Monthly Newsletter | www.CancerCoverup.com | Feb. 2006 - They're BAACK!

[Guest guest]

http://www.cancercoverup.com/newsletter/2006-02/

 

They're Back!

By Kathleen Deoul

Monthly Newsletter | www.CancerCoverup.com | [ MONTH ] 2006

 

 

 

 

They're BAACK!

 

Big Pharma and its allies in the medical establishment are at it

again. They're playing with the rules to turn healthy people into sick

ones by bureaucratic fiat, and use the phony epidemic they create to

do surgery on your wallet. If you don't think they can get away with

it, consider what they've already accomplished.

 

The Phony Obesity Epidemic

 

You may remember that a number of years ago, they fiddled with the

so-called " body mass index, or " BMI, " which is used to determine the

proper weight for a given height. Depending on where you were on the

index, you would be classified as having a normal weight, being

underweight, or being overweight. What they did was shift the dividing

lines to the left, reducing the allowable weight for a given height by

ten pounds.

 

Now that doesn't sound like much, but the effect of the change was to

transform tens of millions of Americans, who, the day before, had been

judged as having acceptable weights for their heights into people who

were overweight, or even obese!

 

So what you might say.

 

The trouble is that this shift in the BMI laid the groundwork for all

of the fanfare about an " obesity epidemic. " Once the false notion of a

nation of porkers was well-established, Big Pharma was able to get

obesity classified as a disease, and therefore be reimbursed by health

insurance for anti-obesity drugs and surgical procedures. Indeed, in

addition to those already on the market like Xenical and Meridia, at

present, there are at least 35 new anti-obesity drugs in various

stages of development. In addition, last year, over 140,000 gastric

bypass surgeries were performed, despite the one in 200 risk of

fatality. In addition, roughly 35,000 individuals opted for the less

risky surgical implantation of a gastric lap band. And most of these

procedures, which can cost upwards of $35,000, will be paid for by the

nation's health insurers, which in the end means higher premiums for

you and me.

 

Now this isn't to say that many of us eat more than we should, are

more likely to reach for the remote than a barbell and are carrying a

few extra pounds. But there's a world of difference between that and

being morbidly obese (defined as more than 100 pounds overweight).

Indeed, one side-effect of the constant fanfare about weight loss has

been a real epidemic of eating disorders among young women who are

obsessed with being thin and are falling victim to bulimia and

anorexia! What makes the transformation of weight control into an

" epidemic " even more disturbing is the latest move by the FDA to give

tentative approval for an over-the-counter (OTC) version of the weight

loss drug Xenical. Since the OTC version is the same medicine at half

strength all one needs to achieve a prescription level dose of the

medicine is to take twice as much of the OTC version as recommended.

The trouble is that many people mistakenly believe that " more is

better " and without a physician's supervision could easily overdose on

the drug.

 

But obesity is not the only instance in which Big Pharma " cooked the

books " to create an epidemic. Basking in the success of their fiddling

with the BMI chart, they took on another potentially lucrative target:

cholesterol.

 

Most people have some notion that having high cholesterol can be a bad

thing. Some even know that there is a " good " cholesterol and a " bad "

cholesterol. Beyond that, most people simply follow their doctor's

recommendations. What they don't realize is that to a surprising

degree, what their doctor recommends is not based on his own medical

judgment, but rather on arbitrary guidelines established by, you

guessed it, Big Medicine.

 

And Big Medicine, of course, is in bed with Big Pharma.

 

As with weight levels, what they did was to change the rules. Until

the change, " high cholesterol " was defined as having a combined

" good, " or HDL cholesterol and " bad " or LDL cholesterol number of over

300. When your tests showed you at this level, according to the rules

it was appropriate to put you on medication. Between a combined figure

of 200 and 300, it was recommended that you modify your diet and

increase your exercise to lower the number. What they did was to

change the recommendation to introduce medication if your combined

figure was over 200. All of a sudden, 65 million Americans who did not

require medication the day before the change, now did. Moreover, IF A

DOCTOR DID NOT FOLLOW THE RECOMMENDATIONS HE WAS COMMITTING MALPRACTICE!!!

 

With just these two changes, Big Pharma picked up 100 million

additional customers!

 

But they still weren't done!

 

The next target was yet another common health concern: blood pressure.

 

For decades, high blood pressure, officially known as " hypertension, "

was defined as more than 140/90. The first number is what is called

" systolic " pressure, which measures the pressure of blood in the

arteries and veins while the left ventricle of the heart is

contracting, and the second number when it is relaxed, or dilated.

