Of all the mega-corps running amok, Monsanto has
consistently outperformed its rivals, earning the crown as “most evil
corporation on Earth!” Not content to simply rest upon its throne of
destruction, it remains focused on newer, more scientifically innovative
ways to harm the planet and its people.
1901: The company is founded by John Francis Queeny, a member of the Knights of Malta,
a thirty year pharmaceutical veteran married to Olga Mendez Monsanto,
for which Monsanto Chemical Works is named. The company’s first product
is chemical saccharin, sold to Coca-Cola as an artificial sweetener.
Even then, the government knew saccharin was poisonous and sued to stop its manufacture but lost in court, thus opening the Monsanto Pandora’s Box to begin poisoning the world through the soft drink.
For
decades, the U.S. FDA has uncovered misconduct in clinical trials but
hidden it from the public, according to a new paper in JAMA Internal Medicine.
The study, by New York University journalism professor Charles Seife,
looked at 78 publications resulting from trials where the FDA found
serious misconduct, including “failure to protect the safety of
patients” and data fakery. Only three of those publications mentioned
the problems uncovered by the FDA. No retractions or errata were ever
issued for any of them.
For example, in one of the three cases:
…data
from several patients were excluded from the efficacy analysis because
“site monitoring raised questions in regard to certain data at 1 study
site.”65(p431) The FDA documents64
allege that none of the individuals enrolled at 1 study site had met
the inclusion criteria and that the responsible researcher had
fabricated chest radiographs of participants and committed other forms
of misconduct.
(Reference 65 reported results of a trial Ivan wrote about several years ago, in coverage that raised some unrelated questions.).......................
.............
Bayer and US Government Knowingly Gave HIV to Thousands of Children
What if a
company that you thought you could trust, knowingly sold you a medicine
for your child that they knew had the potential to give your child HIV?
How would you react? What if a government agency that claims the
responsibility for protecting you from such treachery, not only looked
the other way, but was complicit in this exchange?
Everyone has heard of Bayer aspirin, it
is a household name. Bayer AG also manufactures numerous other products,
from pesticides to medicine for hemophiliacs called Factor 8.
In 1984 Bayer became aware that several
batches of this Factor 8 contained HIV. They knew this because there was
an outbreak of HIV among hemophiliac children, and this outbreak was traced back to Bayer.
The documents showed how Cutter Biological, a division of Bayer, shipped
more than 100,000 vials of unheated concentrate, worth more than $4
million, after it began selling the safer product.
The result of this sale of HIV tainted
medication ended up infecting tens of thousands and killing thousands.
Thousands of innocent children and adults have died at the hand of this
corporation and no punitive action has been taken against them. The
health department leaders in Argentina, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, and
Singapore were all imprisoned, while the US FDA continues down its
hellish path.
WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW
When asked about the sale of the tainted Factor 8, Bayer responded,
”Decisions made nearly two decades ago were based on the best
scientific information of the time and were consistent with the
regulations in place.” This can be interpreted as Bayer asking the FDA
for permission to murder children for profit and the FDA giving its
approval. According to the NY Times,
the Food and Drug Administration’s regulator of blood products, Dr.
Harry M. Meyer Jr., asked that the issue be ”quietly solved without
alerting the Congress, the medical community and the public.”
No one in the government nor Bayer have
been charged with anything in regards to this matter. Bayer continues to
sell its Factor 8 medication to this day.
WHEN
we are patients, we want our doctors to make recommendations that are
in our best interests as individuals. As physicians, we strive to do the
same for our patients.
But
financial forces largely hidden from the public are beginning to
corrupt care and undermine the bond of trust between doctors and
patients. Insurers, hospital networks and regulatory groups have put in
place both rewards and punishments that can powerfully influence your
doctor’s decisions.
Contracts
for medical care that incorporate “pay for performance” direct
physicians to meet strict metrics for testing and treatment. These
metrics are population-based and generic, and do not take into account
the individual characteristics and preferences of the patient or
differing expert opinions on optimal practice.
For
example, doctors are rewarded for keeping their patients’ cholesterol
and blood pressure below certain target levels. For some patients, this
is good medicine, but for others the benefits may not outweigh the
risks. Treatment with drugs such as statins can cause significant side
effects, including muscle pain and increased risk of diabetes.
Blood-pressure therapy to meet an imposed target may lead to increased
falls and fractures in older patients.
Physicians
who meet their designated targets are not only rewarded with a bonus
from the insurer but are also given high ratings on insurer websites.
Physicians who deviate from such metrics are financially penalized
through lower payments and are publicly shamed, listed on insurer
websites in a lower tier. Further, their patients may be required to pay
higher co-payments.
These
measures are clearly designed to coerce physicians to comply with the
metrics. Thus doctors may feel pressured to withhold treatment that they
feel is required or feel forced to recommend treatment whose risks may
outweigh benefits.
It is not just treatment targets but also the particular medications to b.....
GlaxoSmithKline is to pay $3bn (£1.9bn) in the largest healthcare fraud settlement in US history.
The drug giant is to plead guilty to promoting two drugs for
unapproved uses and failing to report safety data about a diabetes drug
to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The settlement will cover criminal fines as well as civil settlements with the federal and state governments.
The case concerns 10 drugs, including Paxil, Wellbutrin, Avandia and Advair.
Deputy US Attorney General James Cole told a news conference
in Washington DC that the settlement was "unprecedented in both size and
scope". Doctors bribed
GSK, one of the world's largest healthcare and pharmaceuticals companies, admitted to promoting antidepressants Paxil and Wellbutrin for unapproved uses, including treatment of children and adolescents.
The illegal practice is known as off-label marketing.
The company also conceded charges that it held back data and made unsupported safety claims over its diabetes drug Avandia.
It agreed to resolve civil liability for promoting asthma drug Advair and two lesser-known drugs for unapproved uses.
In addition, GSK has been found guilty of paying kickbacks to doctors.
"The sales force bribed physicians to prescribe GSK products
using every imaginable form of high-priced entertainment, from Hawaiian
vacations [and] paying doctors millions of dollars to go on speaking
tours, to tickets to Madonna concerts," said US attorney Carmin Ortiz.
As part of the settlement, GSK agreed to be monitored by government officials for five years.
GSK said in a statement it would pay the fines through existing cash resources.
Andrew Witty, the firm's chief executive, said procedures for
compliance, marketing and selling had been changed at GSK's US unit.
"We have learnt from the mistakes that were made," Mr Witty
said. "When necessary, we have removed employees who have engaged in
misconduct."
Kratom -- Why Big Pharma Hates It & People Love It
Kratom Satisfies Human Needs Better Than Prescription Drugs
The
herb Kratom -- Mitragyna speciosa -- has become surprisingly popular
for a growing number of Americans with various conditions that the
pharmaceutical industry has poorly served and often ignored.
Fibromyalgia, depression, diabetes, PTSD, anxiety, and chronic pain due
to arthritis and injuries are some of the conditions where patients are
turning to kratom out of frustration with pharmaceutical drug
side-effects and lack of benefit.
Of course, the pharmaceutical companies are not pleased with the loss
of revenue that this humble herb is causing them. With their financial
pull they seem to be behind a nationwide, state-by-state campaign to
demonize the herb with lurid TV news reports and simultaneous
legislative moves to ban the herb.
