Fraud may seem like a strong word to use, however according to dictionary.com fraud is “deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage”.  What other word would use to describe the story below.

A news story out yesterday reveals that the popular cholesterol drug Vytorin has “no results - Zilch”.  Yet, for the past two years, Vytorin has sold for over 5 Billion in sales.  What is really disturbing is that the makers of Vytorin took 2 years to release the clinical data numbers.  Of course, the makers of Vytorin blame the delay on making sure that the numbers were correct, but we all know that the reason was that they knew it didn’t work and tried to get as much money for it as possible.  Again, if you think pharmaceutical companies are in business for your health you are sadly mistaken.  They are in it for the money and there is nothing wrong with that.  The problem is that the FDA who is supposed to be in it as an agency to protect you from businesses trying to make money off of you by making you “healthy” has brutaly failed.  You expect a billion dollar corporation to do whatever it takes to make money, fudge numbers here, delay results there.  What you don’t expect is the protection agency walking hand in hand with the billion dollar coporations and making it easy to cheat.  You may remember Vytorin from their highly effective marketing campaign.  Every time the commercial below ran on television, remember this; they knew the drug didn’t work and yet they spent a lot of money airing it anyways.  That is fraud, and they laughed all the way to the bank.

Headline out today that new super bug killed at least 2600 people in Canadian hospitals in 2006.  What the article didnt say what has caused this super bug to be so deadly?  The answer is the overuse of antibiotics that turn these bacteria into WWF of bugs.Doctors are under a lot of pressure to prescibe drugs when patients are coming in with nasty colds and are demanding releif.  So the the Doc bends and gives antibiotics for a viral infection that does absolutely no good and in fact does a whole lot of harm.

i’ve commented a few times on healthpowwow already about how pharmaceutical companies spend too much money on advertising.  It is interesting that this is the third story of the year so far on just how far the rabbit hole goes concerning the efforts by big drug companies to make more money.  The first story was about how pharmaceutical companies spend more money on advertising than they do on research.  The second story, which i thought was interesting, described how big pharma viewed nurses as “soft targets” for marketing due to their less skeptical nature.  As a result, pharmaceutical companies spent considerable amount of money going after nurses.

Now, an editorial published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal says that Doctor’s continuing education relies too heavily on pharmaceutical companies.  Big pharma isn’t stupid.  They know that by throwing lavish “gifts” at Doctors for going to a specific Continuing Education Seminar results in money for them down the road.  The thing that gets me upset is that once again the consumer (patient) ends up with the short end of the stick.  The patient sees a commercial on t.v. that scares them into asking their physician about a drug, who then recommends it.  The problem is that the Doctor himself is a victim of powerful marketing and may only be recommending it because big pharma says its good for the patient.  There’s something wrong with this.

A fantastic must read about cholesterol.

i can’t get over the amount of patients i see that are intolerant to milk.  It is like an epidemic today.  Whenever a patient complains of producing extra mucous i immediately suspect milk and more often than not i am right.  There are thousands of kids walking around with asthma pumps that could be eliminated by getting them off milk.  Not to mention recurring ear infections.  But this where the dilemma begins.  Parents are so brain washed that milk is essential for their child’s well being they start to panic.  Some parents are so worried about the loss of calcium in their children’s diet that they prefer their kids suffer with asthma or ear infections.  So goes the old saying you can lead a horse (or is that cow)to water but you cant make it drink

Ever clear your throat after eating a bowl of cereal or drinking a glass of milk?  These are only two of the myriads of possible symptoms from consuming dairy products.  Watch the videos below and decide for yourself.

Now watch this one

Oops!

The last paragraph in the article should set this article in context.  A billion dollar in sales since june 2006!  There are only so many teenage girls to vaccine.  How do you grow your target market?  One way is to expand your market.  Don’t kid yourself, as i’ve said before, they are a business first.

For those who didn’t see Denis Quaid on 60 minutes last night, here it is. 

A person with fibromyalgia being told by someone that their pain is “all in their head” is nothing new or original.  Unlike other disorders, a person with fibro doesn’t look any different, maybe a little tired.  If someone has a bad knee it is noticeable the moment they start to walk.  If someone has a bad shoulder, eventually it is noticeable when they have to reach for something or put on a coat.  The same can’t be said for people with fibromyalgia, and this is problematic.  A person with fibromyalgia usually has normal blood work and imaging such as x-rays or MRI’s are negative.  Things work much better in medicine when there is a problem, tests are done, tests come back positive, diagnosis is made, treatment is given.  With fibromyalgia no test comes back positive therefore diagnosis is extremely slow, and treatment is ineffective because symptoms are treated, not the cause.

It looks like things might be changing.  A new study published in the journal of Arthritis and Rheumatism finds that there might be a marker available when dealing with fibromyalgia.  It seems that in fibro patients, a decrease in pain corresponds with a decrease of the brain molecule glutamate, which is a neurotransmitter.  This means that they may finally have a way of marking the disease response to treatment.

Research is still needed, but it seems that medicine is well on its way to being able to finally properly diagnose fibromyalgia as well as evaluate treatment effects on the disease.

exciting stuff!