The Pharma Game - Sell You More

Most every drug that Pharma creates has a natural counterpart that can be taken, or eaten, with little or no side effects. Natural remedies generate little profit and are not patentable and therefor of no interest to Pharma for the treatment of the people of the world. A lot has been written along these lines.

Pharma exist for the sole purpose of profiting from the patenting and sales of unique molecules claimed to have some curative powers on the human body. Mostly, our bodies do not recognize these unnatural molecules and we get some degree of "side effects"...their way of saying we are poisoning you slowly, or sometimes not so slowly.

Anyway, here are a few tidbits from some papers that I have come across. First, from Price Waterhouse Coopers publication entitled "Pharma 2020: The Vision". Ooh, sounds intriguing and insightful. I downloaded the pdf, I forget where I found it, but I imagine it is still available somewhere on the web.

Page 7

...pharma 2010 report contended that the industry's best hopes of earning higher returns lay in the development of packages of products and services targeted at patients with specific disease subtypes, if it was to make such "targeted treatments"...

So, this "vision" hinges on specific "profitable" diseases. And, packages of products...sell them more drugs at a time. Maybe that'll make us better in more of a hurry? And "targeted treatments"...is that a code word for "disease mongering"? The PLoS had an entire issue devoted to disease mongering

Page 22

"The vaccine sector is growing rapidly, then: there are 245 pure vaccins and 11 combination vaccines in clinical development, and some industry experts estimate that the market could be worth as much as $42 billion by 2015.

...includes vaccines for cocaine addiction, diabetes, hypertension, Alzheimers disease, psoriasis, food allergies, rheumatoid arthritis and nicotine withdrawal.

...there are 90 therapeutic vaccines for cancer in the pipeline"

I don't like to be a Negative Nelly, but this is undoubtedly going to offer false hopes to many people. And it is, yet again, a "give me a pill, Doc" false cure for a personal behavior issues. And, we are talking about targeting drugs and treatments for The Healthy. Pharma can't live with only treating the sick and in need...they must expand and grow. The healthy are next in line.

Page 24

"...seen from Pharmas persective, non-compliance thus represents a huge opportunity to maximize the value of its products. Indeed, Datamonitor estimates that better compliance could generate more than $30 billion a year in additional sales"

Non-compliance, meaning someone gets a prescription from the Doc and either says, I am NOT going to fill it, or take it...or maybe does fill it and does take it for a while and has side effects, etc. Pharma sees you as the enemy. They need you to take that drug, and mostly thye NEED you to get the refills. Imagine a Public-option government controlled healthcare system - where lobbyists have "sold" (actually bought) the idea to government that you can't be "cured" if you are not taking your meds, and that you can't be trusted to take them on your on. That knock on the door is your GCO (Government Compliance Officer), there to give you the pill and watch it go down the hatch. Could happen, very easily that could happen.

Next, some excerpts from a new article I came across titled "The Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex: A Deadly Fairy Tale"

...two other areas America excels as a leader above all other developed nations is in being the premier breeding ground for the pharmaceutical industrial complex’s greatest profits and, second, as the world’s exemplar in medical fraud and corruption. The fairy tale of America’s health as being best served by drugs is a creation of this complex, a lullaby that brings ill citizens repeatedly to their doctors and hospitals for diagnosis and treatment, or simply to deny healthcare altogether to the uninsured.

The country is pacified by a blind belief that the drugs being prescribed to them have been proven safe because our government health agencies have our physical health and well-being in their best intentions. This is a lie, an extraordinarily deadly lie. Iatrogenesis, medically induced injury and death, is the number one cause of death in American medicine annually, since only a small percentage of these deaths are actually reported. Each year more Americans die from preventable deaths due to our medical system than all military causalities in the two world wars combined. This is tantamount to medical genocide. One of the major causes of these deaths is the overmedication of Americans in all ages. The constant need for profits has created an environment that allows the pharmaceutical industrial complex to use their enormous financial and political clout to literally make normal life experiences into new diseases, such as social anxiety disorder, in order to sell its drugs. The pharmaceutical industry has been given the authority to pathologize life, with the drugging of our children, seniors, etc. For example, the leading cause of AIDS deaths today is a result of liver failure. This is not a condition of HIV infection, but a direct result of the anti-HIV drug AZT. Is it little wonder then that we are being intimidated and frightened into believing that mandatory vaccination is being touted even though the science of efficacy and safety, even the need, for these new swine flu vaccines is patently unproven. It is perhaps one of the largest falsehoods ever perpetuated on humanity that dwarfs the sleaze on Wall Street.