For those who know and use kratom daily, without incident, this David vs. Goliath
battle is almost comical in its heavy-handed distortion of the truth --
and plainly reminiscent of past media campaigns against marijuana,
which also turned out to offer relief for many conditions (and is now
belatedly receiving respect and increasing legal recognition as a
non-problem).
While it is not completely accurate to say that Big Pharma "hates"
kratom, they seem to prefer to take it apart and sell it piece by piece,
as new drugs. Ultimately, their plan appears to be to patent beneficial
alkaloids contained in kratom, while using the force of law to deny
access to the natural herb.
Will they succeed? That depends on you, dear reader.
Many Americans Are Tired of Being Lied To
We're tired of "being treat like mushrooms -- kept in the dark and fed manure".
CFR: Unvaccinated are Healthier than Vaccinated Populations
March 30, 2014
(REFUSERS) – (Comment) The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) recently published a disease map purporting to show that disease outbreaks are the fault of the unvaccinated. While the mainstream media like PBS ran the story, they missed the fact that the CFR map shows the highest disease outbreaks in the most-vaccinated populations.
Interview with the Author of « Big Pharma, An All-powerful Industry that Toys with Our Health »
I am currently reading "Big Pharma", a very revealing book about
the ways in which the pharmaceutical industry is toying with our health.
The Nouvel Observateur interviewed the author, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen,
on the parts of the book about the drug "misinformation" on the Internet
and environmental pollution of medications. (The book is not yet
available in English.)
"For information on health, the Internet is completely unreliable"
by Anne Crignon , Nouvel Observateur , 29 September 2013 (translated from French by the Editor of this blog)
Meet the Doctor Big Pharma Can't Shut Up
The pharmaceutical industry has compromised the Western medical establishment and hooked America on drugs. One psychiatrist is fighting back.
May 30, 2013 |
For the last 33 years, David Healy, an Irish psychiatrist and professor at Cardiff University School of Medicine in Wales, has written heavily researched university press books and academic journal articles on various aspects of psychopharmaceuticals. His output includes 20 books, 150 peer-reviewed papers and 200 other published works. He is not only well-pedigreed, with degrees and fellowships from Dublin, Galway and Cambridge medical schools, he is a widely recognized expert in both the history and the science of neurochemistry and psychopharmacology.
Yet Healy says his output and reputation have had little to no effect—both on the pharmaceutical industry he argues buries relevant information about prescription drug harms, and on the psychiatric and medical professions he claims are being “eclipsed” by drug companies.
“It’s been clear to me that writing books or articles banging on the risks and hazards of drugs is just going to increase the sale of drugs,” said Healy, who speaks calmly, dresses mostly in black and looks a bit like Rod Serling.
Rather than write another university publication, Healy has taken his frustration to the street. In November, he launched a nonprofit website called Rxisk.org with a group of like-minded and highly credentialed international colleagues. The site aggregates FDA data about prescription drug side effects and urges patients to submit a detailed report on their own pharmaceutical drug reactions.
Healy is not the first psychiatrist to express boiling frustration with the pharmaceutical industry or to pen dire warnings about drug-based healthcare. He is joined by people like American psychiatrist Peter Breggin, who has written several books critical of “biological psychiatry,” and Irving Kirsch, who directs the Program in Placebo Studies at Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical School and is best known for The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth. Healy is the author of such dire sounding titles as Pharmageddon and Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship Between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression.
For years, it was fairly easy for people in the pharmaceutical and medical industries to label Healy, Kirsch and Breggin as alarmists. But two summers ago, one of the most prominent members of U.S. medical establishment, Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of New England Journal of Medicine, published an article damning the over-prescription of psychoactive drugs. In two essays in the June 23, 2011 and July 14, 2011 New York Review of Books, Angell backed arguments by the university clinician Kirsh, the mental heath journalist Robert Whitaker, and Boston psychiatrist Daniel Carlat that there is something extremely suspicious about the following trends: the number of people treated for depression has tripled since the launch of Prozac in 1987; 10 percent of Americans over age six are taking antidepressants; and 30 antipsychotics like Risperdal, Zyprexa and Seroquel are replacing cholesterol-lowering agents as the top-selling class of drugs in the U.S., largely because they are being prescribed to children.
Angell’s articles should have been a bomb on the medical establishment. She wrote:
“The industry-sponsored studies usually cited to support psychoactive drugs—and they are the ones that are selectively published—tend to be short-term, designed to favor the drug, and show benefits so small that they are unlikely to outweigh the long-term harms. … Both the pharmaceutical industry and the psychiatry profession have strong financial interests in convincing the public that drug treatment is safe and the most effective treatment for mental illnesses, and they also have an interest in expanding the definitions of mental illness.”
But like Healy, Angell’s warnings have fallen on deaf ears. Recent data indicates that U.S. prescription drug use is growing. The September 2012 Consumer Reports National Research Center report found that among the 46 percent of American adults taking prescription drugs, a fourth of those ages 18 to 39 regularly take two prescription drugs, indicating that multiple drug use is no longer confined to older Americans. Congressional testimony in 2012 by the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians revealed that Americans consume 80 percent of opiate painkillers produced in the world. And a January 2011 report from Stanford University Medical School warned that antispychotics are now regularly being prescribed to treat conditions for which they have not been approved, including anxiety, attention-deficit disorder, sleep difficulties, behavioral problems in toddlers and dementia.
The FDA (Fraud & Death Administration) has been purchased by Big Pharma and other corporate interests and is NOT protecting us, the people! They are NOT doing what they were set up to do! They are corrupt, inept and should be sued out of existence.
Big Pharma company PHIZER come in number 8 for their deadly experiment with TROVAFLOXIN, a toxic FLUOROQUINOLONE DRUG. : Big Pharma gets rich when you get sick. Pfizer, the largest pharmaceutical corporation in the U.S., pleaded guilty in 2009 to the largest health care fraud in U.S. history, receiving the largest criminal penalty ever for illegally marketing four of its drugs. It was Pfizer's fourth such case. As if Pfizer's massive use of animal experimentation wasn't heart wrenching enough, Pfizer decided to use Nigerian children as guinea pigs. In 1996, Pfizer traveled to Kano, Nigeria to try out an experimental antibiotic on third-world diseases such as measles, cholera, and bacterial meningitis. They gave trovafloxacin to approximately 200 children. Dozens of them died in the experiment, while many others developed mental and physical deformities. According to the EPA, Pfizer can also proudly claim to be among the top ten companies in America causing the most air pollution.
The totals listed here cover different time periods and spending categeories, and aren't directly comparable. See notes below. See what each company discloses »
Notes: Disclosures made or altered since Jan. 2013 are not listed or reflected on this website. Because they are reported in ranges, some of Valeant's payments and all of Allergan's payments are excluded from state and national totals. Also, Valeant did not disclose any payments between Sept. 27, 2010 and Jan. 1, 2011.
March 13: This post has been corrected.
When Dollars for Docs first launched in 2010, ProPublica spoke with several of the dozens of doctors who had earned more than $200,000 from their speaking and consulting work for drug companies. Now, with records from more companies and more years of data, we’ve identified 22 doctors who’ve earned at least $500,000 since 2009 — including one, Jon Draud, who was paid more than $1 million.
Most of these in-demand speakers hail from a just handful of states: four each from New York and Texas, and two each from California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. Half are psychiatrists, including three of the top four earners. The most commonly represented drug companies are Merck and Pfizer — 15 of the 22 doctors speak or consult for each of them. And all but one of the doctors are men.
