COMMON MEDICATIONS POISON THE ELDERLY

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F.D.A. SLEEPS WHILE COMMON MEDICATIONS POISON THE ELDERLY

 

 

 

http://www.newswithviews.com:80/Richards/byron43.htm

 

By Byron J. Richards, CCN

 

December 8, 2007

 

NewsWithViews.com

 

On November 29, 2007 the FDA made a rather surprising, almost honest

announcement. It said that it could not protect Americans from the dangers of

drugs. A 56-page report by its Subcommittee on Science and Technology stated the

FDA " suffers from serious scientific deficiencies and is not positioned to meet

current or emerging regulatory responsibilities. " This blistering report on the

life-threatening shortcomings of the FDA was released with the stamp of approval

of the head of the FDA, Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach.

 

The flagrant disregard for human health by the FDA is not news to people who

follow the subject closely. The FDA has been mostly dormant while 100,000

Americans die needlessly from drugs every year and another 3 million are injured

so seriously they require hospitalization (half of those were already in the

hospital!). The FDA management's neglect of duty and follow up on drugs already

on the market is unconscionable and has been for a long time.

 

The reason the FDA report is only " almost honest " is because the report is

little more than a fear-driven PR ploy by von Eschenbach to raise hundreds of

millions of dollars from Congress with no strings attached; a lobbying campaign

that is actively under way as you read this. Such money will not change the FDA

because the FDA management is a corrupt revolving door with the industries it is

supposed to be regulating. Rather, any new money will be used to further

pie-in-the-sky research initiatives crafted by von Eschenbach to create profits

for the cancer and sickness industry with new and very dangerous biotech drugs

(he already undermined the scientific integrity of the National Cancer Institute

using the same approach).

 

Drug Toxicity is a Public Health Crisis

 

The use of drugs as a primary tool of health care in our society is a

hundred-billion-dollar-a-year scam, as well as a direct and dire danger to the

health of anyone taking almost any medication for any period of time. On top of

that, American citizens are being raped by excessive drug prices compared to any

other country in the world. It is an acknowledged fact that the FDA has almost

no clue of the actual risks of commonly used drugs on the market today and has

totally failed the American public on post-market safety of drugs. Drug

companies do everything in their power to suppress risk information and paint a

false picture of benefits - even when they know their drugs needlessly kill or

injure.

 

" Scientific articles " that show the " effectiveness " of drugs are little more

than Big Pharma-written promo pieces that generate billions in sales. It is

common practice for drug companies to illegally promote the off label use of

drugs, even to our children. A legion of doctors on the take from and trained by

Big Pharma is happy to comply. And the major media, paid in the billions for

drug ads, carefully protects Big Pharma and perpetuates the false value of

drugs. A majority of Congress is on the take from the Big Pharma lobby, and the

White House is their best friend. Multi-national Big Pharma companies are

playing Russian Roulette with the health of Americans and those responsible for

protecting the public are complicit in the atrocity.

 

The toxicity of commonly used drugs is a serious issue. There are anti-energy

drugs like statins to lower cholesterol that are slow and deleterious poisons,

progressively and insidiously worsening health over time. This 20-billion-a-year

statin industry maintains its charade through a carefully orchestrated public

health image of false benefit. In the elderly population statins clearly

increase the risk of death and giving them cannot be justified for the great

majority that is currently having them crammed down their throats. I'll write

more about this ongoing statin debacle in an upcoming article.

 

Then there are the drugs that are so dangerous they are oftentimes immediately

toxic. A new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine shows that three common

drugs are responsible for 1/3 of all emergency room adverse drug reaction visits

by the elderly (age 65 and over). The drugs are Coumadin/warfarin (17.3%),

insulin (13.0%), and digoxin (3.2%). Since warfarin is the worst offender I will

use it as an example to illustrate my points - though it is just as easy to

explain similar problems with insulin or digoxin.

