Health Freedom Update with Byron Richards
Vytoringate Builds Steam – Folic Acid Ignored
Friday, January 25, 2008
Byron Richards, CCN
The Wall Street Journal now calls it Vytoringate – one of the biggest drug frauds in history. Merck and Schering-Plough sat on bad drug trial results of their cholesterol drug and raked in close to 10 billion dollars selling snake oil. The drug in question, Vytorin, was supposed to prove it could reduce heart disease risk by lessening the thickness in the carotid artery, thus showing the ability to reduce plaque formation. It failed miserably. As I have reported, the statin industry is one big scam.
The House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is looking into the matter. The fry pan is getting hot. Congressmen Bart Stupak and John Dingell have written a letter to the companies asking questions and stating “We have … discovered that a Schering-Plough officer, Carrie Smith Cox, sold significant numbers of shares of Schering-Plough in the time between the end of the ENHANCE study and the release of the results on January 14, 2008.”
Now the Senate is getting involved. The Wall Street Journal reports that Senator Chuck Grassley has sent a batch of letters to the SEC, the American Heart Association (AHA), the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the CEOs of Merck and Schering-Plough. Yes, the same folks who have fraudulently attacked vitamin E and cost many elderly their health were most likely in on the hoax – promoting the sale of bogus cholesterol drugs under the fraudulent shield of “impartial science.”
Not to be outdone by the Senate, Dingell and Stupak chimed in: “Given the AHA’s and ACC’s recent statements on Vytorin and the ENHANCE study, our Committee is interested to learn what financial arrangements exist between the marketers of Vytorin and these two organizations,” Dingell said in a statement. “The public places great trust in the official views of the AHA and the ACC, so it is important to verify that these views have not been compromised by a financial relationship with the pharmaceutical industry.”
Meanwhile, nobody seems to be mentioning that folic acid has already been proven to do what Vytorin was supposed to be doing. A study published in April of 2007 showed that “ultrasonography of the common carotid arteries performed at entry and 24 months later showed a significant decrease in intima-media thickness [of the carotid artery] with folate supplementation.” Then, in June of 2007 the Lancet published a startling study showing that folic acid could reduce the risk of a first stroke by 18%. These are the results Vytorin was trying to produce but couldn’t as toxic poisons don’t ever produce health. Folic acid is the hero. Vytorin belongs in the trash with the rest of the statin garbage.
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Other Politics Of Health News:
The American Heart Association (AHA) has gone mad, apparently suffering from overexposure to mercury-amalgam fillings. In their marketing magazine, Circulation, which masquerades as a scientific journal, they have now published research advocating an all out national war on childhood cholesterol – seeking to lower LDL cholesterol to 50 mg./dl.
New research suggests that Americans will be subjected to drug injury for some time to come, based on flaws in the ways new drugs are tested and approved by the FDA. The problem is serious, with newer drugs causing twice as many drug injuries and deaths as older drugs approved for the same purpose.
Researchers were shocked to see that Vytorin increased the rate of cancer by 61%.
A new study shows that bone drugs drastically interfere with the long-term healing and strength of bone that is recovering from a fracture.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has now lost all credibility – actively promoting the use of statin drugs for children as low as 8 years of age. This is beyond disgusting, it is a crime. The inept FDA is nowhere to be found as drug pushing of inappropriate medication is rapidly becoming as large a public health problem as street drugs.
The British Medical Journal is helping everyone understand just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Key doctors are paid big money to promote and sell drugs.
The New York Times has just reported on the investigation by Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) into the money paid by Big Pharma to the key researchers promoting the off label use of anti-psychotic medications. It shows that the researchers who have been behind promoting massive off-label use of these powerful drugs to children were on the take from Big Pharma and hiding millions in “consulting fees.”
Wake up America – your food supply has already been drastically altered by corporate food giants and their governmental bedfellows – who have spliced toxins directly into the DNA of food – inexplicably altering the very nature of our food supply for profit. France is one of the few countries in the developed world that has fought genetically modified food at every turn.
