TIME FOR THE TRUTH

TIME FOR THE TRUTH

Ok, your doctor gives you bad news after he finishes his exam. You are sick and need to take the drugs he is prescribing. Does he tell you what side effects are produced by the prescribed drugs? No Does he explain how dangerous some of these side effects may be? NO. He does not have time and goes on to the next patient. You, of course, think the medicine is going to make you feel healthy and fit, so you pay your bill and leave the doctor’s office. You have no idea what is in the drug, how was it approved or how it was tested before it was approved. In fact, I doubt if you even have any kind of idea how to investigate a drug. The only important thing that concerns you is the cost of the drug and how you can be sure your insurance pays for the drug.

Ok, some time has passed and you have diligently taken your medicine as prescribed. But, you are not getting well. In fact you are feeling lousy. So back to the doctor and he gives you another prescription to deal with the side effects of the first drug. Now do you get well and feel great? NO! Nothing seems to improve.

Enough of this fiction. The average person that goes to a doctor takes no responsibility for their health. They are not motivated to find out what is happening in this MODERN FORM OF MEDICINE WE WORSHIP SO STRONGLY. There are so many options and ways to treat even the worst diseases. Instead we accept the advertising paid for by the drug companies without question, even when there are cases published in the media pinpointing fraud and lethal activities of drugs being prescribed by our doctors. Here are two recent examples of the fraud and illegal activities being carried out by the drug companies with the co-operation of the FDA.

First, let’s talk about (elithromycin) known as Ketek. Ketek was approved by the FDA to treat mild-to-moderate pneumonia. But Ketek can cause sudden and serious liver damage. There have been cases of complete liver failure requiring a liver transplant. Still there were patients that could not get the transplant in time and died. The FDA knew about the liver failure, and other side effects, before the FDA approved Ketek. To convince an outside scientific advisory committee to recommend approval of Ketek the FDA knowingly allowed a fraudulent safety study to be presented to the advisory committee. The Senate Investigative committee uncovered the following:

1. FDA accepted a resubmission of a new drug application that included fraudulent safety data.
2. FDA employees knowingly presented the fraudulent study data to the advisory committee responsible for recommending Ketek’s approval or disapproval.
3. FDA approved a pediatric clinical trial of Ketek; it involved infants as young as six months old … There was no concern given to the known toxicities affecting the heart, eyes, liver, and vascular system.
4. FDA instructed its personnel preparing to appear before the advisory committee to present the fraudulent safety data.
5. FDA approved a pediatric clinical trial of Ketek; it involved infants as young as six months old... There was no concern given to known toxicities affecting the heart, eyes, liver, and vascular system.
6. FDA continued to willfully release safety data on Ketek.
While the Senate investigation was being conducted there was also a criminal investigation being conducted. They found that the clinic where the study was supposedly conducted was closed during the time the study was to have been carried out. A number of other inconsistencies were also found. Right after the advisory meeting where the fraudulent data was presented to the committee, the FDA employee who conducted the study was criminally indicted and pled guilty. He received a five year sentence in jail. The FDA is still citing the fraudulent data on Ketek. It would appear, in my opinion, that the FDA has continued to function in this criminal enterprise.

Drug-Induced Suicides. The Senate committee that investigated Ketek discovered another study with fraudulent data. This fraudulent data was used to uphold the approval of a popular antidepressant drug being used by large numbers of people in the US.

A Harvard doctor wrote a report that when Paxil application was presented to the FDA advisory committee in 1991, the “Drug Company improperly put people who had previously attempted suicide into the placebo group.” This made it appear that the Paxil group would have the same or lower rate of suicide as the placebo group. The drug company did this to make it appear as if there was no greater suicidal behavior risk for the placebo or Paxil.

In 2006 the manufacturer of Paxil sent a letter to doctors admitting that the risk of suicidal behavior was 6.7 times higher in study subjects taking Paxil when compared to the placebo group.

Suicide is rated as the 11th leading cause of death in the United States. In 2004 Suicide killed over 32,000 people. “The number of suicides attributed to drugs like Paxil (selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors) could be in the hundreds of thousands during the 13 years it was fraudulently marketed.”