Amounts listed below are for speaking and consulting only; compensation for travel, meals, research and other categories is excluded. The disclosures include payments to doctors dating back to 2009 for many drug companies, though others do not go back as far. If the recipients have separately disclosed relationships with drug companies that are not in Dollars for Docs, they are noted.
Location:Nashville, Tenn. Board Certification: American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Medical School:University of Kentucky, Class of 1990 Amount: $1,009,213 Companies:AstraZeneca, Cephalon, Eli Lilly, Forest, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer
Draud, the medical director of the Psychiatric Hospitalist Program at Baptist Hospital and Middle Tennessee Medical Center, stated in a conference biography in 2010 that he has “delivered over 3,500 professional lectures to medical personnel.” Draud previously has disclosed financial relationships with Angelini-Biopharm, Sanofi-Aventis, Sunovion and Takeda. He did not respond to requests for comment.
Location: Santa Monica, Calif. Board Certification: American Board of Anesthesiology Medical School:University of Massachusetts, Class of 1983 Amount: $730,400 Companies: Cephalon, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Pfizer
Sacks specializes in pain management. He declined to comment about his speaking when reached by ProPublica in March. He previously has disclosed a financial relationship with Abbott Laboratories.
Location: Costa Mesa, Calif. Board Certification: American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Medical School: Autonomous University of Guadalajara, Class of 1990 Amount: $663,751 Companies: AstraZeneca, Forest, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer
Alva is the medical director of ATP Clinical Research, a private clinical research company specializing in neuropsychiatric investigations. He previously served as assistant clinical professor of psychiatryat the University of California, Irvine. Reached about his speaking, Alva told ProPublica, “I actually enjoy the aspect of educating my counterparts about developments in the field.”
Location:Philadelphia, Pa. Medical School: Dr. William M. Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine, Class of 1981 Amount: $652,412 Companies: Merck, Pfizer, Valeant
Joseph is a podiatrist at Roxborough Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia. He is editor of the Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association and a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. "Yes, I go out and spread this information to my colleagues and it is often paid for by industry," Joseph said in an email to ProPublica, referring to diabetes research conducted in the private sector, including by pharmaceutical companies. "However, by doing so I know I have saved countless limbs and lives. Frankly, I don't see anything nefarious about that."
Location: Gardner, Mass. Board Certification: American Board of Allergy and Immunology Medical School: Northwestern University, Class of 1978 Amount: $651,524 Companies: AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novartis
In 2010, DeBuske resigned from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston because the Harvard-affiliated teaching hospital had adopted a policy prohibiting its doctors from speaking on behalf of drug companies, according to the Boston Globe. He did not respond to requests for comment.
Location:Cincinnati, Ohio Board Certification: American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Medical School: American University of Beirut, 1972 Amount:$647,341 Companies:AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Pfizer
Nasrallah, a psychiatrist, is an associate dean and professor at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Medicine, as well as the director of its schizophrenia program. According to a guest speaker biography for a University of Arizona psychopharmacology course, Nasrallah served at the chair of Ohio State University’s psychiatry department for 12 years. Reached by ProPublica, he declined to comment.
Location:Grapevine, Texas Board Certification: American Board of Internal Medicine Medical School: Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, Class of 1990 Amount: $622,286 Companies: AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Merck, Novartis
John Osborne has a Ph.D. in cardiovascular physiology from Thomas Jefferson University. He completed postdoctoral training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He is the founder and director of State of the Heart Cardiology and is a faculty member at the University of Texas at Arlington. Osborne agreed to a Texas Medical Board order on Feb. 8, 2013, that assessed a $3,000 administrative penalty and subjected his practice to periodic review by an outside monitor. The order says a nurse in Osborne’s office prescribed medications for a patient who had not been examined by Osborne or his nurse practitioner. Osborne did not respond to requests for comment.
Location: Denver, Colo. Medical School: McMaster University, Class of 1988 Amount: $613,612 Companies: AstraZeneca, Forest, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis Balkissoon specializes in pulmonary disease. He previously served as an assistant professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Balkissoon previously has disclosed financial relationships with Boehringer Ingelheim and Genentech. He could not be reached for comment.
Location: Lake Jackson, Texas Board Certification: American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Medical School:University of Calcutta Amount: $582,049 Companies: Forest, Eli Lilly, Merck, Pfizer
Jain specializes in psychiatry and serves as director of psychiatric drug research for R/D Clinical Research in Lake Jackson. Jain previously has disclosed financial relationships with AstraZeneca, Addrenex, Pamlab, Shionogi, Shire and Sunovion. Reached about his speaking, Jain told ProPublica, “I am not a marketer, I am an educator.”
Location: Houston, Texas Board Certification: American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Medical School: University of Texas at Houston, Class of 1987 Amount: $571,955 Companies: AstraZeneca, Cephalon, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer
Brams, a psychiatrist, serves as director of Depelchin Children’s Center and Bayou City Research. Brams also serves as a senior national board examiner for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. Reached about his speaking, Brams told ProPublica that companies were interested in his research involving their drugs and had approached him: “When you’re an investigator, you may be one of only a handful of doctors who has information on them.”
Location: Durham, N.C. Board Certification: American Board of Internal Medicine Medical School: University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Class of 1991 Amount: $567,300 Companies:Cephalon, Novartis,GlaxoSmithKline
Rizzieri specializes in cell therapy and hematologica at Duke Medicine, part of the Duke University Health System, where he completed a fellowship. Reached by ProPublica, Rizzieri said in an email that he is doing less industry-sponsored speaking and has refocused his efforts on a program at the university’s Division of Cellular Therapy called “Duke Debates,” which engages physicians, nurses and pharmacists in education and research initiatives.
Location: Boston, Mass. Board Certification American Board of Internal Medicine Medical School:University of Southern California, Class of 1983 Amount: $552,775 Companies:GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Pfizer
Nasraway is director of the surgical intensive care unit at Tufts New England Medical Center. He also serves as an associate professor of Tufts Medical School and has been member of clinical advisory board at Echo Therapeutics since 2005. He did not respond to requests for comment.
Location: St. Paul, Minn. Board Certification: American Board of Anesthesiology Medical School:University of Minnesota, Class of 1986 Amount: $542,900 Companies: Forest, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Pfizer
Hess is director of United Pain Center, a clinic based at United Hospital in St. Paul that specializes in treating chronic pain. Reached about his speaking, Hess told ProPublica, “I don’t feel like I’m a salesman at all. I feel like I’m educating physicians.”
Location: New York, N.Y. Board Certification: American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Medical School:University of Bombay, Class of 1982 Amount: $538,864 Companies: AstraZeneca, Forest, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Merck, Pfizer
Masand, a psychiatrist, is the founder and CEO of Global Medical Education, a digital medical education resource. He previously served as director of therapeutic area development, neurosciences medicine at the Duke Clinical Research Institute and was a consulting professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke Medical Center. Reached by ProPublica, he declined to comment.
Location: Suffern, N.Y. Board Certification: American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Medical School: McGill University, Class of 1983 Amount: $530,569 Companies:AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer
Citrome is a psychiatrist at Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Suffern. He has researched schizophrenia and has a master’s in public health from Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. Reached by ProPublica, Citrome declined to comment about his speaking work.
