Asthma drug--the long-acting beta2-agonists (LABAs)-- that triples the rate of asthma deaths

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8

Invented Diseases Big Pharma Is Banking on

By

Martha Rosenberg, AlterNet

Posted on April 16, 2010, Printed on April 18, 2010

http://www.alternet.org/story/146471/

Since

direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in 1997, pharma's credo has

been When The Medication Is Ready, The Disease (and Patients) Will

Appear. Who knew so many people suffered from restless legs?

But

pharma's recent plan to move from mass-market molecules into more

lucrative vaccines and biologics did not see the anti-vaxer movement

coming: millions of Americans saying You Want to Vaccinate Me -- and My

Child -- with WHAT?? and condemning vials of H1N1, rotavirus and MMR

vaccines to sit, well, way past their expiration dates. Nor were fears

of an international vaccine conspiracy helped by former CDC Director

Julie Gerberding resurfacing as President of Merck Vaccines in

December. (Nice revolving door if you can catch it.)

Now

pharma is back to creating new diseases, patients, risks and "awareness

campaigns" faster than you can say thimerosal (the vaccine preservative

that started the backlash.)

1.

SERM deficiency

A pill

to prevent postmenopausal osteoporosis packs the "magic three" of drug

sales-- fear, forever and faith--since you never know if it's working

or you need it but fear stopping. But 15 years after women began

swallowing bisphosphonates like Boniva and Fosamax because

pharma-planted bone density machines in medical offices revealed they

had "osteopenia,"* bisphosphonates are linked to jaw bone death,

esophageal cancer and causing the fractures they were supposed to

prevent. Sorry about that. Now pharma is hawking Selective Estrogen

Receptor Modulators (SERMs) like Evista and Tamoxifen to prevent

osteoporosis and even some cancers. Unfortunately they can cause others

2.

Statin Deficiency

If it

seems like the whole world is on statins, it's not your imagination.

Last year the FDA approved AstraZeneca's Crestor for children as

young as 10 and in March it approved Crestor for 6.5 million people who

have no cholesterol or heart problems at all! (See: fear, forever and

faith.) Many say, since lead investigator of the Justification for the

Use of Statins in Primary Prevention study Paul Ridker of Brigham and

Women's Hospital in Boston is co-patent

holder/inventor of the C-reactive protein (CRP) test which "proves"

Crestor's effectiveness, there's a conflict of interest. Others say,

since CRP isn't necessarily even a marker for heart disease and statins

can cause Type 2 diabetes, it's bad science along with a conflict of

interest.)

3.

Circadian Dysrhythmia

Insomnia

is a gold mine for pharma because everyone sleeps -- or watches TV when

they can't. But Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata and Rozerem have reached market

saturation, so pharma is rolling out subcategories like nocturnal,

middle-of-the-night (MOTN) and terminal insomnia and sleep eating,

sleep walking and sleep sweating (yes sweating) to boost the franchise.

Meanwhile another demo is swelling Circadian Dysrhythmia numbers:

Thanks to restless legs syndrome, sleep apnea, shift work sleep

disorder, people who skimp on sleep and of course insomnia meds

themselves, there's an epidemic of excessive sleepiness! Enter Provigil

--"a mood-brightening and memory-enhancing psychostimulant which

enhances wakefulness and vigilance," -- Adderall and Vyvanse, known in

the days of Lenny Bruce -- also an "excessive sleepiness" sufferer --

as speed.

4.

Adult Autism, ADHD and Refusal to Play Nicey

Having

marketed adult diseases like depression, bipolar disorder and

schizophrenia in 4-year-olds to death, pharma is now finding childhood

diseases in adults. Adults with ADHD have hyperactivity, impulsivity,

"executive function deficits" and "difficulty with organization and

time management," says Harvard Medical School's

Joseph Biederman, in a 2004 JAMA. The disease, found in most people's

brother-in-laws, requires "lifelong" medication says Biederman, who was

accused of pushing Risperdal and hiding pharma income by Congress in

2008. Adults may suffer from autism too says a 2008 article in

Psychiatric News, if they're "unsociable, extremely rigid, given to

angry outbursts" and "acutely sensitive to light, heat, and pain."

