Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they
know little,
to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom
they know nothing.
~Voltaire (French writer 1694-1778)
“Sell the problem, not the solution.”
Three decades ago, the head of Merck
pharmaceutical company
dreamed of the day when the definition of disease would
be so broad
that his company could ‘sell to everyone,’ like chewing gum.”
~ Jonathan
Rowe, the Christian Science Monitor
“Cure nothing, treat everything, and you have a customer
for life.”
Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work. ~ Albert
Einstein
Modern
medicine treats symptoms rather than the root cause of disease
Big Pharma is the nickname given to the pharmaceutical
industry and its trade and lobbying group, the Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers of America – PhRMA.
Big Pharma is the driving force in our medical
infrastructure. It has undue influence
on medical schools where doctors learn to prescribe their products. It researches and develops numerous
medications that focus on one or two symptoms without considering their total effect
on the human body. Big Pharma utilizes
any and all marketing strategies available including
direct-to-consumer-advertising (DTCA).
It has no interest on educating people how to take control of their own
health and will fight the holistic health movement whenever possible. Big Pharma uses its media and government
connections to push its drugs.
Over 1,000,000 people die prematurely per year due to modern
medicine. The 11 largest pharmaceutical companies
combined made a net profit of $711.4 Billion Dollars from 2003 - 2012. According to
IMS Health, a worldwide leader in healthcare research, the global market for
pharmaceuticals is expected to top $1 trillion in sales by 2015.
From 1998 to 2013, the industry has given over $150
million in campaign contributions and spent $2.7 billion on lobbying
expenses. Billions more are invested in
marketing drugs on TV, the radio, media and via sales reps that target
physicians directly. For example – and this
is just one example - Boehringer Ingelheim spent $464 million advertising its
blood thinner Pradaxa in 2011. The following year, the drug passed the $1
billion sales mark. It takes money to make money and Big Pharma has Big Bucks.
Those billions of dollars built a golden revolving door between
the FDA, NIH and Big Pharma. Drugs developed
by public funding are priced higher than those developed without public funding.
NIH officials take an active part in the pricing of drugs. By law, publicly financed drug products are
given to Big Pharma for free. Why else would politicians establish laws that
allow Big Pharma to plunder publicly financed drug products?
The pharmaceutical industry also receives government
assistance to ensure commercial success of drugs. Drug companies justify the high prices of
their drugs claiming they invest large sums in R&D (research and development.) In reality, R&D is a small part of a
large drug company’s budget and much more money is funneled into advertising
and promotion. The actual cost of making
drugs is pennies compared to the hundreds of dollars charged. CEOs of large drug companies make millions of
dollars in salaries and millions more in stock options each year.
The Bayl-Dole Act of 1980 created the Reagan-Udall
Foundation within the FDA. The Foundation put the FDA in charge of drug design,
drug patents, drug licenses and the creation of new marketing
entities/companies. Money, not drug safety is the priority. The current commissioner is basically a sales
rep with massive industry connections.
The Commissioner can also decide what dietary supplement companies they
want to investigate or even shut down and no basis in law is needed.
The FDA collected license fees totaling over $2 billion dollars. This helps fund CEDR’s operating budget - (Center for Drug Evaluation and Research). (The total fiscal year 2015 President’s Budget Request
for the FDA is $4.74 billion)
FDA employees are being paid by the drug industry. The
FDA is working for an industry that it is supposed to be closely monitoring. Does
anyone see the problem?
The Big Pharma
Medical System
If a drug patent is about to expire, the companies only
need to change one molecule to get another twenty years of patent rights. Why spend money on a new and possibly better
drug? Just name it something slightly
different like weekly “name of drug” rather than daily “name of drug.”
Drugs are often prescribed “off label” to treat conditions and diseases they were not originally created for. Though this is perfectly legal, it may not be entirely ethical, and there are pages full of
lawsuits about serious problems that can occur in prescribing “off label” drugs.
Big Pharma runs the website Livestrong.com. A search for health topics via Google will
usually bring up this site in the top results.
Obviously, it promotes the conventional medicine way of treating disease. Do not rely solely on their opinions.
