American Citizens fed up with FDA kowtowing to Drug Companies
There’s a great article on NewsTarget that interprets the results of a Consumer Reports survey about the FDA and given to US residents. According to the article:
- 96 percent of those surveyed agreed the government should have the power to require warning labels on drugs with known safety problems. As Consumer Reports explains, “Right now, the Food and Drug Administration must negotiate safety warning labels with a drug maker.”
- 84 percent agree that drug companies have “too much influence over the government officials who regulate them.” More than two-thirds of those surveyed are concerned that drug companies actually pay the FDA to review and approve their drugs. It’s a situation that turns drug companies into the “customers” of the FDA.
- 92 percent agree that pharmaceutical companies should disclose the results of ALL clinical trials, not just the ones with positive results that they wish to publicize. (Currently, drug companies can bury negative drug trials, and the FDA has in fact been caught conspiring with drug companies to keep negative drug data secret from the public.)
- 93 percent think that the FDA should have the power to demand follow-up safety studies from drug companies. Currently, the FDA has no authority to require follow-up safety studies on drugs after they are introdued to the market. This is a serious oversight shortfall, given that many problems with drugs only appear after widespread use. (Patients are widely used as guinea pigs in any new drug launch.
- 60 percent agreed that doctors and scientists with a financial conflict of interest should not be allowed to serve on FDA advisory boards (what were the other 40 percent thinking?). Currently, doctors who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in “consulting fees” from drug companies are not only allowed to vote on the recommendations for FDA approval of their drugs, there is not even any FDA requirement to disclose such conflicts of interest.
- 91 percent said they had seen a drug advertisement on television or in print (a “victory” accomplished by the FDA legalizing such ads in 1998), and 26 percent said they asked their doctor for a brand-name medication after learning about it from an advertisement. This is the purpose of advertising, of course: To increase sales of drugs, not — as is claimed by Big Pharma and the FDA — to “educate” patients about medical treatments.
- 75 percent agreed that the allowing of drug advertising has resulted in the over-prescribing of pharmaceuticals. Fifty-nine percent said the government should restrict pharmaceutical advertising, and 26 percent said they “strongly agree” with such restrictions.
- The survey further revealed 54 percent of consumers think that viewing drug advertisements allows them to “take charge of their health care.” The survey did not, however, reveal whether these people were in fact suffering from deterimental cognitive side effects at the moment they were taking the survey. Statistically, it seems reasonable to assume that approximately half of the adults taking the survey were on drugs at the time they were answering the survey questions.
- More than half of those surveyed said they are currently taking prescription drugs, indicating that more than half of American adults are now on drugs. Forty percent said they have experienced a negative reaction (side effect) from taking prescription medications.
- As mentioned earlier, 84 percent agree that advertisements should be outlawed for drugs with safety concerns. The United States is the only advanced nation in the world that allows drug companies to advertise directly to consumers. It was legalized in 1998 by the FDA, following political pressure and influence from the drug companies who knew that being able to promote fictitious diseases and push brand-name drugs would result in windfall profits. (Some drugs are sold at markups as high as 300,000% over the cost of their ingredients.)
Pharmaceuticals are now the 4th leading cause of death in the US, and far outstrip the threat of terrorism. Yet the FDA is currently making a sneaky end run to put Alternative Health Practitioners and Companies out of business.
Not only are Pharmaceuticals hurting people, they’re also hurting the environment. There is no mechanism in place to filter pharmaceuticals when waste treatment happens, and most streams and ponds these days contain enough prozac and other pharmaceuticals for them to affect the wellbeing of plants and animals in those waterways. Those pharmaceuticals also make their way up the food chain.
So, what can you do? You can comment on the FDA’s proposal to reclassify herbs and natural supplements as medicine aka the Proposed Guidance on CAM, which would make it necessary to get a doctor’s prescription in order to purchase Herbs, Vitamins and other supplements.
And you can write your CongressPeople and tell them to support the Health Freedom Protection Act.
Technorati Tags: FDA, Proposed Guidance on CAM, Consumer Reports, Pharmaceuticals
