WITH A STROKE OF THE PEN Part II (search archives for part l )

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http://www.cancer-coverup.com/newsletter/09-2003/

 

WITH A STROKE OF THE PEN Part II

 

 

BY KATHLEEN B. DEOUL

 

There is widespread agreement that the rising cost of providing prescription

drugs is a major factor underlying our nation's out-of-control health care

spending. Indeed, it is that fundamental fact that motivated Congress to try and

provide a prescription drug benefit for Senior Citizens through Medicare. But,

the efforts to provide more and more money to pay for expensive prescription

drugs ignores another fundamental fact: the reason costs are rising so much is

that Big Pharma is aggressively manipulating the system to expand the number of

people required to take prescription drugs and further fatten their already

bloated profits.

 

Last month, in part one of " With a Stroke of the Pen " we discussed how Big

Pharma and its allies in the medical community manipulated the rules concerning

" standards of care " to make large numbers of people previously were viewed as

healthy " sick. " They did this by changing the rules concerning treatment of

people suffering from such things as high blood pressure, high cholesterol

levels and obesity. These rule changes resulted in 45 million people being

classified as having high blood pressure, 36 million as having high cholesterol

and 25 million as being clinically obese - OVERNIGHT! Most important, from Big

Pharma's point of view, all of them were suddenly candidates for drug therapy to

correct their new " illnesses. "

 

As huge a windfall as these rule changes were, however, they pale in comparison

with some of the other tricks Big Pharma has up its sleeve. Among the most

despicable is the move to expand the administration of prescription drugs to

children.

 

THE RUN ON RITALIN

 

While much of attention regarding the explosion of prescription drug use has

focused largely on Senior Citizens, an even more ominous trend has been ignored.

While prescription drug spending by those between the ages of 35 and 49 grew by

23 percent in 2001, and spending by those over 65 increased by 10 percent,

spending on prescription drugs for children under 19 grew by 28 percent - the

highest rate of all categories!

 

Although most of the spending on children's prescriptions was for drugs to treat

allergies, asthma and infections, an increasing proportion is accounted for by

drugs to treat neurological and psychological disorders. Indeed, spending for

drugs such as Ritalin to treat alleged cases of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity

Disorder (ADHD) has increased by 500 percent since 1990. Overall, spending for

such drugs accounted for 8 percent of all drug outlays for children in 2002!

Fully five percent of schoolchildren - primarily boys - are now diagnosed as

having ADHD. As a result, 6 million U.S. school children now take Ritalin Daily!

 

What's worse is that in many instances the children are being medicated despite

their parent's objections!

 

Increasingly, local school officials are demanding that parents place their

children on Ritalin even though there has been no psychiatric evaluation to

determine with certainty that they have ADHD! If the parents fail to comply,

school officials report them to child protective services for abuse and neglect.

What remains undetermined in many cases, however, is whether the child actually

has a psychological problem, or is merely active.

 

In one example, a mother was informed that her first grade son was " talking out

of turn, clowning around and not sitting still. " The teacher, who had no

psychological training, filled out a psychological profile of the boy and sent

it to his pediatrician who, after a cursory examination diagnosed ADHD and

placed him on Ritalin! If the parent did not comply and allow her child to be

medicated she could be charged with child abuse!

 

This, despite the fact that according to experts in ADHD at NIH, the disease

should be addressed with a carefully structured treatment regimen beginning with

behavioral interventions and using medication only as a last resort! But the

real question is how many normal active children are being misdiagnosed by

teachers who simply don't want to make the effort to keep order in the

classroom?

 

The President's Commission on Excellence in Special Education implied the number

may be substantial! In a recent report it stated " ADHD is a clinical judgment

that has very specific diagnostic criteria. It is widely believed, however, that

many children who are identified through this process are not adequately

evaluated. … Medications should have nothing to do with identification and must

be done in consultation with a physician. "

 

An article in the February issue of the American Journal of Pediatrics also

provided evidence that many children are being misdiagnosed as having ADHD. It

noted huge regional variations in the prescription rates for Ritalin - a sure

sign that some jurisdictions are merely using the drug to control children, not

to treat a disease!

 

But that's not all!

 

YOU MUST BE CRAZY

 

It is not just ADHD that is a problem. Another 5 percent of pediatric

prescriptions were for antidepressants - drugs like Paxil and Zoloft. According

to a study by the University of Maryland, there was a 250 percent increase in

the number of children being prescribed psychiatric drugs between 1987 and 1996.

More important, according to Dr. Michael Jellinek, editorial author of the

study, the increases were recorded for many drugs when research supporting such

use was " scant. " Dr. Jellinek was particularly concerned about the lack of

research concerning the long-terms effects of such drugs on the brains of young

children.

 

He was particularly concerned about the effects of the drugs on pre-adolescents.

In some instances they are being given to children as young as five years old.

What the consequences of giving powerful psychotropic drugs that are known to

have sexual side effects to children before they reach puberty is unknown.

Moreover, the prescribing of such powerful drugs to preschool age children is

rapidly increasing.

 

An article in the February 23, 2000 edition of the Journal of the American

Medical Association (JAMA) " Trends in the Prescribing of Psychotropic

Medications to Preschoolers " Dr. Julie Magno Zito of the University of Maryland

examined data for two state Medicaid and one Health Maintenance Organization

programs. They found that prescriptions of drugs such as Prozac to children from

the ages of two and four years of age had more than doubled between 1991 and

1995.

 

Dr. John Coyle of the Harvard Medical School is alarmed by the trend. He points

out in an editorial in JAMA that it has not been demonstrated that doctors can

actually diagnose illnesses such as schizophrenia in preschool children and that

the use of psychotropic medications in children of that age may actually have

detrimental effects!

