Big Pharma Mobilises

Pharmaceutical companies claim they need to charge high prices to fund their research and development. This just isn’t so. For one thing, drug companies spend more on marketing and advertising than on new ideas. Pharmaceutical companies spend 11% of their income on R & D and 40 % of their income promoting their brand.

As it is, most of the important innovations come out of universities and research centers, like the National Institutes of Health, funded by government and foundations.

A secretive group met behind closed doors in New York this week. What they decided may lead to higher drug prices for hundreds of millions around the world. Representatives from the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries convened to decide the future of their trade relations in the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (T.P.P.). Powerful companies appear to have been given influence over the proceedings, even as full access is withheld from many government officials from the partnership countries.

Among the topics negotiators have considered are some of the most contentious T.P.P. provisions — those relating to intellectual property rights. And we’re not talking just about music downloads and pirated DVDs. These rules could help big pharmaceutical companies maintain or increase their monopoly profits on brand-name drugs. Overly restrictive intellectual property rights actually slow new discoveries, by making it more difficult for scientists to build on the research of others and by choking off the exchange of ideas that is critical to innovation.

Big Pharma boasts the largest lobbying group in Washington, and is pulling the puppet strings of far too many government officials. The whole world pays the real price in the form of worse health and unnecessary deaths.

ADHD - Wot, no illness?

Prescriptions for methylphenidate drugs, such as Ritalin, which are used to treat children diagnosed as suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), have soared by 56% in the UK, from 420,000 in 2007 to 657,000 in 2012. Such "psychostimulants" are thought to stimulate a part of the brain that changes mental and behavioural reactions.

 Dr Bruce D Perry, one of the world's leading neuroscientists and a senior fellow of the Child Trauma Academy in Houston, Texas, has suggested ADHD is not "a real disease" and that "It is best thought of as a description. If you look at how you end up with that label, it is remarkable because any one of us at any given time would fit at least a couple of those criteria," he said. Children were being labelled as having ADHD when that merely described the symptoms of a range of different physiological problems. The symptoms that lead to a diagnosis of ADHD include inattentiveness, hyperactivity and impulsiveness over a sustained period.

Clinicians were also too readily prescribing psychostimulants to children when the evidence suggested there were no long-term benefits. Animal studies have raised concerns over the potential for damage that can be done.

"Taking a medication influences systems in ways we don't always understand. I tend to be pretty cautious about this stuff, particularly when the research shows you that other interventions are equally effective and over time more effective and have none of the adverse effects. For me it's a no-brainer. There are number of non-pharmacological therapies which have been pretty effective. A lot of them involve helping the adults that are around children," he said. “Part of what happens is if you have an anxious, overwhelmed parent, that is contagious. When a child is struggling, the adults around them are easily disregulated too. This negative feedback process between the frustrated teacher or parent and disregulated child can escalate out of control. You can teach the adults how to regulate themselves, how to have realistic expectations of the children, how to give them opportunities that are achievable and have success and coach them through the process of helping children who are struggling.”

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/30/children-hyperactivity-not-real-disease-neuroscientist-adhd

Primum Non Nocere

First do no harm

Dr Gary G. Kohls, a retired physician with a 40 year medical career, is a critic of what he calls the  Big Business of Medicine.

