inflation with their annual price gouging. To make matters worse, in 2003, the Congressional Republicans, with decisive support from some Democrats, passed the drug benefit bill which explicitly prohibited Uncle Sam, the payer, from bargaining for volume discounts with drug companies.
With over 400 full-time drug company lobbyists putting pressure on Congress, and tens of millions of dollars flowing into the legislators' campaign coffers, budgets for federal investigators, prosecutors and inspectors are kept to a minimum. Unfortunately, crime in the suites pays over and over again, despite occasional penalties.
A bright spot is the increasing enforcement action at the state level.
By last year, 32 states had enacted false claims acts, including fourteen states that qualified as strong laws by federal standards.
Still, the Wolfe report concludes that the "current system of enforcement is not working." He gives the examples of the $7.44 billion in financial penalties assessed over the past twenty years on GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer, as compared to their combined total of $16.5 billion in global net profits in one year alone.
What would deter these illegal practices and risks to public safety? Dr. Wolfe says "the lack of criminal prosecution that would result in jailing of company executives." is key. Moreover, the report notes that "a felony conviction could result in their companies becoming ineligible for reimbursement from federal and state health programs, a critical source of pharmaceutical company revenues."
A flicker of hope that a little change is on the way came from the Food and Drug Administration's Deputy Chief Counsel for Litigation, Eric Blumberg. He indicated that the government is considering going after drug company executives for violations such as off-label promotions. He stated: "unless the government shows more resolve to criminally charge individuals -- at all levels in the corporate hierarchy -- we can not expect to make progress in deterring off-label promotion."
The problem is that the final operating decision is in the hands of the Justice Department -- historically short-staffed and short-willed to entreaties for prosecution by the FDA and other regulatory agencies.
Furthermore, for over 30 years, the Justice Department has stone-walled requests that it start a corporate crime database as it has done with street crimes. Congress likes it this way, as it continues to cash corporate campaign checks.
Just last week, however, outgoing Judiciary Committee Chairman, Democrat John Conyers introduced a bill (H.R. 6545) to create such a corporate crime data base in the Justice Department. Well, as the saying goes, everything starts with a gesture!
69 Comments so far
Show AllIs it all those TV shows depicting tireless, brilliant, dashing, selfless doctors that keep people from pointing the finger at doctors who, when reaching for the pen, always manage to come up with the most expensive script possible? Who are writing the off-label scripts? Who prefer new drugs even though they know the tests are hopelessly biased, and their patients are the real test cases? Who know that the pharmaceutical companies ghostwrite articles and even textbooks? Who keep piling on more meds rather than taking a few minutes and wondering if those ten meds a day might be causing the problem? In my experience with doctors, they aren’t so smart. Here is a recent example:
I’ve had a number of bladder infections in my life, and found out years ago that acidophilus cures them quite quickly. Then I came down with what seemed sort of like a bladder infection, only the symptoms were different. So I eventually went to a doctor, who gave me an antibiotic and sent out the sample. I told her about the acidophilus cure. Four days later I called the doctor to say my symptoms weren’t improving. She said, the test came back and you don’t have a bladder infection. I said, so that’s why the acidophilus didn’t work. She said, well, those other times you thought you had a bladder infection you obviously didn’t. I was a bit confused by her logic—that whatever I’d been curing with acidophilus couldn’t have been infections because it didn’t cure what wasn’t an infection. Just as a test, I said, so if I don’t have an infection, I should stop taking the antibiotic? She said, oh no, keep taking that.
Brilliant!
Keep in mind that doctors, by their own admission, are just PRACTICING medicene.
How can you lay blame on people who are simply practicing ?
I agree that Doctors are prescribing medications not fully tested, in fact I have been personally affected by one particular prescription causing serious and unanticipated side effects.
Having said that I think that, as the article notes, it is Big Pharma perpetrating the greatest fraud upon the American people. Followed directly by the Insurance Industry, with HMO's trailing third. We desperately need a complete reevaluation of our health care industry, and all its players. Will we get it? I doubt it.
