The New Magic that Can Heal You and Has the Drug Companies Running Scared

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The New Magic that Can Heal

You and Has the Drug Companies Running Scared

Posted by Dr. Mercola | April 24 2010 this to a friend

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There is a new “product”

on the market that is absolutely free to you and is giving drug companies a run

for their money. It’s called the placebo effect … and it often

works better than top pharmaceutical drugs.

As Wired Magazine reported:

“From 2001 to 2006, the

percentage of new products cut from development after Phase II clinical trials,

when drugs are first tested against placebo, rose by 20 percent. The failure

rate in more extensive Phase III trials increased by 11 percent, mainly due to

surprisingly poor showings against placebo.

Despite historic levels of industry

investment in R & D, the US Food and Drug Administration approved only 19

first-of-their-kind remedies in 2007—the fewest since 1983—and just

24 in 2008. Half of all drugs that fail in late-stage trials drop out of the

pipeline due to their inability to beat sugar pills.”

They continue:

“Some products that have been

on the market for decades, like Prozac, are faltering in more recent follow-up

tests. In many cases, these are the compounds that, in the late '90s, made Big

Pharma more profitable than Big Oil. But if these same drugs were vetted now,

the FDA might not approve some of them.

It's not that the old meds are

getting weaker, drug developers say. It's as if the placebo effect is somehow

getting stronger.

The fact that an increasing number

of medications are unable to beat sugar pills has thrown the industry into

crisis.”