Is Congress Taking Handouts From the Drug Companies?

Is Congress Taking Handouts From the Drug Companies?
Drug companies will do whatever it takes to make a profit; even if that means shelling out $19 billion a year to persuade physicians into prescribing their drugs to patients over others


Since 1998, drug companies have spent $3.9 Billion on lobbying - bribing CONGRESS free speech...yeah..how funny!- more than any other industry. HELLO!!!! That is 4 billion dollars that have a dramatic influence on how drugs are viewed politically.
Since the government ultimately determines which products drug companies can market and how they're labeled, their lobbying is really having a serious impact on you. So, with the drug industry facing the possibility of increased regulation -- due to mounting concerns about the safety of the nation's drug supply -- many drug companies are doing whatever it takes to wine and dine members of Congress to lean in their favor.
For example, the drug companies' corporate planes have been made available for dozens of trips taken by powerful lawmakers. The absolute clincher, however, is the amount of money drug companies are willing to spend in order to protect themselves and their drugs for meeting their doom.
Big Spenders
Drug companies and their officials contributed at least $68 million to federal candidates in last year's elections, including:
Nearly $1 million to President Bush last year
More than $800,000 to his opponent, Democrat, Obama
At least 59 members of Congress received more than $100,000 a piece.
And if that doesn't seem like enough schmoozing, consider this fact again: Drug companies have spent more than 3 Billion over the past seven years on lobbying alone. According to government records analyzed by the Center for Public Integrity, that's more than any other industry!
Lobbyists' Political Success
The drug industry employs almost 1,274 lobbyists, including 40 former members of Congress. Over the years those lobbyists have been extremely successful, proving they know politics just as well as they know chemistry. Specifically, they've:
Won coverage for prescription drugs under Medicare in 2003 while preventing the government from negotiating prices downward.
So far kept out imports of cheaper medicines from Canada and other countries.
Protected a system that uses company fees to speed the drug-approval process.
Unfortunately, this information serves as a sad reminder of just how deeply the mega-pharmaceutical industry influenceswhat is seen and heard in the media.
Drug companies are one of the most powerful industries on this planet. Do you know of many other companies that could lose $30 billion in one day and still go on strong?
Folks, it doesn't get any bigger than the drug companies. They even dwarf Internet darlings like Google. They use some of the most sophisticated marketing strategies known to man. And why not? They can afford the best, and I assure you they use it.
They have the full force of Congress behind them, as they control the largest political lobbying group and have spent over $4 billion alone on lobbying in the last 10 years. There are more drug company lobbyists than there are congressmen.
While spending a billion dollars to influence Congress over 10 years may seem like a lot, it pales in comparison to what they spend to influence you. They spent over $4 billion in the United States last year on direct-to-consumer advertising.
But even that pales to what is spent to influence your doctor. They spend over $10,000 every year for every doctor in the United States. That amounts to $15 billion a year.
These companies are anything but stupid; I assure you that they are not throwing this money away. They are only spending this much because they are getting a much better return on their investment for the money they spend. They are able to leverage their marketing dollars to major sales at the drug store.
Part of the process is to pay sales reps to visit your doctor and drop samples off to them. These "drug reps" are effective tools that clearly influence the way doctors prescribe. This is really so "last century," as that is when the study was first done that proved this fact -- that many doctors would still disagree with.
Related Articles:
Drug Companies Greatly Influence Doctors' Prescribing Habits
Is Your Doctor Moonlighting -- As a Drug Rep?
The Virtual Schmooze
How Drug Companies Deceive You
This Washington Post article focuses on a relatively new, and some say increasing, phenomenon dubbed "disease mongering."
In disease mongering, a feeling or symptom that would normally be considered a normal part of life is labeled as a disease that requires a drug to treat it.
Drug companies are the ones bringing disease mongering into the mainstream. The article used Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS), a once obscure condition that has gained much attention in the public's eye after drug maker GlaxoSmithKline ran a commercial for their RLS drug Requip, as an example.
GlaxoSmithKline spent $57 million to advertise Requip for the treatment of RLS in 2005. Perhaps as a result, sales have increased from $97 million to $146 million.
While some say the ads have raised awareness about an under-diagnosed condition, others say there is not enough to distinguish a normal fidget from the actual disease. The result? The ads may make healthy people feel like they're sick.
