Posts Tagged ‘pharma’

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Doctors, Drug Companies, Politicians & Corruptions

Friday, August 20th, 2010

The Asian Tribune, August 21, 2010

By Shenali Waduge

They say there’s no money in healthy people. But, why is the pharmaceutical industry the most profitable industry in the world? It is because they have mastered the art of concocting the disorder, creating the drug for the disorder and then bombarding the public with advertisements to convince them they’re afflicted, leaving little choice but to get “prescribed”.

The growth in the pharmaceutical industry began to expand towards the 1970s. Pharmaceutical companies began to form mutual partnerships and began dominating the production of medicines. Advertising boomed making it possible for consumers to be enticed into believing there were miracle cures or drugs that would make people look young forever, increase sexual libido, maintain youthful looking skin with zero after effects or side effects.

Companies spend billions on “inventing” new drugs…they also spend billions on marketing them, USD53billion to be precise. But, how “innovative” are these companies? Most research and clinical trials are carried out at universities and funded by Governments. What happens thereafter is that drug companies “buy these innovations” and quickly patent them and quickly set up manufacturing plants. The only “innovation” done by these companies is to modify the existing drug something as minor as changing the color of the coating! A patented drug generally lasts for 20 years. It is only after rigorous study and testing which takes a good 10 to 15 years that Governmental authorities grant permission to market and sell drugs.

Loopholes in patent systems ensure companies are able to keep generic competitors at bay for years. These patented branded drugs naturally provides high profit margins but before the patent expires and competitors enter with a generic drug sold at far lesser prices, owners of branded drugs put out a generic version before the branded version expires…giving his company a head start in the sale of generic drugs. In 2006, the world had spent US$643billion on prescription drugs with US accounting for almost half of global pharmaceutical market. The US pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable of all businesses in the US.

It would not surprise anyone that companies spent up to $11billion annually on free samples, $6billion on sales representatives, $3billion on vague advertisements, we can only guess how many more billions is spent on bribing doctors, bribing researchers, bribing universities, bribing health officers, pharmacists, providing kickbacks and even running bogus “medical education” programs.

Essentially, what drug companies’ end up doing is using tax payer’s money to pay for medical research which they buy off, they then spend on massive advertising campaigns aimed at misleading the public about the effects of these drugs and “encourage” doctors to prescribe them!

Year in and year out drug companies end up the most successful industry with stunning profits part of which are used to buy off politicians and further promote themselves as champions of social responsibility and good corporate ethics!

There are no business ethics in the pharmaceutical industry – the industry is synonymous with money, profits, power and control. Pharmaceutical companies have mastered how to market social phobia/anxiety disorders in order to sell mind altering drugs. Does it not surprise and make you wonder why scores of people are being treated for mental disorders?

There are teenagers on anti-depressants and anti-psychotics because pharmaceutical companies want to ensure they have customers for life! Some prescription drugs are sold at more than 500,000% markup over the actual cost of their raw ingredients, naturally drug companies will do anything to sell more pills and it is why they end up inventing fictitious diseases and force parents to make addicts out of their children. There are scores of drugs available that are “habit-forming” tranquilizers?

Despite the number of drugs available why are people sicker than ever? Drugs have not helped people instead drug companies have made people addicted to drugs and suffering further from the side-affects of taking so many different combinations of drugs. In the US, over 100,000 Americans die annually from prescription drugs while a further 2million are injured by them.

The dominating companies in global pharmaceutical industry today are MERCK, Roche (fined in the US and Europe for participating in illegal price fixing cartel), Pfizer (ranked no.1, the makers of viagra the wonder drug of the 90s…. and probably soon to put out a drug that may do the opposite of viagra!), Bayer the inventor of Asprin….however hundreds and thousands of people die every year from prescription drugs? 27,000 people died of vioxx which is a nosteroidal anti-inflammatory drug which has been withdrawn over safety concerns associated with heart attacks, strokes. (though first approved in 1999 but withdrawn in 2004) It is believed that over 80m worldwide prescribed it in 2003 and its producer Merck and Co made sales revenues of US$2.5billion.

What is ironic is that there is not a single chronic disease which has been cured as a result of taking prescription drugs. What these drugs have done is to only treat the symptoms. Has chemotherapy proved scientifically accurate? It does shrink tumors but it adds nothing to a patient’s lifespan. The world is becoming sicker, fatter and more depressed than ever. The advice that people should listen to is not being given…eat healthy, avoid processed foods, avoid refined carbohydrates, avoid soft drinks etc…are rarely highlighted.

What’s more our doctors are duping us too…! In the US some mid-sized drug companies have close upon 1000 representatives lobby with companies spending over $5billion annually on sending these representatives to physician offices. The US spends $19billion annually on promotions, influencing doctors and other health professionals. As a result the physicians are lured into prescribing drugs associated with particular drug companies who ensure these physicians are well looked after and patients end up paying far more than they are required to as well as end up having to take another set of prescribed drugs to cut off the side-affects associated with the earlier drug!

