40 replies to this topic

[Rogerdodger]

Producer Price Index
Released On 2/20/2013 8:30:00 AM For Jan, 2013
The headline PPI rose in January but not for the reason expected.
Within the core, most of the January advance can be traced to a 2.5 percent rise in the index for pharmaceutical preparations.

http://www.nasdaq.co...c-calendar.aspx

[stocks]

Pharmageddon

"Since the 1970s, a profound change has been occurring both in the nature of the drugs marketed and in the practice of medicine... Where previous drugs and tests were geared toward the diagnosis and cure of diseases that posed an imminent risk to life, now medical practice is increasingly geared to chronic disease management with drugs that modify risk and lifestyle factors rather than save lives... Pharmaceutical companies sell diseases rather than cures."

The focus of the pharmaceutical industry is not to create cures, but to create blockbuster medicines that can be marketed and re-marketed indefinitely. Rather than cast blame on any one entity (drug companies, researchers, Doctors, FDA) Dr. Healy points out that over the last 100 years we have created a system that is easily manipulated. Drug companies fund their own research and clinical trials. They are not required to make available the raw data. The use of "statististical significance" trumps actual and real life adverse reactions to drugs providing cover to pharmaceutical companies. Medical journals are hesitant to publish contrarian views to the conventional wisdom. Drug companies ghost-write studies that are then published in the medical journals that also advertise their products.

My father held a Doctorate in Pharmacy. When Vioxx came out on the market, he exclaimed to me: "People are going to die." Within a few years the drug was reluctantly pulled when it became too obvious to hide that thousands of people were suffering heart attacks while on the drug. Unfortunately, this has not stopped the shameless marketing of drugs that have little efficacy and horrible side affects.



http://www.amazon.co...yRankDescending

[stocks]

Today the single most profitable drug in the world is an antipsychotic - the same type of drug that was given to Soviet dissidents in psychiatric prisons

Medicine is going backwards overall - especially psychiatry - due to gross over-prescription of ineffective, unnecessary, harmful and dangerous drugs that ought to be used rarely (if at all) - supported by an ocean of pseudo-scientific research of extreme and calculated dishonesty.

In particular, antipsychotics demotivate people, rendering them passive and indifferent. It was for this reason that antipsychotics were forcibly prescribed to political dissidents and Party opponents in the psychiatric prisons of the Soviet Union.

It is a situation much like, and indeed part of, the thought processes of political correctness - where the obvious, common sense and experiential are ruled-out - and propaganda fills our minds.

The excuse for zombifying so many millions of modern people, including children, with antipsychotics is by creating a new (fake) diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder

So *at one level* people realize that it can't be right to give infants, young children and teenagers - in huge numbers - drugs that 50 years ago were given to violent and psychotic adults, were known to cause dependence, were known to cause permanent brain damage, and were know to cause profound demotivation.


http://charltonteach...le-drug-in.html

Edited by stocks, 08 December 2013 - 05:22 AM.

[stocks]

The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

After more than 50 years leading the fight to legitimize attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Keith Conners could be celebrating.

Severely hyperactive and impulsive children, once shunned as bad seeds, are now recognized as having a real neurological problem.
Doctors and parents have largely accepted drugs like Adderall and Concerta to temper the traits of classic A.D.H.D., helping youngsters
succeed in school and beyond.

But Dr. Conners did not feel triumphant this fall as he addressed a group of fellow A.D.H.D. specialists in Washington. He noted that
recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the diagnosis had been made in 15 percent of high school-age children,
and that the number of children on medication for the disorder had soared to 3.5 million from 600,000 in 1990. He questioned the rising rates of
diagnosis and called them “a national disaster of dangerous proportions.”

“The numbers make it look like an epidemic. Well, it’s not. It’s preposterous,” Dr. Conners, a psychologist and professor emeritus at Duke University,
said in a subsequent interview. “This is a concoction to justify the giving out of medication at unprecedented and unjustifiable levels.”



http://www.nytimes.c...t...QMCVYw&_r=0

[stocks]

Statistics About The Drugging Of America That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

Illegal drugs get most of the headlines, but the truth is that the number of Americans that are addicted to legal drugs is far greater than the number
of Americans that are addicted to illegal drugs.