Location: Greer, S.C. Board Certification: American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Medical School:University of Belgrade, Class of 1981 Amount: $527,850 Companies:Cephalon, Eli Lilly, Merck
Maletic specializes in psychiatry. He completed a residency in psychiatry at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, followed by a residency in child psychiatry at Duke University. Reached by ProPublica about his speaking, Maletic said he believes that “good quality education about pharmaceutical products may be beneficial to both physicians and their patients.”
Location: Albany, N.Y. Board Certification: American Board of Internal Medicine Medical School:University of Pennsylvania, Class of 1978 Amount: $527,688 Companies: AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Merck, Novartis
Busch is an endocrinologist. Reached about his speaking by ProPublica, Busch said he gives about 100 talks a year, most of them in the Northeast. “I don’t know why they choose me, but they do,” Busch said of the companies that contact him about speaking. Busch said he has turned down offers to speak about drugs that he doesn’t endorse, including Avandia, a diabetes drug that remains available despite a U.S. Food and Drug Administration study that recommended taking it off the market.
Location: Dallas, Texas Board Certification: American Board of Internal Medicine Medical School:University of Texas at Galveston, Class of 1991 Amount: $516,070 Companies:GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Viiv
Race specializes in infectious disease. Reached about her speaking ProPublica, she said her industry sponsored work helped pay for trips to train doctors in treating HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in South Africa and Belize. “It has been a blessing to do AIDS and TB work funded by that kind of money,” she said. Race, who was formerly affiliated with the University of Texas Southwestern, emphasized that she is now self-employed and is not bound by universityconflict-of-interest policies.
Location: Buffalo, N.Y. Board Certification: American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Medical School:University of Delhi, Class of 1984 Amount: $515,329 Companies:AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Forest, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novartis
Sanjay Gupta is a clinical professor at SUNY Upstate Medical University, where he completed his residency, as well as at SUNY at Buffalo, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. He was formerly president of Global Research & Consulting, Inc. Gupta did not return calls from ProPublica. He is not the Sanjay Gupta who is chief medical correspondent for CNN.
Location: Memphis, Tenn. Board Certification: American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Medical School:University of Tennessee, Class of 1991 Amount: $512,306 Companies:AstraZeneca, Forest, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer
Woods practices with the Psychiatry Group in Memphis. He did not respond to requests for comment.
Location: Moosic, Pa. Medical School: Not Listed Amount: $504,100 Companies:AstraZeneca, Cephalon, Forest, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer
Berger, who specializes in forensic psychiatry, has a practice near Scranton, Pa. Berger’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Correction: This post mistakenly listed Warren Joseph’s location as Coatesville, Pa. In fact, he sees patients in Philadelphia and has not worked in Coatesville for several years. This post has also been updated with comments from Joseph.
None of the physicians you have listed have broken any laws, in fact the majority of these doctors have done very positive things for their patients and their communities. You are trying to depict these physicians as criminals. Most top end lawyers are getting as much as 500-600 dollars per hour. When are we to see a piece on overpriced lawyers. And again does your editor in chief deserve $500,000.00 per year for running a non profit.
Now THIRD World’s copying US, We immediately need to make drastic change in rules of our Top Courts & N/American law, foreign policy manufacturing process.
It’s now, if not modified, a continuing fiasco!
WHATS DISGRACEFUL IS MANY WHO WILL NOT HELP MS WITH CCSVI BECAUSE THEY ARE LIVING LAVISH LIFESTYLES ON DRIG PROFITS AND SHARES ALONG WITH PRIVATE PATIENTS MONEY TOO
No - they probably haven’t broken any laws but, as paid lecturers, how can they not lobby for the product(s) of the corporation(s) writing their honorarium check(s)? In addition, the information and presentation materials given to these paid lecturers may not fully disclose the benefits/risks of the advertised products. Did the paid lecturers also disclose the risks to their audiences of taking Vioxx or Avandia? Or the metal-to-metal hip prostheses? Outstanding speakers with clinical/research experience should be rewarded for preparing and giving their presentations - but perhaps the money should come from a generic source whose contributors may include private pharmaceutical and medical device companies. This would avoid any implicit or implied fiduciary obligation owed by the paid lecturer to the check writer.
Frank Giramonti… focus! You’re absolutely right about outlandish salaries paid by non-profits to administrators (http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=topten.detail&listid=8), and extortionist practices by some attorneys, etc., but this report is about just one niche in that same “legal but questionable” aspect of American society… the cozy relationship among some in trusted positions in the medical field and some pharmaceutical companies.
Way too many have cosy relationships with the pharmas and often wonders how many of their patients have died as a result of thr drugs prescribed . Any drug taken over a lenghth of time is FATAL . Many MS drugs are deadly also . Its fueled by GEED and CORRUPTIONS to the core
So, when will we see a similar article with pictures called “Dollars for Dems?” We have a Dem House Rep from our district, who lost his job at a University because he was too stupid to know how to apply for government grant money. The Democrat Machine ran him for a House seat. He won and has been there for almost two decades. He didn’t have a pot to piss in before he went to Congress, now he is a multimillionaire. There have to be others like him. So, let’s here from “Anti-Pro Publica” about them, or does this medium only carry the water for the usual corrupt Democrat agenda?
You do not have [fill in with any disease] because your body doesn’t make enough chemicals from (choose one of the following: AstraZeneca, Cephalon, Forest, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer) - get it?
Unfortunately, our medical system is driven by money, money, and more money. This bunch has just figured the way to better milk the system. Greedy? Yes, of course. Illegal? No. Ethical? Hardly.
I think it is interesting to note how many psychiatrists are on the list when you consider the prevalence of advertising for psychotropic drugs. It appears to be a two pronged effort to sell a product, very possibly to the exclusion of others, depending on the sponsor.
Some time ago I read a report on pain medications in which newer drugs were found to be no more effective than older drugs that no longer enjoyed patent protection and are now sold as generics. I wonder if the same thing is true of psychotropic drugs as well.
There are so many organizations who should unite and beat this horrific, evil, greedy practice. Reminds me of all the rescue groups for animals, but millions of the animals are put to death.
This is about marketing, no educating. The drugs promoted can cost $20K/year per patient prescription so if a small % of physicians prescribe the drug, huge profits can be realized. The speakers know exactly what is going on. True it is not illegal but is it ethical?
By the way, I am a lowly Internist and was told by a pharm rep that they can no longer buy me a cup of coffee in a coffee shop. The rules only apply to certain physicians!
Paying doctors to present to doctors makes sense. Who else is a doctor going to listen to? What’s missing here is evidence of deficiency or malfeasance. The focus is on money alone, and money, by itself, is a poor indicator of anything. Yes, Big Pharma is big business. We all know that. If you want to blow the lid off of some wrong-doing, you’re going to have to find some real evidence that there was either misrepresentation or malpractice involved in such a time tested means of marketing as a medical conference where doctors are asked to promote drugs. Yes, I’d love to see the industry reined in as much as the next patient who feels at the mercy of the insurance industry, but innuendo isn’t the way to do it.
When you state that “...such a time tested means of marketing as a medical conference where doctors are asked to promote drugs” you are simply advocating for physicians to lobby for pharma.