What a mess!
If we had a truly free market, natural alternative medicine would have been allowed to compete with and put Big Pharma out of business long before Big Pharma could ever dream of getting away with corporate fraud.
How true. I have been working with a therapist an a Scenar device. After 10 years of nerve pain it was gone in one session. Work comp pays for weekly treatments and have bought me my own machine. Interested? www.invet.net. I went in on a high pain day and a closed mind. Woke up the next day pain free. I listen to constant complaints at work and tell them about this. After 3 years none have gone. They would rather bitch and take meds have tests and surgery.
Those constant drug ads do not help. Notice an increase in new problems? Ralph is right. Instead of fines for murdering 200,000 a year, put them in jail. What am I thinking? We don't put rich torturers, bank heister, mining CEO's in jail. Just poor people.
Thank you for that site. I would be interested in checking out those devices myself and seeing what they could do to my body and mind. Like Europe in general, Russians try to make it a habit of putting quality over quantity and the people there are generally nice. It would not surprise me one bit that your co-workers have been conditioned into falling for those starstruck commercials even after some of them quickly mention those dangerous side effects they call "less serious". Looking at those products, I can imagine that people here would say "oh, it's too complicated to use but those pills are quick and easy". Somehow, the grouchy attitude of "too complicated/expensive for one time use" and the other blissfully ignorant attitude of "cheap and convenient" have together put society in a dangerous position. This means that the average consumer will put too much faith in those pills thinking that just that one will do and then the next day or week they will come for another dose and say the same thing every time. They never stop and realize that those quickie pills are actually hurting them while pretending to help them feel good until it is too late and even then they will not necessarily blame the pills. This goes a long ways to partially explaining why this nation is fundamentally incapable of putting the rich crooks in jail while being too quick to persecute their own working class brothers and sisters on Main Street.
"Joecool9"- Congrats. Too bad for your co-workers; they don't want to feel better, anymore than they want out of their group think mentality.
With the exception of a minority who actually goes into medicine for noble reasons, the whole industry is designed for profit (and we know what road that takes us down.)
If cutting off hands and feet brought profits, you can bet there'll be lobbyists urging congress to pass a law letting them do it.
I worked for a doctor that would see a patient on a relative minor problem, then forge the documents and sign them up for surgery. It was sickening to see the elderly taken advantage like that. And they thought the doctor knew best, so did it. I got all the information I could legally gather, called the agency in charge. (Sorry, forgot the name) met him, showed him the documents and he told me to get more, call the patients and see if they would make a complaint, ect. I looked at him and said, "isn't that your job?" So, they asked for some records. Gave the DR.a month to get them ready.
The DR forged the records and went on his merry way. If drastic fraud like that was rolled on, you can imagine the little things.
I left. Funny tho, I was called into court a year later claiming I had illegally copied records. THe judge threw it out.
The fraud seems to go hand-in-hand with great funding, I write in new-york-commoners-law.com and dons-review.com. The bioPharma monster corporations who blocked healthcare for all are receiving all they want financially from Congress and Obama because of the profits to be made in developing pharmacological weapons and defenses, which could be quicker and just as devastating as nuclear holocaust. GRIN technologies—the genetic, robotic, informationand nano processes—are intermingling and feeding on one another, collectively creating a Curve of change. Already, enhanced people walk among us (Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, the Bushes,the Cheneys). Why do you think Bush-Cheney, and now President Obama, keep pouring money into the military and biopharmacological industries and their lovechild, DARPA (the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) who has been given carte blanche to develop whatever it wants? Yes, there is the military and its quest to create “super soldiers” whose muscles would be bigger and recover faster from injuries and fatigue than thoseof their opponents.
