ACTIVISM: Pregnancy as Mental Illness: our next fight!!

The nitty gritty.

IF they can convince women to hand over control of their bodies, the ptb (powers that be) are another leg up on creating a generation of soldiers to fight in the 100 year war!!

They want screwed up kids who will "volunteer" to be soldiers and mercenaries.

And this is how they choose to go about it - through creating "voluntary" programs that reduce women's brains to MUSH.

BRANDING PREGNANCY AS MENTAL ILLNESS

By Byron J. Richards, CCN

March 13, 2008

NewsWithViews.com

The Mothers Act is pending legislation that will indoctrinate hundreds of thousands of mothers into taking dangerous psych drugs. It is a great example of how the Big Pharma lobby controls Congress to the detriment of health, as well as needlessly and dramatically inflating the costs of our health care system for everyone. Like any piece of legislation it purports to address a troubling issue – in this case the mood distress of mothers following birth known as postpartum depression. It is true that 10% - 15% of women need some assistance in dealing with this topic – but the majority of them sure don't need it from Big Pharma. That is the Big Lie.

The Mothers Act (S. 1375: Mom's Opportunity to Access Health, Education, Research, and Support for Postpartum Depression Act) has the net affect of reclassifying the natural process of pregnancy and birth as a mental disorder that requires the use of unproven and extremely dangerous psychotropic medications (which can also easily harm the child). Urgent consumer action (see below) is needed to stop this atrocity, as the Senate could now vote any day.

It is my understanding that the process of birth, the intimate bonding of mother and child, and the placing of significant responsibility on the father is all part of a healthy culture and the backbone of the fabric that makes strong families and consequently our great nation. I fail to see why we need laws that force health care professionals to emphasize the idea that the process is some type of mental illness affecting 80% of all women – what a bogus pile of crap.

The Mothers Act proposes sweeping and dramatic changes in the delivery of pregnancy care by all health professionals. It demands that health professionals indoctrinate pregnant women into mental health treatment options for mild depression-like symptoms experienced during or following pregnancy, including moderate symptoms they call "baby blues" which they say affects 80% of pregnant women. In other words, this is a massive federate health mandate to get the majority of pregnant and nursing mothers on psych drugs – a new target market for Big Pharma.

The bill was obviously written by the Big Pharma lobby and its passage into law would be considered laughable except that it is actually happening. The bill seeks to require taxpayer-funded grants to treat postpartum mood and anxiety disorders, as defined in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. For those of you who don't know, this is the manual of vaguely defined mental health issues used by Big Pharma to allow the sale of their expensive psych drugs and get payment from Medicare and Medicaid at taxpayer expense. While some people certainly need help, this system racks up billions in fraudulent sales per year – including the sale of dangerous antipsychotic medications to our children. The Big Pharma lobby last year spent tens of millions to ensure the government would continue to cover vulnerable children so they could capitalize on this blatant scam.

As far as the Mothers Act goes, how can taxpayers be expected to pay for drug treatments when the problem that isn't even understood? As the bill freely acknowledges

"The causes of postpartum depression are complex and unknown."

In a mysterious leap of faith the bill says that this condition requires medication to treat it even though such medication has never been proven clinically effective and carries serious side effect risks for the mother and baby, including cardiovascular birth defects.

The bill goes on to set up a system of taxpayer-funded grants to pay for the treatments. It even commits you the taxpayer to funding "clinical research for the development and evaluation of new treatments for postpartum conditions, including new biological agents." This means taxpayers will now foot the bill of Big Pharma drug development including the most dangerous new category of totally unproven pie-in-the-sky biological drugs that cost hundreds of billions of dollars to develop and can irreparably injure within minutes!

Yes, and once you have paid a fortune to develop these biological gene-altering agents then you will pay the drug companies price so that they can be freely dispensed to hundreds of thousands of pregnant and nursing mothers. Taxpayers will be on the hook for tens of billions of wasted dollars.

Immediate Consumer Action is Needed

The Mothers Act has already passed the House (H.R. 20, the Melanie Blocker Stokes Postpartum Depression, Research and Care Act). Word has it that it is being snuck out of the HELP committee on Thursday or Friday of this week and may be rammed through the Senate without any debate before the Easter break.

Rather unbelievably up to this point is that the cause of defeating this legislation has fallen onto the shoulders of one young mother, Amy Philo. When she struggled with postpartum stress she was placed on the very same psych drugs advocated for use in the Mothers Act legislation. She began having violent thoughts towards her child and suicidal thinking. Her not very bright doctor had her double and then triple her dose, nearly killing her. She is lucky to be alive today and wants to warn other mothers of the dangers inherent in the Mothers Act. Click here if you would like to view her YouTube story.

.NewsTarget.com
Originally published May 16 2007

U.S. Senators financially enslave Americans as Indentured Servants to Big Pharma

by Mike Adams

The facts found in the report are almost as astonishing as the source of the report itself: USA Today, a mainstream media giant in the United States, has revealed the apparent financial conflict of interest by U.S. Senators who voted against the infamous S.1082 reimportation amendment. That amendment would have ended Big Pharma's monopoly over U.S. consumers and ultimately saved American citizens, businesses and governments tens of millions of dollars by allowing them to import medicines from other nations with approved safety records (such as Canada or Japan).

But 49 Senators voted against the amendment, defending the Big Pharma monopoly that continues to force Americans to pay the highest prices in the world, by far, for medicines. As I've documented in my book, Natural Health Solutions and the Conspiracy to Keep You From Knowing About Them, some pharmaceuticals are marked up 500,000% or more over the cost of their ingredients!

Modern medicine is the new

indentured servant plantation.

What could have prompted these 49 Senators to vote to protect the profits of drug companies? Follow the money and you'll find your answer. As it turns out, nearly every one of the 49 Senators who voted against drug reimportation has accepted money from drug companies. USA Today reported the top offenders who voted against the bill, along with the dollars they've accepted from drug companies since 2001:

U.S. Senators' Drug Money

Richard Burr, R-N.C.
$520,694

John Kerry, D-Mass.
$304,888

Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.
$281,040

Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
$259,699

Orrin Hatch, R-Utah
$241,850

Max Baucus, D-Mont.
$199,000

Tom Carper, D-Del.
$183,794

Mike Enzi, R-Wyo.
$174,338

Notice that these Senators represent both major political parties, and there's even one independent in the mix. Consumers should remember that no political party will defend the people against powerful corporations. Ultimately, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle will sell out in order to protect their own power and reelection funds.

As Rima Laibow (www.HealthFreedomUSA.org) observed in a recent e-mail update to her readers, it's amazing just how cheaply the U.S. Senators have been bought off! For a few hundred thousand dollars -- the profits from only a couple hundred prescription drug users -- these Senators appear to have been either strongly influenced or outright bribed to kill a measure that would have saved Americans tens of billions of dollars and finally freed the American people from the financial stranglehold of Big Pharma.