Researchers say disease mongering is not unique to RLS, but has expanded to include any number of conditions including:
Shy people who think they have "social phobia"
High-strung boys who are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder
People with slightly elevated blood pressure who have "pre-hypertension"
Drug makers maintain that the drug ads help people who are suffering with illness, but critics remain skeptical that disease mongering encourages people to think they need prescription drugs when they may not.

Sources:
Washington Post May 30, 2006
Drug companies will do whatever it takes to make a profit; even if that means shelling out $19 billion a year to persuade physicians into prescribing their drugs to patients over others.
One famous tactic drug companies rely on to influence physicians is giving them free samples. Research has clearly shown that when doctors are given samples of drugs by pharmaceutical representatives, they are more likely to prescribe those drugs in lieu of over-the-counter or generic alternatives.
Settling the Debate
In order to clearly determine if drug prescribing is influenced by free samples, researchers conducted a randomized study of 29 internal medicine residents over a six-month period.
By random selection, half the residents agreed not to use the free samples.
After selecting five drug classes where free samples of heavily advertised drugs were distributed, and where inexpensive alternatives existed, researchers analyzed the prescribing differences between residents who had access to the free samples and those who agreed not to use them. Results showed:
Those with access to drug samples were more likely to write new prescriptions for heavily advertised drugs and less likely to recommend over-the-counter drugs than their peers.
There was a trend toward less use of inexpensive drugs.
The influence free samples have over physicians seems to violate published national guidelines on physician interactions with the pharmaceutical industry. Moreover, according to researchers, this finding contradicts the widespread beliefs that drug samples are essentially different from other forms of marketing and that samples help patients manage drug costs in the long term. Big Pharma Insider Information Scam (continued)
One high-ranking member of the Bush Administration's FDA, Dr Richard Pazdur, has been one of the leakers in two cases involving cancer drugs that caused investors to lose vast amounts of money.The first case devastated investors when a company's stock value dropped more than $1.5 billion in less than 3 weeks after Dr Pazdur tipped off the Cancer Leadership Council's legal counsel Samuel Turner that the FDA planned to reject the application for approval of a cancer drug the week before the decision was scheduled to be sent to the main sponsor, ImClone, on December 28, 2001.At that time, Mr Turner also was a registered lobbyist for a number of pharmaceutical companies, including Bristol-Myers Squibb, which just happens to be the largest manufacturer of chemotherapeutic drugs.Bristol-Meyer tipped off ImClone owners Harlan and Sam Waxal, and family members immediately started selling their stock. An investigation by the SEC later determined that the Waksals sold more than $10 million worth of stock in the 48 hours before the FDA's rejection of the application for drug was made public.According to a June 16, 2002 report on Newsbytes News Network, short sellers also made millions by placing bets that ImClone's stock value would fall in the weeks before the FDA publicly rejected the application.The House Committee on Energy and Commerce investigated the insider trading in this case, and a subcommittee held a hearing on June 13, 2002. At the start, the chairman noted that there were two stories here.One, he said, "will be more fully told by the SEC and the Justice Department as it examines how the FDA process and what appears to be some rather amoristic players conspired in a way that allowed insider trading to potentially occur and an awful lot of investors to lose a lot of money while insiders were trading on information that was available only to them.""The other story," he noted, "is about the process at FDA and how the FDA process allowed this to happen."A transcript of the hearings shows that when members of Congress asked directly who within the FDA leaked the information to Bristol-Myers, Dr Pazdur and the rest of the Bush Administration officials talked in circles and never answered.But in the end, somebody pulled some strings because Dr Pazdur got off Scott free, which probably accounts for his lack of fear when engaging in similar, behind-the-scenes activities in 2007.In the more recent case, the continued short selling in Dendreon's stock following the Provenge Advisory Committee meeting of March 29, 2006, despite the fact that the Committee recommended approval of the drug, surely indicates that information leaked to Wall Street from inside the FDA guaranteed that the drug would not be approved.On May 9, 2007, when Dendreon announced to the public that the FDA had issued the company a Complete Response Letter instead of an approval letter, the market value of Dendreon dropped more than 60% in one day.The known people behind the “leaks” in this case are Dr Pazdur, along 2 members of the Advisory Committee who were chosen to participate on the panel by Dr Pazdur. When persons serve on these committees, they become “special government employees,” and are subject to the same rules and regulations as all government employees.When the Provenge