Drug approval process, killing Sen. Durbin's bill

[Guest guest]

Print this Page

 

E-mail to a Friend

 

 

Think Prescription Drugs are Safer and More Scientifically Proven Than Supplements? Think Again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brian Vaszily is the chief editor and weekly columnist of Mercola.comBy Brian W. Vaszily With one phrase, a friend of mine typified how most people have been brainwashed by conventional medicine.

 

He had asked, so I was explaining why Illinois Senator Dick Durbin’s proposed “Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2003” was not only an unprincipled bill, threatening people’s ability to take charge of their own health, but also a dangerous bill, as it is designed to further increase people’s reliance on pharmaceutical companies by eliminating options to their prescription drugs.

 

“Maybe that’s true,” he said, “but at least their pharmaceuticals are officially approved -- I mean clinically tested, proven and all that -- before they hit the market.”

 

“Is that so?” I asked. Both irked and inspired by his blind trust in conventional medicine, I started to launch into one of my detailed refutations that so makes me the life of every social gathering. I was going to explain what’s really behind pharmaceutical testing and approval, and why over 100,000 people per year in the U.S. die from these FDA-approved drugs. But he’s a single guy, and there was a woman nearby he really wanted to talk to before she left, and, not surprisingly, that took precedence over my response.

 

“I want to hear about it, but she’s leaving soon,” he said. “Maybe you can email me a quick something on this?”

 

And that also typifies most people. It’s not that they don’t want to know or don’t get it when they hear how the conventional healthcare paradigm is dangerously flawed and why they should take a serious look at the alternatives. It’s that they, like all the rest of us, are simply very busy. They work hard, and what little “downtime” they have they naturally want to spend enjoying life versus tackling other serious issues. That’s understandable.

 

On the other hand, this is their very health -- not just something like their front lawn or dirty dishes -- that will suffer due to their lack of attention to it. And when the lack of health finally shows itself in anyone, it definitely makes life more difficult to enjoy, whether one’s definition of “enjoy” is hitting on women, watching children grow, playing Parcheesi or writing poetry. Ultimately, of course, lack of health can also shorten the very time we’re here to enjoy life.

 

But my friend is relatively young and hasn’t experienced any repercussions from his McLifestyle yet, and so -- sadly but also perhaps naturally -- it’s easy for him to take health for granted. In fact, of those who finally take charge of their own health once they recognize that the existing medical establishment is dysfunctional, many if not most are initially motivated by some type of warning, small or large, from their own or a close family member’s body. That is, it’s usually those experiencing sickness that come to realize the supreme importance of focusing on their health.

 

It doesn’t have to be that way, though. It shouldn’t be, in fact, as comprehending the importance of preventative and curative healthcare -- which includes the ability to recognize and bypass the brainwashing techniques of pharmaceutical, processed food and other institutions who profit immensely from mass ignorance -- is not that difficult relative to its rewards.

 

The key, then, to truly changing the healthcare paradigm from one of blind and dangerous trust in drugs, surgery and other temporary fixes and long-term traps to one focused on prevention and real cure is to keep trying to reach those like my friend with the truth. To reach not only those many who are already suffering under the existing paradigm, but to reach those many, many more who will be if they don’t effect their own change soon. With their multi-billion dollar marketing budgets and their unparalleled clout in Washington, D.C., the drug, processed food and other industries feeding the overweight and chronic disease epidemics are certainly doing everything they can to keep people brainwashed, and so the most effective counter-punch I know of -- unless anyone’s got a few billion to donate -- is to reach the busy and unaware but by no means stupid one-by-one. Of course, the more of us trying to reach them, the more our one-by-ones add up.

 

Therefore, per his request, I am emailing my friend the following letter. If you have friends or family who may be unaware of the conventional healthcare trap and might be enlightened by the following insight in any way, I hope you’ll

email this piece to them, too. Perhaps you’ll also try to convince them to sign up for Dr. Mercola’s free health e-newsletter at Mercola.com and take a few minutes to delve into each issue. They probably won’t agree with every detail they read, just as you might not, but it might -- just might -- get them to consider issues in a new light and perhaps change habits that have a very direct impact on both the quality and length of their lives.

 

Dear Busy, Possibly Unaware, but By No Means Stupid Friend:

You asked me why I am opposed to Senator Dick Durbin’s proposed bill S.722, the “Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2003,” when according to Dick Durbin it will make things safer for Americans. I explained that in reality it is not at all driven by that ideal, and will actually make things even more dangerous for Americans. Read my article “Supplement Regulation: Who’s Behind It, and Why Should You Oppose It” on Mercola.com if you want my full explanation again, but in short, it will eliminate our healthcare choices, increase America’s addiction to pharmaceuticals, and therefore only serve to make the most profitable industry on earth -- the prescription drug makers -- even more profitable.