These Senators, of course, all insist they were voting to protect the "safety" of Americans, claiming that medicines imported from other countries are dangerous. But medicines bought right here in the United States are killing 100,000+ Americans each year! Do these Senators somehow imagine drugs bought in the U.S. are safer than the same medicines purchased somewhere else? Do they suffer under the illusion that paying more for prescription drugs somehow makes them safer?

When it comes down to it, none of the arguments against drug reimportation hold water. The killing of the amendment was done for one simple, uncomplicated reason: to protect the safety of Big Pharma profits by forcing Americans to pay monopoly prices for their medicines.

Modern-day Indentured Servants The whole price fixing scam brings to mind a relevant term from American history: Indentured servants. These indentured servants were people who agreed to work a farm or plantation for a period of 4-7 years in exchange for passage to America. But dishonest plantation owners played a cruel trick on the indentured servants: They had to buy their farm tools and supplies from the plantation owner. But they couldn't pay cash since they didn't have any money, so they were forced to extend their work commitment in exchange for tools and supplies.

A shovel, for example, might cost you another month on the farm. A set of work clothes might cost you two months more. Little by little, the plantation owner enslaved the indentured servants in a never-ending cycle of debt that could only be repaid by a lifetime of work ending in death and bankruptcy.

Sound familiar?

Americans are trapped in a lifetime of medical debt being paid to wealthy drug corporations. If you live in America and need medicine, the FDA and Big Pharma are doing everything in their power to make sure you have no choice but to buy it from "the company store"

-- the monopoly-controlled U.S. pharmaceutical market that's basically in the business of ripping people off by selling them dangerous synthetic chemicals.

Need to control your blood sugar? That's a few thousand dollars a year. Have high cholesterol? Another few thousand. Got cancer? Fork over several thousand dollars each month for yet more chemicals sold at monopoly prices to a nation of health consumers who have been financially enslaved as Indentured Servants. I once talked to a cancer patient who was about to fork over $14,000 per injection for an experimental cancer drug! That person's life savings would have been wiped out in just one month while enriching the richest corporations in the world: drug companies.

Modern medicine is the new indentured servant plantation. Same scam, different crop. The American people are once again being worked to death by greedy businessmen who only wish to increase the size of their own profits, regardless of how many people have to be exploited or destroyed along the way. And 49 U.S. Senators seem to whole-heartedly approve of this financial enslavement of the American people. They voted, on the record, to propel a profiteering price scheme operated by a criminal conspiracy masterminded by the FDA and Big Pharma.

Republican Senators who voted for the financial enslavement of the American people
Lamar Alexander Robert Bennett Kit Bond Jim Bunning
Richard Burr Saxby Chambliss Tom Coburn Thad Cochran
Norm Coleman Bob Corker John Cornyn Michael Crapo
Elizabeth Dole Pete Domenici Michael Enzi Lindsey Graham
Judd Gregg Chuck Hagel Orrin Hatch Kay Bailey Hutchison
Johnny Isakson Jon Kyl Richard Lugar Mel Martinez
Mitch McConnell Lisa Murkowski Pat Roberts Arlen Specter
Ted Stevens John Sununu Craig Thomas George Voinovich
John Warner

Democratic Senators who voted for the financial enslavement of the American people
Max Baucus Evan Bayh Maria Cantwell Thomas Carper
Edward Kennedy John Kerry Mary Landrieu Frank Lautenberg
Blanche Lincoln Robert Menéndez Barbara Mikulski Patty Murray
Ben Nelson Jay Rockefeller Kenneth Salazar

Corporate imperialism at work One thing that these Senators have demonstrated quite convincingly is that the rich get richer in America, especially when rich Senators protect the rich drug companies at the expense of the increasingly impoverished American people.

In my opinion every one of the Senators listed here should be voted out of power at the next available opportunity. But of course, Big Pharma can buy off the replacements just as easily. There's no end to the cash being generated by this illegal price fixing scheme that, by any sane standard, would have long ago been classified as an organized crime racket and prosecuted under the RICO Act.

The real problem, then, is not necessarily dishonest Senators who would sell out their countrymen (and women) for a few dollars from Big Pharma. The real problem is that corporations are allowed to financially influence lawmakers in the first place! The problem is the lobbying and campaign finance structure that allows virtually all lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to be so easily and cheaply bought off (or at least strongly influenced) by corporate interests on itself has become dangerous to the health, safety and future of the American people. (View the documentary: The Corporation )

Even if these 49 Senators actually sold out the American people, and even if they resigned tomorrow (which they would never think of doing, of course), their replacements would be just as easily corrupted by a system of corporate control over U.S. lawmakers that has turned the United States into a Plutocracy -- government by the wealthy elite, where the corporations and the government become one entity that exploits the productivity of the population to enrich the few.

As I pointed out in a previous article about this betrayal by U.S. Senators, many of our lawmakers have become adversaries of the people and are now openly fighting for the expansion of profits and power for mega-corporations while steamrolling the interests and freedoms of the American people. In a very real sense, they have openly betrayed the American people they claim to represent. They have devolved into corporate imperialists who aim to shore up their own power by sacrificing the interests of those they have sworn to protect -- the voters who gullibly put them into power in the first place.

-------------------------------
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NewsTarget Insider Alert (www.NewsTarget.com)

---

Dear Readers,

Last week's celebration over an amendment to S.1082 that would have broken Big Pharma's monopoly on drug prices was, it now seems, premature. Yesterday 15 Democrats and 33 Republicans voted to nullify the Dorgan amendment with a new Cochran amendment that protects Big Pharma's monopoly and blocks all importation of drugs.

The move demonstrates that U.S. senators are effectively owned by Big Pharma and will vote to protect corporate interests, not consumers. Click the headline below for an analysis of why America is no longer a true Democracy and why U.S. lawmakers will happily allow Big Pharma to bankrupt this nation and its people...

Health: Americans betrayed by Democratic senators with surprise amendment that protects Big Pharma monopoly Consumers expecting a miracle in the Senate that would end Big Pharma's monopoly and the FDA-enforced drug racket now operating in the United States will be sorely disappointed by yesterday's events. Fifteen Democratic senators (led by Sen. Edward Kennedy...

Health: Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood blasts TV promotion of junk foods to children In the wake of findings that food is the most-advertised product on television programming viewed by children, the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) recently issued a statement calling for "policies that will protect children...

Big Pharma Update

Wanna know WHY some members of the Senate will pay MILLIONS of dollars to get a job that pays less than $200,000 per year?





Here's a clue.

Originally published May 7 2007

28 Senators vote to maintain Big Pharma monopoly over U.S. consumers; Republicans oppose free trade for medicine

by Mike Adams



On
May 3rd, 2007, U.S. Senators voted on an amendment to the 2007
Prescription Drug User Fee bill that aims to reform the FDA and enhance
drug safety. This amendment, known as the "Dorgan Amendment No. 990,"
threatened to break Big Pharma's monopoly over pharmaceutical sales and
allow U.S. consumers, cities, states and businesses to purchase their
pharmaceuticals from safety-certified pharmacies located in Canada,
Japan, the U.K. and other nations.