A new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine shows that even a single dose of antipsychotic medication doubles the risk of a serious adverse event leading to hospitalization and/or death. These drugs are widely used as behavior management in nursing homes, have no FDA approval for this use, and are clearly very unsafe.
Coca-Cola and Pepsi are both planning to use highly purified stevia in their soda drinks. Cargill is manufacturing the compound for Coca-Cola products. Cargill is releasing numerous studies on its safety and is expecting FDA approval, with large product roll outs over the next six months.
Last week the FDA refused to disclose to Congress the names of Chinese drug companies in the supply chain that provided the tainted Heparin which killed Americans, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. The net effect is that the FDA is intentionally acting to cover up China’s crimes against Americans…
The sparks flew on Capital Hill last week. During grilling of FDA executives Rep. John Dingell (D., Mich.), the chairman of the House Commerce and Energy Committee, said “Our citizens can no longer trust that their food, drugs or medical devices are safe when the FDA says they are.”
Bloomberg reports that over 1000 post marketing safety studies that Big Pharma is obligated to perform haven’t even started! Meanwhile, the same companies are aggressively pushing these drugs for use in an off label manner – intentionally exposing citizens to unknown risks without proven benefits.
Knowing its athletes were unlikely to win any medals eating McDonalds, and realizing all other options were based on the quality of the Chinese food supply, the United States Olympic Committee has decided to go against the grain and bring along the food it needs to feed its athletes.
- Elephants in the Health Care Room,
Health care costs, whether paid for by private or tax-payer money, are about to collide with several elephants standing in line in the health care room.
The new “Green Revolution” is far different than the Rockefeller version that followed WWII. This one is looking into just why and how our country got so polluted and our food supply became so adulterated. For any investigative reporter it doesn’t take long to come upon Monsanto, who is now altering our entire food supply for the worse.
The lawsuits over Vioxx have forced very uncomfortable documents into public view, exposing that Big Pharma has massively corrupted the scientific database with what amounts to promo pieces written by its own employees who then pay for prestigious doctors to attach their names to the studies as if they are legitimate – hiding the fact the drug companies wrote their own studies and conclusions in the first place.
Great Britain, like the United States, is finding that the Big Pharma paradigm of health leaves plenty of injured victims in the wake of its path. They report over 1,000,000 injuries requiring emergency room treatment at the cost of 2 billion pounds (or about 4 billion U.S. dollars). Janet Woodcock of the FDA has stated “1.3 million people are accidentally injured...”
Merck and Schering-Plough find themselves on a hot seat, likely to be held accountable for 10 billion dollars worth of fraud due to false marketing of their cholesterol-lowering drug Vytorin.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is coming under a microscope for its inept handling of vaccine data that likely showed a link between mercury in vaccines and autism. The CDC insists publicly that there is no link between mercury in vaccines and autism, based on several studies with numerous flaws in design. It appears the CDC has tampered with data to slant results to its favor – a common trick of Big Pharma when trying to hide poor results and cover its rear end.
It is not often that Big Pharma-friendly doctors pile on to a drug that is in a tailspin. That was the picture last weekend at the big American College of Cardiology meetings. A physician panel as well as the New England Journal of Medicine blasted the cholesterol-lowering Vytorin – a move sure to relegate its use to mothballs.
Eli Lilly is on the hot seat as its blockbuster drug, Zyprexa, goes on trial in Alaska. An expert witness testified on Friday that Lilly had withheld from doctors and patients that the drug caused severe weight gain, high blood sugar, and diabetes.
It seems that Merck and Sanofi-Aventis are having extreme trouble on both sides of the ocean. French authorities are putting both of them on trial for manslaughter – firing a shot over the bow of the most corrupt industry on earth.
A healthy and normally developing 18-month-old girl showed up for her well baby visit and was pummeled with 9 vaccinations all at once, two of them containing the mercury preservative known as thimerosal. Her health immediately deteriorated into full blown autism.
Big Pharma’s drug lobby machine (the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) increased its financial arm-twisting of Congress by 25% in 2007 – in an effort to ward off competition and lock in bogus psychiatric medication sales to children.