Not to mention the destruction (as great or greater than a nuclear holocaust),if DARPA’s new play things get into the hands of a malcontented laptop genius sitting in his parents’ basement that fast-spreading, unkillablebacteria and viruses could cause or nanorobots who canself-replicateand be designed to disable or kill humans uncontrollably. This research, if not done in the U.S., would be done in other countries. Given U.S. paranoia and delusionsof grandeur, it seems logical that neo-conservativevs from Reagan on would pursue every possible weapon or easy cure for pollution and global warming. Since our tax money is going to bailout the elite and to pump up the miltary, it would seem that hope for a return to quieter times with food and shelter for everyone has become a near impossibility. The elite knows this and has followed the philosophy first brought to the White House by Reagan: that it is the job of the knowledgeable and intellectuals and the rich to decide the fate of the teeming, unschooled masses. As Cheney said about those killedin Iraq: ”So?” And Rumsfeld: “Stuff happpens.”
This process is already hitting home.The results of the 2008 crash and The Great Recession have shown that the elite is willing to sacrifice the little people who have no power. Alas, I grudgingly at age 56 realize that my lack of memory means lack of intelligence and, therefore, I AM dumber than that woman—and 10-12 other people who took jobs from me since high school in 1972. Only now do I acknowledge that I’m not smart enough for “normal” business operations. In the U.S. corporate world, only the perfect corporate-types succeed and will be sought after by the elite or powerful in their own children as the ability to genetically engineer our children increase for those who can afford it. It’s wrenching to feel in a different class than the managers and “winners” in a corporate world. If the Hell Scenario hits full force in 10-20 years, writes Garreau in "Radical Evolution" the elite could purchase genetic templates that could be implanted to change their child’s appearance or intelligence or get rid of that chance he or she will get hit by Lou Gehrig’s Disease,which killed my cousin .
Will The Rest rise up and fight? Will they be able to? Increasingly the laws are changed to tighten the noose around those whohave nothing or step out ofline with the regime. The military by way of DARPA is seeking to make supermen, while the elite likely will choose to have blue-eyed, blonde Barbie-doll girls and John Elway-type boys.
The author tells about “early warning signs that we are entering The Hell Scenario:
• Almost unimaginably bad things are happening, destroying large chunks of the human race or the biosphere at an accelerating pace [about one quarter of mammalian species,one-half of fish species and one-third of insect species are expected to become extinctwithin five years]
• Horrors that recently seemedlike science fiction are routinely exceeded [the SARS avian flu virus of 2004; the Haitian floods ofthis year]
• Even in the face of such disasters, no agreement is being reached to slow down the spread of these technologies [the gargantuan funding of DARPAand bioscience and nanotechonolgy in the face of extreme unemployment and poverty even here in the U.S.]
• Technologies continue to accelerate as individual nations jockey for position in a hostile world [China, Russia, India, Europe and the U.S.continue to disagree on nuclear disarmament, rights to oil in the Arctic Ocean and the Middle East and to buy up land in South America and Africa for use when food andwater supplies runout in thenorthern hemisphere]
Other examples abound. Scientists Ron Jackson and Ian Ramshaw in late 2000 were trying to create a new mouse contraceptive in Australia. Instead,they created a monster. They added one gene to a mousepox virus and this new virus turned out to be 100 percent fatal.It killed every mouse in the experiment.No survivors. This came as complete surprise. Later workin the U.S. created a version that kills100 percent of the mice even if they’ve been given anti-viral drugs as welll as the vaccine that would normally protect them.
Mousepox does not affect humans. However, it is a close relative of smallpox, Garreau writes. Such a manipulation, if it got loose could wipe out the entire human populationof earth. Nonetheless, after consulting with the Australian Department of Defence, the researchers published their work in the Journal of Virology.
All this—especially publishing the details of how to duuplicate “this evil,” Jarreau writes—drives most scientists wild [not the ones at DARPA,however.] They believe we have no idea ofwhat a modern plague, specifically one engineered to elude defenses, would be like. “Have we learned nothing from SARS,which in 2004 killed 10-20 percent ofall humans and can be spread by sneezing?”