 

The reason for his concern is that the brain is still developing during the

early stages of life. It is undergoing rapid development as synapses - the cells

that connect the neurons that carry messages through the brain - rapidly

increase in number and density. It is at this point in a child's development

that their brain is essentially being " wired " to carry such things as language,

sight, motor skills and the other basic abilities that make it possible for an

individual to function. Psychotropic drugs alter the way the brain functions. In

particular, they act on neurotransmitters - the chemicals that carry messages

allowing neurons to communicate with each other. Just what the affect of these

actions are on the development of synapses and neurons in the very young is

unknown. Animal experiments, however, show significant negative consequences.

 

One of the most disturbing aspects of the huge increase in prescribing

psychotropic drugs to children is the notion of using them as a " preventative "

measure for such disorders as schizophrenia. The rationale is that schizophrenia

tends to run in families and that if a child has relatives who have suffered

from the disorder, giving them anti-psychotic drugs as children may prevent the

onset of the disease later in life. While there is a 10 percent chance that a

child will develop the disorder if one of their parents suffered from

schizophrenia, there is a 90 percent chance they will not. But once they start

taking anti-psychotic drugs they will have to do so for the rest of their lives.

 

Moreover, these drugs are not benign. They can result in decreased motor skills,

high blood pressure and sedation. In other words, they can turn a patient into a

zombie. That is why many adult patients stop taking their medication - they

cannot function. Children, however, do not have this option. They do what they

are told.

 

To condemn a preschool child to such an existence without a firm diagnosis would

seem unconscionable to most people, but not, apparently to Big Pharma and its

allies in the medical community. Of course, although Big Pharma wraps its

advocacy of administering these drugs to children in a mantel of moral

superiority by claiming that it is merely " preventative medicine, " it's really

all about money. If the 90 percent of the children of schizophrenics who never

develop the disease are nonetheless required to take these powerful

anti-psychotic drugs for their entire lives, Big Pharma gets a nine-fold

increase in the size of its market!

 

Of course its not just children that are the target of Big Pharma's

" preventative medicine " strategy to fatten its profits. Big Pharma has also set

its sights on Baby Boomers in what is perhaps their most outrageous move to

date.

 

EVERYBODY'S DRUG

 

Researchers in Australia have come up with Big Pharma's ideal prescription drug.

They call it the " Polypill " and want everyone over the age of 55 to take it -

that's right, EVERYONE!

 

What kind of a pill, you might ask, could possibly be a " one size fits all "

drug?

 

Why a pill that has a little bit of everything of course!

 

And that's more or less what the Australian researchers have come up with.

 

Actually, they claim what they've developed is a pill to largely eliminate heart

attacks - something bound to appeal to the growing legion of aging Baby Boomers

beginning to feel their mortality.

 

And what is this miracle drug?

 

Nothing new, really. What the researchers have done is to combine a handful of

existing medicines used to treat various heart ailments in a single pill. It

contains a statin drug, a number of blood pressure drugs including an ACE

inhibitor, some folic acid and a low dose of aspirin.

 

The researchers claimed in an article in the British Medical Journal that their

chemical cocktail could reduce the incidence of heart attacks by 80% -- not

perfect, but not bad. At least that's how it would seem, until you look a little

closer!

 

First of all, their claim is based on what is called a " meta-analysis " that

encompassed 750 studies involving 400,000 people. It sounds impressive. But what

it really means in plain English is that they lumped together the results of

other existing research and used the data to support their conclusions. Much of

this research, however, was funded by drug companies and recent revelations have

underscored just how skewed such research results can be.

 

But that's not the only problem with their proposal.

 

They say that the pill would be " acceptably safe. " They say that only two out of

one hundred people would have to discontinue the drug due to side effects. But

they are also proposing that tens of millions of people take the drug - and that

translates into hundreds of thousands of people suffering adverse affects! They

also say that " only " one in ten thousand users would suffer fatal side affects.

Again, the numbers suggest that this is far from a minor problem. Given the

widespread use they foresee for the drug thousands would die! Moreover, that

assumes that their assumptions regarding adverse reactions are correct, and

there is plenty of evidence to suggest that they are wildly optimistic.

 

Take just one of the components - statin drugs - for example. Up to 25 percent

of people taking statin drugs suffer significant adverse effects including

muscle weakness, dizziness and allergic reactions. ACE inhibitors such as those

they would include also are known to cause severe adverse reactions in many

people. Further, there is no data on what the effects of combining the various

ingredients might be!

 

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of the Polypill is the so-called " whole

population " approach suggested by its inventors. This is to say that everyone,

whether they have any history or indications of heart disease take the drug!

Unlike high cholesterol, high blood pressure and obesity, they aren't even

creating the pretense of treating people who are sick. They make no bones about

giving these powerful and potentially dangerous medications to healthy people as

well!

 

It would almost be funny if it weren't so serious.

 

The real danger is that pushed by Big Pharma, the NIH might endorse the idea and

make administering the Polypill to those over 55 years of age the standard of

care. That would effectively require doctors - many of whom are skeptical about

its benefits to say the least - to prescribe the drug or face the prospect of

malpractice suits. If you don't think it could happen, you might want to check

your blood pressure, cholesterol level or weight!

 

In the final analysis, however, the Polypill, the increase in prescriptions for

children and the arbitrary changes in standards of care for high blood pressure,

cholesterol and obesity are really symptoms of a deeper problem - the increasing

control of Big Pharma over your health care decisions. The grip of the

multinational pharmaceutical companies on American health care has grown

stronger with each passing year and brought with it escalating costs and

diminished quality. The time has come for Congress to do something about our

loss of health freedom, but for the national legislature to act, each of us must

speak out! You can reach your congressman by calling (202) 224-3121. If we do

not, the situation will only grow worse.

 

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