Doctors are even paid to conduct fraudulent clinical trials on patients who are encouraged to take drugs for a 12month period to see its affects while the drug company profits through that particular year and the doctors enjoy the kickbacks as well. Some doctors who prescribe a particular drug company’s products and avoided competing drugs are even paid “consulting fees”. It is all a scam, and a vast majority of physicians become party to these unethical medical acts, pocketing the benefits & dosing up their patients with whatever drugs they’ve been told to prescribe. Doctors today are recipients of airfares & hotel expenses, luxury vehicles, even repairs and tyre replacements!

What is poignant and significant is that while physicians who may attend academic sessions with the thought of updating their know-how they are at the risk of being manipulated by pharmaceutical companies who pay high-profile scientists/physicians to speak on topics relevant to their products. Similarly, medical journals also help to promote specific products whose manuscripts are written by the pharmaceutical companies.

Essentially the public is at risk as a result of the direct and indirect relationships between pharmaceutical industry and the physicians. It certainly does breach professional ethics and may even bring dangers to patients.

Read the rest of this article here:  http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2010/08/21/doctors-drug-companies-politicians-corruptions

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People & Power—Drug Money

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

A 23 minute TV expose on Big Pharma by ALJAZEERA (see video at bottom of this page)

This piece pulls no punches exposing the rampant fraud, fatal drug side effects, off label marketing, criminal practices  and “absolutely jaw dropping” payouts Pharma makes to psychiatrists/doctors.

  • “There is so much money to be made in stealing from the United States Healthcare system,” says Patrick Byrnes, Taxpayers Against Fraud.
  • Lewis Morris, US Department of Health states, “One of the things we are now looking at is going after the executives in these companies and holding them personally accountable.”
  • Sharon Ormsky, FBI Financial Crimes Unit states, “Pharmaceutical fraud is one of our top three threats — everybody is touched by these frauds in the extent that when you look at the billions of dollars that go into healthcare for the United States, a good percent,  3-10% of that is believed to be siphoned off into fraud—that’s  money that  could be going to very needy patients.”

Now the U.S. government is fighting back.  In the last two years alone, the  government has fined six of America’s  top ten pharmaceutical companies for fraud.  Investigations are ongoing against another three.  In this period the industry has had to pay out over 5 billion dollars in fines, and topping the list is drug giant Pfizer, having recently settled civil & criminal charges resulting in $2.3 billion dollars —the biggest fraud case, the biggest criminal case, the biggest false claims act in U.S. history.   ALJAZEERA also exposes Pfizer’s “interesting way of doing business.  Witnesses in the case revealed just how the company persuaded doctors to prescribe its drugs. It entertained them in strip clubs, it told them that the blues teenagers feel when they don’t make the football team was signs of treatable depression and it paid them to endorse Pfizer drugs. One doctor received $150,000 in a year.

Also highlighted is the current scandal regarding antipsychotic drugs, including state law suits, dangerous documented side effects and how federal investigators are now looking into claims drug company Johnson & Johnson illegally marketed their antipsychotic drug Risperdal to children, paying “some of the most influential doctors in the field” in order to accomplish this.  And leading that pack sits none other than the  [now] infamous psychiatrist Joseph Biederman, who has been “credited” with the huge increase of children prescribed psychiatry’s most powerful/dangerous drugs, antipsychotics, while receiving millions in Pharma kickbacks that he failed to disclose.   Biederman is shown on tape being questioned under oath, and when asked “What rank are you?” Biederman responds, “Full Professor.” When asked “What comes after that?” Biederman responds, “GOD.”

This is a 23 minute expose well worth watching.

This is one of the best exposé’s on Big Pharma we’ve seen:

People & Power —Drug Money, produced by ALJAZEERA.  This piece pulls no punches exposing the rampant fraud, fatal drug side effects, off label marketing, criminal practices  and “absolutely jaw dropping” payouts Pharma makes to psychiatrists/doctors.

* “There is so much money to be made in stealing from the United States Healthcare system,” says Patrick Byrnes, Taxpayers Against Fraud.

* Louis Morris, US Department of Health states, “One of the things we are now looking at is going after the executives in these companies and holding them personally accountable.”

*Sharon Ormsky, FBI Financial Crimes Unit states,  ”Pharmaceutical fraud is one of our top three threats — everybody is touched by these frauds in the extent that when you look at the billions of dollars that go into healthcare for the United States, a good percent,  3-10% is believed to be siphoned off into fraud that’s  money that  could be going to very needy patients.”

Now the U.S. government is fighting back.  In the last two years alone, the  government has fined six of America’s 10 pharmaceutical companies for fraud.  Investigations are ongoing into another three.  In this period the industry has had to pay out over 5 billion dollars in fines, and topping the list is drug giant Pfizer, having recently settled civil & criminal charges resulting in $2.3 billion dollars —the biggest fraud case, the biggest criminal case, the biggest false claims act in U.S. history.   ALJAZEERA also exposes Pfizer’s “interesting way of doing business.  Witnesses in the case revealed just how the company persuaded doctors to prescribe its drugs. It entertained them in strip clubs, it told them that the blues teenagers feel when they don’t make the football team was signs of treatable depression and it paid them to endorse Pfizer drugs. One doctor received $150,000 in a year.