It is population control. With vaccines, meds, Katrina and Haiti and the Gulf. The rich do not want us peons in this world. Their world. The Gates are vaccinating 3rd world countries. Why does this years vaccine have the swine/bird/hep b in it? Has there been an outbreak of Hep B? No. Look for radio chips in your meds too. If you don't take them you will be forced to. CT? Nope. Truth. I will be dead before this happens. Look at all the Austerity measures in every country. They are trying to kill us all.
Certain GM crops produce sterility in the 3rd generation (mice)
garlanddegreeff:
Did you mean killed 10-20 percent of all humans who contracted it, perhaps??? I was a rather old man in 2004, am nearly 70 now ---- and I do not recall in my lifetime anything that killed 10 - 20 percent of all humans --- that would be a significant reduction in the earth's population ----- Is such a reduction coming at us? Possibly so ----- did such a reduction occur in 2004? I think not. dh
...and why is it that all these medical professionals will readily prescribe all manner of pain pills - full of narcotics and side effects as serious as liver dysfunction and death, but medical marijuana scripts even in "legalized" states are like a needle in a haystack and the doctors seem to dread being regarded as "pro-pot".
Is it better that one grows addicted to a prescribed narcotic that dampens but does not erase the pain, goes to work hoping they don't fall asleep, stagger, or simply have less than perfect attention, than that they drink a weak cannabis tea with immediate relief of pain and spasms, not even a touch of the dreaded "high" and no side affect that threatens ongoing health?
I know I Know, when they can figure a way to make it pay - but dammit when someone needs help to deal with chronic pain, it sure would make more sense to simply have it available in their own garden and not worry about the excessive costs aand serious side affects of hydrocodone or oxycotin!
Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live
They're working on producing some expensive pharmaceuticals that contain canniboids. No doubt they'll put something else in there to create side effects so they can then add another med.
Given the fact that the medical community has done all it can to discredit medicinal herbs, I'm surprised medical marijuana has gotten the sparse acceptance it has. When even doctors hint to their patients that they could illegally obtain marijuana--as did a doctor to a woman I knew who suffered from epilepsy resistant to anti-seizure meds--you know you have a good medicine.
cannabinoids?
Yeah, you're right. Guess I was a bit stoned when I got that messed up. But people mispell it all over the place.
"medicinal herbs" Now illegal in Europe.
JFC! I hadn't been following this story! I'd have been dead a long time ago without herbs! Particularly echinacea. What, are the authorities going to start combing people's yards for purple coneflower now? Are they going to come into my kitchen and arrest me for possession of garlic and cumin?
Stupid me, I'd been thinking Europe was more open-minded to alternative therapies.
I've been sick all my life, and have been keeping alive through diet and herbs. Next they'll be poisoning me with bogus fish!
Oh, wait . . .
This was challenged in the European Court but failed. What they've done is what recently happened in Canada. No supplements can be sold without extensive "studies", which are, of course, far too expensive for a non-patented item.
The goal is to limit even vitamins and minerals to no more than RDI (recommended dietary intake).
Elizabeth, get involved, and scream when they try to get control. This phony food safety bill is a perfect example. Millions screamed but they snuck it through in the dead of night, right before Christmas. We need tens of millions screaming. For info see Codex Alimentarius, www.healthfreedomusa.org, www.anh-usa.org (alliance for natural health).
What these fines prove is that the fines have become a cost of doing business, not a preventative measure. The cost of the fines are just passed along to consumers. Obviously the fines are not effective in changing the ongoing illegal behaviour of these companies. The only way to change the culture that's prevalent in these firms would be to have their license to engage in business revoked if they are found guilty of repeated violations; and/or to prosecute executives responsible for the offenses with jail time as penalties. Unfortunately, the argument will be advanced that these companies are either too large or too important to be shut down. Neither is true. If their licenses were removed their patents could be sold off to other firms or perhaps revert to the public domain. The point is that as long as it's profitable to cheat, the cheating will continue. Of course the same is true for the financial industry and other industries as well.