Generally, even at levels around 140/90, physicians would try diet and

exercise to lower blood pressure before turning to medication. Blood

pressures of up to 130/90 were considered within the range of

" normal. " But Big Pharma and Big Medicine had a " better " idea.

 

They decided to invent a new disease out of whole cloth.

 

In 1997, they created " prehypertension. " In other words, you didn't

have high blood pressure, but you might. They then proceeded to define

" prehypertensive " as having a blood pressure between 130/85 and 130/89

- a level previously acceptable. They then changed the definition of

" normal " to blood pressures of 129/84 or below.

 

As was the case with changing the rules to define obesity and high

cholesterol, millions of healthy people were again defined as " sick "

by bureaucratic fiat.

But their greed still wasn't satisfied.

 

In 2003, Big Pharma and Big Medicine got together to change the rules

yet again, expanding the category " prehypertensive " to include those

with blood pressures of 120/80 or higher - a level that had not only

been viewed as " normal, " but as the target patients should try to achieve!

 

Of course, each time the bar was lowered for what was considered

" prehypertensive " it was also lowered for the introduction of medication.

 

Mind you, the typical blood pressure of North Americans, according to

a 2003 study, was 127/77 - " prehypertensive " under the new

definitions. Moreover, compared to other parts of the globe, we were

doing an outstanding job of controlling hypertension. Only about 28

percent of Americans and 27 percent of Canadians had blood pressure

readings of 140/90 or higher. In contrast, 55 percent of Germans, 49

percent of Finns, 47 percent of Spaniards and 42 percent of Great

Britain's population had measurements exceeding 140/90! Indeed, the

average blood pressure in Europe is 136/83.

 

But Big Pharma and Big Medicine still aren't satisfied!

 

Never mind that mortality rate from strokes (hypertension is a major

cause) in North America is 27.6 per 100,000 population as compared to

Europe's 41.2 per 100,000 population, or that North Americans fare

better in most other indicators of cardio-vascular health. If Big

Pharma says you're sick, you're sick!

 

Still, we apparently weren't sick enough. So what to do? Simple, you

just start moving the bar again.

 

And that's what they're trying to do.

 

Quietly tucked away in the literature announcing the latest reduction

in " normal " blood pressure readings is the assertion that an

acceptable blood pressure should be 115/75 - roughly the reading for a

teenager!

 

Now that number isn't official - yet. But statements about " normal "

levels of anything are not made lightly by the medical establishment

or its allies. You can be as sure that it will eventually become the

" official " recommendation as you can that the sun will rise tomorrow!

 

And that isn't the only nugget hidden away in the official

recommendations on blood pressure. Another concerns treatment.

 

For decades, the first therapy recommended if diet and exercise failed

to lower a patients blood pressure was a course of diuretics, the most

common being hydrochlorothiazide. The trouble is that this common drug

has been around so long that its patent has long expired, and it is

readily available in cheap generic form. The word " generic, " of

course, is an anathema to Big Pharma. Generic translates into less

expensive and less expensive means lower profits - a concept Big

Pharma finds abhorrent.

 

So what to do?

 

Simple, as with other aspects of high blood pressure treatment and

diagnosis, change the rules!

 

Now, instead of trying a simple and inexpensive diuretic, the

recommendation is for a " two drug therapy. " What this means in plain

English, is to give the patient a patented and therefore profitable

branded prescription drug along with the diuretic. And remember,

medication is generally recommended when a patient's systolic blood

pressure is 20 points above what is considered " normal. "

 

If the bar is lowered to 115/75, this means that people with a blood

pressure reading of 135/85 would be put on medication. This despite

the fact that these same people previously would have been treated

exclusively with diet and exercise, and, before 1997, would have been

viewed as having a reading within normal limits! Further, the

medications themselves are not without side effects, potentially

exposing large segments of the population to unnecessary risk!

 

But it is not just a potential change in the hypertension rules that

is tucked away in the report. Another potentially more threatening

change relates to cholesterol.

 

When Big Pharma had the bar lowered for acceptable levels of

cholesterol, it reaped a bonanza in sales of the new statin drugs

earning $20 billion annually. Hailed as a godsend, ads on television

and in the print media trumpeted their ability to reduce " bad "

cholesterol levels. What was initially hidden and later underplayed in

these ads was the incidence of serious side effects, especially a form

of muscle weakness called statin Myopathy. Estimates indicate as many

as one in four statin drug users may experience serious side effects.