“It is often said that the real clinical trials of new drugs start when the brief pre-marketing studies — involving only hundreds or occasionally thousands of test subjects — have been approved by the FDA, for that is when millions of unsuspecting, but excited patients get their first prescriptions of the latest wannabe blockbuster drug that they saw presented so appealingly on TV.
Big Business argues that the profitability of business enterprises depends on getting new products into the marketplace quickly in order to generate profits as soon as possible. Thus, paying for thorough, independent long-term studies (especially with watchdog agency oversight) is only grudgingly accepted by the profit-driven investors on Wall Street.
In light of the current corporate reality of profit maximization (and that goes for HMOs, hospitals and most clinics, especially the for-profit kinds with their multimillionaire CEOs), we physicians should be the ones who make sure that no harm is being done because of the drugs we prescribe. Throughout history, physicians have always accepted, as a sacred trust, the duty to warn patients about the potential dangers of their treatments, and there are many. ..
...n order for a patient to give fully informed consent to a treatment option, he or she must be given thorough information about the risks, safety and efficacy of the treatment both short-term and long-term, which, in the case of most psychiatric drugs, is virtually impossible to do given the lack of long-term studies that were done prior to FDA approval and the poor post-marketing surveillance that is done. Medical malpractice suits commonly revolve around the issue of adequate informed consent.
Patients deserve to know whether or not psychotropic drugs are addicting or dependency-inducing, are capable of causing withdrawal symptoms or whether or not the patient can be sickened or intoxicated by the drugs. Patients also deserve to know about the existence alternative therapies which, in the case of mental health issues, utilize good psychotherapy and nutritionally-based, life-style alterations, approaches that are often falsely discredited by medical trade association groups like the AMA, the APA and their medical journals. The giant multinational corporations that generously fund such groups, are always looking for ways to eliminate the competition in order to achieve a near-monopoly for the sale of their substances.
The time-honored Precautionary Principle says that an ethical business, governmental agency or culture should err on the side of caution before new chemicals, technologies, procedures, services, food additives, drugs, surgical procedures, etc are introduced into the marketplace (and the environment) – and only then should they be allowed on the market when there is absolute proof that the substances are not dangerous to the environment (which includes human/animal life, the water supply, the soil and the air – i.e., our fragile planet).

So when medical industries wish to market new synthetic chemical substances that have the potential to adversely affect human or environmental health (even years or decades into the future) the Precautionary Principle requires that adequate and aggressive long-term studies (funded by agencies totally independent of those who want to profit from the substance) be undertaken and then only approved when it has been proven to be totally safe.

So, under the Precautionary Principle, regulatory agencies must be given permission to aggressively withhold the marketing approval of potentially carcinogenic, disease-producing, neurotoxic or immune system-destroying products from the environment from where they may be ingested, inhaled or otherwise absorbed into the bodies of potential victims.
Therefore, before potentially dangerous substances are allowed onto the grocery store shelves or into our pharmacies, hospitals, clinics and then, inevitably, into our bodies, the Precautionary Principle says that they should be first proven that they will do no harm, short-term or long-term.
As was documented in last week’s Duty to Warn column America has a drug-induced dementia, suicide, violence and mental ill health epidemic on its hands that should be obvious to every critical thinker that looks at the evidence. But because there are not many in the medical professions with the time (or willingness) to look at the evidence, the epidemic will surely continue to worsen because of the continued chronic use of non-curative drugs that are, in America, too often used as first-line “treatment”. Both psychiatric drug-induced brain disruption and psychiatric drug withdrawal syndromes can be mistaken for mental illnesses of unknown cause.
We can do better for our patients — and our dying planet — if we just go back to the honorable past traditions exemplified in the Hippocratic Oath and the Precautionary Principle.

From Dissident Voice

The Fake Benevolent Big Pharma

 Pharmaceutical companies have over taken banking and defence contracting (that’s saying something) for committing the most grievous acts of fraud and theft, getting slapped with the biggest amount of fines totalling 6.6 billion for any industry in 2012. Which in some way is small change in the price of doing business, seeing as the industry in the USA does $325 billion annually turn over in sales. http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/pharmaceutical-fraud-sets-record

These corporations are legally bound to maximise profit, not improve the health and well-being of the public .It has been shown time and time again, how these corporations are willing to lie, cover up, delay, litigate, bribe and do whatever they can within, around and outside of the law, to ensure profits keep coming.

Court documents released in October 2008 indicated that GlaxoSmithKline “and/or researchers may have suppressed or obscured suicide risk data during clinical trials” of paroxetine, an anti-depressant they own, which increased suicidal tendencies in teenagers. So lets be clear what happened here, GSK suppressed the data, knowing there was greater probability that teenage boys and girls would die directly from that action, which they did. Placing profits over the life of children.

