A Former senior editor of the Well known and highly Prestigious "New England Journal of medicine", exposes the Corruption and brainwashing that is going on in the health system.
Marcia Angel,a former editor of the important scientific journal "New England medicine" wich publishes medical studies, reveals the inappropriate relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare professionals in an article entitled: "Drug companies and Doctors:The story of corruption".
In this article she talks about her decades of experience with the Medical industry and the unholy relationship between pharmaceutical companies, the lobbyists they employ and the brainwashing and pressure on doctors to sell their drugs to the public.
Marcia has an MD and also holds degrees in chemistry, mathematics and microbiology and is expertised in pathology,she was regarded in the past as one of the most influential women in the United States.
In some of her statements from the article she says:
And that comes from someone who worked for the medical system for many years!"since the pharmaceutical industry has no direct access to people,The medical people are the link and they are heavily influenced by brainwashing. This industry rolles some enormous amounts of money on the backs of the patients.
Drug companies insist as a condition for providing funds that they will be intimately involved in all aspects of the study, they are the sponsors and they can easily tilt things in their favor, so their medications seem more reliable and secure than what they are in actuality. Therefore, it is not surprising that industry-funded studies published in medical journals, consistently biased in favor of drugs that receive positive results.On the negative results we rarely hear".
Angel gives some examples:
"Dr. Alan F. Schatzberg, chair of Stanford’s psychiatry department and president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association also ownes shares in 'Corcept Therapeutics' - the company that conducts drug testing that causes an initiated abortion in women known as 'mifepristone' .
The idea was to allow the use of the same drug to also treat psychotic depression.
Is it not clear how much this arrangment is unusual?
However,one of the most prominent cases uncovered so far is that of Dr. Charles Nemeroff,Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Emory University. The same one served as principal investigator of the National Institute of Mental Health and received grants for studies of many millions, from which a sum of 1.35 million dollars was transferred to Emory University for research by the drug company Glaxo Smith Kline.It is important to note that totals of above $ 10,000 per year are required to be reported and if it turns out that there is a conflict of interest, the study needs to be suspended or canceled.
However,Professor Nemeroff has failed to show the receipt of funds from Glaxo Smith Kline, moreover,he also received funds for dozens of lectures he gave while promoting the company's drugs.
"While the exposure of such corruptions receives much attention from the press," says Marcia Angel, it is still very important to know that many similar conflicts occur in the medical world."
"And indeed, most doctors take money or gifts from pharmaceutical companies one way or another.and Many are being paid for advice or for giving lectures sponsored by the company, as well as for writing articles on behalf of the pharmaceutical companies and conducting research 'apparently' that its main contribution is to provide those medicines to their patients and disseminating the information even further.
What is it if not a total contrast of interest? and this is how the medical world runs. No one in the U.S know what is the total amount that is provided by pharmaceutical companies to physicians, but the assessment says that the estimation is tens of billions of dollars a year! "
Angel adds that Doctors may prescribe drugs that were approved for certain use regardless of the specific purpose it received approval for,And claims that it can be that up to half of all prescriptions are such
Even when drugs are already available to the public,the pharmaceutical companies continue to sponsor more and more clinical trials, sometimes in order to obtain FDA approval for additional uses for the same medicine.in other times to show an advantage over competitors, and often as an excuse to persuade doctors to give such drugs to patients.
The former magazine editor touches on another important point:
""In recent years pharmaceutical companies have begun to refine a new and very effective technique to expand their markets.Instead of advancing the treatment of diseases, they began to promote diseases to fit their drugs.The strategy is to convince as many people as possible (along with their doctors, of course) that they have medical problems that require a long-term medical care. And on this it said: "How can a normal behavior becomes a disease ....".
in order to promote the excessive new terms,the drug companies are giving them names that sounds more serious.Therefore, heartburn is now "gastro esophageal reflux disease",the stress that many woman suffer from before their menstrual cycle is a "disorder and PMS" and shyness is "social anxiety disorder". There is also the "post traumatic stress disorder.
"... When a company receives approval from the FDA to market a drug it is launching an extensive media campaign, including posters on bus stops around the country showing people sad and below them the words: "Imagine being allergic to people..." and the sales leap.
Or as Barry Brand, the product manager of Paxil said:
"Every marketer's dream is to find a customer segment market that is not yet identified and to develope it.This is what we are doing with social anxiety disorder.
Very interesting! let me introduce you to an interview that was conducted by the Israeli website "Different Truth Project" on the issues of vaccines and autism with Dr. David Ayoub
During this conversation on the relationship between vaccines and autism the American doctor said the following things:
"I think that there is no doubt that we are caused to believe blindly that we have an excellent health system .. that we have sophisticated testings, hospitals that are beautiful ... but if you really want to get to the bottom, what you want to find out is how healthy is the population...our health care organization is no more than a front organisation to the drug companies."
"...The name of a Doctor is noted as the one who has done the research while in fact it is the advertising agency or marketing department that has conducted the study of drug organizations and disease control of the U.S. government.
In those committiees attends those who imply on the safety of vaccines and drugs that they are themselvs produce ...and it is considered "business as usual".
Is there any need to add?
And back to Dr Marcia Anglel,here is an example she brought on how a research is being diverted:
"reasonably,many drugs that are assumed to be useful,are only slightly better than placebo,but there is No way to know for sure because this information is actually hidden.an indication for that was provided six years ago by four researchers wich insisted on having, through the 'Freedom of Information Act' the FDA review comparing between antidepressants including Prozac, Zoloft and Celexa as with that of the placebo. They found that the placebo was 80% as effective as drugs, ie the difference was so little likely that it has not much clinical significance. The public and the medical professionals on the other hand are caused to believe that these drugs are powerful antidepressants.
Dr Angle summarizes her conclusions at the end of the article in a few words:
"This issue of conflict of interest and biases in favor of companies that do the market research exists in almost every field of medicine,particularly those that rely on drugs or devices. It is simply no longer possible to believe the results of the published clinical studies, or to rely on the discretion of the doctors or the medical guidelines.I do not find any pleasure in this conclusion to which I slowly and reluctantly arrived over twenty years of work as a scientific journal editor " The New England journal of medicine."
To summarize:
What does it all mean? The things that we heard here are expressed by someone who was connected for a long time to the medical and health industry,If so, can we trust our doctors almost blindly as we so often do? What are the consequences when we clearly know that there is a mix between the interests of the pharmaceutical industry and giving prescriptions to patients...
True, there are many good medical people that really put the welfare of the patient infront of their eyes,and yet,as long as this thin line between the desire to cure people and the obvious economical benefits that derives from it becomes indistinct ,than we have a real problem.
And who pays the price?
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Limor