Americans currently pay the
highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Canadians,
Europeans, and even citizens of Mexico pay only about one-half to as
little as one-tenth the price paid by Americans for the very same
chemicals. Drug companies actually import many of the raw materials
used in pharmaceuticals from other countries, meaning that some U.S.
medicines are already sourced from countries like the U.K. and Germany.



Drug
companies mark up their prescription drugs as much as 569,000% over the
price of the raw materials. (A typical markup is more in the 30,000% -
50,000% range.) Retailing pharmaceuticals is hugely profitable. There
is no business in the world with more profit built in to the retail
price of the product. The purpose of restricting Americans from buying
drugs from other countries is to enforce a medical monopoly in the
United States, forcing consumers to purchase drugs at the highest
prices in the world, further padding the profits of powerful and
influential pharmaceutical corporations who exert strong influence over
the Bush Administration and Republican lawmakers.



The FDA has,
over the past several years, colluded with drug companies to maintain a
monopoly market in the United States in order to protect those profits.
It has taken actions such as raiding a bus load of senior citizens
returning to the U.S. from Canada, searching the elderly for legal
drugs. The FDA has gone to great lengths to pressure U.S. customs to
seize pharmaceutical shipments being imported for sale to individual
consumers in the United States, and it has even invoked the
fantasy-based fear tactic of suggesting that terrorists might
adulterate pharmaceuticals coming to the U.S. from Canada (and
therefore we should all buy our drugs only from U.S.
monopoly-controlled pharmacies because of "terrorists" ).

Dorgan amendment proposes

trade for medicine

The
Dorgan amendment, entitled, "Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug
Safety Act of 2007," proposes what is essentially a free trade policy
on prescription medications. It would allow Americans to buy their
drugs from certain certified organizations registered as valid
importers or exporters. The bill states, "...a prescription drug is
neither safe nor effective to an individual who cannot afford it," and
goes on to describe rigorous safety requirements that would be required
by the amendment, including safety inspections and registrations as
well as funding efforts to locate and shut down fraudulent internet
sales of counterfeit prescription drugs.



If
passed into the law, this amendment would save U.S. citizens,
businesses, and government entities (local, state and federal) billions
of dollars each year by allowing them to source medications in a price
competitive environment. Many cities and states are right now facing
the very real possibility of bankruptcy due to health care costs
(providing benefits to current and former government employees). A
large percentage of those costs are spent on monopoly-priced
pharmaceuticals. This Dorgan amendment would set city and state
governments free to finally engage in fundamental free market price
comparisons and save substantial sums of money in sourcing the very
same chemical medications for their employees and retirees.



28
Republicans voted against the Dorgan amendment, voting to enforce the
pharmaceutical monopoly and keep Big Pharma in control of virtually the
entire U.S. medication market. There were no Democrats that voted
against the amendment. But why would 28 Republican Senators vote
against breaking a marketplace monopoly and encouraging the use of free
market economics to save American consumers billions of dollars? The
answer isn't complicated: Because nearly all of them have taken money
from pharmaceutical companies!



For a list of the Big Pharma 28 plus a full copy of the Bill itself, go to Newstarget.

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Incessant disease mongering turns Americans into profit-generating guinea pigs for Big Pharma (opinion)
by Mike Adams
www.newstarget.com

Disease mongering - the practice of pushing disease in order to sell more drugs - has become so routine and so successful in modern medicine that drug companies actually depend on inventing new diseases as a way to ensure future profits. It's not enough to sell drugs to people who are truly sick, you see. Big Pharma cleverly figured out that they could sell even MORE drugs if they simply invented new diseases and convinced people they needed pharmaceuticals to treat those diseases.

The FDA, always happy to serve the profit interests of Big Pharma, went right along with the ploy and legalized television and magazine drug ads in 1997. Since then, drug sales have skyrocketed, drug company profits have ballooned, and fictitious disease diagnoses have proliferated at an alarming rate.

Diseases such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder are completely fictitious, invented by a panel of psychiatrists with a simple vote. Conditions like "high cholesterol" aren't diseases at all (they're simply descriptions of blood chemistry), and artificially lowering high cholesterol with statin drugs has been scientifically found to offer absolutely no net health benefit whatsoever. Breast cancer is so frequently misdiagnosed that for every one woman helped by cancer screening and treatment, ten are harmed by it (click here for the story), and Restless Legs Syndrome is so routinely marketed and hyped that people who hadn't even heard of the disease two years ago now think they need patented chemicals to treat it.

By any honest assessment, pharmaceutical medicine today is all a grand hoax. (Click here to read my article exploring the massive "hoax" of drug advertising. )

In a recent CounterThink cartoon, I decided to show what goes on behind the scenes at Disease Mongers, Inc., a firm hired by drug companies to invent, package and market new diseases that can be used to sell more drugs.

The fascinating thing is that the cartoon is not a parody. Drug companies actually do hire firms to invent diseases (although they aren't called, "Disease Mongers, Inc."), and people really do sit around dreaming up disease names that they think might be swallowed by the public, the media and the FDA.

Inventing new diseases is child's play
How easy is it to come up with a fictitious disease or disorder that the public will think is real? It's incredibly easy! I even wrote a web tool that will generate new diseases for you at the click of a button. Simply visit my Disease Mongering Engine and you can get filthy rich inventing your own fictitious diseases starting right now!

I'm not the only one who has come up with hilarious ways to make fun of disease mongering by the drug industry. Justine Cooper created an entire website dedicated to a fictitious disease and a fake drug for treating it. The site, www.Havidol. com, claims to be a patient education site for Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder, or DSCDAD for short.

Not surprisingly, the public bought it, and she has been contacted by hundreds of people wanting to know where they can buy the drug to treat their DSCDAD. (Didn't they get the drug name, "Havidol?" As in, "Have it all!") Even some members of the media fell for the hoax, reporting DSCDAD as a real disease requiring treatment with Havidol.

In another parody on YouTube, artists created a fake commercial for, "Motivational Deficiency Disorder" (formerly known as just being plain lazy) and recommended drugs for treatment. Click here to see the video yourself.

Back in 2005, I even made up my own list of fictitious diseases, including Obsessive Hosiery Dislocation Disorder (i.e. losing your socks in the laundry). Click here to read my full list of fictitious diseases.

A nation of hypochondriacs
The bottom line in all this? Drug advertising has turned America into a nation of hypochondriacs. By simply inventing some disease name, then getting easy FDA approval for a drug to "treat" it, drug companies can create a billion-dollar market where none existed previously. All they have to do is convince everyone they're sick or diseased, and given the complete lack of medical skepticism among consumers, doctors and regulators these days, that's frighteningly easy.

This fraudulent Big Pharma recipe for making money is so effective that the industry is now increasingly focusing on marketing diseases. If a so-called "disease" can be swallowed by the gullible mainstream media, and believed by brainwashed doctors and consumers, then drug sales will automatically follow.