Committee recommended approval, there were two votes taken. The first was on safety and the vote was 17-0 that the drug was safe. The second was on efficacy and the vote was 13-4 that the drug demonstrated "substantial evidence" of efficacy, the federally mandated standard.The approval of this new cancer vaccine represented a grave threat to the multi-billion dollar chemotherapy industry. Dendreon is the first company to seek approval of a drug in a promising new class of immunotherapies that direct the body's own immune system to attack only cancer cells, unlike chemotherapy which destroys cancer cells but damages healthy cells and the immune system as well.Provenge sought approval to treat men in the final stage of prostate cancer whose only option is months of chemotherapy with the drug Taxotere, which causes debilitating side effects and extends life on average 2.5 months.In applying for approval, Dendreon submitted a study that showed 3 injections of Provenge extended life by nearly double that chemotherapy and the side effects, if any, consisted of flu-like symptoms for one or 2 days.If the new immunotherapies turn out to be as effective as some experts claim, chemotherapy and radiation treatments could become obsolete in the not to distant future. Dr Pazdur knew this all too well. In fact, his fear was that if Provenge were to be approved, it would establish a new standard of care for late stage prostate cancer patients and from then on testing of new therapies would be up against Provenge.He was also ticked off about the fact that the FDA had chosen the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research to control the Provenge Advisory Committee instead of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, which he controlled.So as a back-door means of regaining control, he recruited his two partners in crime, Dr Howard Scher, from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Dr Maha Hussain, from Michigan University, to serve on the Advisory Committee to assist him in thwarting Dendreon's bid for the approval of Provenge.Both of these doctors have made a fortune from their involvement in the cancer treatment and research racket over the past 2 decades. And they also stood to lose a fortune if the chemo-cartel was dismantled.Investors had every reason to believe that Provenge would be approved once the Advisory Committee voted for approval. The FDA had never refused to follow a recommendation by its own experts to approve a drug for dying cancer patients who had no other options.While testifying at the hearing, Dr David Penson, Associate Professor of Urology and Preventative Medicine at the University of Southern California, told the panel: "If you turn this drug down, it will likely set back the innovative field of active cellular immunotherapy in cancer many, many years."He warned that the Committee's decision "will not only affect prostate cancer patients, but it may have an effect on the larger population of oncology patients in general."Dr Hussain and Dr Scher were positioned on the panel to do everything in their power to make sure the vaccine was not approved. But their best efforts failed and within two weeks after the panel voted to approve the Provenge, Dendreon stock had nearly tripled in value and analysts were predicting that the vaccine could bring in $1 billion annually.However, it was soon obvious that something was up, because the short sellers were still betting millions that the stock value would fall. On April 29, 2007, Bloomberg reported that shares were being sold short "at a record pace" as investors "bet the company's experimental prostate-cancer drug will fail to win approval from U.S. regulators."All totalled, 33.9 million shares were sold short by the end of April. In hindsight, figuring out why people would engage in such risky betting was a no-brainer. The only people who could have known that Dendreon stock was headed for a nose-dive on May 9, 2007, because the FDA was going to overrule it's own panel by denying the approval of a cancer drug for dying patients for the first time in history, were the people who made it happen.As late as May 7, 2007, Prohost Biotechnology, a firm that evaluates companies and publishes a monthly newsletter for investors, was calling Dendreon a good investment on its web site, stating: We Have A New Pick “DENDERON AGAIN.”The web site went on to explain why the firm was predicting that the short sellers were wrong in betting against the company, by stating in part:This time, positive investors/analysts are determined to neutralize the shorters' efforts. Why not, if the verdict is expected in 10 days only and the committee, which was appointed by the FDA itself has already voted 17-0 in favor of safety and 13-4 in favor of efficacy?We are with the approval, Prohost said. “As a matter of fact, we expect it on May 15, based on many facts, the most important is the result of the FDA committee's voting.”The firm noted that the experts on the panel would not have been chosen by the FDA if they were not highly regarded researchers, medical doctors, and academicians, and stated:““If the results of voting would have been 50-50, we would have understood the need for the FDA to take a stand. But with a landslide voting in favor of approval, we do not see why the FDA should hesitate to follow the committee's recommendation of approval.