Also highlighted is the current scandal regarding antipsychotic drugs, including state law suits, dangerous documented side effects and how federal investigators are now looking into claims drug company Johnson & Johnson illegally marketed their antipsychotic drug Risperdal to children, paying “some of the most influential doctors in the field” in order to accomplish this.  And leading that pack sits none other than the  [now] infamous psychiatrist Joseph Biederman, who has been “credited” with the huge increase of children prescribed psychiatry’s most powerful/dangerous drugs, antipsychotics, while receiving millions in Pharma kickbacks that he failed to disclose.   Biederman is shown on tape being questioned under oath, and when asked “What rank are you?” Biederman responds, “Full Professor.” When asked “What comes after that?” Biederman responds, “GOD.”

This is a 23 minute expose well worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TwdsYVHjGA&feature=player_embedded#!

This is one of the best exposé’s on Big Pharma we’ve seen:

People & Power —Drug Money, produced by ALJAZEERA.  This piece pulls no punches exposing the rampant fraud, fatal drug side effects, off label marketing, criminal practices  and “absolutely jaw dropping” payouts Pharma makes to psychiatrists/doctors.

* “There is so much money to be made in stealing from the United States Healthcare system,” says Patrick Byrnes, Taxpayers Against Fraud.

* Louis Morris, US Department of Health states, “One of the things we are now looking at is going after the executives in these companies and holding them personally accountable.”

*Sharon Ormsky, FBI Financial Crimes Unit states,  ”Pharmaceutical fraud is one of our top three threats — everybody is touched by these frauds in the extent that when you look at the billions of dollars that go into healthcare for the United States, a good percent,  3-10% is believed to be siphoned off into fraud that’s  money that  could be going to very needy patients.”

Now the U.S. government is fighting back.  In the last two years alone, the  government has fined six of America’s 10 pharmaceutical companies for fraud.  Investigations are ongoing into another three.  In this period the industry has had to pay out over 5 billion dollars in fines, and topping the list is drug giant Pfizer, having recently settled civil & criminal charges resulting in $2.3 billion dollars —the biggest fraud case, the biggest criminal case, the biggest false claims act in U.S. history.   ALJAZEERA also exposes Pfizer’s “interesting way of doing business.  Witnesses in the case revealed just how the company persuaded doctors to prescribe its drugs. It entertained them in strip clubs, it told them that the blues teenagers feel when they don’t make the football team was signs of treatable depression and it paid them to endorse Pfizer drugs. One doctor received $150,000 in a year.

Also highlighted is the current scandal regarding antipsychotic drugs, including state law suits, dangerous documented side effects and how federal investigators are now looking into claims drug company Johnson & Johnson illegally marketed their antipsychotic drug Risperdal to children, paying “some of the most influential doctors in the field” in order to accomplish this.  And leading that pack sits none other than the  [now] infamous psychiatrist Joseph Biederman, who has been “credited” with the huge increase of children prescribed psychiatry’s most powerful/dangerous drugs, antipsychotics, while receiving millions in Pharma kickbacks that he failed to disclose.   Biederman is shown on tape being questioned under oath, and when asked “What rank are you?” Biederman responds, “Full Professor.” When asked “What comes after that?” Biederman responds, “GOD.”

This is a 23 minute expose well worth watching.

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US Department of Justice Probes Corruption in Big Pharma; Glaxo, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly & Merck

Friday, August 13th, 2010

Financial Times
By Stephanie Kirchgaessner
August 12, 2010

The US Department of Justice is scrutinising payments by leading pharmaceuticals companies for hospitality, consultants, licensing agreements and charitable donations in markets around the world as part of a wide-ranging corruption probe.

GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly, among others, have disclosed being contacted by the DoJ and Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the investigation. Merck, the US drugs group, announced last week that it had also been contacted and was co-operating with investigators.

An industry attorney familiar with the probe said that the DoJ was looking at whether pharma companies had ignored a “systematic risk” inherent in the global drugs business and ignored obligations under local and US anti-bribery law.

The highly regulated nature of the business, combined with the fact that healthcare officials in many non-US markets were government funded, made the industry a natural target for such a probe, the person added.

The investigation is at a relatively early stage but is considered a priority for the DoJ.

While hospitality – including meals and all expenses-paid travel for conferences – has long been considered a potential risk for pharma groups, the DoJ’s probe is looking at all aspects of companies’ dealings in non-US markets, people familiar with the matter say. That includes the recruitment of physicians for clinical trials. In some markets, the same physicians may serve on regulatory boards that approve or deny drugs.

The DoJ declined to comment. But last November, Lanny Breuer, head of the DoJ’s criminal division, announced that investigators would be focusing on international corruption in the pharmaceuticals industry for “years”.

Mr Breuer warned a conference of pharmaceutical industry lawyers that prosecutors were gearing up for an investigation of international corruption in the sector. The drugs companies took notice.

