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.