““Besides, the vaccine is safe. It acts synergistically with the available treatments and it helped desperate patients survive advanced prostate cancer.”But as it turns out, another plot was put in action immediately after the news came out that the panel recommended approval, in which government officials at the FDA and the National Cancer Institute worked with Dr Scher, and probably Dr Hussain, to compose letters with bogus reasons why the FDA should not follow the recommendation.Once the rough drafts were edited, the letters were sent to the FDA by email and hardcopy, and leaked for publication on the internet by “The Cancer Letter,”” which just happens to be the same rag used to leak insider information in the ImClone case.The overly dramatic Dr Scher, even went so far as to tell Thomas Fleming, another doctor who just happened to send a letter to the FDA, disparaging Provenge, which was also put out on the internet by “The Cancer Letter,” that he could not sleep because he was so concerned over the possibility of patients being harmed if Provenge was approved and that's why he wrote the letter. Dr Fleming then noted that he could not sleep either.This is an utterly ridiculous remark coming from Dr Scher, considering that he and Dr Hussain voted with the majority 17-0 that Provenge was safe at the hearing.The pharmaceutical companies that stood to benefit the most from the non-approval of Provenge were Novacea, Schering-Plough and Sanofi-Aventis because they have billions of dollars invested in research, drug trials, and cancer treatments involving therapies that would compete directly with Provenge for the same late stage prostate cancer patients.Dr Scher and Dr Hussain, as well as her husband, are involved in dozens of studies conducted by the same companies. Both Dr Scher and Dr Hussain are consultants and members of the scientific advisory board for Novacea, which produces Asentar together with Schering-Plough.Asentar would directly compete with Provenge and at the time of the Advisory Committee hearing, Dr Scher was the co-lead investigator on trials of AsentarAccording to www.portfolio.com, Dr Scher is also an officer, member of the Board of Directors, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of ProQuest Investments, which was had mega-bucks invested in Novacea during 2007. However, for some odd reason, ProQuest's web site no longer lists the names for the Scientific Advisory Board.Dr Scher and Dr Hussain have also both received research funding from Sanofi-Aventis the maker of Taxotere.A review of Dr Hussain's most current resume in fact, shows that she's been on one long global junket funded by the cancer treatment and research racket for close to 2 decades. She apparently began her journey in Bagdad, Iraq, in1980, and 2 years later she was in the UK and a year after that she ended up in Detroit, Michigan.It looks like her home base has been Ann Arbor, Michigan since late 2002, that is in between her 6 trips to Canada, 3 to Hawaii, 3 to Puerto Rico, 2 to St Thomas, 2 to Barcelona, and at least 1 trip to Japan, China, Jordon, Lisbon, Monte Carlo, Bermuda, and Austria, in addition to her 17 trips to California, 9 to Chicago, 4 to New Orleans, 5 to New York, 9 to Florida, and at least 38 trips to other states.The list of excursions certainly demonstrates that the good doctor enjoyed quite a lot of travel on someone else's dime. In fact, her hotel fees alone would put a bonifide hooker to shame.Its impossible to determine the amount of "research" funding funneled her way because the amount is redacted for half of the grants listed. But at a bare minimum, she had at least 28 million "current" reasons to sabotage the approval of Provenge.Under ““Current Grant Support,” she lists 11 grants, although 5 have no amounts. But the total for the other 6 comes to over $28 million, and she will be receiving income from a few of these grants for several more years.Dr Hussain also lists another 2 grants as submitted, with all information redacted. She lists 5 under “Active Research,” all involving treatments for late stage prostate cancer, but not one includes the amount. No dates are listed for these 5 grants either, which makes it impossible to estimate how long she intends to profit from this research.The doctor also lists 30 funding sources under “Past”, but only 6 have amounts. The total for those 6 comes to more than $20 million, so it would probably be safe to say that if all amounts were to be listed, Dr Hussain had at least 100 million good reasons to derail the approval of Provenge.All the plotting by persons benefiting from the non-approval of Provenge might have gone undetected if not for the non-profit advocacy group, Care-To-Live. The group filed a lawsuit in Federal court against officials in charge of the FDA, including Dr Pazdur and Dr Scher, seeking an injunction to overturn the FDA's decision and to make Provenge available immediately to extend the lives of dying prostate cancer patients.By filing the lawsuit, the group was able to gain access to a lot of information and after reading much of it, one thing's for sure, the government officials involved in this sick plot will never be accused of wasting time on the clock worrying about dying cancer victims.Another case of leaking occurred on March 1, 2006, when the FDA sent a letter to the Canadian investment firm, Infinium Capital, that said the agency would allow testing for a generic version of Vancocin, marketed by ViroPharma, to be conducted in a test tube.Two weeks later, after allowing plenty of time for persons with the inside information to position themselves to make a killing in the stock market, Infinium issued a report on ViroPharma stating, “Generics . . . sooner than you think”.According