That threat has now become a reality. Merck, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Baxter, SciClone, and Bristol-Myers Squibb have in recent months received inquiries from the DoJ and the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with an industry-wide bribery ­investigation.

GlaxoSmithKline, the UK drugmaker, told the Financial Times on Thursday that it too had received “inquiries” from US authorities, but that it disclosed the issue “reactively” only to selected reporters in April.

Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical group, said in February that it had voluntarily provided the DoJ and SEC with information concerning potentially improper payments outside the US and was exploring resolution of the matter.

There is perhaps no industry that is as vulnerable to violations of US anti-bribery laws as the pharmaceutical industry. In markets round the world, the companies deal, sometimes thousands of times in a single day, with doctors, clinicians, hospital operators and regulators who are considered under US law to be government officials, because they are employed by state-owned facilities.

Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the US anti-bribery law, companies may not offer items of value to foreign government officials for profit. One industry lawyer involved in the matter said global pharmaceutical companies operating in countries with state-run medical institutions deal with government officials at every turn of their business: whether it is seeking the go-ahead for a manufacturing site; obtaining drug licences; conducting clinical trials; importing drugs; selling and marketing drugs to physicians; or getting a product on to a hospital’s approved list.

“What most companies will find is that all of these areas are risky and, if they don’t train and educate their people, they are going to find themselves with issues. For example, if you have hired customs brokers, how do you know they aren’t bribing officials?” the attorney said.

According to the law firm Arnold & Porter, the DoJ is particularly interested in corrupt payments that may have influenced the reliability or integrity of data in clinical trials performed outside the US. A recent report by the Department of Health and Human Services found 80 per cent of marketing applications for drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the US had relied on at least one foreign trial.

“Companies may find themselves facing critical legal issues if approval of products rested on the results of studies the DoJ deems corrupt,” Arnold & Porter said in an advisory letter to clients last month.

A person familiar with the investigation confirmed that clinical trials were one of several areas the DoJ was examining.

Alexandra Wrage, the president of Trace, a non-profit organisation that helps companies establish anti-corruption practices, said that alleged wrong­doing at pharmaceutical companies could often centre on inappropriately lavish hospitality, such as wining and dining doctors from state-run hospitals at conferences in Bali or Monaco.

Read entire article here:  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9a8e8f90-a63e-11df-8767-00144feabdc0.html
(free registration required)

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Pharmaceutical companies deceive public—case in point; Antidepressants

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

The Star Phoenix
By Mark Lemstra
July 29, 2010

We could save $2 billion a year on health-care costs in Saskatchewan while improving health outcomes if we adopt evidence-based protocols.

To do so, we need to find about $40 million of efficiency in each of about 50 areas.

This is the third article in a five-part series on depression. My first column discussed the limitations in diagnosing depression. The second presented literature reviews that concluded antidepressants are no more effective than placebos in treating depression.

This column explains how the drug companies deceive us. Let’s start with some general information and proceed to specific examples for antidepressants.

In 2008, the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine wrote an editorial for the Journal of the American Medical Association, titled: Industry sponsored research: A broken system?

Based on her tenure as the editor of the world’s most prestigious medical journal, Dr. Marcia Angell made some accusations. She wrote that drug companies often design studies, conduct the data analysis, decide which data will be included or suppressed, write the papers, pay for prestigious clinicians to put their name on papers already written by the drug company, and then decide how and when the paper will be published.

Dr. Angell concluded: “Drug companies now finance most clinical research on prescription drugs, and there is mounting evidence that they often skew the research they sponsor to make their drugs look better and safer. Physicians can no longer rely on the medical literature for valid and reliable information.”

She also published a best selling and award-winning novel, The Truth about Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It.

Let’s look at some examples from anti-depressants.

A research team from the United States, which was skeptical about the benefits of antidepressants, used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain results from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for all placebo-controlled trials. The team was startled to learn that 40 per cent of the studies had been suppressed because of negative results.

When all the studies were included, incorporating the negative studies, the authors concluded that “antidepressants are little more than active placebos, drugs with very little specific benefit, but with serious side-effects.”

The resulting publication in Prevention and Treatment made headlines around the world. And although regulatory agencies in Europe have begun to respond, there has been no response in North America.

At this point, let’s discuss the potential side-effects of antidepressants in a review from Harvard Medical School, titled: What are the real risks of antidepressants?

The most serious of these includes the increased risk of attempted suicide, especially among children. Other side-effects include insomnia, skin rashes, headaches, joint and muscle pain, stomach upset, nausea, diarrhea, reduced blood clotting capacity, stomach bleeding, uterine bleeding, tics, muscle spasms, trembling limbs, restlessness, severe anxiety, reduced sexual interest, reduced sexual performance, reduced sexual satisfaction, disturbed heart rhythms and reduced liver function.

There are also complications when antidepressants are taken with other drugs, and there is a long list of side-effects when antidepressant use is discontinued, including dizziness, loss of co-ordination, fatigue, burning sensations, blurred vision, insomnia, vivid dreams, nausea, diarrhea, flu-like symptoms, irritability, anxiety and crying spells.

