Let’s look at these so called “scientific studies” which drug companies use to push their drugs or discredit natural remedies. The fact is that studies are funded by someone, and are commissioned for a specific reason. They are either requested to prove something works or to prove that something doesn’t work. Studies paid for by pharmaceutical companies are never commissioned to find the truth. They are paid for to give a specific and preplanned result. Drug companies have specific ways in which they organize studies.
First, they produce secret studies to get some preliminary information on how to conduct the final study that will give them the required result. These preliminary studies are never released to the public and are only done to find the best way to organize the final study to give the drug companies the desired end result. Drug companies fund 99% of all studies, directly or indirectly. To hide the fact that a drug company is funding a particular study, sometimes the funding is 10 times removed! By channeling money through smaller companies, groups, foundations, and institutes the study seems like it is honest and truthful. These studies that produce results and supposedly “prove” that a particular drug is safe and effective are completely false and misleading!
For example, first they run studies to find out what kind of person has the least adverse reaction to their new drug, or no reaction at all. Then they test various doses of the drug to figure out one that has the least side effects. Let’s say they find that 45 year old physically fit healthy females are the least prone to side effects. In their final study they then recruit mostly 45 year old physically fit healthy females, and get their desired end result.
If you were a dishonest crook whose only motive was money, and you were funding a study to prove the effectiveness of your product. Wouldn’t you try absolutely everything to get the desired results? Especially if billions of dollars were at stake?
Once the FDA approves the medication or a drug for use by the general public, they know less than half of the serious adverse drug reactions. It is just impossible to know them all. So how do they find out the others? Well, it's owing to you, the public, or what is called, “the great clinical trial.” It is you who finds out. You are the guinea pig.
You might be wondering why such a small amount of drugs get taken off the market even though there are so many deaths.
“It is a voluntary reporting system. Less than one percent of these adverse drug reactions are really reported back to the FDA, because doctors and hospitals are not required to report them back. It is voluntary. Then, it is reported to a committee in the FDA that has no authority. Once enough of these red flags come in on a drug, then they'll send it back to the original committee that approved the drug in the first place. I do not feel that they have an unbiased representation when they look at this. That’s why over 99 percent of the time all that happens is a change to the drug label or what we call a package insert. This usually goes unnoticed even if they send out a "dear doctor" letter warning doctors about these drugs, and that they better be careful here. There have been studies that show doctors don’t pay much attention to that. So it’s not a very good system.”
Dr. Ray Strand
The final studies are usually done on healthy individuals and many times not even in the age category the drug is marketed for! For example, a clinical trial might over-select young, healthy subjects when the drug being tested is intended for use primarily on older patients.
"Rochon et al. found that only 2.1 percent of subjects in trials of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs were 65 years of age or older, even though these drugs are more commonly used and have a higher incidence of side effects in the elderly." Bodenheimer T, "Uneasy Alliance-Clinical Investigators and the Pharmaceutical Industry," New England Journal of Medicine, 342(20), May 18, 2000.
Critics of the FDA point out the agency's close ties to the big drug companies as one of the problems in the drug approval process. A USA Today report found that more than half the advisors to the FDA have "financial relationships" with drug companies that have an interest in FDA decisions (De Angelis C, "Conflict of Interest and the Public Trust," JAMA, Nov 1, 2000). But even if panel members involved in approving a drug are scrupulously honest, they still depend on data from that company's clinical trials to approve the drug as safe and efficacious, and the data can be misleading.
"Efforts by drug companies to suppress, spin, and obfuscate findings that do not suit their commercial purposes were first revealed to their full, lethal extent during the thalidomide tragedy. Although government drug regulation schemes around the world are now in place, the insidious tactics of Big Pharma have changed little." "The Tightening Grip of Big Pharmaceutical Companies," Editorial, The Lancet, April 14, 2001.
Results showed that industry-sponsored studies were 3.6 times more likely to have results that favored the industry than studies with no financial ties to the industry. Drug companies publish only a fraction of the studies they fund -- the ones that promote their drugs. If a study does not have findings that are favorable to its product, it is unlikely it will ever make it into a journal for publication.
There are simply thousands of scientific studies out there that have never been seen by you or your physician because they have been screened out by editors and reviewers who are being paid to uphold an industry agenda.