to an SEC filing by ViroPharma, Infinium's report was the first public disclosure of the new testing standard and:"ViroPharma itself had not previously heard that OGD had lowered its BE standard for Vancocin. Nor it would seem, except those to whom OGD had privately communicated, had anyone else.”ViroPharma's filing went on to note that Infinium's report stated:““Our recent communications with the FDA regarding the approval process for a potential generic competitor to Vancocin lead us to believe a generic could enter the market 1-2 years sooner than current expectations.”What ““recent communications with FDA” might mean, the filing states, beyond the March 1, 2006 letter to Infinium, is unclear to ViroPharma. On March 16, 2006, Medindia.com dropped a bombshell when it informed the public of the news by quoting analysts at Infinium as saying it could mean a generic version would be available by early 2008."Previously, generic manufacturers may not have been interested in developing this therapeutic due to its low revenue potential; however, with the recent sales growth of 133 percent in 2005, Vancocin is now on the radar screen," an Infinium analyst told Medindia.Infinium's announcement caused shares of ViroPharma "to dip by about 33 percent," according to Medindia. But in fact, Infinium's report triggered a multi-day stock sell-off that cut the company's market capitalization by 40%, or roughly $500,000,000.The approval process prior to the FDA's unexpected announcement required trials to be conducted on humans. ViroPharma has filed a Petition to stop the approval of generic versions with allegations that the FDA violated the Freedom of Information Act, the Data Quality Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and its own Standards of Conduct.Vancocin is used to treat hospital-acquired bacterial infections in the lower gastrointestinal tract caused by the bacterium Clostridium difficile. In order to be effective, the drug must be released in one specific section of the intestines, making its release mechanism far more difficult to replicate than other drugs.The release of an ineffective version of Vancocin at this point in time would be especially dangerous because recent studies have shown that cases of Clostridium difficile-associated disease (CDAD) are increasing world-world. The disease causes 400,000 cases of diarrhea and colitis each year in the US, according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs.In addition, a paper by Michel Warney, et al., entitled, "Toxin Production by an Emerging Strain of Clostridium difficile Associated with Outbreaks of Severe Disease in North America and Europe," in the September 2005 Lancet medical journal, reported a new strain of C difficile that produces up to 23 times more toxins than previous strains; this strain has been implicated as the cause of a more severe form of the diseaseA May 11, 2007, report by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council said that in 2005, patients with CDAD were hospitalized 2-and-a-half times longer, charged over twice as much, and were 4 times as likely to die as patients without the disease.On average, the report notes, patients with CDAD remain in the hospital almost 7 days longer at a cost of $73,576, verses the average charge of $30,833 for patients without the disease. A November 2007 report entitled, "The Emerging Infectious Challenge of Clostridium difficile-Associated Disease in Massachusetts Hospitals: Clinical and Economic Consequences," cites a “conservative estimate” of the annual cost for CDAD management in the US as $3.2 billion.People treated with antibiotics are at the highest risk because antibiotics disrupt the balance of bacteria in the GI tract, which allows C difficile bacteria to multiply. CDAD is highly infectious and can spread by contact with patients or touching surfaces contaminated with C difficile spores. The severity of the disease ranges from mild cases of diarrhea to painful colitis, bloodstream infections or death.Years ago, CDAD was almost exclusively limited to patients in hospital or long-term care settings where infectious diseases spread easily. But there are now widespread reports of patients developing CDAD outside hospital settings, referred to as “community-acquired” CDAD, and with no antibiotic exposure.Recent studies indicate that many cases may be caused by proton pump inhibitor drugs which inhibit the production of gastric acid in the stomach that acts as a defense against bacteria and spores, widely used by persons with ulcers and other GI illnesses.The December 21, 2005, Journal of American Medical Association published a report by Canadian researchers based on studies that determined that gastric acid-suppressant drugs were associated with the rising cases of community-acquired CDAD.The researchers used the United Kingdom General Practice Research Database and identified all 1,672 cases of CDAD recorded between 1994 and 2004 and found that 1,233, or 74%, of the patients had not been hospitalized in the year prior to the diagnosis and were considered community-acquired.The study showed the increase in community-acquired cases rose from less than 1 per 100,000 in 1994 to 22 per 100,000 in 2004 and during this same period, prescriptions for antibiotics had decreased while prescriptions for proton pump inhibitors had increased.The first course of treatment for CDAD caused by antibiotics is to stop the antibiotics. But if diarrhea continues and becomes severe, Vancocin is a treatment of last resort for very sick patients which