the big pharma war, update

 

  David Healy is Professor of Psychiatry at Cardiff University in Britain and a former Secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology.  He is the author of books including Let Them Eat Prozac:  The Unhealthy Relationship Between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression, alsoThe Antidepressant Era, and Mania:  A Short History of Bipolar Disorder.    ………......................

         Pharmageddon 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments    Introduction
1. They Used to Call It Medicine
2. Medicine and the Marketers
3. Follow the Evidence
4. Doctoring the Data
5. Trussed in Guidelines
6. The Mismeasurement of Medicine
7. The Eclipse of Care
8. Pharmageddon
Notes     Index   

https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520275768/pharmageddon

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   Written by Welshman Dr. David Healy, Pharmageddon (2012) got widespread review; a review published in Dec. 2016 in Alaska Nursing Today  is here:   https://www.nursingald.com/articles/17291-pharmageddon-an-in-depth-review-of-a-book-and-growing-health-problem

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  Once put in place, industry took over the running of trials.  More than 90% of all clinical trials are now run by private companies, which organize ethical approval through other private companies and outsource the trials to parts of the world where oversight is minimal. The results, sometimes stemming from patients who don’t exist, are fed back to the parent companies coded in a manner that often causes problems to vanish.  Those trials and their results that suit company marketing agendas are then written up by ghostwriters and published in the leading medical journals--even though the editors know what is happening and the lives they are putting at risk by publishing these articles.      https://davidhealy.org/pharmageddon-is-the-story-of-a-tragedy/

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6-17-21    The $3.2 billion represents a multiyear investment to jump-start basic science research to develop new drugs and test whether existing drugs show promise.  The funding will support clinical research and manufacturing. The focus initially is on this coronavirus but will expand into collaborative drug discovery programs focused on viruses that have the potential to spark a pandemic.

  At the same time, the government has started placing preorders for antiviral drugs for this pandemic — before they have been shown to work. It’s a strategy similar to the one used to encourage vaccine development.

  Last week, the administration committed $1.2 billion to buy 1.7 million doses of molnupiravir, an antiviral developed by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, if it is authorized.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/06/17/drugs-for-covid/ 

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2-2-2020   My name is Stephen O’Neill; I was a singer and musician, lived a healthy lifestyle, never had touched a drop of drink in my life, smoked or took drugs.  I was in to fitness, ran marathons and loved to raise money for local charities.  I lived for my family. I had no money worries, I was comfortable in life.

However in 2016 I was having trouble sleeping and switching off at night, I decided to go to the doctors and on 16th June 2016 I was prescribed 50mg of Sertraline for “mild anxiety” and “sleep disturbance”…. In that short space of time I admitted myself to the unit twice more and I was given Quetiapine (antipsychotic drug) and Mirtazapine (serotonergic drug), Buspirone (anti-anxiety) as well as other drugs such as Diazepam, Propranolol and Zopiclone.  A cocktail of drugs, each one just seeming to exacerbate the symptoms.  http://antidepaware.co.uk/the-system-is-not-listening/

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