Mark, Good point. These fines have indeed been just another cost of doing business. Same with the lawsuits. Most of these huge corporations figure, correctly, that they can tie up any litigation - whether criminal or civil - for many months if not years. On the off chance that they do indeed loose, they quickly sign legal documents admitting to no fault but promising to change their ways.
And that's only if someone with means actually calls them on their practices. All too often the wrongdoing is either never discovered, not able to be proved due to lack of hard evidence of intentional wrongdoing, or just plain swept under the rug.
The larger issue which the article, nor the comments so far hasn't addressed is the very nature of corporate law which shields not only the investors, but the corporate employees from any liability - unless of course, the wrong is committed against the corporation in which case the full weight of the justice system will come crashing down.
Corporations as currently enshrined by law are simply not compatible with a free and just society. They don't die and are self perpetuating forever (or are at least multigenerational), gathering ever more assets, controlling more and more of a societies resources and jobs, and hence gathering ever more power over the rest of society.
Do these Corporations have a "Three strikes and you are out rule" such as used against those "Criminals" that fill US jails?
If the Government so tough on crime why not? It seems to me the same Corporations are paying fines over and over again.
If they consider themselves "persons" delist them after a third violation. Seize all the shares and assets and return the monies to those poor people who are in fact paying the fines with higher cost drugs.
Bring America Back !!!!
I just cringe at the voluminous TV ads and commrcials
I really hate them and the drug companies should be
banned from this morbid advertising. By the time they
repeat all their side effects, you feel like you've got
mmost of the symptoms and diseases that go along with
the damn stuff, anyway
Cant turn the tv channel fast enough , they're everywhere.
Not to mention Ralphies points on crime & corruption.
The Big D,s have the Big Bucks to buy all the tv air time.
I think I just learned that Australia is the only other country on earth that allows prescription medication commercials. I hate them just as you do, and I worked for 20 years in medical settings. Until the Department of Public Health came down on the practice, the clinic wherein I worked was besieged with adorable friendly drug company reps dropping in on the prescribers to tout their particular company's meds, giving away pens and pads of paper, treating the clinic to lunches, bringing in other goodies.
Bill Maher once said that if you go into the doctor and say which drug you think you need, doesn't that turn the doctor into just a dealer? Maher also said the drug companies don't look for cures, they look for medications that "manage" ongoing conditions because that's where the profits are (I was going to say "where the profit lies" but it's Big Pharma that's doing the lying.) I used to have bags full of ballpoints with the names of prescription meds on them.
The result? After several decades of refusing to go on meds for my blood pressure (the hippie humorist Paul Krassner elucidated the position I took on that issue: "I don't take legal drugs"), my numbers went up way up high and now I'm on three different BP meds twice a day, plus a statin for cholesterol. I'm on a chemical life support system. If my medical insurance changes and I am unable to get the chemicals my system has now habituated itself too, then my blood pressure will spike and the top of my head will blow off like a red geyser, or something.
I resent the whole racket.
It's a racket all right. You might check out a naturopathic physician (ND) for a true second opinion.
Paranoid, try Rauwolfia Extra by Vitanica. My mom was on 4 BP meds and now thanks to Rauwolfia Extra is on none. The directions say three a day but only one pill a day before bed does the trick for her. It is herbs and can be purchased online or at health food store.
pp...you make an excellent point that should be repeated: if you ever go on blood pressure meds, you'll never get off the damn things. WARNING!
"Still, the Wolfe report concludes that the "current system of enforcement is not working..."
No kidding!
Can anyone tell us where enforcement IS working with CORPORATE criminals?
I agree with most of the comments here. It's obviously a different standard of law enforcement for corporations when they can kill hundreds of thousands of people a year and not be held accountable in the same way that murderers are.
It seems to me the key to understanding why they are permitted to do this is to examine who owns the stock of the corporations and who sits on their boards. Who benefits? There is a revolving door between the producers and the regulators, and this is why nobody ever goes to jail. Just like the boys on Wall Street. Suits don't send other suits to prison. That's for us little people who aren't part of their exclusive club.