Getting people to believe there's something wrong with them, of course, is amazingly easy. Why? Because everybody's life is in turmoil at one time or another. There's not a person alive who doesn't feel pressure, or anxiety, or challenges, or failures sooner or later. Drug companies want you to believe those feelings are diseases when, in reality, they're just part of life.

Drug companies essentially want to diseasify every emotion, habit and experience of human living. Falling asleep and waking up -- once regarded as natural human behaviors -- are now pharmacologically regulated with profitable drugs. Pregnancy is now considered a medical condition, and new HPV vaccination efforts go to such extremes that they "preemptively treat" a disease that a young girl might someday possibly get decades later.

What's next: Mandatory "treatment" for everyone
And until this drug cartel is stopped, the situation will only get worse. Soon, mandatory mental health screening programs will sweep across America, and anyone who displays independent thinking, creative ideas or even the slightest hint of stress might be carted off to a mental institution where they will be forced to undergo brain chemistry "rebalancing" at the whim of a psychiatrist who earns a commission on every pill he forces you to swallow.

Sound far-fetched? Don't jump to innocent conclusions. You probably have no idea how far Big Pharma will go to turn human beings into customers. Drugging the entire nation with patented chemicals is only part of the goal. The real goal is to drug everyone with multiple drugs that don't treat or cure anything, but only "manage" symptoms while keeping people alive long enough to keep them paying. Remember The Matrix? Today, the United States is inching ever closer to a Medical Matrix, where consumers are enslaved in a system of chemical control in order to turn a human being into profit machine.

If you think there's anything resembling "health" or "care" in our modern health care system, you're dangerously underinformed. The system is an out-of-control profit-accumulating machine that, right now, harms far more people than it helps. It has become a corporate empire where profits, not patients, come first. And drug companies now exercise astonishing degrees of control over the FDA, the USDA, the DEA, medical schools, doctors, media outlets and non-profit groups.

The way out
How do we end this medical madness? First, we've all got to come to our senses and stop believing every mood, habit or challenge in our lives is caused by some mysterious disorder. People need to start taking responsibility for their own behavior and stop blaming fictitious diseases (or bad genes) when things don't work out the way they want.

Secondly, we've got to end the ridiculous practice of direct-to-consumer drug advertising. There is absolutely no justifiable reason why prescription drugs should be marketed directly to patients on television. It is only allowed because it is profitable, not because it serves any scientifically justifiable function in society.

And third, it's time to conduct a serious investigation into the crimes against America that have been committed by top FDA officials. These bureaucrats have deliberately neglected their responsibility to the American people and have, instead, sought to protect and expand drug company profits, no matter who gets harmed or killed in the process. FDA officials have attacked natural health remedies, outlawed perfectly safe herbs and supplements, and have in fact conspired with drug companies to bury evidence demonstrating the dangers of their FDA-approved pharmaceuticals (among other crimes).

It's time we cleaned house at the FDA and prosecuted the criminals currently in charge there. We need a Nuremberg trial for the FDA where the crimes against humanity that have been committed by the agency are made public and accounted for.

If we don't put an end to this absurd disease mongering epidemic that is sweeping the world, it won't be long until we wake up and find ourselves chemical slaves of an all-powerful drug cartel that runs government, medicine, media and education. The time to stop drug companies is NOW, before they gain an even tighter grip over the laws, regulations and information outlets that dominate society today.

If we end this medical madness now, and outlaw drug advertising while prosecuting the criminals responsible for overmedicating America, we may have a chance at a better future with drastically reduced health care costs. It's going to take courage, honesty and ethics to get this done, but the alternative is to lose our nation to a dark future of medical tyranny, bankruptcy and despair.

Conventional medicine, as practiced today, has truly become the No. 1 obstacle to the health of the American people. Get medicine out of the way, and we would all be healthier, happier and better off.
___
All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. Newstarget.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NewsTarget. com/terms. shtml

Guys, we all know America doesn't make mistakes.

But this is taking it to the ultimate .. ahem .. limit.

http://www.newstarget.com/019497.html

NewsTarget.com printable article
Originally published June 29 2006

The lawlessness of the FDA, Big Pharma immunity, and crimes against humanity (opinion)

June 30, 2006 is a day that will be long remembered as a dark milestone in the history of FDA and its campaign against health consumers. On June 30, an FDA "Final Rule" goes into effect, establishing a regulatory power grab of such scale and scope that it attempts to bypass all laws, the will of Congress and fundamental protections for consumers. This "Final Rule," which may as well be called a "Final Solution" for drug consumers, claims that consumers can no longer sue drug companies for the harm caused by any FDA-approved drug, even if the drug's manufacturer intentionally misled the FDA by hiding or fabricating clinical trial data.

In one blatantly illegal act, the FDA is attempting to pull off the greatest Big Pharma coup of all: The outright elimination of any responsibility whatsoever for the suffering and death caused by deadly pharmaceuticals.

In the preamble of the FDA's new "Final Rule" to take effect on June 30, the agency asserts that FDA approval of prescription drugs -- and their implied safety -- may no longer be second-guessed by consumers or organizations of any kind. The FDA's stamp of approval, the agency claims, is an absolute declaration of safety of all such drugs, for any use whatsoever, including off-label use (the use of drugs on health conditions that were never tested in clinical trials).

But such a position has no basis in law. During a June 6, 2006 hearing, a New Jersey state court judge Carol E. Higbee characterized the FDA's preamble as, "a political statement by the FDA" and explained that the ploy has, "...nothing to do with science. ...It is contrary to the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions. It is contrary to all the law on preemption. ... In addition to being contrary to the law of the land, it is also contrary to the Constitution of the United States."

The FDA is dangerous to America

That this outrageous assertion by the FDA would take place at a time when so many Americans are routinely killed by the harmful side effects of prescription drugs only contributes to the arrogance and absurdity of this rogue agency that has now become the No. 1 threat to the health and safety of the American people. Even a terrorist nuclear attack on a major U.S. city would not equal the number of Americans who have already been killed by the negligent actions of the FDA.

FDA-approved prescription drugs injure 2.2 million and kill approximately 100,000 Americans each year, according to peer-reviewed published studies, and more realistic estimates put the number of deaths at over 200,000 people annually in the United States alone (see Death By Medicine for detailed statistics).

Vioxx, according to senior FDA drug safety researcher Dr. David Graham, appears responsible for the deaths of over 60,000 Americans, and further deaths due to beta blockers, antidepressant drugs, statins and other medications continue to mount by the hour.

The resulting FDA body count of American casualties makes the casualties of war look small in comparison. The Vietnam War claimed the lives of approximately 50,000 Americans (plus many more Vietnamese), and a memorial in Washington D.C. honors those who died. But FDA-approved prescription drugs have killed well over a million Americans, yet no memorial will be built, no honors bestowed, and now the FDA would deny the families of those victims their legal right to fight for any sort of compensation.

