FRAUD AND CORRUPTION RUNS THROUGH US PHARMA

[Pharaoh]

Run time: 23:45 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TwdsYVHjGA   Posted on YouTube: August 11, 2010 By YouTube Member: AlJazeeraEnglish Views on YouTube: 1977   Posted on DU: August 12, 2010 By DU Member: Pharaoh Views on DU: 1091

 
Al Jazeera: Pervasive fraud, fatal side effects, and huge kick-backs paid to doctors plague Big Pharma


The US health care industry is the world's biggest, with $300bn per year spent on prescription drugs. For many these drugs have brought undeniable benefits. But recent months have seen health scandal after health scandal making headlines in the US. Two of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies have been fined billions of dollars after investigations into their secret working practices. What these cases have revealed will change the way the drug industry is perceived forever. Revelations have emerged of pervasive fraud, fatal side effects, and huge kick-backs paid to doctors. This investigation by Melanie Newman and Chris Woods reveals how health care became unhealthy profit.

[burnsei sensei]

1. That is why anyone who makes secret deals

with the health care industry is automatically tainted with every drop of their corruption.
This is health care for profit. Don't you just love it?

[DeSwiss]

5. Exactly! n/t

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

2. Thank You Very Much!

This is an excellent news segment; I suppose it isn't too surprising that it is not from US television.

A lot of this is covered in Melody Petersen's excellent book "Our Daily Meds". I've heard of that scumbag Biederman before: I think he has even been under Congressional investigation. I've never seen video of his testimony, though; the arrogance and casual disregard is maddening.

Right now I'm reading "Anatomy of an Epidemic" by Robert Whitaker. It has a focus almost exclusively on psychiatric drugs and uses the first long term studies of their efficacy to draw some stunning conclusions. I recommend both books pretty highly for anyone interested in this subject.

[EXneoCON]

3. I take it in the ( * )....

...every day from Big P (owing to the fact I have no insurance.) K&R!

[DRex]

4. K&R... great piece.

I found the use of the term "the cancer industry" disturbing.

[DeSwiss]

6. K&R

What is worse, in the end we come to realize that we are just fodder trapped between opposing "chemical forces" all of which are ruining our health and our lives with substances that many of us can't even pronounce.

While the chemical industry cranks out one new compound after the next with little regard of their effects, only their profit potential -- Big Agribusiness extends and entwines us further down into this chemical spiral by utilizing even more chemicals that alter what was once plain 'ol food -- into something else -- a food that can fight off insects with its own "pesticides." Which we later consume after being told they "should" have no deleterious effects!

Of course then there are the antibiotics they add to the feed of the animals we eat, so as to avoid illness in them, while at the same time lowering our own bacterial resistance -- and creating SuperBugs!

And let's not forget about the nitrates. Here they overuse fertilizers designed to increase crop production which end up washing into our creeks, then the rivers and then the deltas and finally end up in the sea causing "dead zones" where even without BP's oil spilling all over the place -- nothing can live anyway.

So after a couple of decades or so of this kind of chemical soup exposure, we're ready for Big Pharma's bag of tricks. And they are ready and able to hook us deeper into what has now become an endless chemical death spiral, only now in order to "correct and heal the damage" that the other chemicals we've been consuming all of our pitiful lives, has wrought.

- To add insult to these already insulting injuries, the EPA which was charged by Congress 14 years ago to test and report on the damage caused to our endocrine systems by all these chemicals we're exposed to, has wasted the bulk of this time arguing over what type of rats to use in the testing. Why worry about the fucking rats when they've got us?

EPA - Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program

In 1996 Congress passed a bill which required the EPA to investigate and report upon the then 70,000+ chemicals that Americans were being exposed to by the chemical industry's products (now over 85,000+).

The law was passed because many of these chemicals were suspected of being potential "endocrine disruptors." This conclusion was reached in part due to a variety of (inter) sexual anomalies being found in various types of wildlife (fish, alligators, etc.), as well as human hormonal problems being reported in medical journals involving early puberty among adolescents.

Since the passage of the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program in 1996, the EPA has spent the bulk of the past 14 years discussing which type of rodents to use for the testing and in creating the actual list of chemicals they will test.

While the issuance for screening orders to begin the testing was just submitted in October 2009, to-date, after 14 long years since the passage of this legislation -- no actual testing of any endocrine disrupting chemicals has begun.

None.

Not since 1996.

EPA - EDSP
http://www.epa.gov/endo/

EDSP 1996 - 2010 Timeline:
http://www.epa.gov/endo/pubs/edspoverview/index.htm

[ellenfl]

7. kicking for later. eom

[felix_numinous]

8. k & r

[CLANG]

9. K&R