means there is no room for error.The FDA claims that dissolution testing for the generic version can be done by creating a test tube solution that replicates the environment in the lower intestine. But experts say it would be next to impossible to replicate the GI tracts of very ill and elderly patients to determine whether the generic version will work the same in the targeted area.Experts also point out that drug interactions, such as those in patients on proton pump inhibitors would make it hard to develop a solution that would replicate the GI tract.The approval of an ineffective generic version of Vancocin, will subject millions of people to potentially fatal risks because the patients who end up being treated with this medication will have no second chances if it fails.The FDA is currently under attack for doing the exact same thing by not requiring adequate testing for the generic version of the antidepressant Wellbutrin. The FDA approved the generic in 2006 and after a steady stream of patients reported that they were experiencing serious side effects, testing by ConsumerLabs, revealed that the time release rate of the active ingredient was much faster than the release rate in the original drug.The consumer-product testing group, ConsumerLab began investigating the drug after Joe and Terry Graedon, authors of The People's Pharmacy column, came to the group with complaints received from readers of their column. While the Graedons had received complaints about generic drugs before, "we had never received this volume of response," Joe Graedon, a pharmacologist, told MSNBC on October 12, 2007."In almost all cases people were saying their depression returned," he said. Users also complained about severe headaches, digestive problems, insomnia, anxiety, and tremors.ConsumerLab performed dissolution testing on 6 samples of each medication and found that even though both contained the same amount of the active ingredient, the generic released nearly 50% of the ingredient in the first 4 hours verses 25% by Wellbutrin."It's been an eye-opener for everyone," ConsumerLab President, Dr Tod Cooperman, told MSNBC. "It makes you question whether generics are always going to be equivalent to the original product.”“If these things are releasing at such different rates,” he advised, ““it's hard to believe they'd be acting the same way in your body.""It would seem very difficult to imagine that the results we saw would be acceptable results," Dr Cooperman told MSNBC.He pointed out that the release of the active ingredient more quickly could mean there is less medication available to the patient later, and may explain why patients experienced a return of their depression.He said a time-release problem might also explain why patients experienced more side effects, such as headache, irritability and nausea, if they received a high dose of the medicine upfront. "Too much Wellbutrin can cause side effects, even the potential for seizure," he told MSNBC.The Canadian firm Biovial filed a petition with the FDA in 2005, asking the agency to require generic makers to conduct more rigorous testing of generic versions of Wellbutrin prior to their approval but apparently the agency ignored the request.An agency spokesperson told MSNBC that the FDA does not require generic makers to do clinical trials on hundreds or thousands of people as required for name brand drugs. It only requires lab data and "bioequivalence" testing in about 24 to 36 healthy volunteers showing that the drug enters the bloodstream in a similar manner to the original product.Since the generic version was approved, millions of consumers have switched to the drug to save money which means a high number of patients may be experiencing serious side effects without knowledge of the cause. Experts say this whole problem could have been avoided had testing on humans been conducted to check the release mechanism before millions of scripts were written."Sustained release mechanisms are not that easy to develop, and they tend to be proprietary in nature," Michael Katz, clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice and science at the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy told MSNBC."It would be difficult for a generic manufacturer to reproduce the same release characteristics as the brand-name product," he stated."Such differences clearly could have an impact on patients,” he said, “and my view is that sustained-release products are among the relatively short list of products that should not be switched."Experts say the time release characteristics would be even more difficult to replicate in a generic version of Vancocin, where the concern is not just about how much of the drug is released into the blood stream but rather in one specific section of the GI tract.The leaking of information in the Vancocin case is reminiscent of a major scandal that erupted during the first Bush Administration in 1989, when FDA officials were charged with taking bribes from generic makers and sharing insider information.On August 28, 1989, Time magazine reported that an investigation by the Justice Department had uncovered evidence that “some makers of generic pharmaceuticals falsified laboratory test results and paid off FDA chemists to gain quick Government approval for their products.”In that case, Charles Chang the head of the FDA's generic division and two co-workers pleaded guilty to accepting a total of $24,300 in illegal gifts in exchange for preferential treatment for certain generic makers in July 1989, according to the Time report.