It's not like these consumers were killed by enemy gunfire in a foreign land; they were killed by American companies, on American soil, with the full permission and approval of an American regulatory agency!

The enemy from within is, indeed, far more dangerous than any foreign threat to the lives of American citizens. Not since World War II have so many Americans died from a single, common, preventable cause, and it almost seems that the FDA has declared war on the American people and is using chemical weapons to win that war. The scourge of dangerous prescription drugs, combined with willful collusion at the FDA, has now created a chemical holocaust on U.S. soil that will continue to claim the lives of mothers, fathers, daughters and sons until the American people demand that justice be served and that the FDA / pharmaceutical industrial complex be dismantled and condemned through some modern-day equivalent of the Nuremberg Trials. How many millions more have to die from this chemical holocaust before this reign of medical terror is brought to an end?

The ramifications of the FDA's Final Rule

The FDA's new "Final Rule" would allow drug companies to operate with impunity, shouldering absolutely no responsibility for the harmful (even fatal) side effects of their prescription drugs, many of which we are now learning were only approved under highly suspicious circumstances that smack of fraud, corruption and outright criminal intent. Consumers harmed or killed by toxic prescription drugs -- even drugs that their manufacturers knew were extremely dangerous -- would have no recourse whatsoever. If such a rule were to go unchallenged, the degree of profiteering by Big Pharma would be unprecedented.

Free to charge monopoly prices thanks to the FDA-enforced domestic drug racket that outlaws international competition, and unburdened by the financial risk of lawsuits from consumers harmed by their drugs, Big Pharma would be emboldened to unleash a dystopian era of unprecedented disease mongering, bribery of doctors, false advertising and the mass drugging of children, adults and seniors alike... with absolutely nothing to hold them in check. This result may, in fact, have been the intention all along.

This "Final Rule" appears to be little more than a thinly-veiled attempt to establish wide-ranging authority where none exists by burying it in the language of a drug labeling rule. A more detailed legal criticism is offered by Karen Barth Menzies, an attorney at Baum Hedlund in Los Angeles:

On Wednesday, Jan.18, 2006, the Food and Drug Administration issued new regulations regarding the labeling of prescription drugs, including regulations aimed at providing doctors and patients with clearer information about the risks associated with prescription drugs. However, in the preamble to these new regulations, the FDA inserted conclusory and legally unsupported statements that tort lawsuits alleging a failure to warn of known or reasonably knowable safety risks are preempted by federal law. This attempted power-grab by the FDA wholly ignores the prerogative of Congress, contradicts both statutory and case law precedent, disregards the parallel but distinct roles played by FDA and tort liability law, fails to provide an avenue through which consumers may be compensated for drug-induced injury, neglects any federal replacement of applicable state policing and enforcement procedures, and shirks constitutionally established principles of federalism which protect the jurisdiction granted to states in matters involving public safety and health.

By inserting preemption language into the Final Rule without an official consultation with state and local government groups concerning the preemption language, the FDA also violated Executive Order (E.O.)13132. (When an Executive department or agency proposes to act through adjudication or rule-making to preempt State law, the department or agency shall provide all affected States notice and an opportunity for appropriate participation in the proceedings. Exec. Order No. 13132, [[4(e), 64 Fed.Reg. 43255, 43257 (1999).

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), the preemption language inserted into the preamble of the Final Rule is a thinly veiled attempt on the part of FDA to confer upon itself authority it does not have by statute and does not have by way of judicial ruling. The NCSL called FDA s action an abuse of agency process and a complete disregard for our dual system of government.

The fallout of the FDA's "Final Solution"

The ramifications of this "Final Rule" action by the FDA cannot be overstated. If this rule is allowed to stand, it represents the end of health justice, the end of the power of Congress, and the surrender of absolute power to an agency of such arrogance and evil that it has conducted armed raids on vitamin clinics, organized the raid of a church, and even ordered the destruction of recipe books it didn't want to see published. (Supporting documents are available for all of these statements).

The FDA, through its willful negligence, is indirectly responsible for the deaths of more Americans than all terrorists, murderers and drunk drivers combined.

As the deaths continue to mount, and drug companies become even more aggressive with outlandish disease mongering and advertising efforts, the FDA rears up to unleash a new wave of corporate terrorism upon the American people by emboldening drug companies to care even less about the safety of their synthetic chemical products, most of which cause harm by their very nature of being foreign to the human body. As Menzies explains:

Pharmaceutical industry lobbying efforts and zealot tort reformers have sired a new wave of brazen attempts to shield drug manufacturers from tort liability. The preemption language in the preamble to the Final Rule is but the latest attempt. Preemption has become the argument du jour and politically appointed regulatory officials the mouthpieces. The crafty messages sound of consumer protection, but are just the opposite. Limiting the liability of drug companies will not improve public safety. The FDA's purported position on preemption assumes that the FDA is infallible and that negligent misconduct by pharmaceutical companies should be the sole purview of FDA. Recent regulatory failures demonstrate that FDA is neither infallible nor does it have the capability of policing drug manufacturers negligent misconduct. Want to see the real FDA at work? Read the story of Rezulin, and you'll be shocked to learn the truth about the real agenda that drives this rogue agency.

The end is near for the Big Pharma / FDA racket

Why would the FDA engage in such an obviously unlawful power grab? Because Big Pharma co-conspirators have realized that lawsuits threaten to bankrupt the drug companies. The products of these companies are so universally harmful, and their ability to hide this truth is slipping away so rapidly, that the financial burden of settling lawsuits (or defending them in court) threatens to crush the entire pharmaceutical empire.

Merck alone is defending itself against literally thousands of lawsuits from just one drug: Vioxx. As the truth emerges about the dangerous side effects from the long-term use of other widely-prescribed drugs, class action lawsuits will reach a momentum that will make the Big Tobacco settlements seem like a friendly game of Friday-night poker.

Truth be told, there is not enough money in the world to pay for all the pain, suffering and death that has already been caused by prescription drugs, and if drug companies are held responsible for even a small fraction of the patients their products have harmed and killed, they will rapidly fall from the most wealthy corporations in the world to the most bankrupt, both financially and morally.

And so the FDA is jumping in with one last, desperate attempt to cast a spell of immunity over all drug companies in order to preempt the coming flood of class action lawsuits. But even this effort will fail, as the truth about the dangers of prescription drugs can no longer be censored.

Through a tidal wave of new books, documentaries and health websites, consumers are learning the shocking truth about Big Pharma and the FDA, and the beginning of the end of the age of chemical medicine is already under way.

Reading suggestions: The Truth About the Drug Companies by Marcia Angell, M.D., Psyched Out by Kelly Patricia O'Meara, or Death by Prescription by Ray Strand.

You see, the arrogance and greed of drug companies will ultimately be their downfall. They have pushed too hard, too far, and they have landed themselves in a realm of such obvious scientific fraud and criminal negligence that the backlash is inevitable. The rampant disease mongering, the mass drugging of schoolchildren with amphetamines, the false claims of drug ads, the bribery of doctors, the collusion at the FDA... it's all coming to the surface now, and by the time this house of cards comes tumbling down, the resulting criminal trials against drug company executives and FDA officials will make the Enron trials sound like a high school debate.