and

According to OpenSecrets.org, there are 3093 lobbyists in the health field and Big Pharma now spends approximately $1.2 million daily to persuade Congress to act according to their script. An investigation conducted by Medical Verdicts & Law Weekly found that 30 key lawmakers are involved in health legislation totaling $11 million in health investments. Three of every four major health firms have at least one lobbyist who worked for a congressman. Startlingly, nine lobbyists employed by Big Pharma are former congressional staffers who are still well-connected to Capitol Hill. The conflicts of interest are everywhere. Judd Gregg (R-NH), the Obama nominee for Commerce Secretary, who withdrew because of opposition to the Administration's agenda, is a senior member of the Health Committee. He revealed that he has $254,000-$560,000 in health stocks.

and last, but certainly not least

In order to understand how we can spend 2.6 trillion this year on healthcare, but not reduce the incidence of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, mental conditions, arthritis, etc., we must realize this is a game. With each piece of the puzzle, feeding into a single picture of a massively corrupt, unethical, and frequently illegal system controlled by relatively few corporations within the pharmaceutical complex and the health insurance industry, are the ring leaders. They in turn influence thousands of lobbyists, paid-off scientists and academicians, and policymakers, especially those who rule on important health oversight committees. Health officials and legislators in turn solicit expert witnesses, preselected by the cartels, to position their drug agendas in the most favorable manner. The pharmaceutical cartel also has direct connections with its supporting scientific advisory boards and key foundations. These foundations, supported by policy think tanks who supply the so-called independent experts, then lobby the upper echelon within the FDA, NIH, CDC, NIMH, HHS. Ideally they hire former health commissioners and legislators previously players in the game to assist those same federal agencies to see their drugs guided through the regulatory process. Public relations and advertizing firms are contracted to give the public impression that these drugs are effective and safe for the sole reason they have received official licensing. In addition, the cartel creates front organizations with consumer-friendly titles whose representatives appear at national conferences and seminars beholden to special drug interests. Finally, the drug corporations set money aside to be paid out in settlements. With the exception of class action suits, the majority of cases for injury and death are accompanied by confidentiality clauses to prevent public disclosure of data the companies wish to remain secret.

This is how the medical system is rigged and it is why we can watch 60 Minutes or read the New York Times serving as pharmaceutical shills to encourage vaccination, yet refusing to air or print the dissenting voices who have the scientific evidence to show it is a massive fraud. Therefore, the public is misled every step of the way.

My best advice...read up on healthy lifestyles, healthy foods, dietary supplements, etc. Get some exercise and sunshine. Only go to the doctor after giving it careful consideration and reconsideration.

Just say "No"...to flu shots

As usual...follow the money.

They have game plans to sell us on the "need" to be vaccinated:

the Seven Step Recipe. Glen Nowak, now the Director of the CDC’s Media Relations, outlined a concise public relations template while serving as the communications spokesperson for the National Immunization Program. Speaking at the 2004 National Influenza Vaccine Summit, he presented the CDC’s seven steps. After a careful review of Nowak’s Powerpoint presentation we discover a very detailed and concerted PR and multimedia campaign that includes the following (quotes are from CDC’s materials):

• To encourage the belief that influenza infection can “occur among people for whom influenza is not generally perceived to cause serious complications (e.g., children, healthy adults, healthy seniors).” In other words, promote flu vaccination to those who don’t really need it.
• In order to “foster the demand for flu vaccinations” the CDC should target “medical experts and public health authorities publicly (e.g., via media) [to] state concern and alarm (and predict dire outcomes) – and urge influenza vaccination.”
• By focusing on the message of dire health threats and human casualties upon those who don’t really need to be vaccinated, the CDC will reach its milestone of “framing of the flu season in terms that motivate behavior (e.g., as “very severe,” “more severe than last or past years,” “deadly”).”
• Throughout the flu season, the campaign would continue issuing reports “from health officials and media” to emphasize that “influenza is causing severe illness and/or affecting lots of people – helping foster the perception that many people are susceptible to a bad case of influenza.”
• Of course, no marketing strategy is thorough without images. Ergo another ingredient in the recipe is to use “visible/tangible examples of the seriousness of the illness (e.g., pictures of children, families of those affected coming forward) and people getting vaccinated (the first to motivate, the latter to reinforce).” link
  