There was a case a while back concerning Baxter pharmaceutical. Evidently their factory in China adulterated heparin, and it was imported and used in the U.S.. It's use killed some and caused severe reactions in many of the people who were given the drug. I remember at the time that they were slow to respond raising all sorts of questions about the way medicine is being practiced. So the heart-attack patient, in their moment of need, finds their life dependent on the decision of a Chinese drug factory manager to adulterate the life-saving drug. With stories like this, it is difficult to interpret the lack of prosecutions as anything less than complicit government approval of the killing of U.S. citizens.
Anyway, nothing will probably change; more and more deaths will result. The government needs to make sure they have adequate amounts of Soma to keep the population - which is getting stripped of its material wealth, in line and to the maximum degree possible, stupefied.
I wonder what happened to the FDA? I am so glad that I don't have to take any pharma drugs. The part of Ralph Nader's report which shocked me was that many drugs are made in China and India. At least we sort of have an FDA, but do they?
Stories of tainted milk and toothpaste, and even mold carrying housing materials makes me never want to buy anything from China. That is difficult though. Drugs from there would be scary, but how would people know if there was no FDA, even a wimpy one?. Do the drug companies have to put" made in" for the country of origin? Will they ship the material home and" packaged in" America will be the new way?
If people get sick or die from possibly tainted drugs, will the corporation then move to Dubai and avoid lawsuits with costly international courts? If Americans aren't supposed to buy drugs from Canada, then why are China and India o.k.?
I read today that 1.4 million jobs were outsourced to other counties, including things like software. It appears that everything can be outsourced, and that corporations are finding a new middle class in other countries. These companies say they" need to be near their customers." Wow, I guess that the positive thing is that we can, as a country, get away from so much over consuming.
I wonder why Congress can't see that the business of America is killing Americans? Oh, and I also read that Coca Cola is building 3 new bottling plants in Inner Mongolia. That made me laugh. I know there are people there, but I never associated Inner Mongolia with Coca Cola.... a new slogan...THINGS GO BETTER WITH CHINA? THINGS GO BETTER FOR CORPORATIONS?
Well corporations, I guess that it's good for you to have Blackwater/Xe/ IDS available for hire. After the trashing of 3rd world counties by the industrial machine, the workers will want to form unions and those mercenaries will come in handy. Fortunately the 3rd worlders will have a lot of past American history for inspiration.
I just had an awful thought. No wonder NASA is working on the moon, because when the 3rd world workers rise up, the corporations will just go lunar. What an awful thought, the romantic and dreamy moon as a corporate billboard. I can see it now, 'Moon WATER, it's out of this world!" Sadly, corporations, "we the people" are now lost in space.
Except for what you mentioned about the FDA, I agree with the rest of what you said. The FDA is nothing more than a corporate stooge "agency" for Big Pharma. Abolishing it would save the taxpayers millions yearly and reduce Big Pharma's monopolistic "strengths".
While we're abolishing, the NIH and IOM ought to fend for themselves. They do the research that Pharma uses to get patents and to ascertain usefulness for "off label" use. You know, the "costly" research that engenders high prices. These agencies lost their integrity a long time ago.
Just to make sure the readers know, NIH stands for National Institutes of Health while IOM stands for Institute of Medicine unless I am mistaken.
I did a google search on IOM and Pharma and found another silent killer.
http://www.prohealth.com/fibromyalgia/blog/boardDetail.cfm?id=1406443
On NIH and Pharma, I found plenty of silent killers.
Yet another reason to abolish NIH: I just read about research at MIT, majority funding from NIH, in which they use 'transcranial magnetic stimulation' to negatively change moral judgments. They are screwing around with brain research from which no good will come. This is just the latest example.
Big Pharma purchases your evening news.
That's all you need to know.
-30-
I had to chuckle at the list of violators, wouldn't have been easier just to list those that were not violators?
Good point, rkt!
