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How Big Pharma Lies To Doctors about The Medicine You are Taking
By: Shane Ellison, MS
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Following doctor’s orders has become synonymous with danger. In my book, Over-The-Counter Natural Cures,
I documented that every year, FDA- approved drugs kill twice as many
people as the total number of U.S. deaths from the Vietnam War. Death by
medicine flourishes because deceit, not science, governs a doctor’s
prescribing habits.
Working
as a pharmaceutical chemist, I learned that the deceit comes in many
forms. Medical ghostwriting and checkbook ‘science’ are the most
prominent.
Doctors rely on peer-reviewed medical journals to learn about prescription drugs. These journals include the Lancet, British Medical Journal, New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association.
It’s assumed that these professional journals offer the hard science
behind any given drug. This assumption is wrong. Thanks to medical
ghost-writing, medical journals can’t be trusted.
Medical
ghostwriting is the practice of hiring Ph.D.s to crank out drug reports
that hype benefits while hiding negative side effects. Once complete,
drug companies recruit doctors to put their name on the report as the
authors. These reports are then published in the above mentioned medical
journals. The carrot for this deceitful practice is money and prestige.
Ghostwriters can receive up to $20,000 per report. Doctors receive
prestige from having been published.
As deplorable as medical ghostwriting sounds, it is more common than you think. Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, editor for the New England Journal of Medicine,
insists that he cannot find drug review authors who do not have
financial ties to drug companies. Dr. David Healy, of the University of
Wales, predicts that 50% of the journals drug review articles are
written by ghostwriters hired by Big Pharma.
The
editor of the British Journal of Medicine has acknowledged that medical
ghostwriting has become a serious problem for his publication: “We are
being hoodwinked by the drug companies. The articles come in with
doctors’ names on them and we often find some of them have little or no
idea about what they have written.”
Consider the testimony from deputy editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association:
“This [journal articles] is all about bypassing science. Medicine is
becoming a sort of Cloud Cuckoo Land, where doctors don’t know what
papers they can trust in the journals, and the public doesn’t want to
believe.”
Confessions of Ghostwriters
Ex-medical ghostwriter Susanna Rees stated:
“Medical
writing agencies go to great lengths to disguise the fact that the
papers they ghostwrite and submit to journals and conferences are
ghostwritten on behalf of pharmaceutical companies and not by the named
authors,’ she wrote. ‘There is a relatively high success rate for
ghostwritten submissions ─ not outstanding, but consistent.”4
Other ghostwriters have come forward privately:
Ghostwriter 1
“I
agreed to do two reviews for a supplement to appear under the names of
respected ‘authors.’ I was given an outline, references, and a list of
drug-company approved phrases. I was asked to sign an agreement stating
that I would not disclose anything about the project. I was pressured to
rework my drafts to position the product more favorably.”
Ghostwriter 2
“I was told exactly what the drug company expected and given explicit instructions about what to play up and what to play down.”
NSAID Popularity Courtesy of Ghostwriting not Science
To
illustrate the negative impact of medical ghostwriting, we can look to
commonly used non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Between
1990 and 1997, all clinical trials performed on NSAIDS such as Vioxx,
Aleve, Aspirin, Motrin, and Ibuprofen, were sponsored by the drug
manufacturers. The result was that 100% of the studies showed the
sponsored drug to have equal or superior efficacy when compared to other
drugs. Thus, according to studies done from 1990-1997, every NSAID drug
tested during this time was superior to every other NSAID product… all
at the same time!
The
fallacies behind medical ghost writing on NSAIDS are exposed through
injuries and deaths among users. Approximately 107,000 patients are
hospitalized every year for NSAID-related gastrointestinal
complications. Vioxx alone injured 100,000 during its rein as king of
pain killers.
The
risk of miscarriage for women who take the NSAID aspirin is 60 percent
higher than for those who do not. At least 16,500 NSAID-related deaths
occur each year among arthritis patients. This figure is comparable to
the number of deaths from the so-called acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome (AIDS). In fact, NSAIDS contribute to as many deaths as
multiple myeloma, asthma, and cervical cancer combined.
These
statistics do not account for over-the-counter use of NSAIDS, only for
arthritis patients. We can be confident that there are considerably more
deaths caused by the use of NSAIDS that go unreported. And because few
medical doctors are unaware of these statistics, NSAIDS can rightfully
be considered a silent killer. This is especially true when “experts”
are paid by Big Pharma to write favorable reviews while hiding dangerous
side effects.
Buying Results, Professors and Government
Other
weapons of mass deception exist ─ ‘checkbook science.’ As defined by
Diana Zuckerman, Ph.D., checkbook science is research intended not to
expand knowledge or to benefit humanity but instead to sell products
[drugs]. It has stolen the very soul of University research, scientific
method, and the patients who serve as human subjects.
Checkbook
science explains why deadly drugs are approved. Leveraging their
financial power, drug companies structure the protocol designed to study
whether or not a drug is safe. They choose the investigators (from
academics and government institutions) and in many instances are
involved in the collation, interpretation and reporting of data. Akin to
medical ghostwriting, this practice allows drug companies to hide the
dangers associated with drugs while highlighting benefits.5
As
with medical ghostwriting, checkbook science is more common than you
think. A third of academic professors have personal financial ties to
drug makers. Government institutions are guilty, too.