Have any of those posting comments ever been to one of these lectures? Because I have…dozens over the years…and they are informational with details about the medications themselves, trials, side-effects, etc and lots of Q&A from the audience about how to prescribe, alternate choices and so forth. Educational. It’s how doctors learn about new medications and how to use them. And, by the way, did anyone consider that the time a doctor devotes to these lectures is time away from his practice? And for the vast majority of doctors, if you don’t see patients you don’t get paid. So for a psychiatrist who would typically make $200-$300 per hour seeing patients, doing consultations, rounding on inpatients, it would be necessary for drug companies to compensate them for their lost revenue.
I have, in fact, given such lectures (early in my career) at local bistros where the physicians and their wives were offered cocktails in addition to anything on the menu. The honorarium was always good. Pharma provided the slides, the visuals, and the trinkets. But my conscience finally trumped because the same information was available from my colleagues, at hospital section meetings, from hospital pharmacists, from pharma representatives, journals, and regional/national meetings. My role was simply that of a lobbyist for pharma.
It is amazing to see how physicians are demonized, we should be the thought leaders and the science bringers not the bureaucrats and the attorneys, the fact that someone speaks for pharma is no illegal or immoral, it is called education and free enterprise, the fact that someone works in clinical research is the reason why we have the best medical care and medications in the world.
Fat cat doctors? Tell me of another profession where you spend at least 15 years after high school and have to curtail immediate gratification.
People should be compensated for hard work and for having business sense.
Lets stop the sensationalism and look at the facts, these people work for a living, how they do it is up to them, why don’t we look at politicians, attorneys or other professions and their junkets, we are driving the best and brightest to other areas other than medicine.
Maybe when our population is sick or our medications are old and there are not enough MD’s or the ones we have are mediocre we will turn to the attorneys for advice.
Big Pharma is stronger that Mafia it can kill with impunity without being prosecuted by the Justice ... What justice?, justice of the fittest ................................................................................................................................................................... http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/10/doctors-not-informed-of-drug-side-effects-during-sales-visits/
Doctors Not Informed of Drug Side Effects During Sales Visits
April 10, 2013
Jon Feingersh / Getty ImagesThe omissions included drugs with the most serious, black box warnings of potential adverse effects.
Doctors often first learn of new drugs during sales meetings with pharmaceutical sales representatives, during which
A good overview, complete w/ lies and propaganda, the older Fluoroquinolones were so seriously TOXIC, God only knows how many lives they destroyed, how many innocent lives LOST, all of these past FQ's REMOVED w/ newer versions (SAME TOXICITY) right back on the market, WHO are you going to BELIEVE??!!
Illusions PerduesOLD SHIT IN ONE NEW JACKET ! ...............................................................................................................
JNJ CEO Alex Gorsky's Cloud of Corruption Let's take a look at Alex Gorsky's commendable list of bribery, thievery, misrepresentation and more. I'm trying to think of why Billy chose him to lead the company. Lead the company where? Into a quagmire of harmed patients and lawsuits? It seems that he's built his career destroying the image of Johnson & Johnson.
FDA WARNING: Dear Healthcare Provider in violation of numerous FDA regulations (Sent: 4/19/2004) The first warning letter sent regarding the Risperdal "Dear Healthcare Provider" letter, sent out in November of 2003 (while Gorsky was the main person responsible for the letter), that contained promotion such as downplaying risks, non-disclosure of risk and, according the letter, "is a serious public health issue." The "Dear Healthcare Provider" letter presented Risperdal in violation of numerous FDA codes was sent to by the FDA in April of 2004. Alex Gorsky left Johnson & Johnson and went to Novartis in May of 2004. It looks like Alex bailed as soon as he could after the letter regarding Risperdal was received . Interesting.
FDA WARNING: (sent: 8/8/2007) While Alex Gorsky was working at Novartis, he received a letter regarding the misrepresentation, illegal promotion and downplaying and/or hiding known risks of Exelon. The violations were almost exactly the same violations Alex Gorsky had already received for Risperdal when at Johnson & Johnson.
In 2008, Gorsky begged his way back into JNJ and split before it hit the fire at Novartis, just like he did when he left JNJ in 2004. Very interesting, indeed. He slid right into medical devices and was the decision-maker for numerous harmful products.
FDA WARNING: Animas insulin pumps known defective (sent: 12/27/2011) it's scary, but true. Johnson & Johnson was aware that there was a problem with the insulin pumps. However, the FDA Warning letter indicates that the remaining defective insulin pumps were sold to unsuspecting patients. According to the FDA Warning letter, "...no rationale was documented in CAPA (b)(4) to explain why it was acceptable for your firm to continue to use the remaining (b)(4) with known failure modes during insulin pump production." Yep, there you have it. Even when JNJ is fully aware of a product defect, they still sell the remaining batch. But then again, they get two sales for the price of one since eventually, the patient will be affected by the defective device and need to purchase one that is not defective. Gee, hope the shareholders don't get the defective products - they are patients, too.
Which department do you think they were complaining about? The department they were most concerned about was medical devices, which is Gorsky's area of expertise. Toss in his history of corruption throughout his career at Johnson & Johnson as well as during his time at Novartis. Interesting, huh?
The latest heart stent (not to be confused with the stolen patent heart stent that a judge ordered compensation and for JNJ to shut down production) was fast-tracked through the process by a man that states: "You don't have to get it 100% right," Gorsky says. "When you get it 60%, go! Any more time that you spend trying to figure it out, you're going to lose in the speed that you're missing out on."
With the amount of corruption involving bypassing all safety standards, ignoring quality checks and an FDA process in Gorsky's department totally corrupt according to 9 scientists in addition to a CEO of a company whose products have been pumped out and pushed through at 60%, do you really want these medical devices (such as the recently approved S.M.A.R.T. by Cordis, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson) installed in your body or the body of someone you love?
(NaturalNews) In a New York Times op-ed explaining her decision to have both of her breasts surgically removed even though she doesn't have breast cancer, Angelina Jolie cited risk numbers as key to her decision. She said that doctors told her she had an "87% risk of breast cancer." Her solution? Undergo three months of surgical procedures and have her breasts cut out.
Problem solved, right? With her breasts removed, she says her risk of breast cancer is now reduced to a mere 5 percent. The same bizarre logic can also be applied to men who cut off their testicles to "prevent testicular cancer" or people who cut out their colons to "prevent colorectal cancer." But that would be insane, so nobody does that, because one of the most basic principles of medicine is that you don't subject patients to the considerable risks and costs of surgery and anesthesia to remove organs that have no disease!
But the really sad part about all this is that Angelina Jolie was lied to. She didn't have an 87% risk of breast cancer in the first place. All the women reading her NYT op-ed piece are also being lied to. Here's why...
How cancer doctors lie with statistics and use fear to scare women into high-profit procedures
The very idea that breast cancer is a "percent risk" is a complete lie. In reality, everyone has cancer micro-tumors in their bodies, including myself. Cancer is not a disease you just "get" like being randomly struck by lightning. It's something you must "manage" or "prevent" day by day, meal by meal, through a lifestyle choice that involves vitamin D supplementation, nutrition, superfoods, vegetable juices and avoidance of cancer-causing chemicals and radiation.
So when a doctor says you have a "chance" of getting cancer, what he's implying is that you have no control over cancer, and that's an outright lie. Cancer quackery, in other words.
Even Jolie with her BRCA1 gene that's linked to breast cancer can quite easily follow a dietary and lifestyle plan that suppresses BRCA1 gene expression. It's not rocket science. It's not even difficult. It can be done with simple foods that cost a few dollars a day. Those foods include raw citrus, resveratrol (red grapes or red wine), raw cruciferous vegetables, omega-3 oils and much more. Those same foods also help prevent heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's and other chronic diseases.