It is not only inevitable that drug company executives and FDA senior officials will do prison time for their crimes against humanity, it is important that they be loudly condemned via such punishments for knowingly defrauding, harming and ultimately killing countless Americans in exchange for one thing: Corporate profits.

American medicine is now the shame of the world, and the conduct of senior officials at the FDA is nothing less than criminal. There is now no greater threat to the health and safety of the American people than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"As currently configured, the FDA is not able to adequately protect the American public. It's more interested in protecting the interests of industry. It views industry as its client, and the client is someone whose interest you represent." - Dr. David Graham, senior drug safety researcher at the Food and Drug Administration, and Vioxx whistleblower

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All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. Newstarget.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NewsTarget.com/terms.shtml

See also: http://www.ncsl.org/statefed/health/FDArule.htm

http://www.newstarget.com/019497.html

1. Feature articles on drug companies:
   The great direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising con: how patients and doctors alike are easily influenced to demand dangerous drugs
2. 
   The truth about medical journals, and how drug companies exert heavy influence over published scientific articles
3. 
   Drug companies discredit negative studies and blacklist honest researchers
4. 
   Group of doctors accuses drug companies of inventing fictitious diseases to sell more prescription drugs
5. 
   Big Tobacco racketeering charges mirror pharmaceutical industry crimes
6. 
   Drug companies allegedly defraud state Medicaid programs with 54,000% markups
   Big Tobacco and Big Pharma: same tactics, different chemicals

It's time for the Justice Department to charge the pharmaceutical industry with racketeering. Because the activities of drug companies, combined with the criminal actions of the FDA, are nothing short of a criminal racket designed to deceive the American public in order to generate profits. It's classic RICO behavior. In fact, it would be difficult to find a more relevant example of racketeering than what's happening today in the pharmaceutical industry.

Massive medical fraud exposed: pharmaceutical company paid doctors to prescribe drugs and run sham clinical trials

http://www.newstarget.com/012467.html

And I quote fpm the last article: And then we have this "War on drugs," which does really important things like outlawing hemp. Oh yes, hemp is so dangerous. My God, you can make paper with it! It's so dangerous, this hemp. You can make a pair of jeans out of hemp. You can make sails for ships out of hemp, as some history buffs know. You can make car bumpers out of hemp and recyclable car parts. You can make biodiesel out of hemp. Oh, you can make a lot of things out of hemp, including highly nutritious hemp seeds, loaded with omega-3 fatty acids, outstanding for health and human nutrition. The one thing you can't do with hemp is get high from smoking it. The THC content is so low in industrial hemp that you'd have to smoke a hundred pounds of hemp just to feel anything resembling a buzz. And yet we have to outlaw hemp in this country because we're fighting "the war on drugs!" Meanwhile, the real drug threat is prescription drugs. They're the 4th leading cause of death in this country. And they remain perfectly legal.

Hmmm... are the politicians smoking crack?

Sicko IS a must see film - Mike Adams' review

http://www.newstarget.com/021906.html

I have been waiting to read Mike Adams' review of Sicko ever since I first heard the documentary was coming out. Mike Adams and I see most health topics "in the same light". Big difference though: he is still living in the US and is in good health. I live in Canada, on disablity, and I do not enjoy "good" health: I simply cannot afford it. But we do have the national health care model people are so het up about. What would he SAY ...? He knows the drill. Here is his review. Mine will follow after I have seen it.
From Newstarget

America's disastrous health care system is heaving the country head-first into near-certain economic collapse. Just about everybody's either financially strained or going broke due to spiraling health care costs: the people, the employers, state governments and even the federal government. Multinational corporations are fleeing the United States due to health care costs, taking jobs and economic productivity with them. Meanwhile, 50 percent of personal bankruptcies in the U.S. are due to medical expenses.

But not everybody's doing badly. The drug companies, surgeons, medical specialists, health insurance companies and private hospitals are making out like bandits, raking in multi-million dollar CEO salaries and -- I'm not making this up -- greater than 500,000% markups on prescription drugs. And while the American people get sicker, the drug companies, insurance companies and many health "care" providers (it's really more like "sick care providers") are rolling in cash. Drug companies are now among the richest corporations in the world, and they got there by inventing fictitious diseases, then selling drugs to people who mostly don't need them. See my CounterThink cartoon, Disease Mongers, Inc. to learn more about this topic.

Meanwhile, the American people are the most diseased people in the world among advanced nations. We spend more on health care than anyone, we pay the highest prices for medications, and we're constantly told that we have the best medical technology in the world. But if our health care system is really so good, why do 50 million Americans have no health insurance? Why are hospitals literally dumping uninsured patients on the street, abandoning the sick to protect profits while our politicians actually negotiate on behalf of Big Pharma to make sure Americans keep paying the highest prices in the world for medications? (Click here to see our CounterThink cartoon on President Bush's price negotiations with drug companies.)

What's wrong with America's health care system?

SiCKO is a must-see documentary

SiCKO creator Michael Moore answers that all-important question in his best documentary yet. Forget whatever criticism you may have heard about SiCKO -- this is a Michael Moore masterpiece: A courageous, impactful and outrageous documentary that exposes the arrogance of modern medicine and the utter failure of America's corporate-controlled sick care system to provide decent health care to the people. Watching this movie will leave you either steaming mad or shedding tears (or both). It reveals the deep-rooted corruption in America's health care system and explains why the whole system was actually designed to deny health care to the American people.

I've been ranting about America's health care failures for years, and as I've consistently stated to the amazement of some, the health care corporations actually have a plan to keep people sick. There's no money in preventing disease, especially in the cancer industry. Click here to read my recent report on the American Cancer Society's refusal to help prevent 77% of all cancers using affordable, scientifically-proven vitamin D supplements.

In SiCKO, what Moore does very effectively is tells this story to a mass audience, weaving together the emotionally-charged stories of American citizens who lost husbands, daughters and other family members to preventable disease, all thanks to intentional, well-planned payment denials by health insurance companies. In one segment in the film, he features archival footage of former President Nixon, who strongly approves of a new 1970's health care concept called the "HMO" where the more patients are denied health care services, the more money the hospitals and health insurance companies rake in!

In contrast to all this, Moore shows us the universal health care systems in countries like Canada, the UK, France and even Cuba... all countries where health care is free to everyone. It's called universal health care (or "socialized medicine"), and it's a system followed by nearly every modern nation in the world... and even some not-so-modern nations. Only America practices medicine in the Dark Ages, tied to a hopelessly corrupt system of financial exploitation and monopoly price controls, where Big Pharma gets richer, the FDA gets more powerful, and the American people get the shaft.