Recently, the antidepressant Serzone was removed from the market after it was associated with hepatitis and liver failure.

The most worrisome side-effect is the increased risk of suicide attempt so let’s take a closer look.

Another review from the Food and Drug Administration found that not only do antidepressants provide no benefit to children, but the drugs are associated with a 50 per cent increase in suicidal behaviour.

Regrettably, these negative results, too, were buried by the drug companies.

Read the rest of this article here:  http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Pharmaceutical+companies+deceive+public/3336124/story.html

Previous articles in this series: Effect of antidepressants, placebos similar by Mark Lemstra
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/health/Effect+antidepressants+placebos+similar/3307896/story.html

Expanding mental disorders list adds to cost by Mark Lemstra
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/health/Expanding+mental+disorders+list+adds+cost/3280676/story.html

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Science Mag—This Is Your Brain Off Drugs:Why Pharma May Be Cooling on Psychiatry Drugs—no pathology for mental ‘disease’

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Though this article includes some scientific/medical terminology, the  significance of what the neurologist is describing is extremely relevant:  Unlike regular “diseases” there is no clear pathology for psychiatric disorders.   See this previous blog/news entry by CCHR on this same subject: Wake Up FDA—Even Drug Giants Are Admitting No Lab Tests Exist To Prove If Antidepressants Work  http://www.cchrint.org/2010/02/05/wake-up-fda%E2%80%94even-drug-giants-are-admitting-no-lab-tests-exist-to-prove-if-antidepressants-work/

ScienceMag.com

by Greg Miller, July 28, 2010

Earlier this year, pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced it was ceasing drug-discovery research for psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia. The move, along with cutbacks at other companies, has raised concerns about where the next generation of neuropsychiatric drugs will come from—see this Friday’s issue of Science for a feature article exploring this topic.

Yesterday, ScienceInsider spoke with neuroscientist Menelas Pangalos, who in May took over as AstraZeneca’s head of drug-discovery research and early development. His comments have been edited for brevity.

Q: What do the recent changes mean for neuroscience research at AstraZeneca?

M.P.: Basically, from a research perspective, we’re pulling out of the psychiatry space. We’re still very much focused on neurology, so Alzheimer’s disease, pain, cognition, … those areas are still very active.

Q: What makes research on psychiatric drugs less attractive?

M.P.: Our understanding of disease pathophysiology is still relatively in its infancy.

These are complex and heterogeneous disorders. Also, the size and robustness of the clinical trials made it a less attractive area for us to be in compared to other areas we were working in. There has to be a much better alignment between preclinical and clinical work.

Q: How so?

M.P.: In neurology, if you take stroke as an example, preclinical models of stroke tend to be occlusion of the middle cerebral artery, which causes ischemic damage in the brain of a rodent or nonhuman primate that mirrors fairly well what happens in the human situation.

When you start getting into psychiatry, we have tail suspension assays, we have forced swim assays, we have learned helplessness assays … none of which have been developed through a detailed understanding of the pathophysiology. [In these tests, researchers measure how long it takes a rodent to stop struggling after being suspended by its tail or placed in a pool of liquid; giving up is presumed to be a rodent version of despair.]

Read the entire article here:  http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/this-is-your-brain-off-drugs-why.html

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Glaxo To Book $2.4 billion To Settle Legal Cases, Including Avandia, Paxil

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

USANewsweek
July 15, 2010

British Pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline is expected to record a legal charge of $2.4 billion for the second quarter of this fiscal year in order to settle legal cases relating to its antidepressant Paxil and controversial diabetes pill Avandia. The British company announced two days ago that the money would be used not only to cover the settlements for Avandia but also other long-standing legal cases. It is learnt that the company would use the money to settle an investigation into its former factory at Cidra in Puerto Rico as well.

The news of the hefty charge, which is around 2.5 percent of the market value of the British drug maker took the edge off an expected rally in the shares after a U.S. panel allowed the company to Avandia in stores but the panel asked Glaxo to include new warnings on heart risks. “Some people might baulk at the size of the charge but probably most will say this is putting it all behind the company, so we can now look to the continuing business and view the stock on a more rational basis,” said Deutsche Bank analyst Mark Clark.

Menwhile, Glaxo did not divulge how much it was setting aside to settle legal issues related to Avandia. The company defended its decision saying that settlement terms were confidential. Earlier, it was reported that Glaxo might have to spend a whopping $6 billion to resolve legal cases related to Avandia but the panel vote allowing the company to keep the drug in market means that the company would be able to settle the claims by paying around $1 billion.