We all have a story to tell. I am 81. At age 65 I was prescribed amioderone for the control of atrial fibrillation. I went berserk. I talked to another cardiologist who told me I was taking poison and should quit immediately. I did, but the symptoms remained with me.
I went to a Neurologist to get some relief from attacks that a few times caused me to take sudden falls. (resulting from amiodorone). She prescribed Clonazepam, 3 pills daily. It worked a little while. I moved out of state and began to have terrible falls. A neurologist said I drank too much. I continued taking Clonazepam and went to another neurologist. He was simply perplexed. I went to another Neurologist. He was perplexed.
I stopped taking Clonazepam when for two days I had missed my dosage and I suddenly felt much better and, according to friends, looked better. I resumed playing golf. I threw away my cane. I took walks. I told the last Neurologist what I had done. He said: "Oh, good, that stuff is poison."
Who needs doctors whose claim to fame appears to see how much pain you can endure while you are rapidly dying?
When are we going to see the article titled: "Everything Fraud"?
There it is, Stiv, said in few words and encompassing so much.
My mother who was on 14 different medications with awful side effects finally went to a naturopath doctor and now is off the medications and taking a few herbs, minerals and vitamins. These fool doctors were treating side effects from one drug with another drug.
Even though I'm in the used car business, I stand back in awe at the self serving, conflict of interest, misrepresentation, greed, and harm inflicted by the health care industry.
Don't mourn not having insurance, change your life style if possible.
Congratulations on waking up to these medical truths. I hope that more and more people will see this before natural medicine is completely shut down. And the truth is, many 'problems' can be fixed for the cost of a co-pay.
In Europe, "traditional" medicines are now illegal. Coming soon to us if these creatures get their wishes granted by the FDA.
I worked as a Head Nurse on a psychiatric research unit. I refused to lie on the report sheets for the shrinks doing research for pharmaceutical companies. Their private nurses lied all the time. I am sure my reports went into file 13. I have seen how way too much privately funded medical research is done. The wrong statistical methods are used. Behavioral observations are fudged. Side effects are ignored. They skew the results falsely. It goes on and on. You really cannot trust any of it. Bush was so enamored of Big Pharm that he consulted with Lilly's CEO before he wrote his State of the Union addresses. Randall Tobias, Bush's lousey Aids Czar, disgraced himself publicly with prostitutes, but continues to be a big noise in Indiana. He has built himself a statement mansion, overlooking a busy road, so all can see his wealth. The mansion is the size of a resort hotel. These pharmaceutical industry executives live like kings, and have no intention of ever doing otherwise. You and I get to pay for it, as drug prices continue to skyrocket. As for Obama, he sold us out, then claims he got rid of the Donut Hole. Sure, not until 2020!!! He is as joined at the hip with Big Pharm, as was Bush. Don't hold your breath waiting for any significant reforms. Congress and the White House are not about to kill such fat geese laying such big golden eggs.
The psychological damage done to patients isn't even mentioned, but I've seen terrible results when patients 'refused' to respond to those damned drugs that not only don't work, but poison you besides. It's hard to convince people to quit taking bad and/or dangerous drugs when their doctor prescribes them. But doctors are blitzed with psychological warfare that is extremely sophisticated and can't really make unbiased decisions - they just can't believe that drug dealers can manipulate them that easily.
I'm on morphine now, which I don't like to take for more than a few months at a time (without a break) and have taken it for almost 11 years. I don't have side-effects, and morphine is not addictive (in most people - like only 4 out of 10,000 get 'addicted') and has minor or barely noticeable withdrawal symptoms. I'm not sure about the dangers of fentanyl, but I just got off that - it's 50 times stronger than heroin, but at least I can function on it. What I really hate is the crappy myths about how 'dangerous' it is to drive or 'operate heavy machinery' while taking 'narcotics' - it's trying to function (especially drive) while in horrific pain that's truly dangerous. So many stupid myths and old-wives-tales about so many drugs that have been used for thousands of years. And don't even start on the 'anti-depressant' scam - at least I was disabled BEFORE that filthy crook invented 'depression' for the general public and sold it to the medical 'professionals' as a real disease. (Clinical depression is extremely rare, but SITUATIONAL depresseion is rather common these days and can't be cured by a pill, talk-therapy, or anything else other than improving the living conditions of over-stressed, over-worked, impoverished Americans.)