Costly regulations in the form of expensive fees and
licenses are imposed on supplement companies.
More and more of them go bankrupt.
Drug companies buy them up and are working hard to monopolize the
synthetic vitamin industry. This is done
under the guise of protecting Americans from unsafe alternative medicine. Saying the playing field between conventional
and natural medicine is not level would be the understatement of the year.
Big Pharma owns Nature's Bounty, Vitamin World, Puritan's
Pride and Sundown, Centrum, One-a-Day and New Chapter. These are a few of the brand
names you may recognize. Big Pharma can also
invest the stocks of supplement companies they do not own but in which they
will have input. The Carlyle Group,
a private-equity giant, owns NBTY - formerly Nature's Bounty. Hedge funds
are trading on industry players like the Vitamin Shoppe. (Click here are a few more corporate-owned supplement companies)
Insurance
Nutritional counseling is generally not listed on insurance
billing codes but there are a few exceptions.
Medical codes are the only means by which doctors can be paid and patients
can be reimbursed by their insurance companies for a doctor’s visit.
Medical workups can cost thousands of dollars. How many diagnoses never take into consideration
poor diet and lifestyle? One teenager,
diagnosed with IBS, had a diet which consisted of mostly sugar, fried foods and
ice cream. Duh! Add smoking, alcohol a sedentary lifestyle to
the mix and you have a sure recipe for disease and sickness.
The American Medical Association owns most U.S. health insurance
billing codes and the AMA is not prepared to release their monopoly on insurance
reimbursement. Conventional
Big Pharma medicine’s ‘standard of care’ - will be ‘legally’ enforced with vaccines,
medications and annual health exams, including mental health exams. Since the government
will control your health insurance, if you don’t comply, your insurance could be
revoked. Modern medicine would like nothing
better than to have a monopoly on the treatment of health and disease.
Under our current system, health insurance will not cover
preventive health measures like vitamin and mineral testing, diet and detox
advice, massages, acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic, or nutritional
prescriptions.
Current Procedural
Terminology (CPT codes).
CPT codes, established in 1966 by the AMA reap hefty
annual licensing fees. Each time a CPT
code is used, the AMA gets paid. Coded medical
transactions are also tracked for statistics.
Doctors and medical providers must code a patients care in such a way
that insurance companies will not deny them payment or deny the patient’s
coverage. This makes for an inexact
system to say the least. It should be
noted that the state medical code systems were abolished in 2003. This cost many states’ Medicaid programs millions
of dollars.
ABC Coding Solutions has developed ABC Codes that describe
services, remedies, and equipment items used by all healthcare practitioners, not
just medical doctors. And they include codes for most aspects of alternative medicine
as well including homeopathic remedies. As you can imagine, the AMA
will work to shut down this system. (see
the link for more information about the AMA, CPT and ABC code controversy.)
Further Reading
Death by Modern Medicine:Seeking Safe Solutions. Carolyn Dean
MD ND.
This book is a must read for anyone interested in Big
Pharma. It is also full of natural
health advice. This article briefly touched on just a few of the topics covered.
Digital copy can be downloaded at http://www.drcarolyndean.com/content/?section=death_by_modern_medicine&page=details
The author writes:
“The book is only one of dozens of print books and over one hundred Kindle books that I’ve written. The others all convey positive messages, but in Death by Modern Medicine, I must state what’s really happening in our world so you can be informed, determined and detached. Determined to take responsibility for your own health and detached from thinking you have to fix what’s going on to the point that you make yourself ill. Death by Modern Medicine goes far beyond the statistics of deaths due to drugs. It shows how the allopathic medical monopoly has created a health care system that fails to encourage good health, especially by prevention. Death by Modern Medicine documents the tales of propaganda, health care bureaucracy and the focus on profits instead of healing. It shows, statistically, that the number one killer in North America is, in fact, the allopathic medical industry. I’ve added two new chapters. They cover “Death by Character Assassination” and “The Future of Thought” rounding out the other 13 chapters from the previous editions. All the chapters have been updated and edited. Death by Modern Medicine has been referenced by thousands of people around the world."
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