 

Warfarin - A Practice-Building Drug Given to Promote Recurring Office Visits

 

It is not at all surprising that warfarin heads the list of drugs sending the

elderly to the emergency room. This drug works by poisoning vitamin K receptors

on platelets so that they cannot stick together - the hope is to prevent a

stroke. It is commonly given to elderly individuals with atrial fibrillation and

according to carefully crafted " studies " may reduce their risk of stroke a

paltry few percentage points. It is a cash cow for the prescribing physician, as

it keeps patients coming back to the office to have their clotting times tested

to make sure their artificially-produced clotting time is in a range deemed

desirable by the doctor. Most elderly individuals with atrial fibrillation are

in poor health in general, making this a difficult patient population fraught

with the risks inherent in multiple drug use.

 

Excessive bleeding is a primary side effect of warfarin. It is not surprising

that you can buy warfarin in the rat poison department at Home Depot. A high

dose is very effective at making animals bleed to death. There is a fine line

between a Home Depot dose and what doctors prescribe. This means that if you are

taking warfarin and rupture a blood vessel in your brain (say from high blood

pressure) your body may not be able to clot to save your life - as was the case

with former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Hemorrhage-related strokes have

quadrupled in the past decade, consistent with the rise in expanded warfarin

use. The warfarin/hemorrhage risk goes up 45 fold if the person is 80 or older.

Also, if an elderly person on warfarin gets in a car accident and starts

bleeding they may have great trouble stopping - especially if the bleeding is

internal.

 

Most discussions of drug benefits revolve around statistically concocted

benefits of the drug, often in hand-picked patient populations, as is the case

with warfarin stroke benefit studies. The studies are funded by drug companies,

and if they don't pan out or the statistics can't be manipulated in some way to

look good then they are thrown in the trash and never published. The benefits of

drugs are never explained in terms of how the drug changes the body into a

healthier state and solves the source of a problem - because drugs seldom ever

do this. Drugs are about symptom and number management, and trying to titrate

the poisons so they are not too toxic for something else that isn't supposed to

be damaged (a near impossible task).

 

Warfarin is not only poisoning vitamin K function on platelets it is poisoning

vitamin K function throughout the body. Doing so is very reckless and never

considered by the myopic medical profession. Vitamin K is a potent antioxidant

that is vital for health and participates in synergistic antioxidant activities

throughout the body that are needed for more types of healthy function than any

doctor could calculate. Vitamin K is required to attach calcium to bone

structure to form new bone, something warfarin blocks. This means that warfarin

use over time increases the risk for osteoporosis. It is now reported that use

of warfarin for longer than 1 year increases the risk of bone fractures by 25% -

a risk that is not explained to anyone taking warfarin.

 

Unfortunately, when warfarin displaces calcium and interferes with normal

vitamin K function it has the undesirable side effect of causing calcium to

accumulate in arteries - otherwise known as hardening of the arteries or

arteriosclerosis. This will speed the process of poor cardiovascular health, the

same topic the drug is being given to assist.

 

Thus, we have a medical profession that thinks if they see an

unnaturally-produced clotting time on paper they have somehow reduced the risk

of a clot-related stroke. Such a conclusion warrants an IQ score of 80 - and

that's the good news.

 

At least 30,000 of their patients per year wind up in the emergency room with

bleeding-related problems. Even worse, at least that number ends up with a

warfarin-produced hemorrhage stroke. And for those that survive those odds, the

risk of fracture and hardening of the arteries also elevates. While any of these

issues would be very important to an elderly person, the risks are seldom

clearly discussed. Instead, doctors insist their elderly patients stay on this

medication and keep coming back for office visits to measure their clotting

times, using " fear of stroke " to gain compliance. It is easy to conclude that

the only discernible public health benefit is the money earned by the physician

for repeat office visits.

 

What if Doctors Could Think?

 

If doctors had some actual training on how to make people healthy and could

stretch their imaginations to ask the most basic of questions then maybe they

would actually be able to help their patients. What if they asked: Why does this

patient have atrial fibrillation? Or, why does this patient have sticky

platelets? Or, how could I help the patient have a more desirable clotting time

by helping restore healthy circulatory function? The answers to these questions

would certainly not be a deficiency of warfarin, i.e., taking a sledgehammer to

platelets.

