Glaxo Smith Kline, makers of the diabetes drug Avandia, narrowly escaped having their drug pulled from the market by FDA officials, if it weren’t for the greased palms. While one scientist appeared to be honest and try and tell the country that the drug is dangerous and that there are major heart risks, his voice was silenced by the droning hum of the Big Pharma money-making scheme engine once again (GSK’s reported net income was close to $15 billion in 2006).
Last week the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Director met with reporters and addiction-related professionals to hold a roundtable discussion on how to reduce the number of deaths associated with methadone.
It’s great that they’re publicly acknowledging that methadone kills, but they’re simply trying to save face here, not necessarily save lives. After all, the Federal Gov’t agencies still approve of pushing methadone on opiate addicts and handing it out happily to chronic pain patients, and over 200,000 Americans are still led to believe it’s safe. However, the more than 3,000 deaths per year now attributed to methadone, either by itself or in a drug combination, cannot be overlooked and should have sent up a huge red flag years ago when these numbers were doubling and tripling.
Honestly, what is it going to take for someone to have a bit of common sense? How about helping people recover from drug addiction instead of putting them on another deadly drug?
SB-1011 (Senate Bill) is called “The Recognizing Addiction as a Disease Act of 2007″. The purpose of the bill is to change NIDA’s name from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to the National Institute on Diseases of Addiction and NIAAA’s name from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to the National Institute on Alcohol Disorders and Health (NIADH). The measure was approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on June 28 according to JoinTogether and the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA).
That is the most rediculous thing I have ever heard of. Talk about fooling everyone. Just so that nobody will try and think for themselves and doubt the disease theory or question its motives, the “powers that be” are trying to ingrain it into the federal government so that future generations won’t think twice about it. The disease-mongering is absolutely out of control. Drug addiction and alcoholism are no more a chronic brain disease than obsessive nose-picking is – there is no proof of the theory now and there never will be.
The Public Citizen is reporting that $48 million has been set aside by the makers of the antidepressant/ anti-anxiety drug Paxil. They have even gone as far as promoting it on You Tube. The short of it is that parents can get reimbursements for the money they spent on buying the drug for their child under 18. It’s part of a class-action lawsuit because the drug was fraudulently promoted to doctors to give to children, despite its heavy and dangerous side effects. For more info check out the Paxil Payback website.
Despite loving the fact that these guys have to admit wrongdoing and pay for it, I am still upset that criminal charges aren’t brought against these companies for their deliberite deception that has resulted in trauma and death too many times to be excusable (as in the Oxycontin verdict). They either need to pay so much they go out of business or go to prison for millions of accounts of assualt.
I spent half an hour on the phone with a mother last night talking about finding drug-free treatment for her 19 yr old daughter who was on heroin. She seemingly agreed with everything I was talking about until she told me her daughter needed to stay on her anti-psychotic medication, Seroquel, for some “BS” bipolar diagnosis. I asked her if she knew how bad of a drug that it was, and that there were currently lawsuits being filed against its makers and those of similar drugs. I asked her if she knew that these drugs can cause diabetes. She didn’t seem to care. “I can’t deal with her when she stops taking her meds,” the mother explained. I told her about the withdrawal effects and the other side effects, and she agreed that they were dangerous, but couldn’t personally handle her daughter when she stopped taking it. I told her about the trained professionals and doctors that can help her daughter get off that drug safely, and she was still hesitant. However, knowing that it was damaging, she then shifted the blame to her daughter, saying, “I tried to get her to stop, but she wants to keep taking it.”
She asked me if I had any proof to back up what I was saying, and I said of course. All she had to do was read the packaging of the drug itslef. The psychiatrists and other doctors who prescribe these drugs pass off theory as being truth and blindly believe what the drug makers tell them, with little evidence from the fictitious studies they’re shown. Instead they’ll listen to a drug company-paid “expert” doctor, even though right there on the packaging the company has to plainly (but in small print) write that they don’t know what causes the disorder, that they don’t know if the drug works, but that they believe it could help and a study showed that not too many people were hurt by it.
The underlying element here is that too many parents have given up on finding out for themselves. They listen to their doctor, who is really no more educated on how damaging these drugs are than you or me, and would rather find a pill that keeps them managable for a short period of time than find a permanent solution to the problem.
