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Don’t Be a Victim to Corruption & Greed

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June 16, 2010
	Dr. Gary Huber : Head Medical Ego

Two weeks ago I ran across another article indicting yet another pharmaceutical company in yet another scam involving inappropriate unethical behavior in an effort to extol more money out of your pocket. It was just white noise against a background of constant lawsuits of the same nature. I can’t think of one pharmaceutical company that hasn’t been named in a lawsuit that breached legal and ethical behavior. Pick a company, any of them, GalaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Abbott, Roche, the list goes on.

The story line typically follows one of many repeated tales of greed and corruption. A typical example is Pzifer who had people on the payroll who where also a part of the National Institute of Health National Cholesterol Education Program.

The very people that were deciding what the recommendation where for the use of statin drugs were the same people who sold statin drugs. That’s convenient.

That’s like you being on the panel that will decide if you get a raise or not.  I like your chances.

Often times the offense revolves around companies marketing their drug to physicians and patients for uses that it was not approved for. Whether a drug is approved for a particular disease or medical condition, goes back to whether the FDA felt that the studies conducted by the drug company justifies their use.

The studies are not done by unbiased third parties but rather by the very company that is lobbying for approval.  Seems odd doesn’t it?

Then the FDA, who by the way receives their salary from the very drug companies that they are sworn to police, makes a decision to approve a drug based on the aforementioned insider studies.  Gee, how can this sturdy system go wrong?

For example, Roche told the world that their drug Tamiflu worked when they really hadn’t done the studies; they just hired a guy to ghost write some made up studies to fool everyone into believing it was an effective drug when in fact it is a tremendous waste of money. These companies then fooled our government into buying billions of dollars worth of this useless stuff to stockpile it for our military. Guess who paid the bill? And we keep paying the bill.

We pay the bill for the use of our courts and when the pharmaceutical companies lose their case and pay fines, then they turn around and charge us more money for their next round of lies to make up for the loses.

But I wasn’t going to say anything about this because it’s just not productive. It doesn’t get us anywhere and we are unlikely to change the system. In fact the system will squash us like a bug if we make too much noise so keep this to yourself . . . shhshhshhshh.

BUT . . . in the last week I awoke to a headline which read:  “WHO (World Health Organization) Scandal Exposed.”

Now I know that the FDA is corrupt as they had been caught red-handed a dozen times and there is a paper trail a mile long exposing them as fraudulent keepers of the nations health, but to extend that list of near sighted, self serving entities to the World Health Organization I have to ask myself, is there anyone working for you and I?

Are there no more noble soldiers working to protect us from the corruption of mankind?

Pandemic Scares from the WHO

Apparently top advisors to the WHO were getting kickbacks from the pharmaceutical manufacturers.

The scam worked like this: The WHO agreed to upgrade that farce of a flu known as H1N1 to a “pandemic” scaring the crap out of everyone and practically beating us into submission to get a vaccine.  Everyone was sent running scared with notices of vaccine shortages and exaggerated numbers of death tolls that weren’t even close to the truth.

The goal was to “create” a need for a product that had very little use and then share in the huge pot of profits that rolled in. These advisors to the WHO stood to make a lot of money by exaggerating the issue and exploiting our fear.

So what does all of this mean to you and me?

Well I was NOT going to write about this stuff because I am not a conspiracy theorist and I don’t need to waste my time bashing big pharma, but this needs to be addressed.

Beneficial Drug Usage

I like using drug therapy.  Drugs are powerful agents that offer me tremendous ability to serve my patients needs and move their health in a new direction. BUT . . . they need to be used judiciously and for brief periods of time to get maximal benefit without the toxicity that is inherent to any drug use.

When you view a PDR or Physicians Drug Reference you will see over 3000 pages discussing drug use and associated problems. Most of the drugs work by a mechanism of action that is “unknown.” That’s right, we smart doctors don’t know how more than half of the drugs we prescribe work.  Of that 3000 page book I would estimate that 70% or more is dedicated to the discussion of side effects and problems related to the appropriate use of drug therapy and less than 10% of the book discusses the benefits.

So in my view, if you want the best that drugs have to offer then use them for brief periods of time for a very specific purpose and also work to do something to correct the “real issue” that led you to need pharmaceutical meds in the first place.

Drugs rarely correct metabolic problems. Drugs rarely “fix” health problems. Drugs tend to lessen symptoms but do very little to correct the original bodily abnormality.

Power to the People

What I desire for you and I and our children is to create an environment where we are in control of our health. The mission of Healthy Alter Ego is empowerment.