Indole-3-carbinol (I3C), by the way, a natural chemical found in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cabbage, offers powerful prevention against BRCA1 gene expression. But you don't hear cancer doctors telling women to "eat more cabbage" because that doesn't make the cancer industry any money. You can buy I3C as a potent nutritional supplement from a variety of sources. It's literally cancer prevention in a capsule.
So the whole "chance" argument is pure quackery. There is no chance involved in whether you get cancer. It's all cause and effect. You are either living a pro-cancer lifestyle and therefore growing cancer, or you're living an anti-cancer lifestyle and keeping cancer in check so that it never becomes a problem. Cause and effect is what results in either the growth of cancer tumors or the prevention of cancer tumors. There is no "luck" involved.
It's fascinating, isn't it, that medical doctors don't believe in luck or voodoo on any topic other than cancer. But when it comes to cancer, they want all women to be suckered into the victim mentality that cancer is purely a matter of "luck" and therefore women have no control over their own health outcomes. How dis-empowering! How sick! How incredibly exploitive of women!
Why doesn't the cancer industry empower women with a sense of control over their own health?
I find it astonishing that the cancer industry doesn't believe in cause and effect. They would rather scare women with "risk" statistics that imply people have no control over cancer. Empowering women with a sense of control over their own health is the last thing the cancer industry wants to do, because that would cause them to lose customers and lose money.
It's far more profitable to scare all women into a state of such irrational panic that they agree to the most insane things imaginable such as chopping off both their healthy breasts even though they have no cancer. Such women are then convinced they've literally saved their own lives by agreeing to be mutilated by cancer surgeons.
"My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent," says Jolie. "I can tell my children that they don't need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer."
Will she also tell her children they should mutilate themselves, too, as a form of medical disease prevention? And what happens if she learns she has a risk of brain cancer? Does she chop off her head and call it a cure?
The scam of making women believe there is only ONE way to reduce your "risk" of breast cancer
The other enormous scam in all this is the idea that there's only one way to reduce your "risk" of breast cancer. Even if you believe the fictitious number of "87% risk," why does everyone automatically assume there is one and only one way to lower that risk?
"For any woman reading this, I hope it helps you to know you have options," writes Jolie in the NYT. Yet she utterly fails to offer women any options other than the one she took: check in to a cancer center and let them play "cut-poison-burn" on your body. Jolie's op-ed piece, which reads as if it were written by the public relations department of the Pink Lotus Breast Center, offers nothing in the way of nutrition advice, lifestyle choices, holistic therapies, wellness, alternative medicine... nothing! What an incredible disservice to all the women of America...
In the world of health, nutrition and cancer, there are thousands of ways to prevent cancer and suppress the expression of BRCA1 genes. But Jolie and the cancer industry seem to imply no options exist other than chemotherapy, radiotherapy or surgery. Three options only. Nothing else exists in their world, not nutritional prevention, not vitamin D therapy, not vitamin C potentiated micro-chemotherapy, not ozone therapy, sauna treatments, acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, stress reduction or anything else. You are supposed to believe that none of these things exist!
And why? Because the cancer industry wants to funnel women like cattle into their slash-poison-burn system of quack treatments. And Angelina Jolie is their new cheerleader. Scarred and no doubt experiencing the chest and armpit numbness that almost always accompanies mastectomy surgery, she now seeks to "inspire" other women to exercise their own sick "choice" and have their breasts removed, too!
It is the sickest invocation of women's power that I've ever witnessed. This is not empowering women, it's marching them into self-mutilation. And the "risk" is a complete fraud. In truth, Angelina Jolie had a higher risk of dying on the operating table than dying from breast cancer if she simply followed an anti-cancer lifestyle.
Don't be tricked into self-mutilation by cancer industry quacks
In summary:
• The claim that you have a "percent risk" of breast cancer is a big lie which implies you have no control over cancer.
• BRCA1 genes can be kept quiet (suppressed) through proper foods and lifestyle choices. A gene is not a death sentence.
• The implication that there is only ONE way to reduce breast cancer risk is a complete lie. There are thousands of options and strategies for preventing cancer. Never be cornered into surgery by a group of surgeons pushing irrational fear.
• Cancer micro-tumors exist in everyone. Cancer must be "managed" in everyone to keep it in check and avoid the growth of tumors.
• The cancer industry tricks women using unethical fear tactics to scare women with false statistics into high-profit cancer procedures that only cause them harm.
• The claim that cutting off healthy breasts somehow "empowers" women is sick and demented. Women are far more empowered by honest information on nutrition and healthy living that allows them to keep their bodies intact rather than being sliced up by dishonest cancer surgeons.
Listen to our FREE cancer solutions seminar on May 20th, as we launch our New Cancer Solutions Healing Summit featuring incredibly valuable lectures by holistic / alternative cancer doctors who know what they're talking about. It's FREE and all women need to be empowered by this truthful information.
Here's a brief overview of some of the campaigns of terror the FDA has initiated against natural healers, nutritional supplement companies and other organizations. Many were conducted using armed agents wielding assault rifles and automatic weapons, dressed in body armor. All of them were intended to destroy natural medicine, thereby protecting the profits of drug companies and conventional medicine practitioners.
This is the true history of the FDA that the FDA doesn't wan't you to know!
The Life Extension Foundation (www.LEF.org) has long been targeted by the FDA. It is a non-profit organization that publishes information about the healing power of nutritional supplements and genuine anti-aging breakthroughs from the world of natural health.
On February 26, 1987, approximately 25 armed FDA agents and U.S. Marshals burst through the glass doors of the Ft. Lauderdale offices of the Life Extension Foundation with guns drawn. A second group of FDA agents simultaneously attacked the LEF warehouse, where they detained LEF founder William Faloon at gunpoint.
Employees were lined up against the wall and searched. Agents rifled through the personal belonging of the employees and confiscated many items. Over the next 12 hours, they seized thousands of items, including nutritional products, files, and documents, including 5,000 newsletters that were about to be mailed to subscribers. Computers and telephones were reportedly, "…ripped from the wall," and agents seized anything they could find regardless of whether such items were actually named in the search warrant. Later analysis revealed that 80 percent of the seized items were never named in the warrant.
Not surprisingly, the entire legal basis for the raid was fraudulent to begin with. The search warrant, issued by Magistrate Lurana S. Snow, was based on perjured testimony by FDA agent Martin Katz. But the intent to terrorize the Life Extension Foundation worked: Employees suffered nightmares and many were afraid to come to work.
Rather than giving in to the tyranny of the FDA, Bill Faloon and the Life Extension Foundation chose to fight for their First Amendment rights. As explained by Saul Kent of the Life Extension Foundation at www.LEF.org:
Everyone we consulted, including attorneys who were FDA "experts", told us we had to submit to the FDA's authority to have any chance of surviving. We ignored all this advice and instead decided to wage all-out war against the FDA. We did this knowing that we would not only risk our livelihood, but our personal freedom as well . We were told again and again that the FDA had the unlimited resources of the federal government at its disposal, and that an organization with fewer than 5,000 members had no chance of winning an all-out war with them.