Called the “Stealth Merger” by The LA Times,
top scientists at the National Institutes of Health also collect
paychecks and stock options from the drug industry.6 Once considered “an
island of objective and pristine research, untainted by the influences
of commercialization,” the National Institutes of Health has become
corrupted by checkbook science. To substantiate, we look to the
following statistics from the LA Times:
Dr.
Stephen I. Katz, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Arthritis
and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases collected between $476,369 and
$616, 365 in fees over a ten-year period.
From
1997-2002, Dr. John I. Gallin, director of the NIH’s Clinical Center,
received between $145,000 and $322,000 in fees and stock proceeds from
the drug industry.
Dr.
Richard C. Eastman is the NIH’s top diabetes researcher. As a
consultant to the drug manufacturers in 1997, he wrote to the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) defending a product without disclosing his
conflict of interest. His letter stated that the risk of liver failure
from the given drug was “very minimal.” Six months later, a patient
taking the drug in an NIH study that Eastman oversaw, Audrey LaRue
Jones, suffered sudden liver failure and died. An autopsy, along with
liver experts, found that the drug had caused the liver failure.
Dr.
Ronald N. Germain, deputy director of a major laboratory at the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, amassed more than
$1.4 million od Big Pharma money in “consulting fees” from 1993 to
2003, plus stock options.
Jeffrey
Schlom, director of the National Cancer Institute’s Laboratory of Tumor
Immunology and Biology, received $331,500 in company fees over 10
years.
Jeffrey
M. Trent, who became scientific director of the National Human Genome
Research Institute in 1993, reported between $50,608 and $163,000 in
industry consulting fees. He left the government in 2002.
NIH
officials now allow more than 95% of the agency’s top-paid employees to
keep these “consulting” fees confidential. In fact, when it comes to
disclosing financial conflicts of interest the NIH is the most secretive
agency in the U.S. government.
Lying to Doctors is Legal
Checkbook
science has been going on for more than 20 years. Known as the
Bayh-Dole Act, U.S patent law was amended in 1980 to allow for these
flagrant conflicts of interest.
Heart
drugs introduced in the 1970‘s serve as an excellent example of how
checkbook science damages the public’s health. By 1990, they were
estimated to kill more Americans than the 58,000 killed in the Vietnam
War.
This
disaster could have been avoided. Early research suggesting that these
drugs were lethal would have saved thousands of lives. Putting checkbook
science to work, these risky research findings went unpublished by the
pharmaceutical company that funded the research.
Children
suffer, too, from checkbook science. Checkbooks science was responsible
for motivating doctors to push antidepressants on this vulnerable
population.
Checkbook Science Gets Antidepressant Approved for Kids!
Published research paid for by drug manufactures showed antidepressant drugs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) to be safe and effective for children. These drugs include Paxil and Prozac. Conversely, when unpublished results were finally obtained it was discovered that depressed children taking antidepressants were twice as likely to become suicidal as children taking a placebo. Acknowledging the deceit, the Lancet stated: “The story of research into SSRI use in childhood depression is one of confusion, manipulation, and institutional failure.”7
Published research paid for by drug manufactures showed antidepressant drugs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) to be safe and effective for children. These drugs include Paxil and Prozac. Conversely, when unpublished results were finally obtained it was discovered that depressed children taking antidepressants were twice as likely to become suicidal as children taking a placebo. Acknowledging the deceit, the Lancet stated: “The story of research into SSRI use in childhood depression is one of confusion, manipulation, and institutional failure.”7
Drug Advertising Gets You Hooked
Hopefully
the line at the pharmaceutical trough will grow shorter as the medical
ghostwriting and checkbook science scandal becomes public. Yet drug
makers have an insurance policy for this ─ Direct-to-Consumer
advertising. The oft repeated “ask your doctor” ensures that the herd
instinctively embraces drugs, drugs, and more drugs.
Doctors Only See Positive, Not Negative, You Suffer
Understanding
medical ghost-writing and checkbook science explains why medical
doctors have been hypnotized into drug worship ─ they only see the
positive. It also explains why modern medicine is more deadly and
lucrative than war ─ the danger has been silenced with the pen and
money. In sum, these methods of deceit ensure that doctors are not keen
to the dangers of prescription drugs.
Drug
companies do not take responsibility for the wanton prescription drug
deceit. Instead, victims have been made invisible – dehumanized. They
are not recognized as children or as men with a significant contribution
to society. Instead their deaths are attributed to them being sick or
just too damn old.
Those
who profit from prescription drugs should hold some sort of record for
demonstrating the most reckless disregard for human life. If the deceit
continues the prescription drug leviathan will silently kill more people
than Napalm dropped on Vietnamese villages.
Learn the drug alternatives that will save your life in Over-The-Counter Natural Cures
About the Author
Shane "The People's Chemist" Ellison holds master's degree in organic chemistry and is the author of Over-The-Counter Natural Cures (SourceBooks). He's been quoted by USA Today, Shape, Woman's World, US News and World Report, as well as Women's Health and appeared on Fox and NBC as a medicine and health expert. Start living young by signing up for his FREE Natural Cures Watchdog below.
Do Your Vitamins
Shane "The People's Chemist" Ellison holds master's degree in organic chemistry and is the author of Over-The-Counter Natural Cures (SourceBooks). He's been quoted by USA Today, Shape, Woman's World, US News and World Report, as well as Women's Health and appeared on Fox and NBC as a medicine and health expert. Start living young by signing up for his FREE Natural Cures Watchdog below.