I also told you that if Durbin or anyone in Washington, D.C. was really interested in making things safer and healthier for Americans, they’d instead be going after the pharmaceutical, agricultural, processed and fast food industries, whose products contribute to hundreds of thousands of deaths per year, not less than 200 as is the case with supplements. But of course those industries essentially control our government with their tireless lobbying and “contributions” to both major political parties; Durbin would be doing the drug industry a big favor if S.722 passed, and you have to wonder if it’s an intentional one.

“Maybe that’s true,” you said, “but at least their pharmaceuticals are officially approved -- I mean clinically tested, proven and all that -- before they hit the market.”

Is that so? I started to tell you this before, but you were sidetracked by the pressing need to hit on that woman, so per your request, I will give it to you in layman’s terms now:

The review and approval process for new prescription drugs in the U.S. is a scam and an atrocity, resulting in many thousands of deaths and a genuinely unsafe environment for Americans. But use your common sense and judge for yourself:

First, most new pharmaceuticals are developed to make drug companies and their shareholders more profit, not to offer new treatments and certainly not to offer cures. As I pointed out in another of my articles, “Spin and the Pharmaceutical Industry: Proudly Protecting Profits by Scaring You” on Mercola.com, only 15% of drugs approved by the FDA between 1989 and 2000 were cited as offering significant clinical advantage over drugs already on the market. That is, a vast majority of R & D dollars are spent on developing drugs that simply compete with existing drugs already on the market, so drug company A can try to rip sales away from drug company B. What’s more, most drug makers won’t even consider developing drugs for rare diseases because there is little promise of profit, despite the fact that at least 1 in 9 people in the United States suffer from at least 1 of the 6,000 known rare diseases.

Second, 70% of the funds for U.S. drug trials come from the drug companies -- and the majority of all funds now go to for-profit companies called contract research organizations (CROs). This is such a hot business to get into that over a hundred CROs have established themselves in the last decade. The majority of such research used to be performed by academic medical centers (AMCs), which as a result of the lost business are now making themselves more competitive against CROs to win back the drug companies. Now think carefully about this one. The drug companies are in effect hiring CROs and AMCs who must compete hard for their business. To retain the business of their customers -- the drug makers -- the CROs and AMCs must please them. Without knowing any more details, do you smell a conflict of interest? Do you suppose they skew clinical trials in the drug makers’ favor to win their hearts and fat checks?

Well you don’t have to suppose, and there’s even more to it than that. According to the must-read book, “The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers” by Katharine Greider, drug makers “increasingly insist on designing studies and controlling the raw data; some investigators may not even be allowed to see all the numbers. If results are unfavorable, drug makers are sometimes able to prevent them from coming to light...” Those “independent” organizations involved in drug research that are paid hefty sums by the drug companies are not, of course, about to start complaining about their clients’ Big Brother eye and iron fists. Fat checks produce tight lips. On this note, Greider quotes Marcia Angell, M.D., the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, who told colleagues at a conference on conflicts of interest in research that, “Arm’s-length relationships are a thing of the past, and financial arrangements are hardly limited to grant support.”

But wait, there’s still more. Back in 2001, editors of the most prestigious medical journals in the U.S., including The New England Journal of Medicine, enacted a policy giving them the right to refuse publication of studies sponsored by pharmaceutical companies -- meaning most such studies -- because they found that those companies were influencing the research results too extensively. This financial influence extended to the researchers who were writing the reports that are, in theory, supposed to be unbiased. By June 2002, however, all of these journals had relaxed this policy -- not on principle, not because things improved, but because things got worse: these journals could no longer find enough such experts without financial ties to the drug companies to keep their pages filled!

I could keep going, but you asked for a quick something and I’m guessing you get it by now. If you want it in pure layman’s terms, though, here it is: An FDA-approved drug doesn’t mean it’s safe or effective. Not when it’s the drug companies themselves, motivated entirely as they are by sales, dictating what will and won’t be included and revealed at every stage of new drug studies. Sadly, these days all “FDA-approved” really means is that a drug is approved to reap even more ridiculously high profits for its manufacturer.

So now that I’ve answered your questions, if you find the time ask your Senator Dick Durbin -- his email address is dick -- why you should trust the FDA and government to determine the safety of supplements that aren’t killing 100,000 people a year when they can’t even manage the safety of pharmaceuticals that are. Ask him if he’s going to propose a “Prescription Drug Safety Act of 2003” under the same supposed ideals of protecting us as his bill S.722, while you’re at it. Compliment him on his ties if you write him, though. He wears very chic and expensive ties.

Hope that helps,

BrianP.S. If you want more insight like this, don’t make me write you a letter that the whole world can read again. I just might be tempted to reveal your identity and tell everyone the story of how your feet got stuck in cement. Just to Dr. Mercola’s free newsletter at Mercola.com.

DIABETIC? CHECK US OUT!www.ayurvedicherbsforhealth.com