Pharmaceutical manufacturers, drug regulators and researchers themselves warned against overreacting to these numbers, noting that the study made no effort to measure the benefits of these same medications that determine the overall usefulness of a drug! According to the way they rationalize, it must be ok to sacrifice 106,000 people per year, this is equivalent to twice the number of Americans that were killed in Vietnam in eight years of war. Keep in mind, if one person died from a natural supplement or herbal remedy, the FDA would ban that product. Where is the equity? The truth is in the fact that the pharmaceutical companies have the money and they influence the politicians, not to mention that over 50 % of the FDA employees have stock in many of the pharmaceutical companies that they regulate. It's called a STRONG LOBBY. Don't believe for one minute that the government is looking out for your best interest. The pharmaceutical companies influence the politicians that make the laws that control what you can take and where you have to go to get a prescription before you can go to the pharmacy to buy the medicine! Follow the money trail! Now, let's see where the money comes from. On November 12, 1998, it was released by the consulting firm IMS Health, that the "Pharmaceutical industry spent $3.1 billion on drug promotion in the First Half of 1998!" Approximately $1.8 billion was spent on promoting products to physicians face-to-face. They spent $258 million promoting to physicians face-to-face. Pharmaceutical companies spent $306 million on direct-to-consumer ads on television, $277 million in magazines, and the remaining $50.7 million in newspapers. Schering spent $67 million promoting Claritin, the allergy drug, to consumers and $37 million promoting the drug to physicians in the first half of 1998. These statistics clearly explain why the public can't afford to take prescription medication. Advertising only adds COST to a product, NOT VALUE to a product. When inflated costs combined with the side effects are considered, is it any mystery why the public is seeking natural traditional methods of healthcare? Consider the Facts and then Decide Incidence of Adverse Drug Reactions in Hospitalized Patients The Journal of the American Medical Journal, April 15, 1998Vol. 279, Nov. 15 We have estimated that in 1994 overall 2,216,000 people were hospitalized due to serious Adverse Drug Reactions and 106,000 had fatal Adverse Drug Reactions, making these reactions between the fourth and sixth leading causes of death in the U.S. Time Magazine, December 13, 1999 Doctors Deadly Mistakes : Medical errors kill up to 98,000 Americans yearly; This figure is ahead of car crashes, breast cancer and AIDS. In fact twice as many Americans die every year due to medical mistakes and prescription medication than were killed in Vietnam in eight years of battle. More astonishing than the huge numbers is the fact that the public health officials had known about the problem for years and hadnt made a concerted to do something about it! Error in Medicine The Journal of the American Medical Association, December 21, 1994Vol. 272,No. 23 In 1984 it is estimated that 180,000 people die each year partly as a result of iatrogenic injury, the equivalent of three jumbo-jet crashes every 2 days! When the causes are investigated, it is found that most iatrogenic injuries are due to errors and are, therefore, potentially preventable. Rational Use of Over-the-counter Medications in Young Children The Journal of the American Medical Association, October 5, 1994Vol. 272, No. 13 Moreover, the use of cough an cold medicines is increasingly being called into question due to the striking absence of efficacy data on cough and cold medicines in children. The efficacy of cough and cold medications was the focus of a recent congressional hearing, during which the chairman commented: The sad fact is, much of the billion dollar cold medication industry may be based more on hype than on health care. Viewed from this perspective, the high use rate of these medications may be a tremendous waste of money and may unnecessarily expose children to toxicity. Celebrex Linked to 10 Deaths NEW YORK (AP) 1998 -- Monsanto's highly successful painkiller Celebrex has been linked to 10 deaths and 11 cases of gastrointestinal hemorrhages in its first three months on the market, The Wall Street Journal reported today. Half of the 10 people who died suffered from gastrointestinal bleeding or ulcers, according to reports submitted to the Food and Drug Administration that were obtained by the Journal under the Freedom of Information Act. Two other deaths were attributed to heart attacks, one to drug interaction and one to kidney disorder. No cause of death was given for the 10th fatality. . Presented to the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists in New Orleans November 17, 1999 New research from the University of Georgia suggests that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs such as aspirin, ibuprofen and others) may increase the likelihood that a patient will suffer from heartburn. Patients on NSAIDs were twice as likely to have been diagnosed with gastroesophageal reflux disease. NSAIDs have been blamed for the death of 16,500 Americans each year. |
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