Today the Supreme Court ruled on the first of several related issues that could undermine the rights of citizens to sue drug companies when they have been injured by drugs.
60 Minutes told the world last night that FDA ineptitude over the heart-bypass drug Trasylol cost 1,000 American lives a month, killing at least 22,000 Americans while the FDA dragged its feet.
In the face of mounting drug scandals and perjured congressional testimony, a key House Democrat, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), told the Associated Press that FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach should step down. Stupak sites a “total lack of leadership” as it becomes plainly apparent that the FDA is unable to protect Americans from the dangers of drugs or ensure a safe food supply. The most troubling issue regarding FDA leadership is that many of these issues are due to gross negligence or taking the side of drug companies at the expense of human health.
The non-event of a flu season in 2008 shows just how sensitive health-related corporate America is tied to the profits of illness. A sad pallor set in over investor meetings as hospital chains such as Lifepoint and Health Management Associates reported very poor patient volume and low profits, especially in their cash cow businesses (children and the elderly). The reason for this stellar non-performance: virtually no flu season.
At least 100,000 Americans die every year from the expected as well as unknown side effects of toxic medications used primarily for symptom management. Another 3 million Americans require emergency room assistance to deal with injuries or severe side effects. In the case of Heath Ledger, the dangers in the combinations of the drugs he was taking are well known – except to him.
The Wall Street Journal now calls it Vytoringate – one of the biggest drug frauds in history. Merck and Schering-Plough sat on bad drug trial results of their cholesterol drug and raked in close to 10 billion dollars selling snake oil...Meanwhile, nobody seems to be mentioning that folic acid has already been proven to do what Vytorin was supposed to be doing.
The entertainment community is in shock over the loss of a rising star. Heath Ledger, dead at the age of 28, apparently from an accidental overdose of medication. Autopsy results have been delayed for 10 days, but enough information has already become public to understand what likely took place. Heath Ledger did not need to die…
The great majority of negative studies about popular antidepressants such as Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and Effexor were never published according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, as reported in the New York Times.
Excessively lowering cholesterol has been the mantra of Big Pharma gone wild. Congressional investigation into a fraudulent cover-up of Vytorin study results led Merck and Schering-Plough to reveal what everyone had been suspecting, the main ingredient in their 5-billion-a-year scam failed miserably to do anything useful.
- FDA to Allow Unlabelled Cloned Meat and Milk,
The FDA has now plummeted to an all time low. This despicable band of industry promoters has no idea what real food is. In its financially motivated decree it is now telling Americans that that food from cloned animals is safe to eat and no different than food from normal animals. How dumb does the FDA think the American public is?
In a shocking and blatant attack on women, the FDA has declared estriol illegal. This move is designed to stop compounding pharmacies from making bio-identical hormone creams and will also stop over-the-counter estriol-containing creams from being sold to women. The FDA has no report of any problem from these creams. It is acting on a complaint from Wyeth (the makers of estrogen-containing horse urine extract and Centrum vitamins). Millions of women are adversely affected.
The New Year brings a surprise for the FDA – a lawsuit filed by Public Citizen seeking to force the FDA to do its pretended job of protecting American citizens from the dangers of drugs. Of course, the real FDA job, as prioritized by top FDA management, is to protect the sales of Big Pharma and create new market opportunities for Big Pharma and Big Biotech while using Americans for experimental purposes…
UMass Memorial Medical Center is taking a stab at one form of cancer that permeates the medical profession – free “bribes” from drug companies and medical device makers.
Lipitor for lowering cholesterol (a statin) is the best selling drug of all time. A newly unveiled lawsuit based on information provided by a top former Pfizer exec now turned whistleblower is showing that this stroke of marketing genius was based on blatantly illegal marketing and pushing the drug on Americans who really did not need it. As the poster child for the statin scam Pfizer has likely damaged the health of millions of Americans. Now there is an attempt to hit them where it counts, in the pocket book.
Farmers growing corn for ethanol are no longer farmers in any traditional sense; they are part of the oil industry. It is now being reported that the millions of pounds of nitrogen-based fertilizer needed to grow the corn are entering the Mississippi and going out into the gulf wherein they create a 7,900-square-mile “dead zone” void of oxygen wherein fish, crabs and shrimp suffocate and hostile algae grow.