Published studies overwhelmingly favor the funding company’s drug. Whichever drug is manufactured by the study sponsor is the drug that comes out on top, 90 percent of the time!
Selectively omitting negative results from clinical trials can actually be deadly to your health. Merck & Co. proved this statement when during clinical trials of their Vioxx drug they concealed the fact that three patients suffered heart attacks. They conveniently omitted this data (along with other relevant findings) from the copy of the study they submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine for publication. The omissions were uncovered years later during the 7,000 Vioxx lawsuit litigations.
What Happens to Those Who Speak Out?
Intimidating phone calls, direct threats, loss of funding, bans from organizations, loss of licenses, ridicule etc.
In one case, Dr. Buse, an endocrinologist who is the incoming president of the American Diabetes Association, presented data in 1999 about his concerns about the risks of Avandia. Dr. Buse was intimidated with multiple phone calls by drug company officials. They suggested he could be financially liable to the company for $4 billion in lost revenues due to his “unscrupulous remarks.”
Court evidence now available on-line at the University of California library shows drug giant Merck systematically targeted “hit-lists” of doctors in order to discredit, neutralize, ridicule, or destroy the critics who spoke out against the safety and effectiveness of Merck’s drugs.
The methods used to do this included threatening to cut research funding and attempting to block academic appointments. Remember, drug companies do not want to save lives and will do anything to stop a whistleblower from telling the truth, even if it’s a doctor or scientist.
One memo from a drug company stated: “we may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live….”
Drug companies these days are almost completely safe from any prosecution for their crimes or wrongdoings. A CNN report from April 2, 2010 reveals the truth about how shielded these huge drug companies really are.
For example, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company Pfizer engaged in illegal promotion of their drug Bextra for off-label use, even though they knew it was associated with an increased risk of stroke and heart attacks. In 2005 it was pulled from the market but not before many people were damaged by its use.
Federal prosecutors quickly realized that convicting Pfizer would be a corporate death sentence since any company convicted of major health care fraud is excluded from Medicare and Medicaid. So they cut Pfizer a deal. Just as the big banks on Wall Street were deemed “too big to fail,” Pfizer was deemed “too big to nail.”
Prosecutors claimed the financial losses to shareholders and job losses by Pfizer would be too great from being excluded from the Medicare/Medicaid programs. Prosecutors then went ahead and charged a Pfizer subsidiary Pharmacia & Upjohn Co. instead (this company was incorporated the very same day its lawyers filed a guilty plea, kind of like a sacrificial lamb created specifically for this purpose).
In the end, all Pfizer lost was about three month’s profit, but all contracts, including those with Medicaid and Medicare, were spared.
There are hundreds of examples like these, and the moral of the story is; governments or giant corporations don’t give a hoot about you or your health.
So What?
Where does all this leave you, the patient or caregiver? Well, hopefully, it leaves you somewhat skeptical about claims by the pharmaceutical “industry” that all therapies not sold by Bristol-Myers-Squibb or Merck or Abbott Labs or whoever are “unproven” and therefore pure “quackery.”
I hope this also leaves you skeptical about whose side your doctor is really on and to seriously think about taking your health into your own hands (which you're already doing by reading this book).
As a bare minimum, to avoid being damaged by this system, you must educate yourself. You must be prepared to get more than one opinion. Then, when you’ve found the doctor (or homeopath or naturopath) that you trust, you must be prepared to co-doctor with him or her throughout your treatment. Better yet, get the knowledge you need and heal yourself.
This book is designed to end blind faith and trust in our system of “treatment” and arm you with the power to search beyond it and heal yourself. Faith is fine, if it derives from the power of knowledge.
You Have The Power -- Use It
We’re going to arm you with information -- from books, the Internet, newsletters, magazines and any other source. You will be able to take charge of your health. We are hoping you will not be satisfied with treating symptoms. You will want to treat causes.
But before you can treat causes, you need to understand them.
The truth is drug companies have become the largest sponsors of medical research.
They are selling a product.
The bottom line is the drug companies aren’t going to protect you.
The government won’t protect you.
The American Medical Association won’t protect you (or any other corrupt medical organization or association for that matter).
And it is highly unlikely that your physician can protect you either -- even a well-meaning one -- when he or she is operating within a system that has become RIGGED for Big Pharma profit.
Only YOU can protect yourself.