Luckily, in two studies "SSRI antidepressants led to a decrease in

repetitive behaviors and to somewhat more socializing," in adults

with autism says Psychiatric News.

5.

Asthma That Requires "Two Drugs"

Leave

it to pharma to develop an asthma drug--the long-acting

beta2-agonists (LABAs)-- that triples the rate of asthma deaths,

especially in African-Americans. And leave it to the FDA to approve

LABA's on the basis of a trial, the 2003 SMART trial (Salmeterol

Multicenter Asthma Research Trial), that was stopped early

because of so many deaths. In March, after more deaths,

especially in children, a sheepish FDA recast LABAs as a last resort

medication with or without use of a concomitant inhaled steroid. But

AstraZeneca doesn't want to stop selling its LABA with a steroid,

Symbicort -- and GSK its LABA with a steroid, Advair -- just because

they're correlated with death. So the LABA drugs are being billed

as safe and able to treat "both" causes of asthma (see: Vytorin) and

projected to earn billions this year.

6.

"Treatment Resistant" Conditions

If an

engine additive or laundry product didn't work, who would chase it with

another product--or two-- because the manufacturer told them to? Who

would pay $300 to $900 a month out of their pocket for antidepressants,

antipsychotics, mood stabilizers and mood brighteners some of which

don't work? (see: fear, forever, faith.) Increasingly, pharma is

approving drugs as add on or "adjunctive therapy" like AstraZeneca's

antipsychotic Seroquel, approved last year "for patients who had failed

to respond adequately to an antidepressant alone." Also last year, the

FDA approved Eli Lilly's Symbyax, a combination of the SSRI

antidepressant Prozac and controversial antipsychotic Zyprexa -- do

patients gain 100 pounds but feel great? -- for "treatment resistant

depression." Why are diseases "treatment resistant" instead of the

drugs "ineffective" or diagnoses "wrong"?

 

7. Low T

Men

are you feeling run down and over the hill? Is your hair falling out,

skin wrinkling and abdomen developing its own zip code? Have you lost

interest in sex or worse, has your partner? (With you?) Do you need

reading glasses, dental implants and heel splints? You're not getting

old, you just have Low T and are ready for the aging-is-really-just-low-hormones

con that women have lived with for 60 years: hormone replacement

therapy. Like 50 million women before you, you can be Forever Masculine

even though, to (quote hormone giant Wyeth) you have outlived your

testes if you start replacing your lost testosterone. You'll get both

kinds of zips back in your life, and it won't change your

prostate-specific antigens. Pharma promises.

8.

"Spectrum" Disorders

Nothing

proves pharma's when-the-medication-is-ready credo better than the

legions of people who have fibromyaglia now that Cymbalta, Savella and

Lyrica are available to treat it. Still, a "grassroots" pharma front

group is conducting a Fibromyalgia Is Real awareness campaign like it

did for depression and bipolar disorder, just to make sure. Pharma has

also rolled out the term "depression spectrum disorder" for

fibromyalgia to make sure patients who have some but not all of the

symptoms seek treatment. And speaking of spectrums, "Epilepsy Spectrum

Disorder" was rolled out in January's JAMA -- a disorder which is not

just about seizures anymore but has "shared mechanisms" with

"depression, autism.., and other cognitive comorbidities." Spectrum

disorders are Real--which is pharma-speak for Reimbursable.

* a

pharma contrivance like "perimenopause" to widen the patient pool

Martha

Rosenberg frequently writes about the impact of the pharmaceutical,

food and gun industries on public health. Her work has appeared in the Boston

Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago

Tribune and other outlets.

© 2010

Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/146471/