To further terrorize the Life Extension Foundation and its founders, the FDA, with the help of various corrupt law enforcement bodies, filed 56 criminal charges against Foundation officers Saul Kent and William Faloon. After an 11-year reign of terror in which the FDA spent millions of taxpayer dollars attempting to prosecute them, Kent and Faloon prevailed. In November, 1995, Federal Judge Daniel Hurley dismissed 55 of the 56 charges, and in February, 1996, the final charge was dismissed.
And thus ended the FDA's campaign of terror against the Life Extension Foundation. It was the first time in 88 years that the FDA had been forced to give up its prosecution efforts and throw in the towel.
As Saul Kent says, "The FDA's dismissal of the charges against me (and Bill Faloon) is an unprecedented victory against FDA tyranny that goes far beyond winning in court. The FDA's historic defeat is a victory for everyone who cherishes freedom in healthcare."
In 1994, the Life Extension Foundation established the FDA Holocaust Museum to document the decades-long reign of terror the FDA has perpetrated against the American people.
1990 - The El Cajon pet food store raid
In 1990, FDA agents raided the pet food store of Sissy Harrington-McGill, a 57-year-old pet lover who was guilty of the "crime" of claiming that vitamins would help keep pets healthy. Without a search warrant, FDA agents ransacked her store, confiscating products and literature.
She was later tried and convicted of violating the Health Claims Law, a law that did not exist at the time of the raid and was never passed by the U.S. Congress. Nonetheless, likely due to FDA pressure on the presiding judge, she was sentenced to 179 days in prison and fined $10,000 for daring to say that vitamins are good for puppy dogs!
1990 - The Highland Laboratories raid
In 1990, Ken Scott ran a vitamin business in Mt. Angel, Oregon, a small rural town. He was selling nutritional supplements containing coenzyme Q10, a vital nutrient for cellular energy that has received tremendous praise from the scientific community for boosting cardiovascular health, preventing congestive heart failure, improving blood pressure and cholesterol profiles, as well as many other benefits. To help educate customers about the healing power of CoQ10, he offered to send reprints of magazine and newspaper articles describing some of the scientific findings about the nutrient.
This public education effort, of course, would not be tolerated by the FDA Gestapo. So the FDA organized an armed raid comprised of nine FDA agents, 11 U.S. Marshals and eight Oregon state police. With guns drawn, they kicked in the doors to Ken Scott's business and conducted one of the most terror-driven "vitamin" raids in U.S. history.
For the next 11 hours, agents confiscated nearly everything they could find at Highland Laboratories. Ken Scott and his employees were threatened with violence if they tried to set foot in the office, and his daughter, who was located miles away, was illegally detained and held in "house arrest" for 12 hours.
The FDA, you see, would not tolerate Ken Scott mailing scientific literature or articles to his customers. So in order to comply with the FDA, Scott later hired an outside mailing service owned by his daughter to run the article mailing operations.
The FDA's response to that? They illegally raided the mailing service company and threatened to confiscate the checkbook and cash of its owner. Out of fear (terrorism works, you see?), that owner subsequently closed her business and refused to file charges against the FDA.
Ken Scott was ultimately forced to cut a deal with prosecutors, and eventually served five years on probation for his "crime" of telling the truth about CoQ10.
The message from the FDA to other vitamin companies couldn't be more clear: Don't you dare tell your customers the truth about vitamins, or we'll shut you down and prosecute you!
1990: The Century Clinic "chelation" raids
In Reno, Nev., 1990, the Century Clinic was raided by the FDA and Postal Service inspectors. Agents seized large quantities of items from the clinic, virtually wiping it out of computers and equipment, as well as patient records and files. No charges were filed.
After Century Clinic rebuilt and sued the FDA for the return of its property, the FDA raided it again and conducted a search of the persons and homes of the owners and employees. Patients at the clinic were reportedly interrogated and not allowed to leave without turning over their names and addresses. No charges were ever filed against the clinic or its owners.
1991: The Tijuana cancer clinic kidnapping
Jimmy Keller cured his own cancer through the use of natural medicine therapies. Encouraged by success with his own cancer, he pursued a career in natural medicine and later moved to Mexico and opened a clinic that could legally treat U.S. patients with the disease (treating cancer naturally is illegal in the United States, so the best practitioners are forced to open clinics in Mexico or other countries). The success of this clinic caught the eye of health authorities in the United States, and they decided to put a stop to it.
In March 1991, armed Mexican police officers, with no warrants or charges whatsoever, kidnapped Keller from the St. Jude Hospital and delivered him to U.S. Justice Department bounty hunters who, against his will, drove him across the border to the USA. There, the FBI arrested him and charged him with wire fraud (Keller had used the telephone to hold conversations with prospective patients). Keller was later convicted of wire fraud and sent to a North Dakota prison for two years. His kidnapping and arrest are blatantly illegal under international law.
1992 - Raid on Nature's Way
In 1992 in Utah; the FDA seized bulk primrose oil from Nature's Way, a manufacturer that offers some of the highest-quality supplements in the business. Nature's Way filed a lawsuit to get their product returned, but was forced to remove the natural Vitamin E from the formulation, as the FDA insisted that Vitamin E had not been approved as an additive for primrose oil.
1992 - The Tahoma Clinic FDA Raid
On May 6, 1992, FDA agents joined armed King County police officers in an armed raid against the clinic of Dr. Jonathan Wright, an M.D. and natural health practitioner. His crime? He was treating patients with injectable high-dose B vitamins -- a safe, natural treatment -- and in doing so was actually helping patients heal.
The armed agents smashed down the door, rushed into the clinic like a SWAT team with guns drawn, terrorizing the patients and shouting at them to put their hands in the air. Over the next fourteen hours, agents rifled through Dr. Wright's clinic, seizing patient records, computers, vitamin supplies, and various natural therapy products. The FDA illegally held on to confiscated items, including the computers needed to run his clinic, for three years.
But was Dr. Wright really so dangerous as to justify an armed raid? He's a graduate of Harvard and the University of Michigan Medical School. He's a book author, a prolific public speaker, and served as the nutrition editor of Prevention magazine for more than ten years. The purpose of the FDA raid was clearly not to arrest Dr. Wright, who was never charged. Rather, the purpose appears to be conducting a campaign of terror: sending a message to the alternative medicine community that anyone engaged in nutritional treatments could be raided and shut down, with no legal justification.
It was all part of the FDA's campaign against natural health treatments, a campaign that continues to this day.
1992: The Texas vitamin store raids
In 1992, the FDA prompted the Texas Department of Health (TDH) and the Texas Department of Food and Drug to conduct raids on more than 12 health food stores. Agents seized flaxseed oil, aloe vera, zinc supplements, vitamin C, and even Sleepytime Tea. One health food store owner was reportedly threatened by TDH with, "Don't talk to the press, or we'll come down on you twice as hard!"
None of the confiscated products were ever returned to the store owners, no charges were filed, and no reason for the raids was ever given. The raids were simply a campaign of terror designed to destroy the inventory and disrupt business operations of stores selling natural health products.
1993: The health food store raids
In 1993, the war against health freedom reached its peak in Texas, where combined forces of the FDA, DEA, IRS, U.S. Customs, and U.S. Postal Services conducted commando-style raids on nearly 40 different health food stores, vitamin companies, and natural health clinics from May through September. The homes of company owners and employees were also raided, and some raids were conducted with SWAT teams brandishing assault weapons and flak jackets.