The International Alliance for Dietary/Food Supplement Associations (IADSA) is actively supporting the use of food coloring in dietary supplements, guidelines that are being written up for the proposed Codex guidelines that pose a grave threat to free access to dietary supplements in America.
The Journal of the American Medical Association has just published a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study showing that the use of antibiotics and nasal steroids is ineffective at treating sinusitis.
The commonly used and much maligned diabetes drug, Avandia, just took another spill down the stairs. A new mouse study shows that the drug weakens bones and is likely to cause osteoporosis in the millions of users in the United States. The drug was shown to get directly in the way of healthy bone function, causing accelerated bone loss and slowed bone growth.
Does it upset anybody to know that 1000 cases of cancer per year are needlessly caused in children by the very doctors who the children are seeing for help? An additional 4000 cases of cancer are caused in children each year under the pretense that taking a picture of the child’s internal body is medically necessary. The frequency of cancer in the adult population from CT scans is 10-20 times the number for children (10,000-20,000 needless cases of cancer plus an additional 40,000-80,000 “justified” cases of cancer).
Flu shots remain a subject of intense controversy. Vaccinations of all types remain the centerpiece of the public health herd-mentality paradigm. Just wait until the Avian flu comes, then you will see public health at its finest. Yes, there will be police-state forced vaccinations with experimental vaccines and no right of recourse if you are injured. Thanks to our generally brain-dead Congress the laws are already on the books.
A preliminary study shows that for every 10 years of birth control pills there is a 20 – 30 percent increase in peripheral artery small plaques. The study was presented at the yearly meeting of the American Heart Association, placing it in the national news spotlight. News stations have been carrying the story and the typical medical spokespeople are trying to allay the fears of millions of birth control pill users. There are two main issues here: the FDA “ineptitude issue” and the “what to do about it issue.”
Is the FDA really changing? Its hard to believe but the FDA finally acted in the best interests of consumers, shooting down a bio-tech drug that made Bayer millions and was at one time on the verge of becoming a blockbuster. I have openly criticized the FDA for some time on Trasylol, as it dragged its feet on this issue for almost two years.
- Doctors Over-prescribe Reflux Meds to Infants 80% of the Time,
The IQ of doctors needs to be measured. Are they really this stupid, or are they just puppets of Big Pharma? A new study has found that doctors are handing out acid suppressing medication to children far in excess of what they should be doing, threatening the digestive health of a child for a lifetime. Sure the child has digestive symptoms. Quite frankly, this 80% over-prescription finding most likely relates to numerous medications. Doctors today have almost no clue how to fix health issues besides robotically writing a prescription for a symptom-suppressing medication.
Trasylol is a drug that promotes clotting and is given during heart by pass surgery. It is one of the new and expensive biotech drugs of Bayer. Patients generally don’t know they are getting it, and it significantly increases kidney failure and the likelihood they will die at a significantly increased rate in the next few years following surgery. You can imagine that giving a clotting drug to patients with clogged arteries may have some problems. There are other options that are inexpensive and don’t carry the risks.
Billions of dollars of profit are at stake. The new generation of biotech drugs is upon us. Will they help or will they kill? The answer, it appears, depends on the dose. More importantly, the answer depends on the moral integrity of oncologists that treat their patients. What should society do with doctors that put money in their pockets as a priority over the lives of their patients?
Since mid summer I was the primary drum beat warning of the grave consequences to health freedom and health in general about turning the FDA into a pseudo drug company by giving it control over the licensing, patenting, and profits of the very drugs it is supposed to be regulating. Congressional birdbrains failed to even debate the most sweeping change of the FDA in a hundred years!
The Wall Street Journal has outlined for the world the rapidly expanding Chinese drug market. Many of the ingredients in brand-name drugs people already take come from China. China is already the largest producer of chemicals for drugs. For example, AstaZeneca’s Seroquel, a powerful anti-psychotic medication that is routinely (and inappropriately) prescribed in an off-label manner to children for mild behavior issues is produced with chemicals that come from China.