These fraudsters are the most heinous of criminals - they prey on the most vulnerable and misfortunate people in society - and although I'm against the death penalty, I think hanging these bastards would be the right thing to do. They are pyschopaths - sociopaths - and destroy lives without the slightest qualm - and with impunity, of course.
Cheese, your it. Anyone for a rousing jolly game of Cheese Tag?
Oh, no, the Europeans medical world is filled with Fraud? Whatever will this old Indian ever do about such a thing?
You mean outside of pay my bills and die?
Cheese.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
I usually ignore you. It isn't 'the Europeans' that are/were the problem. It's the Anglo-Saxons (the Saxons, mostly) and my ancestors had trouble with them trying to steal our land too. You're not the only one whose people fought those mangey bastards - so stop your whining, why don't you. There are rotten SOBs in every culture/society/ethnicity - but to hear you constantly whining like a broken record, you'd think you're the only poor soul on earth whose ancestors got screwed. Cripes what a squeaky wheel. And you never bother to learn any history, do you - just whine and whine and whine. If my ancestors hadn't killed so many of those lying theiving savage barbarians, maybe you wouldn't even be here. So there. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Why don't you get a plane ticket or a boat ticket and head back to Euro-TrashLand. Take your share or your people's nuclear waste with you, and some barrels of your Toxic Gulf Oil Sludgie Drink.
Now why don't you do your whining European Brat weeping, wailing, gnashing of your teeth about the problems of Your Nation, and the destruction of the earth. Weep, wail, and gnash your teeth European Brat because that is all you and people are is a Broken Record.
Don't worry I am sure you smart enough to balance a checkbook and pay bills, European Brat upon the earth.
Say, Cheese, I already have a picture of you.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
Congratulations, armybrat, you have now been exposed to the real "spirituality" lurking behind this posters fraudulent positions. I,too, once made the mistake of offering a minor criticism of something this moron posted. I,too, received the same sort of diatribe you have now experienced.
Responding to this sad, probably sick, certainly childish little fool is a waste of time. Believing his posts perpetuates a fraud, as his response to you , and in the past to me, certainly proves. Perhaps he really isn't twelve years old.
Still reports of many people suffering illness related things from the Oil Rig Explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that includes people of Native Heritage so people of Native heritage must also pay the price of the insanity of the Europeans in our land. Wow, does anyone want to go drink a few gallons of the European Toxic Oil Sludgie in the Gulf. No? Oh, that's right you have more brains than to do that such thing don't you.
See I give you credit for having some brains. But it's okay your in your Simpson towns with your computers and Net connections.
Maybe you can all help out Your Economy by buying playing a Dvd Player or at least getting the movie, American Psycho. Perhaps the movie will give you deep insights into yourself and your Nation? One never knows?
Is there Pharmaceutical Fraud in that Industry of "Their's," also?
My what will this old Indian ever do about that thing?
You mean outside of pay my bills and die.
Say, Cheese, I have a picture of you.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
Ahh, Doubledee were you going to try and Play God with my life upon the earth, and you found this did not get you anywhere at all, but only left you to live your own life, pay your own bills, and die. Did you find you made a mistake with me. Don't feel lonely there isn't any shortage of people who have made the same mistake with me.
I forgave you before you ever began to speak to me.
Were you going to give me really deep deep insights into the world I am living in, were you. Deep insights like Ralph Nadar is giving me that there is fraud in "Their" Pharmaceutical Industry?" I am just overwhelmed by such deep deep insights.
What ever will this old Indian do about those things?
You mean outside of pay my bills and die?
Cheese, I have a picture of you.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.