Why would we be surprised that an industry worth billions of dollars ,driven solely by profit ,ends up peddling lies, committing fraud, misleading the public, promulgating misinformation and generally behaved in despicable  kind of way? Name one industry that is worth billions that isn’t covered head to toe in lies and mistruth? As we  now have an medical industrial complex, where vast fortunes and profits are made from testing ,diagnosing, and treating peoples health .That surely the fact “profit” drives this industry, not peoples health  is worthy of some attention and focus? As how  have we have ended up with a billion dollar industry built for our health, that has a vested interest that people are less healthy than more? That treating symptoms, is more profitable than creating cures. How is it medical errors in hospitals is now the third leading cause of death , after cancer and heart disease, isn’t seen as serious red flag?  How is it, that any of these issues aren’t being seen as serious problem?

It is not conspiracy theory to conclude that if a pharmaceutical company developed cheap cure to an illness, that up until then they were making billions in alleviating  symptoms of the same said illness, that they would not release that cure or more practically, they would not put the time, research and money in finding it in the first place. We don’t need a shadowy cabal and global conspiracy for this to happen, we just need to follow the logic of what happens when profit is the sole objective.

As running parallel to global billion dollar industry of treating “health” is this is gradual concentration of ownership across all spectrums of the corporate landscape, as we witness a fusing of global corporate power. That each of these big industries from defence, property, banking, petro chemical, big agriculture, security, pharmaceutical and media all have stakes in each other. These corporations,  hold no national or political allegiance  and are bound by their universal pursuit of profit. So we can see the majority of the media most people consume, from TV news, to newspapers, radio, cinema ect.  is owned by the same interests,  that own banks, pharmaceutical companies, defence contractors, large agriculture etc… Given their shared ownership or mutual drive for profit, do you think we are going to be told and informed  by the mainstream media of anything that’s outside of their broad interest? Therefore the information we are feed, the environments we work in, the food we eat, the good and services we consume ,the structure of political systems, all  end up in service to the enhancement and furthering of  these larger ventures and business interests.

This obsessions and fundamentalism toward growth and profit not only corrupts healthcare outcomes but  most facets of society .The result of this across board focus on profit first ,is a legacy of societal dysfunction that manifests as of crime, job dissatisfaction, unemployment, poverty, illness and stress, debt ect..All these social ills are not by chance, they are created purposely and in the end have very easy solutions .It’s not like we don’t have the resources, capacity and intelligence to fix these things. What prevents us, is those with a high concentration of power and money are unwilling to concede any portion of what they have taken, stolen and acquired.  By replacing profit with peoples “wellbeing” at the centre of all innovation, research and treatment, the health industry becomes in service to citizens rather than the shareholders of large corporate interests.

What  would the world look like without being awash with guns, bombs and so many means of destruction? What would life look like without financial  debt? What would the world be like knowing our planet is being truly stewarded for future generations?   Yet none of this solutions to the world problem are seriously discussed and explored for the simple reason they take money and power from those with all the money and power, it’s really that simple. Unless we address that bigger picture, these issues will never get solved, they will just change in name, and other versions pop up elsewhere and on it goes. Radically fucked up problems warrant, radical solutions, radical questions and for sure, radical answers.

From Things That Matter website

cheap drugs for sale

India - the ‘pharmacy of the world's poor’


Glivec is produced by Novartis in the treatment of chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML). Glivec as a life-saving, breakthrough drug for certain forms of cancer, The treatment cost is 130,000 rupees ($2400) a month. An Indian generic alternative is priced at cheaper 8000 to 12000 rupees a month.

The Indian Supreme court just granted a victory to the sick all over the planet when it refused the Swiss pharmaceutical giant a new patent for the tinkering it did with its anti-leukemia drug Glivec.

Novartis’ website declares: “We are committed to provide access to medicine for patients worldwide.” But how is this possible where the sick find their drugs prohibitively expensive?

It was only when Indian firms began to make cheap copies of HIV drugs that it became possible more than a decade ago to contemplate the treatment of millions of people in impoverished countries of Africa, where the AIDS epidemic was at its worst

“This is a huge relief for the millions of patients and doctors in developing countries who depend on affordable medicines from India, and for treatment providers like MSF,” Dr. Unni Karunakara, the head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders)

Big Pharma - Big Profits

Tamiflu maker accused of secrecy over trial data. Scientists are set to raise serious questions about the effectiveness of Tamiflu, its side-effects and the opaque way drugs get approved for widespread use on the NHS.