In one home, a mother who was breast feeding her infant was reportedly "roughed up and handcuffed for 11 hours while FDA agents ransacked her home." Items seized in the raids included vitamins, minerals, herbs, and nutritional supplements. IRS officials also seized computers, automobiles, and bank accounts. The U.S. Postal Service illegally blocked the mail of some of the targeted companies, denying them the ability to conduct business or even organize a legal defense.
Targeted products included Dr. Kurt Donsbach's nutritional products and Dr. Hans Neiper's German-made health products.
The 1963 Church of Scientology raid
In the early 1960s, the FDA got word of something it didn't like: The Church of Scientology was helping its members overcome mental problems with the use of a simple biofeedback device called the E-meter. With the market for psychotropic drugs so consistently profitable, and with Scientology gaining momentum in helping millions of people overcome severe emotional and mental problems, this E-meter had to be taken out of play… and fast!
To do so, the FDA filed a "libel of information" with a U.S. District Court, after which Judge William B. Jones ordered a warrant authorizing the arrest of the E-meters. Yes, the meters themselves were to be arrested. The warrant also authorized the arrest of "an undetermined number of items of written, printed or graphic matter."
With the warrant issued, armed U.S. Marshals and FDA agents launched a military-style raid on the church. According to sworn affidavits of eyewitnesses, the agents "…burst into the church offices… and loudly demanded and threatened all in sight; observed absolutely no courtesies except for not actually shooting the guns they carried, and denied to the Church administrators any opportunity to arrange that students and Church members not be disturbed, upset or terrorized.
"Showing no legal warrant, the agents and … deputies pounded their way up stairways, bursting into confessional and pastoral counseling sessions, causing disruption and violently preventing the quiet pursuit of the normal practice of religious philosophy.
"They seized all the publications and all the confessional aids called E-meters they could find in desks, in ladies' handbags, in students' briefcases and in the session rooms.
"… the agents removed from the church to the waiting vans some tens of thousands of copies of over twenty Church books, texts, recorded sermons; even the Church archives were sacked. The confiscated material was handled roughly, and when ministers of the Church asked that their property be handled more carefully, the 'deputies' from Baltimore gave only sneering illiteracies for answer."
In all, three tons of materials were seized. In clear violation of both the First and Fourth Amendments, the FDA had illegally used its powers to spread yet more fear and terror through the world -- this time, to raid a church.
All religions have healing tools
Of course, Scientology is not as mainstream as Christianity, Buddhism, or Catholicism, but since when did religions have to be popular to enjoy equal protection under the U.S. Constitution? Besides, various churches have always attributed special healing powers to their particular tools. Roman Catholic churches have Holy Water and other healing elements (Easter wafers, Saint Glaize Candles, Scapulars, and so on). Other religions use prayer clothes, prayer oils, and various pieces of string for which healing benefits are commonly prescribed. Nearly all churches recognize prayer as an effective form of healing. Yet the FDA chose to single out Scientology's E-meter machine, likely because it perceived the device as presenting a genuine threat to psychiatry's monopoly over mental health treatment.
The FDA, you see, believes it not only regulates foods, drugs, and cosmetics, but also religions. Only "mainstream" religious practices will be allowed, and any such religions that use alternative symbols, rituals, or scriptures will be prosecuted, regardless of what the Constitution says. The rule of law never interferes with the FDA's campaigns of terror.
The history of the U.S. government's persecution of the Church of Scientology is long and complex, and it is a sad demonstration of true religious intolerance right here in the United States. The First Amendment, which protects both Free Speech and Religion, offers no real protection against the criminals at the FDA, who have for decades attempted to suppress alternative philosophies that actually help people heal.
After nine years of protracted legal battles, and the expenditure of countless millions in taxpayer dollars that funded the prosecution efforts, the Church of Scientology achieved a victory in the courts, and the FDA was forced to return the E-meters. Yet, just to inflict a little more pain and punishment upon the Church, the court ordered the Church of Scientology to pay for all the warehousing costs of the confiscated items held over the previous nine years, plus all the legal fees of the government's prosecution efforts. The courts also ruled that all Scientology literature describing the E-meter must carry a warning message written by the FDA, and that the church must pay the salaries and travel expenses of FDA agents who would, from time to time, visit the church to ensure compliance with the courts. (Source: The Hidden Story of Scientology, Omar V. Garrison, page 143.)
In other words, the Church of Scientology was to be severely punished for daring to oppose the tyranny of the FDA. Just as a factory-working Jewish prisoner who talked back to his Nazi captors in 1942 would be beaten and shot, the FDA made sure that the Church of Scientology would pay a dear price for daring to question the authority of this all-powerful federal agency, an agency that could summon the aid of firearms-brandishing law enforcement officials at any time, for apparently any reason, regardless of its legality.
Other FDA raids
1991, San Leandro, Calif.: A nutritional supplement company, NutriCology, is raided by 12 FDA agents. All FDA injunctions were eventually thrown out of court.
1991, Texas: The anti-cancer clinic of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski, a brilliant researcher from Poland, is raided by the FDA and the Texas Department of Health. Just before the raids, the National Cancer Institute had announced they would evaluate the pioneering work of Dr. Burzynski, which involved cancer treatment using antineoplastons. With the help of health freedom champions like Dr. Julian Whitaker, Dr. Burzynski fought FDA oppression and went on to save the lives of countless cancer patients, some of which are profiled on his clinic website today: www.CancerMed.com
1992, San Diego, Calif.: The heads of three European vitamin companies, along with their U.S. marketing professional David Halpern, are arrested and charged with 198 counts of conspiracy, smuggling, and violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for importing simple nutritional supplements that are freely available in Britain, Germany, and other European countries. The indictments reportedly carried combined prison terms of 990 years.
And this report, by the way, doesn't even cover the FDA's terror-style tactics against a company called Lane Labs, which developed and marketed anti-cancer supplements that really worked.
As you can see from this report, it is quite clear that the FDA has the intention of destroying natural medicine using any means necessary, including terrorism tactics.
And who supports the FDA? Pharmaceutical companies, medical associations, doctors, medical journals, hospitals and numerous corrupt Congresspeople and Senators. By supporting the FDA, they condone the use of terrorism tactics against the American people and, ultimately, support the continued use of police state tactics against innocents.
his story was co-published with NPR's Shots blog.
Patients who suffer injuries, infections or mistakes during medical
care rarely get an acknowledgment or apology, researchers at the Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine report.
The study was based on responses of 236 patients who completed ProPublica's Patient Harm Questionnaire during the one-year period ending in May 2013 and who agreed to share their data.
Results of the study, led by professor of surgery Marty Makary and conducted independently from ProPublica, were published online Nov. 13 by the Journal of Patient Safety. The study found:
It was common for health care providers to withhold information
about medical mistakes. Only 9 percent of patients said the medical
facility voluntarily disclosed the harm.
When officials did disclose harm it was often because they
were forced to. Nine percent of respondents said the harm was only
acknowledged under pressure.
Apologies were infrequent. Only 11 percent of patients or their family members
1920s: Monsanto expands into industrial chemic
For
decades, the U.S. FDA has uncovered misconduct in clinical trials but
hidden it from the public, according to a new paper in JAMA Internal Medicine.
$2 billion
15
~ 47%
Illusions Perdues OLD SHIT IN ONE NEW JACKET !
J&J Previous CEO
J&J Current CEO
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