See my CounterThink cartoon, The Disease Economy, for a visual representation of this mess we're in, or read my book Natural Health Solutions and the Conspiracy to Keep You From Knowing About Them to see just how evil and corrupt our modern health care system really is.

Why Moore is being so vicious attacked

Moore, as usual, is being targeted by all sorts of critics who would like nothing better than to see this guy disappear and stop rocking the Good 'ol Boys boat that seems to be floating just fine in America (as long as you're part of the wealthy elite, anyway). For starters, U.S. government officials are investigating Moore for violating travel restrictions to Cuba. And why? Because Moore gathered a dozen Americans who were denied health care in the U.S. and brought them to Cuba where they received free, quality health care in a modern Cuban hospital.

The message is hard to miss: Cuba takes better care of its citizens than America does. In fact, Cuba is willing to take care of a few American citizens that America abandoned! That kind of "in-yo-face" embarrassment to U.S. officials isn't appreciated much in police-state America these days, where practically anyone who dares question the wisdom of the government is branded a terrorist. Moore is clearly being targeted not merely because he took some 9/11 heroes to Cuba and got them health care, but because he dared to make it all public. Humiliating the King is a quick way to find your head on a chopping block. Just ask all the scientists who publicly disagree with the Bush Administration's hopelessly politicized view on climate change...

Other critics of Moore are either the greedy, corrupt corporations impacted by his film (drug companies, health insurance providers, hospitals and so on) or juvenile stay-at-home back-seat Internet critics who don't like Moore for the simple fact that he dares to stand up and say "The Emperor Has No Clothes!" Nearly all the criticism leveled against Moore is without substance. People attack Moore personally, but they won't dare debate what he's presenting in the movie. Why? Because Michael Moore is right. America's health care system is an embarrassment to the nation, and to the world. It's so bad that most informed world citizens wouldn't be caught dead in this country, unless of course they actually visit America and have an accident that lands them in the U.S. health care system.

Personally, I opted out of the American health care system long ago. I'm a holistic nutritionist, and I exercise, eat right, get lots of sunshine and gorge on superfoods and raw berries. I have no need for a doctor, or a pharmaceutical, or a health insurance policy. I don't get annual physical exams, and I have zero risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes or other common health conditions. (I posted my health statistics at www.HealthRanger.org if you want to see my blood workup.)

At the same time, I realize that not everybody is in such a fortunate health position. Most people simply don't take care of their own health, and while I could argue for days about the need for more patient responsibility alongside corporate responsibility, the fact is that relentless advertising from drug companies and food manufacturers has bred a mindset of disease, junk food consumption, pharmaceutical dependence and patient victimization. We have a health crisis in this country, and it's going to take genuinely radical reforms to turn this around and save America from a financial wipeout exacerbated by runaway health care spending.

What's missing from SiCKO

The material that's in SiCKO is hard-hitting, and it accomplishes what it sets out to do. But there's something missing from the film: A serious discussion about how a nation can prevent disease using nutrition, medicinal herbs, sunshine, clean water, avoidance of toxic chemicals, smart dietary choices, banning the advertising of junk foods and pharmaceuticals, and so on. Of course, that's not really what SiCKO set out to do, and this topic would require another film all by itself, but personally I wouldn't have minded a stronger nod towards solving our nation's health care problems through genuine prevention (rather than the current policy which is basically centered around waiting for everybody to get sick and then treating their symptoms while ignoring the true causes of their disease).

Of course, it might be tricky for Moore to argue for disease prevention given that he is obviously not the poster boy for ideal physical health. But he never claims to be. So the critics who attack Moore's own personal health are missing the whole point of the film. Moore is simply pointing out what's wrong with America's health care system, and he does so brilliantly and convincingly, regardless of his own personal health status. And besides, if you want to argue about the health of "experts," just walk into any hospital and take a look at the health of all the people who work there. Many aren't any healthier than Moore, and they work in the industry! The average lifespan of a U.S. doctor is less than a Cuban peasant. That's not a joke.

Regardless of Moore's present physical fitness challenges, he's obviously operating with a great degree of healthy skepticism about the way the U.S. operates today. Moore is an independent thinker who simply refuses to follow the crowd, and with this film, he's doing the job that the American people should have been doing all along -- questioning the sanity of our health care system. But sadly, the truth is that most Americans are sheeple who just follow the herd and do what they're told. A recent poll revealed that nearly 45% of Americans still trust the FDA! That's astounding, given that I've solidly established the Food and Drug Administration is far more dangerous to the health and safety of the American people than all the terrorists in the world. To learn more, read my article The lawlessness of the FDA, Big Pharma immunity, and crimes against humanity.

How will SiCKO play?

I think SiCKO's timing is perfect, and I think the movie will be a significant factor in the upcoming 2008 elections. Those politicians who run on a platform of radical health care reforms are likely to pick up a lot more support than those unwise enough to try to defend the current system.

This is a tough call for Republicans, since most Republicans support Big Pharma and the corporate control of modern medicine, usually at the expense of the people. Democrats, though, are also on Big Pharma's payroll, as was obvious with the recent voting record on the FDA Revitilization Act co-sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy. The truth is, Big Pharma owns virtually all the politicians in Washington (except Rep. Ron Paul, of course).

The movie will definitely get America talking about serious health care reforms. But as I've pointed out in a previous article, Where's the Health In Health Care Reform?, almost nobody is considering proposals that would genuinely solve the health care problem in America today. You can't "treat" your way out of a nation that has become so over-drugged, over-fed and over-diseased that even the little children are now being put on speed (also called "Ritalin"). Nearly 50 percent of American adults are now taking pharmaceuticals, most of which are utterly unnecessary from a medical point of view. Drug advertising has taken over the media, the FDA has suppressed natural alternatives, and the American Medical Association continues to peddle such health nonsense that it's amazing the AMA hasn't yet been invited to join the Smithsonian's Museum of Outdated American History.

The American Cancer Society, in my opinion, is a supremely corrupt, big-business front group that actually takes steps to ensure more cases of future cancer by "preventing prevention," the American Diabetes Association takes money from candy and soda manufacturers, and the American Psychiatric Association is so steeped in Big Pharma money that they've practically become inseparable. (Click here to see my CounterThink cartoon on this topic.)

The future of America looks dim

Clearly, something has to change in this country if we're going to survive as a nation. Under the current system of massive debt spending, widespread political corruption, war mongering and health care failures, the United States of America will simply not survive another generation. No nation that abandons the health of its people can expect to have a future. As Moore points out, however, there is a chance to save America, but only if we make significant changes starting now.

Truly radical changes must be put into place. I've offered many suggestions in a popular article, The health care reform legislation that Congress should pass, but won't. Lawmakers, you see, have no interest in actually saving America from financial demise. They're only concerned about the next election, and raising campaign reelection funds means kow-towing to the interests of the powerful corporations that really run Washington.

Personally, I don't see that meaningful reform is possible under the current system of politics in America. The Big Business sick care industry has a stranglehold on the American political system, and the whole ugly thing will mostly likely have to collapse and be rebooted before we'll see significant change.