#3 According to a study conducted by the Mayo Clinic, nearly 70 percent of all Americans are on at least one prescription drug. An astounding 20 percent of all Americans are on at least five prescription drugs.


An endless barrage of television commercials have trained all of us to think that there is a “pill for every problem”.

Are you in pain?

Just take a pill.

Are you feeling blue?

Just take a pill.

Do you need a spark in your marriage?

Just take a pill.



Read more at http://freedomoutpos...hSQe3RIfzf8R.99

[stocks]

What’s behind epidemic of financial industry deaths?

Many of today’s 20- and 30-somethings on trading desks turn to their trusted college friend, Adderall, to get running in the morning and then in the afternoon and again at night.

This drug, used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), is also this era’s cocaine, used to stay laser-focused through a workday that can routinely stretch to 18 hours.

“Substance abuse (like [that of] Adderall) only exacerbates underlying mental-health issues,” says Wolf.


http://nypost.com/20...ndustry-deaths/

[stocks]

Yet another nail in Tamiflu

Tamiflu™ (generic name: Oseltamivir) has been promoted for years as a miracle drug for treating influenza (including swine flu) and other viral nasties. The US gov’t has spent gazillions of tax dollars stockpiling it. But….

… but, as real statisticians and investigators not paid by Genentech have looked more closely, its effectiveness has gotten shakier and shakier. The Junkman has previously had some articles about it.

So today we’ve got yet another series of studies, this time based out of the UK, which raise even more questions as to why anyone, let alone any gov’t group, is buying and using it


http://junkscience.c...ail-in-tamiflu/

[stocks]

The epidemic of 'antidepressant'/ SSRI-triggered suicides by hanging

The suicide by hanging of Robin Williams while (reportedly) being treated for depression brings this topic to mind. Williams apparently following the similar and very rare suicide method used by Mick Jagger's girlfriend, L'Wren Scott.

The overall suicide rate is going down, but the rate of suicide by hanging is going-up

There is a stereotypical pattern of SSRI triggered suicides - which used to be rare but is now becoming much more common

In conclusion there is a very high visibility epidemic of what look-like SSRI-triggered suicides, now becoming visible among the rich and famous who are reportedly being treated for depression, and who kill themselves violently and unexpectedly;


http://charltonteach...pidemic-of.html

Edited by stocks, 14 August 2014 - 08:16 AM.

[stocks]

Doctor admits taking kickbacks for prescribing risky drug

Two decades ago, Reinstein was known as one of the most prolific Medicaid billers in Chicago history, once charging the taxpayer-funded program for the care of 490 patients in just five days.

Between 2003 and 2006, IVAX continued to provide other perks, including flying Reinstein, his wife and seven other associates to IVAX's headquarters in Miami, where the entourage went on fishing trips, a boat cruise and golf outing.

Israel-based Teva paid all expenses for Reinstein and his associates to again travel to Miami. That trip featured a $2,300 boat cruise and at least two dinners costing $1,700 each. Over the next two years, Teva paid Reinstein more than $100,000 in annual speaking fees.

In 2007 Reinstein prescribed various medications to 4,141 Medicaid patients, including more prescriptions for clozapine that were written by all the doctors in Texas put together. Records from that year suggested that if each of his patient visits had lasted only 10 minutes, Reinstein would have had to work 21 hours a day, seven days a week.


http://www.chicagotr...ory.html#page=1

[stocks]

Publication bias:

is the tendency of researchers, editors, and pharmaceutical companies to publish the experimental results that are positive (i.e. showing a significant finding) and not publish results that are negative (i.e. supporting the null hypothesis) or inconclusive.

Of the FDA trials performed on 12 antidepressants over a 15 year period, there were 38 positive results and 36 negative.
Which ones were published? 37 positive results were published and 3 negative results.

Of course this indicates of the staggering problem we have with medical research.



http://www.ted.com/t...scribe#t-423244