Pharmaceutical companies rely upon ill health in the population to survive and reap their profits. No drug company has a vested interest in curing disease. They do, however, have a massive vested interest in maintaining ill-health, creating disease and manufacturing chemicals which will promote this under the guise of 'therapy' for the symptoms – rarely ever the cause – of disease. Dr John Braithwaite, now a Trade Practices Commissioner, in his expose, Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry, states:
'International bribery and corruption, fraud in the testing of drugs, criminal negligence in the unsafe manufacturing of drugs – the pharmaceutical industry has a worse record of law-breaking than any other industry.'
In the US in 1978 1.5 million people were hospitalized because of medication side-effects alone. In 1991 in the US, 72,000 people were killed due to iatrogenic – that is doctor-induced – causes whilst 24,073 died of victims of firearms shootings, which makes doctors nearly three times more lethal than guns! This has serious implications for other countries including Britain because the US are the foremost pioneers in the health care field and what occurs in health care in the US is usually implemented in Britain a decade later.
The drugs industry has managed to sell to the majority of the world the idea that disease is largely an inevitable part of life, especially during the later years. Through its front-line representatives – the medical system – it has effectively reduced the range of choices of health care to which the public has access. Through funding and educational control it has seen to it that natural forms of treatment are largely ignored and grossly under-researched. Those organisations which do reveal the true causes of disease and promote effective forms of disease prevention, such as nutritional medicine, healing and naturopathy are regularly attacked in the mass media and publicly labelled as quacks by pharmaceutically-sponsored de-bunking organisations such as the Campaign Against Health Fraud, now called Healthwatch.
They have also sold to us the idea that natural remedies and cures which have been successfully employed for centuries are 'alternatives' and to be treated with great scepticism and caution. Frequently, we are told of how one or two people have been injured or killed through the misapplication of a herbal remedy by dubious alternative practitioners but are not told at the same time of the thousands who are damaged by the conventional drugs which are handed out like sweets by our doctors.
During their initiation into the Western medical tradition most of our young doctors are repeatedly informed by their superiors that therapies which are alternative to classic western medicine are fraudulent and quackish. They are told that there is no scientific evidence to support any of the claims of psychic healing, crystal therapy, colour therapy and the like and the whole area is dismissed with a superior grin and a wave of the hand. A mountain of study is then hurled at the junior doctors, on top of an already inhumane workload of practical hours, to be spent absorbing the biased views of their forebears. A junior doctor has not even enough time to explore the realms of stress-free relaxation never mind alternative thought and therapies. Much the same methods are used by certain religious organisations to indoctrinate the minds of their followers into a single belief system. The key tactics, to which most doctors will relate, are: maintenance of sleep deprivation so as to minimise resistance to teachings, isolation from the outside world until one is literally eating, breathing and sleeping the set doctrine of the cult, and maintenance of a fear of failure to conform through almost unachievably high level goal setting; often via frequent examinations.
I believe that western medicine is as much a dogmatic cult as popular Christianity or the Moonies. It breeds its young on dogma to the exclusion of free will and reasoned thought in order to perpetuate itself. It is controlled by instilling into its members the fear of failure and it thrives by exploiting the initial motivation of its members, which is love and a desire to help and heal others.
At the apex of the pyramid of medicine lie the controllers; not doctors, but the multinational pharmaceutical companies who exist, not for the benefit of others, but for the desire for money and power. And behind them lies the sinister organisation of global secret societies headed by the Illuminati.
It is through this subtle mind control that the System maintains itself. Veiled in secrecy and fuelled by fear, the monster machine controls every aspect of our lives. The medical system is an integral part, but nevertheless only one aspect, of the overall design which seeks power and neither cares how this power is achieved, nor how many individuals are destroyed in the process.
As an example of the fraud perpetuated by the pharmaceutical companies, the next section will take a close look at the AIDS scandal, which illuminates how these companies have infiltrated every area of the healthcare system are willing to endanger people, allowing them to be killed, for profit via the industry's tool of corruption and front organisation, our own medical system:

Truth – A Cure For All Disease
As another example of the medical conspiracy; would it shock you to find out that there are, in use today, several medically proven cures for cancer? One such cure is Essiac and has been in use since at least 1922; it has no known adverse side effects. It is made from four common herbs and elevates the immune system. In 1937 it came within three votes of being legalised as a cancer treatment in Canada and was passed on to the British Cancer Campaign by its founder, Rene Caisse, via the Prince of Wales. And yet today, it is still only available through selected, virtually underground, outlets world-wide. I have many dozens of case studies which testify to the efficacy of this treatment (see Appendix IV).