In fact, up to 75 percent of patients for whom statins are prescribed

discontinue them due to side effects! But this is something Big Pharma

will never tell you.

 

This brings us to the second little nugget hidden away in the new

blood pressure recommendations. In the National Committee on

Prevention, Detection and Evaluation of High Blood Pressure's Seventh

Report, the document outlining the new rules, there is a table on

cardiac risk that indicates the acceptable level for a combined

cholesterol reading is 180 - 20 points lower than the official number.

As with the lower blood pressure figure, this number is not yet the

" official " target, but rest assured, it will be!

 

The implications of lowering the bar yet again are clear. It will

lower the point at which your doctor will be COMPELLED to prescribe

these dangerous medications.

 

Don't forget that once a recommendation becomes official, a physician

who fails to follow the guidelines is committing malpractice. So they

really don't have a choice no matter what their personal feelings may be.

 

In a way it is not surprising that the stage is being set for a

change. Statin drugs are among the most profitable items Big Pharma

has in its product lines. Indeed, they have been pushing them for a

wide range of so-called " off-label " uses.

 

Off-label use entails a physician prescribing a medication for some

illness other than the one it was originally approved to treat. It is

a common practice that takes advantage of a loophole in the way

regulations work that most people don't know: once a drug is approved

for any use, a doctor can prescribe it for any purpose he decides is

appropriate. In one example, approximately 80 percent of the

prescriptions for the drug Neurontin, a medication approved for the

treatment of epilepsy, are for off-label treatments.

 

Today, statin drugs are being promoted as treatments for everything

from Alzheimer's disease to cancer! There's even talk of having

doctors give their healthy patients a " super-pill " that is a cocktail

of statin drugs, blood pressure drugs and other medications as a

preventative measure!

 

But even if such insanity doesn't take place, you can be sure that Big

Pharma is going to at a minimum push to lower the acceptable level for

combined cholesterol to 180. What will this do?

 

It will create millions of new patients, and, more important from Big

Pharma's viewpoint, protect what they've already gained.

 

A dirty little secret Big Pharma doesn't want you to know is that

Americans have been doing a terrific job of lowering their cholesterol

levels all by themselves. Indeed, a study published in the Journal of

the American Medical Association last year found that the average

cholesterol among men aged 60 to 74 had dropped from 232 to 204

between the early 1960s and the 1990s. More important, " bad "

cholesterol levels dropped significantly during this period.

 

Now if the national average dropped to near 200 - below which

cholesterol levels are acceptable under current rules that would mean

that tens of millions of people now required to take statin drugs

would no longer need them. That, in turn would jeopardize Big Pharma's

latest cash cow - something they are not about to permit.

 

Besides the overall drop in cholesterol levels, the study had other

bad news for Big Pharma.

 

The decline in cholesterol levels was not limited to older Americans.

In fact, all adults from age 20 to 74 experienced the same phenomenon.

Even worse, while " bad " cholesterol levels declined, " good "

cholesterol levels did not. As a result, the ratio of " good " to " bad "

cholesterol improved something statin drugs are prescribed to accomplish.

 

As if this weren't enough bad news for Big Pharma, the study also

reported that by 2002, the number of Americans with cholesterol

readings above 240, the critical level for statins had fallen to 17

percent of the population, achieving the goal the government had set

for 2010. The study also noted that deaths from heart disease dropped

from nearly 800,000 in the early 1980s to 650,000 in 2002.

 

As for statins, one of the researchers noted " … if you put statins in

the water supply, cardiovascular disease would still be the leading

cause of death in America. "

 

It's enough to drive a Big Pharma executive to drink.

 

That's why they want to change the rules. If they can't find a

legitimate reason for you to buy their product, they'll simply make

one up. Sure, the side effects of the drugs you end up taking might

have side effects that cause problems as bad or even worse than those

they're supposed to treat, but Big Pharma has an answer to that

problem: more drugs!

 

In the final analysis it boils down to one single fact: Big Pharma has

always put profits ahead of patients and it always will - at least

until the public puts pressure on its elected officials to put a stop

to the abuse. There is all the more reason to do so with the new

Medicare prescription drug benefit coming into effect. It's the

Medicare-eligible population that is most likely to be prescribed

cholesterol or blood pressure lowering medications, and most likely to

be diagnosed with obesity. If we allow it, Big Pharma will turn this

benefit into a new cash cow by simply changing the rules. But if that

happens, and we have not spoken up, we will have no one to blame but

ourselves.