The New York Times reports that the FDA fails to ensure the safety of millions of people who participate in experimental clinical trials. In fact, the government doesn’t even have any idea how many of these experiments are taking place. The FDA haphazardly follows up on less than 1%, and when problems are found little or nothing is done.
The FDA reform legislation passed by the House and Senate shows just how corrupt the politics for profit system in America has become. The idea that citizens would have no right to sue a drug company when they are injured or killed by a medication is a difficult pill to swallow. Especially in light of multiple scandals, many ongoing, wherein the FDA and drug companies selectively hide important risks from the public in an effort to protect the profits of Big Pharma at the expense of human health.
Have you ever wondered why the media speaks so highly of drugs and paints safe and effective dietary supplements as either not effective or even dangerous? As the House and Senate finally agreed to a near useless FDA reform and financing package it became painfully clear that advertising dollars were far more important than health or safety of Americans.
he vaccine model of health care has taken another nose five as researchers report that since 2000, when Wyeth’s bacterial strep vaccine Prevnar was put on the market, drug-resistant and rapidly mutating bacteria have moved in to fill the void left by those bacteria treated with the vaccine. While Wyeth sold $1.5 billion of its vaccine last year....
The FDA reports that between 1998 and 2005 deaths and serious injuries from drugs has doubled, a rate of injury significantly faster than the increase in prescriptions. 51 drugs are responsible for the increase, with new biotech drugs that modulate the immune system at the top of the list. 85% percent of those suffering did not have any label warning that the drug they were taking could produce the serious health problem, injury, or death....
Let’s face it, the only things that interest Commissioner of the FDA Andrew von Eschenbach are making new and experimental cancer drugs, turning the FDA into a drug development company, and rushing drugs to the market with less safety testing than already exists. What does he really care about the distraction known as the safety of the food supply?
In an unprecedented move the Department of Defense has agreed to share at least some of its 9.1 million medical records of military personnel and their families with the FDA. The FDA says it wants the information for improved safety monitoring of drugs. This “safety excuse” is a cover for the FDA to set up the technology to efficiently track the entire population’s medical records. By working with the military records the FDA can set up and perfect the IT technology required to do this.
Surprise – Of the 7 million dollars given to the 2008 presidential candidates so far by the health industry Mormon Mitt Romney has taken the lead with $80,000 coming from the Mormon state of Utah’s multi-level vitamin companies Xango, LLC and Melaluca, Inc. To my knowledge Mitt Romney has never taken any public position in support of dietary supplements on any key issue. Mitt Romney has just unveiled a health plan to…
If any person was ever looking for evidence that the medical profession and the FDA were beholden to the drug companies at the expense of human health, the use of anti-psychotic medication in our children is the classic example. On August 22, 2007 the FDA approved Johnson & Johnson’s atypical anti-psychotic drug Risperdal for the treatment of schizophrenia in adolescents, ages 13 to 17, and for the short-term treatment of manic or mixed episodes of bipolar disorder in children and adolescents ages 10 to 17. In so doing the FDA has silently condoned the use of this class of powerful brain-altering drug to be given for off label use to treat temper tantrums and behavioral outbursts in children of all ages. This is sick beyond comprehension…
Merck’s Vioxx pain killer needlessly killed anywhere from 50,000 to 150,000 people. It was allowed on the market by the FDA even though FDA managers knew there were major problems. Merck certainly knew there were major problems. Those who were seriously injured or the families of those who were killed have sought monetary damages from Merck, rather than criminal prosecution of Merck executives and FDA managers....
The Washington Post now reports the death of a 36-year-old woman who was the sole participant in another experiment with a biotech drug made of genetically altered viruses. The dead woman’s husband reports she was deceived as to the risks of the experiment. Consumers beware – this is the new era of biotech medicine…
The Washington Post reports that FDA managers are given preference for bonuses over technical and scientific staff, a practice that has been going on while the very same managers have been actively hiding safety data from the public and failing to act to inform the public when a drug is known to have an increased risk of death as a side effect....
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