Read entire article:  http://www.usanewsweek.com/news/Glaxo-To-Book-2-4-billion-To-Settle-Legal-Cases–Including-Avandia–Paxil-1279232979/

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Pre-Crime? Try Pre-Diagnose and Pre-Drug: Psychiatrists target infants as mental patients

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

By CCHR International
June 23, 2010

A new study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry and headed by psychiatrist John H. Gilmore, professor of psychiatry and Director of the UNC Schizophrenia Research, claims to be able to detect “brain abnormalities associated with schizophrenia risk”  in infants just a few weeks old.   We would like to point out the obvious flaw in this bogus study; there is no medical/scientific test in existence that schizophrenia is a physical disease or  brain abnormality to start with.  There is not one chemical imbalance test, X-ray, MRI or any other test for schizophrenia, not one.   So with no evidence of medical abnormality to start with, the “associated with schizophrenia risk” amounts to what George Orwell called Doublespeak (language that deliberately disguises, distorts, misleads)—it means nothing.

For decades, psychiatrists and Pharma have spouted lines to the press and public amounting to, “researchers now believe” they have medical evidence of schizophrenia as a physical/biological abnormality, or “new evidence suggests” evidence of schizophrenia as a real disease.   But despite millions of dollars in research funds and countless tales of “belief” —no evidence to support the theory.  One of the most common tricks employed by the Psycho/Pharmaceutical industry to mislead the public, legislators and the press, is to take X-rays or brain images of people who have been long-term users of antipsychotic drugs (known to cause brain atrophy/shrinkage) and then claim people with schizophrenia have smaller brains.   They’ve spouted similar studies on kids with ADHD having smaller brains, but the bottom line to that study was that the kids with smaller brains, were…smaller kids. These are just a few of the many PR spins employed by Psycho/Pharma to try and maintain the “belief” in psychiatry, in their credibility as a science.   As evidenced by the recent statement of psychiatrist Allen Frances, former DSM- IV Task Force Chairman, this belief is falling apart even within their own ranks, “There are no objective tests in psychiatry-no X-ray, laboratory, or exam finding that says definitively that someone does or does not have a mental disorder.” —Allen Frances (And Frances isn’t the only psychiatrist exposing the fraud of the biological brain disease model; click here for more.)

The logical question the press should be asking is what are the American Journal of Psychiatry and “the Director of UNC Schizophrenic Research” really after?  What is their goal?

As we have exposed in the article “Australian Psychiatrist Patrick McGorry Wants His Pre-Drugging Agenda to Go Global” there is a concerted push being headed by Australian psychiatrist Patrick McGorry and other pharmaceutically funded psychiatrists for the global implementation of a new mental health paradigm; preventative mental health, i.e., pre-diagnosing (diagnosing children before they develop a “mental disorder”) and pre-drugging children ( before they show “signs” of the mental disorder).   There is an obvious push for the same pre-diagnosing and pre-drugging agenda with this latest study, which claims ”major cases of schizophrenia are usually not diagnosed until a person begins witnessing its related symptoms like delusions and hallucinations as a teenager or adult . However, by that time, the disease [notice the term disease despite no medical evidence of disease] crosses the stage of preliminary treatment and is difficult to treat.”   In other words, if we wait to administer drugs to them it may be too late.  That along with Gilmore’s statement,  “It allows us to start thinking about how we can identify kids at risk for schizophrenia very early and whether there are things that we can do very early on to lessen the risk.” This is the pre-diagnosing, pre-drugging agenda being pushed and the new “preventative” model of mental health that is more akin to a Brave New World than anything previously witnessed.  And this latest “study” tells us infants are also on the agenda.

And finally,  to psychiatrist and lead study author John H. Gilmore, we think you should take a lesson from the former National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Chief of the Center for Studies in Schizophrenia, the late Loren R. Mosher, M.D. who stated in his letter of resignation to the American Psychiatric Association, “The fact that there is no evidence confirming the brain disease attribution is, at this point, irrelevant.  What we are dealing with here is fashion, politics and money. This level of intellectual/scientific dishonesty is just too egregious for me to continue to support my membership…After nearly three decades as a member it is with a mixture of pleasure and disappointment that I submit this letter of resignation from the American Psychiatric Association. The major reason for this is my belief I am actually resigning from the American Psychopharmacological Association.  Luckily, the organization’s true identify requires no change in the acronym…”

To read more from Loren Mosher, including his two-year outcome study treating patients diagnosed “schizophrenic” without the use of drugs, his vehement stance against the biological psychiatric model of “disease” and more,  click here.

To read the latest bogus psychiatric study, click here.

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Pre-Crime? Try Pre-Diagnose and Pre-Drug: Psychiatrists target infants as mental patients

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

By CCHR International
June 23, 2010

A new study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry and headed by psychiatrist John H. Gilmore, professor of psychiatry and Director of the UNC Schizophrenia Research, claims to be able to detect “brain abnormalities associated with schizophrenia risk”  in infants just a few weeks old.   We would like to point out the obvious flaw in this bogus study; there is no medical/scientific test in existence that schizophrenia is a physical disease or  brain abnormality to start with.  There is not one chemical imbalance test, X-ray, MRI or any other test for schizophrenia, not one.   So with no evidence of medical abnormality to start with, the “associated with schizophrenia risk” amounts to what George Orwell called Doublespeak (language that deliberately disguises, distorts, misleads)—it means nothing.