Furthermore, in the 1930s a man named Royal Raymond Rife developed a very high powered microscope, almost seven times more powerful than those in use at the time, which could detect organisms which cause diseases such as infections and cancers. He did this by illuminating these organisms at their own specific frequency of light and could, therefore, examine them and their effects whilst they remained alive as opposed to killing them first using dye stains or high powered electron microscopy as was the norm. He then discovered that, by altering the frequency of their environment microbes could mutate and change their size and shape to resemble viruses and bacteria alike, thereby enabling the same microbe to cause many diverse diseases. For example, the same germs which cause pus – streptococci – could also become the germs which cause pneumonia – pneumococci – in response to an alteration in their environment. Rife also discovered that by bombarding these organisms with higher frequencies of light, he could destroy them. He demonstrated that it was possible to create and destroy cancers at will and succeeded in curing otherwise terminal patients of this disease, as well as others such as polio and typhus, in almost 100% of cases.
Today, it is conventionally accepted that single specific germs are responsible for single specific forms of infection. This theory was advanced by the French scientist Pasteur but was disputed by his rival Bechamp who was in favour of the mutation theory known as pleomorphism. We are rarely informed in text books that, according to his co-worker, Dr Duclaux, Pasteur himself changed his mind and revoked his 'germ theory' in favour of one closer to that of pleomorphism. However, over 100 years later, Pasteur's original germ theory is still the standard working model for the understanding of the action of microbes in the body.
Many types of bacteria exist in a symbiotic relationship with our bodies all of the time and only become symptomatic once the physical body begins to deteriorate due to an unhealthy lifestyle. Bacteria are then free to scavenge the 'soil' produced in the disease process, i.e. when the tissues degenerate to a similar frequency as the microbes, releasing dead organic matter similar to viruses upon which these microbes feed (remember Wilner's definition of the HIV retrovirus?). They then excrete this dead matter as waste products via the bloodstream, faeces or other exudates such as mucous. The extent to which the bacteria can multiply is limited to the amount of soil upon which they have to feed and could not be capable of invading the body to the extent to which science would have us believe unless there was already an adequate food supply. Furthermore, as has been demonstrated in Rife's vibratory work, it is possible for these microbes to mutate into other forms and even to cancer-causing agents according to their environmental conditions, defined by the degree of concentration of waste products and the vibratory rate. The subsequent systemic and metabolic reaction to these toxic excreted waste products, such as sore throat and high temperature (the body's natural way of eradicating the bacteria), are generally the symptoms of diseases which are given priority in day to day general medical practice, whereupon drugs are usually given to suppress them. In giving antibiotics we often succeed in killing the very microbes which are removing the diseased body's dead matter during the natural healing process. In doing so we also open up our bodies to other forms of disease such as fungal infections which are usually kept at bay by the natural presence of bacteria.
One smoke-screen which is constantly employed by the major drug companies is the regular promise that they are 'currently working on a new form of treatment which could soon revolutionise the treatment of…'. Such stories are picked up by the press and t.v science programmes with great fervour. They are nearly always described in terms of 'miracle cure' and point out that adequate funding is necessary for the fulfilment of the prophecy in another 2 or 3 years time. However, when 2 or 3 years time finally arrives we have all conveniently forgotten about the promised miracle drug whilst anxiously awaiting the fulfilment of yet further promises of drugs which are 'hoped' will one day prove to be the end of yet another terrible disease.
And this is the industry which denigrates the field of natural health for taking advantage of the sick and for so cruelly promising fake cures and providing false hope! The obvious lesson here is that to disguise your own sins you must accuse your enemies of them and to always do it before your enemy has a chance to formulate their defence. Mud usually sticks to the one it first lands upon. This a political trick which has been used to devastating effect by the key manipulators of this century in all areas and has been used to shift public opinion in favour of some of the greatest atrocities ever committed.
The Elite via chemo-pharmaceutical companies and food and water production services penetrate all areas of health care and use it to promote and execute their policies of population control, mind control and 'divide and rule', whilst making vast sums of money into the bargain.
In the end, the generic scandal during the first Bush Administration landed Mr Chang in federal prison and caused 42 others and 10 companies to be convicted on charges of fraud and corruption and the FDA Commissioner Frank Young resigned in November 1989.The crooks in the current Bush Administration's FDA deserve the same fate.