A very good new article published in The Atlantic entitled "Does the Vaccine Matter?". IT is well worth the time to read, but cutting to the chase, basically No, it doesn't matter. Healthy people don't derive much, if any benefit, and unhealthy people are not likely to develop the necessary antibodies after being vaccinated to protect them from the viruses. Here are a couple of clips from the article.

He [Cochrane Collaboration’s Tom Jefferson, who’s also an epidemiologist trained at the famed London School of Tropical Hygiene] leads an international team of researchers who have combed through hundreds of flu-vaccine studies. The vast majority of the studies were deeply flawed, says Jefferson. “Rubbish is not a scientific term, but I think it’s the term that applies.” Only four studies were properly designed to pin down the effectiveness of flu vaccine, he says, and two of those showed that it might be effective in certain groups of patients, such as school-age children with no underlying health issues like asthma. The other two showed equivocal results or no benefit.

and

The history of flu vaccination suggests other reasons to doubt claims that it dramatically reduces mortality. In 2004, for example, vaccine production fell behind, causing a 40 percent drop in immunization rates. Yet mortality did not rise. In addition, vaccine “mismatches” occurred in 1968 and 1997: in both years, the vaccine that had been produced in the summer protected against one set of viruses, but come winter, a different set was circulating. In effect, nobody was vaccinated. Yet death rates from all causes, including flu and the various illnesses it can exacerbate, did not budge. Sumit Majumdar, a physician and researcher at the University of Alberta, in Canada, offers another historical observation: rising rates of vaccination of the elderly over the past two decades have not coincided with a lower overall mortality rate. In 1989, only 15 percent of people over age 65 in the U.S. and Canada were vaccinated against flu. Today, more than 65 percent are immunized. Yet death rates among the elderly during flu season have increased rather than decreased.

All of those millions of doses of vaccine go to bottom line profits for a few pharma's, but do little for, and possible even harm, the millions getting the shots.

"The vaccine market is booming," says Bruce Carlson, spokesperson at market research firm Kalorama, which publishes an annual survey of the vaccine industry. "It's an enormous growth area for pharmaceuticals at a time when other areas are not doing so well," he says, noting that the pipeline for more traditional blockbuster drugs such as Lipitor and Nexium has thinned.

As always with pandemic flus, taxpayers are footing the $1.5 billion check for the 250 million swine flu vaccines that the government has ordered so far and will be distributing free to doctors, pharmacies and schools. In addition, Congress has set aside more than $10 billion this year to research flu viruses, monitor H1N1's progress and educate the public about prevention.

Drugmakers pocket most of the revenues from flu sales, with Sanofi-Pasteur, Glaxo Smith Kline and Novartis cornering most of the market. Link

And a couple of other reads....

NVIC vaccine news

and

Take Vitamin D Instead

Why Do We Believe Them At All Anymore?

Another admission of feeding us a line by the government...

Mr. Barofsky’s office also says that regulators were wrong to tell the public last year that the earliest bailout recipients were all healthy.

Former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., for instance, said on Oct. 14 that the banks were “healthy,” and that they accepted the money for “the good of the U.S. economy.” The banks, he said, would be better able to increase their lending to consumers and businesses.

In truth, regulators were concerned about the health of several banks that received that first bailout, the inspector general writes.

The inspector general said government officials need to be more careful when describing their actions and rationale. In a letter included with the report, the Federal Reserve concurred with Mr. Barofsky’s concern about the statements made last year, but the Treasury Department said that any review of announcements last year “must be considered in light of the unprecedented circumstances in which they were made.” Link

Ya gotta love that last line from Treasury and Tax Evading Timmy...

I guess they weren't fans of Kennedy philosophy of government truths. Oh, for the return to the days of the Honorable and Competent Government Liars.