For decades, psychiatrists and Pharma have spouted lines to the press and public amounting to, “researchers now believe” they have medical evidence of schizophrenia as a physical/biological abnormality, or “new evidence suggests” evidence of schizophrenia as a real disease.   But despite millions of dollars in research funds and countless tales of “belief” —no evidence to support the theory.  One of the most common tricks employed by the Psycho/Pharmaceutical industry to mislead the public, legislators and the press, is to take X-rays or brain images of people who have been long-term users of antipsychotic drugs (known to cause brain atrophy/shrinkage) and then claim people with schizophrenia have smaller brains.   They’ve spouted similar studies on kids with ADHD having smaller brains, but the bottom line to that study was that the kids with smaller brains, were…smaller kids. These are just a few of the many PR spins employed by Psycho/Pharma to try and maintain the “belief” in psychiatry, in their credibility as a science.   As evidenced by the recent statement of psychiatrist Allen Frances, former DSM- IV Task Force Chairman, this belief is falling apart even within their own ranks, “There are no objective tests in psychiatry-no X-ray, laboratory, or exam finding that says definitively that someone does or does not have a mental disorder.” —Allen Frances (And Frances isn’t the only psychiatrist exposing the fraud of the biological brain disease model; click here for more.)

The logical question the press should be asking is what are the American Journal of Psychiatry and “the Director of UNC Schizophrenic Research” really after?  What is their goal?

As we have exposed in the article “Australian Psychiatrist Patrick McGorry Wants His Pre-Drugging Agenda to Go Global” there is a concerted push being headed by Australian psychiatrist Patrick McGorry and other pharmaceutically funded psychiatrists for the global implementation of a new mental health paradigm; preventative mental health, i.e., pre-diagnosing (diagnosing children before they develop a “mental disorder”) and pre-drugging children ( before they show “signs” of the mental disorder).   There is an obvious push for the same pre-diagnosing and pre-drugging agenda with this latest study, which claims ”major cases of schizophrenia are usually not diagnosed until a person begins witnessing its related symptoms like delusions and hallucinations as a teenager or adult . However, by that time, the disease [notice the term disease despite no medical evidence of disease] crosses the stage of preliminary treatment and is difficult to treat.”   In other words, if we wait to administer drugs to them it may be too late.  That along with Gilmore’s statement,  “It allows us to start thinking about how we can identify kids at risk for schizophrenia very early and whether there are things that we can do very early on to lessen the risk.” This is the pre-diagnosing, pre-drugging agenda being pushed and the new “preventative” model of mental health that is more akin to a Brave New World than anything previously witnessed.  And this latest “study” tells us infants are also on the agenda.

And finally,  to psychiatrist and lead study author John H. Gilmore, we think you should take a lesson from the former National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Chief of the Center for Studies in Schizophrenia, the late Loren R. Mosher, M.D. who stated in his letter of resignation to the American Psychiatric Association, “The fact that there is no evidence confirming the brain disease attribution is, at this point, irrelevant.  What we are dealing with here is fashion, politics and money. This level of intellectual/scientific dishonesty is just too egregious for me to continue to support my membership…After nearly three decades as a member it is with a mixture of pleasure and disappointment that I submit this letter of resignation from the American Psychiatric Association. The major reason for this is my belief I am actually resigning from the American Psychopharmacological Association.  Luckily, the organization’s true identify requires no change in the acronym…”

To read more from Loren Mosher, including his two-year outcome study treating patients diagnosed “schizophrenic” without the use of drugs, his vehement stance against the biological psychiatric model of “disease” and more,  click here.

To read the latest bogus psychiatric study, click here.

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American Psychiatric Association Called Upon to Cut Drug Company Ties and Put Lives of Children Before Profits

Friday, May 21st, 2010

Also see: DSM Panel Members Still Getting Pharma Funds

By CCHR International
May 21, 2010

NEW ORLEANS – As psychiatrists from around the world flood the area this weekend to take part in the Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), psychiatric watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is demanding that the APA sever all ties to pharmaceutical company interests and that psychiatrists stop killing children with harmful drugs.

The APA is expected to release its guidelines to reduce pharmaceutical industry ties at its convention, but it is likely to be self-serving and occurred only after public and legislative pressure forced the issue.

The US Senate Finance Committee has investigated at least 16 APA psychiatrists over their undisclosed financial ties to drug companies, including the APA’s own President, Alan Schatzberg who has stepped down as principal investigator of a National Institute of Health (NIH) funded study after months of Congressional scrutiny into his ties to the drug he was studying.  He was found to have actually initiated the patent application of the drug he was studying to “treat psychotic depression.”

Other notable APA members under scrutiny by the Senate Finance Committee and scheduled to present in New Orleans are Thomas Spencer, Assistant Director of the Pediatric Psychopharmacology Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and Dr. Joseph Biederman, Chief of the Program in Pediatric Psychopharmacology, Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Spencer reportedly failed to disclose at least $1 million in earnings from drug companies between 2000 and 2007. Dr. Biederman earned $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers during the same period, most of which was not disclosed to Harvard University officials. In March 2009, court documents showed Biederman promised Johnson & Johnson in advance that his studies of their antipsychotic risperidone (Risperdal) would prove effective when used on preschool age children. Risperdal has been linked to potentially life-threatening diabetes and Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome.  The FDA database from 2000 to 2004 found at least 45 deaths in children under 18 with newer antipsychotics and 1,328 reports of other serious side effects, some life-threatening.