Cochrane, a non-profit group dedicated to analyzing medical evidence, brings together the combined results of the world's best medical research studies, and are recognised as the gold standard in evidence-based health care. But during their two-year study into Tamiflu, researchers claimed they were hampered in their efforts to fully appraise the drug by the refusal of its manufacturer, Roche, to hand over all the raw data used to support their claims.

Professor Sir Iain Chalmers, a founder of the Cochrane Collaboration, told The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: "We have invested millions of pounds on stockpiling Tamiflu on the basis of a paper that presented the results of 12 trials, only two of which have been published. The investigation... shows Roche refused to provide data to evaluate these trials. Investigators got some data through the European Medicines Agency, but this doesn't answer all of the questions they have." He added: "It is a disgrace that Roche have not provided this data."

Tom Jefferson, the lead author of the study, said he was very concerned about the unwillingness of Roche to provide all the raw data. It is understood the European Medicines Agency that approved Tamiflu also only saw a proportion of the drugs trial results. The US Food and Drug Administration is thought not to have reviewed the largest ever trial of Tamiflu when considering it for approval.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/tamiflu-maker-accused-of-secrecy-over-trial-data-6290699.html

Drug Dealing

Reckitt, the Hull-based drug and cleaning products company, plotted under the codename “Project Eric” to block rivals from selling cheaper generic copies of Gaviscon. Reckitt Benckiser faces a series of investigations by competition and health regulators over an alleged secret plan to maintain a monopoly in the supply of Gaviscon, the lucrative heartburn medicine. E-mails between executives discuss how to “drag out as long as possible” the process of other companies being allowed to manufacture generic versions, and their intention to create “a further barrier to competitors” and “restrict entry for new competitors”.

Before a rival company can create a generic drug, the British National Formulary must give it an official title. Reckitt tried to claim Gaviscon was unique and such a title could not be issued. It objected in 2000, 2003, 2005 and 2006.The drug company also successfully lobbied the British Pharmacopoeia Commission (BPC), part of the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency, that for health and safety reasons, a detailed quality specification known as a monograph was needed.

One Reckitt executive wrote: “Should we not drag it out as long as possible . . . £9 million of business is at stake”. The e-mails talk of “a clever idea” - to make a near-identical product with a different name. “There must be something we can dig out of the cupboard!” one executive wrote.

Reckitt tried to persuade doctors to prescribe the new Gaviscon Advance. In 2005 the industry’s watchdog found it guilty of unethical behaviour.

The news comes shortly after the European Commission began an inquiry into whether pharmaceutical companies were employing illegal tactics to delay generic versions.In January, it raided the offices of some of the world’s largest drug companies, including Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Astrazeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co and Sanofi-Aventis. In 2005 AstraZeneca, the Anglo-Swedish drug manufacturer, was fined €60 million for trying to delay rival versions of its ulcer drug, Losec, thereby keeping prices artificially high.

The Drug Dealers

Drug firms are failing to make drugs affordable for the world's poor, a report by charity Oxfam suggests.

The world's biggest drug firms have done little research into diseases that affect poor people, the report said. And their overzealous protection of patents means many poor people cannot afford the drugs they need. Currently 85% of the world's population is priced out of the industry's market . Those who cannot afford drugs often pay with their lives.

Malaria claims the lives of one million people every year, while two million people die annually from TB.

Between 1999 and 2004, there were only three new drugs targeted at diseases affecting the developing world out of 163 drugs brought to market .

Yet for all its no doubt sincere bleatings for a fairness and justice , Oxfam can see no further than the continuance of the very same same capitalist system that causes these problems .

In response to the drug companies , who argue they need to charge higher prices to justify the billions of dollars they spend on research and development and that high taxes and mark-ups by pharmacists and dispensing doctors also push medicine prices higher, they point out and that in addition, their drugs and brands are often ripped off in countries with poor copyright protection , all Oxfam can do is offer the Third World as a bigger market to exploit and source for lower development costs and cheaper manufacturing. Oxfam want "prices for essential medicines need to be tiered, in line with people's ability to pay"

Surely , it must be medical needs that should determine access to medicines and not the ability to pay , no matter how the pricing system may be organised . It is this free access to all the means of life which is the demand of socialists .