And make no mistake: that's what's coming. I predict America will not survive its health care crisis. It won't be the first empire to crumble from arrogance and corruption. In fact, it will join a long (and growing) list of civilizations that have risen and fallen, securing its place in the pages of history as yet another imperialist nation that thought it could rule the world while abandoning the needs of its own people.

The bottom line on SiCKO

It's a must-see documentary. It's surprisingly even-handed and well grounded, never resorting to unsubstantiated claims merely to shock the audience. In fact, as a person who has been writing about America's health care problems for four years, I didn't detect a single false statement in the film. It's all true, and it's pretty damn scary. Go see it. It opens on June 29th.

And if, like one person featured in the film, I ever have to choose between reconnective surgery for my middle finger at $60,000 vs. my ring finger at $12,000, I'll choose to have my middle finger sewn on first just so I can visually demonstrate to U.S. Senators precisely how I feel about America's health care system today.

###

About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health author and technology pioneer with a passion for teaching people how to improve their health He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, reaching millions of readers with information that is saving lives and improving personal health around the world. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a manufacturer of mercury-free, energy-efficient LED lighting products that save electricity and help prevent global warming. He also launched an online retailer of environmentally-friendly products (BetterLifeGoods.com) and uses a portion of its profits to help fund non-profit endeavors. He's also the CEO of a highly successful email newsletter software company that develops software used to send permission email campaigns to subscribers. Adams is currently the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit, and enjoys outdoor activities, nature photography, Pilates and adult gymnastics. Known by his callsign, the 'Health Ranger,' Adams posts his missions statements, health statistics and health photos at www.HealthRanger.org

The story of the Eli Lilly "leak"

Looking around to see who posted on Utah's big decision to SUE today, I ran across some great blogs and resources, never before found (at last not via Google).



Here is one of the best. 



http://am.novopress.info/?p=2076

Big Headache for Big Pharma

Tuesday 15 May 2007     |      Technology and Alternative culture     |      Email    |      Print

Big Headache for Big Pharma Adbuster For pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, death and injury are just a cost of doing business. When Zyprexa, Lilly’s drug to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, hit the marketplace in 1996, it was hailed as an “atypical” – a “safe, gentle psychotropic,” more effective than older drugs like Thorazine and Trilafon, without the dangerous side effects. Sales skyrocketed. The hype soon gave way to reality, as Lilly faced waves of lawsuits by patients suffering from diabetes, massive weight gain, pancreatitis and cardiac problems. Lilly responded with the cozy arrangement that worked with Prozac, another blockbuster plagued with problems: quietly settle suits out of court, with proceedings sealed and secret under a gag order. Anything embarrassing – or illegal – that Lilly is doing behind closed doors would remain hidden from public view. Even though the payout is enormous – more than a billion dollars in settlements to tens of thousands of plaintiffs – Lilly can afford it: atypicals sell for ten times more than older drugs, and Lilly’s marketing machine made Zyprexa its biggest profit maker, with more than 20 million customers worldwide and sales topping $4 billion annually. So Lilly writes a check, buys the silence of the people harmed by its products, and then turns around and passes the cost along to the consumer at inflated drugstore prices. All perfectly legal. What Lilly didn’t count on was a whistleblower, a lawyer and hackers taking matters into their own hands. Just as Lilly’s legal muscle was lax during Christmas holidays, one of the expert witnesses in the Zyprexa litigation contacted human rights attorney Jim Gottstein, who used a combination of clever subpoena wizardry and fast action to get hundreds of secret documents out from under the court seal. Gottstein turned the memos over to The New York Times before Lilly could plug the leak. The memos, emails and correspondence reveal how Lilly’s marketing strategy bent and broke the law, hid unfavorable risk studies and pushed Zyprexa for unapproved use on the elderly and children. The Times ran repeated front page stories, and Lilly’s stock took a nose dive. Claiming “trade secrets” and proprietary “merchandising techniques,” Lilly lawyers swooped down on Gottstein, seizing emails and voice mail records. They convinced the court to order an injunction forbidding further distribution of the files, but Gottstein had already sent out disks loaded with scanned copies to a dozen activists and journalists around the country. Lilly tracked the disks down, trying to halt the escalating crisis. And this is where the hackers come in. Someone – still not identified by Lilly – got a copy, but any distribution traced back to them could lead to contempt of court and serious legal consequences. So they turned to software called Tor, set up by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Tor is an anonymous server privacy tool EFF created to help dissidents in totalitarian regimes like China slip past state censors. It was perfect to help the whistle-blowers evade Lilly’s surveillance. The file – zyprexakills.tar.gz – found its way into cyberspace, and the court finally ruled that Lilly couldn’t block websites from hosting the file once it was freely available online. The leak finally went public. The Zyprexa documents are a disturbing glimpse into the marketing mind of one of the biggest companies in the world, a firm with close ties to the Bush Administration (Lilly CEO Sidney Taurel sits on the Homeland Security Council). When a study showed three times the risk of diabetes over other drugs, Lilly simply hid it from the Food and Drug Administration’s scrutiny. Lilly aimed sales to dementia patients – without approval – in a campaign called “Viva Zyprexa.” They instructed product representatives to downplay drug risks, and targeted children, who Zyprexa has never been tested on. Emails discussed the strategy of indemnifying doctors who prescribe Zyprexa against any legal action: “Our experience with Prozac,” the memo said, “confirms the impact and goodwill of such an initiative.” The memos reveal callous indifference to the diabetes risk Zyprexa causes, perhaps because Lilly’s other top selling drugs include – you guessed it – diabetes medications. Lilly now faces a snowballing scandal. The Times compared Zyprexa to Vioxx, Merck’s painkiller withdrawn from the market after leaked documents showed the company hid heart attack risks. FDA scientist Dr. David Graham, who blew the whistle on Vioxx, testified to Congress that atypicals like Zyprexa kill some 62,000 people a year in unapproved uses. A study in the Archives of General Psychiatry concluded atypicals were no more effective than older, cheaper drugs, and five state governments, with enormous budgets for atypicals, initiated investigations. And last month, four-year-old Rebecca Riley died from drugs prescribed by a psychiatrist, including an atypical, raising concerns about the approximately 30,000 children under five who take these drugs, despite no study on drug safety for children. Lilly objected to its secret memos going public because they might “cause unwarranted fear among patients that will cause them to stop taking their medication.” Yet this gets to the heart of Lilly’s corruption. Beyond hiding drug risks and marketing illegally, Big Pharma doesn’t trust its customers to make informed decisions about their health care. Growing numbers of people are turning off the TV pill ads and exploring other ways to deal with their suffering. A New York Times article last year broke the story of the many people with a schizophrenia diagnosis who do well with non-medication treatments. Maybe the solution isn’t to be found in a pill after all? Now that would bring down Big Pharma faster than any scandal. _Will Hall is co-founder of the Freedom Center, and is a member of the Icarus Project.