Off-label drugs are medical madness

[Guest guest]

" NewsTarget Insider " <insider

NTN: Off-label drugs are medical madness

Tue, 23 May 2006 10:11:10 -0700

 

 

 

NewsTarget Insider Alert (www.NewsTarget.com)

HEALTH WARNINGS / CRITICISM

------------------------------

(Please forward to others who may benefit)

 

 

It's shocking, but true: Once a drug has been approved, it can be

prescribed for any health problem, even ones that the drug was never

intended to treat. Read today's NewsTarget feature to discover how

this common practice generates more profits for Big Pharma and proves

the so-called " scientific evidence " behind conventional medicine is

nonsense.

 

 

http://www.newstarget.com/019393.html

 

 

 

May 23 2006

 

Off-label drug use and the sham of FDA-approved drug safety

 

Did you know that many drugs are used legally in the United States

today for diseases and conditions they were never approved for? It's

called off-label drug use, and it's a common practice that promotes

the sale of prescription drugs and circumvents the so-called " gold

standard " drug safety procedures the FDA claims to enforce.

 

Here's how it works: once a drug gets approved for any condition,

whether it's a skin disorder, a mental disorder, or a cardiovascular

problem, it can then be legally prescribed by doctors for everything.

In other words, a drug approved for heart disease can be prescribed

for diabetes, even though there's absolutely no testing done

whatsoever with the drug on diabetes patients. It sounds surprising or

even downright astonishing to those who don't know how the medical

industry really operates, but it's absolutely true, and it

demonstrates why the so-called " scientific evidence " behind

conventional medicine is nonsense.

 

It isn't science; it's just marketing. What science is there that

would allow a drug tested on one condition to be used for everything?

That doesn't require any real science at all, it just requires clever

marketing by the drug companies who routinely and cleverly promote the

off-label use of drugs for conditions they were never tested against.

Thus, when you hear drug companies and the FDA talk about their

rigorous safety testing, think again. All a drug company has to do is

rig a clinical trial in a way that gets the drug approved for one

simple condition, and then the drug can be prescribed to treat any

health condition or complaint under the sun.

 

We see this with statin drugs, which were initially approved for

treating high cholesterol but are now being promoted as miracle cures

for things like cancer. The drug's use for cancer is based on nothing

but utter scientific nonsense, of course, but it doesn't stop the

industry from promoting it and certainly doesn't stop the mainstream

media from printing articles heralding this distorted logic.

 

Overall, the FDA's off-label use rules make a complete mockery of the

drug safety approval process in the United States, and they

demonstrate how safety approval is really just a rubber-stamping

exercise that allows the most profitable and influential corporations

in America to push their products onto people who not only don't need

them, but who are very likely to be harmed by them.

 

It also makes a mockery of conventional medicine's criticism of

natural therapy. Such critics claim natural therapies aren't safe

because they've never been proven to treat certain conditions, and yet

their own favorite drugs are routinely used to treat untested,

unapproved health conditions. It's classic doublespeak from drug

promoters, and it's indicative of the kind of double standard

routinely practiced in organized medicine today.

 

Think about it: A synthetic prescription drug with harmful side

effects is perfectly legal to be prescribed as a treatment for

anything -- and I do mean anything. Yet it is illegal for a

nutritional supplement manufacturer to tell the truth about how its

products might benefit your health. Cherry extract manufacturers, for

example, cannot state that cherries reduce arthritis pain and joint

inflammation (unless they wish to have their entire product inventory

confiscated and their business shut down).

 

If that's not medical madness, I don't know what is. Drugs are legal

to prescribe for everything, but foods, herbs and nutritional

supplements are approved for absolutely nothing. That's how twisted

the Food and Drug Administration has really become. It all comes down

to a simple three-step formula: 1) Push the drugs. 2) Discredit (or

outlaw) the herbs. 3) Repeat.