 

It could be a common elderly nutritional deficiency, such as DHA omega 3 oil or

magnesium. Heaven forbid if a physician were to give dietary supplements instead

of rat poison. Not only are both supplements known to help atrial fibrillation

and stroke risk, they actually help bones and arteries and have no adverse

effects.

 

Maybe doctors could get past Health 101 and realize the cell membranes of

platelets and other cells in the circulation are inherently flexible and do not

stick together inappropriately when they are properly nourished, and need to

stick together in certain situations. Numerous dietary supplements that promote

cell membrane health, reduce inflammation, and/or enhance toxin clearance could

be of immense help in these situations.

 

All we need do is look at the elderly in Italy who followed the Mediterranean

diet for the course of their lives. They live to an older age than Americans.

They have a much higher quality of health in the last quarter of their life than

Americans. They are poorer, have very little medical intervention and drug use,

yet live longer. What they do have is a fresh and mostly organic food supply.

 

Cleaning up the diet and removing irritants by eating an organic diet would do

wonders for removing irritants from the circulation that make platelets stick

together. The poor quality of our food supply is another area of betrayal of the

public trust by the FDA, which now allows Frankenfood genetic mutations of real

food to be sold as " food. " Managing stress is also very important. There are

many options. Doctors would actually have to spend time getting to know the

patient.

 

Yes - it is far easier and more cost effective for physicians to measure

clotting times and never talk to the patient for any length of time. So what if

the patient dies - they are old and are going to die anyway (a prevalent

attitude in elderly health care). There are plenty more guinea pigs standing in

line. Our medical care system is sick, especially in the fear mongering and

negligent treatment of our elderly citizens. MDiety syndrome is a disease worse

than cancer. These physicians don't have 1/100th of the wisdom of the people

they are treating. There is no respect and dignity in our health system.

 

What is the FDA Doing about This?

 

Essentially - nothing. And now they have admitted they are a failure and are not

able to protect the public from drug dangers. The FDA knows about the problems

warfarin is causing. Is the FDA making sure there are proper warnings on the

drug to make sure patients are informed of all the known risks? - no. Is the FDA

demanding further post-marketing studies relating to the explosion of hemorrhage

stroke consistent with the increase in warfarin use, especially in the elderly

population? - no.

 

Instead, the FDA sees the warfarin problem as a business opportunity for the new

drug and biotech industry branch of its operation known as the Reagan-Udall

Foundation for the FDA - otherwise known as FDA, Inc. The only label change to

warfarin that the FDA has proposed will require a $300 - $500 test of genes,

profits that go into the pockets of von Eschenbach-friendly companies and

forward the idea that genetic testing is essential for health (a fallacy). Never

before has there been a more massive conflict of interest. The FDA will now

market and license the drugs it is supposed to be regulating for safety, as well

as put out testing requirements to prop up the new industry it is in charge of.

 

As payback to Orin Hatch (R-UT) for helping to turn the FDA into a quasi-drug

company this past year (the most sweeping FDA change in 50 years) and being a

huge backer of the permanent appointment of Andrew von Eschenbach to head the

FDA, the University of Utah was awarded an FDA no-bid contract to do biomarker

research using advanced genomics to determine which patients are most at risk

for bleeding from warfarin.

 

This is what I mean by a pie-in-the-sky Andrew von Eschenbach project. It exists

not to really help anyone, but to forward his personal agenda of evolving new

tools that can be used in the cancer industry - lining the pockets of his many

friends in the biotech industry. Raising more money for this agenda is the only

reason von Eschenbach is sending out a panic message about the FDA's inability

to protect the public. Fear is a great motivator.

 

 

 

The warfarin project is simply a test project to expand an entirely new field of

science that will be used in the cancer-for-profit industry. In ten years itFrom

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