Former APA president Nada Stotland stated: “We are in the midst of a revolution caused by public and legislative concern about the influence of the for-profit sector….” [Emphasis added].  Part of that public pressure for the APA to disclose its conflicts of interest with pharmaceutical companies was driven by Lisa Cosgrove Ph.D. et al’s study of DSM-IV and DSM-IV-TR committee members, which found that of the 170 members, 56% had one or more financial associations with companies in the pharmaceutical industry.  Pharma’s psychotropic drug profits have soared commensurately with the increased numbers of disorders voted into the DSM.

While APA leaders and members profit from their industry connections to the drugs they are promoting; children are being killed by these same drugs.

Also see:  Meet the Psychiatrist Pushing For A Brave New World of Pre-Drugging Kids—Patrick McGorry

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How Vested Interests Created the Perfect Marketing/Lobbying Machine: Mental Health “Advocacy” Groups—Funded by Pharma

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

by CCHR International

An ongoing U.S. Senate investigation headed by Senator Charles Grassley has  sought disclosure of pharmaceutical funding paid to researchers, physicians,  medical schools and medical journals.  Some of the nation’s most prominent psychiatrists have now been exposed for extensive conflicts of interest amounting to millions in undisclosed pharmaceutical funding, including Dr. Charles Nemeroff, Dr. Joseph Biederman, Dr. Melissa DelBello, Dr. Timothy Wilens, Dr. Thomas Spencer, Dr. Alan Schatzberg, Dr. Martin Keller, Dr. A. John Rush, Dr. Karen Wagner, Dr. Jeffrey Bostic and Dr. Frederick Goodwin — many of which serve as advisory board members to mental illness “advocacy groups” which are now also the subject of the Senate investigation for their undisclosed pharmaceutical funding.

The majority of the public may or may not be familiar with these so-called mental health advocacy organizations, such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) or the myriad of bipolar, depression or ADHD “support groups” that are inundating the internet.

But they need to be.

These are groups operating under the guise of advocates for the “mentally ill,” which in reality are heavily funded pharmaceutical front groups – lobbying and working on state and federal laws which effect the entire nation — from our elderly in nursing homes to our military, pregnant women, nursing mothers and school children. Presenting themselves as patient advocacy groups is highly disingenuous not only to their membership, many of which may have a sincere desire to help a loved one or a family member with mental problems, but to legislators, the press and the American public — for they have consistently lobbied for legislation that benefits the mental health and pharmaceutical industries which fund them, and not patients they claim to represent.

Certainly any organization claiming to be for the rights of patients diagnosed mentally ill would have as their primary goal, full informed consent in the field of mental health – including full and complete disclosure of all drug risks, the right to refuse treatment, the right to know that psychiatric diagnoses are not medical conditions (evident by the fact there is not one confirmatory medical/scientific test). Above all such groups would provide patients with an abundance of information on non-harmful, non- drug, medical solutions and options considering the dangerous and well documented risks of psychiatric drugs by international drug regulatory agencies.

These groups do not.

A patients rights group for the mentally ill would never endorse something as absurd and obviously dangerous as giving electroshock to pregnant women, nor condone schools being able to require children to take a psychiatric drug as a condition of attending school. Furthermore, they would never be opposed to the FDA actually doing its job and finally issuing long overdue warnings that antidepressants can cause children to commit suicide, or issue warnings that ADHD drugs have serious and even deadly side effects. Yet these are just some of the actions condoned and promoted by these so-called patients rights groups.

As another example take the federally proposed bill, The Mothers Act; a previous version of this bill called on using a method of “screening” pregnant women and new mothers called EPDS, a screening method documented to triple the number of women diagnosed with Postpartum depression, according to a study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology. The Scandinavian Journal of Public Health stated that EPDS screening was unethical and should not be used. None of the so called advocacy groups for the mentally ill had any objections to this bill whatsoever, or endorsing such an unethical screening tool. They supported it. The bill would have passed with no objections from them whatsoever, if not for the dedication of real advocacy groups with no vested interests (ties to Pharma) opposing language in this bill that would have led to women being falsely diagnosed and put on dangerous psychiatric drugs to “treat” them, unnecessarily placing new mothers and their infants at great risk.

To put it simply, these groups are not what they appear to be. Yet their influence over legislation, lobbying, drug regulation (or lack thereof), and public relations campaigns is substantial and effects the entire nation. For they claim to be the voice of the “mentally ill.” But are they? Or are they the result of a brilliant marketing/lobbying campaign designed to benefit the industry that funds them—the Psycho/Pharmaceutical industry.

To find out how it all started click here: http://www.cchrint.org/psycho-pharmaceutical-front-groups/

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