Abbott Lab's cholesterol drug, Niaspan, got a patent way back in 1997.
The folks at Abbott have been selling a ton of this crap ever since. It
is in the Top 50 of all drug sales. I don’t have the total
cumulative sales, but in 2009 global revenue came to $717,000,000, in
2010 it was more than $900mm. Over the life of the drug, total sales are
in the tens of billions. The stuff is worthless. It might even be bad for you.
The National Institute of Health did a five-year study. The conclusion:
"The lack of effect on cardiovascular events is unexpected and a striking contrast to the results of previous trials and observational studies," said Jeffrey Probstfield, M.D.
NPR had this guy (another expert) on air to discuss the findings. When
asked to comment on the results of the NIH study he had this to say:
"The drug did not change the health outcome at all."
"We’re not as smart as we thought we were."
The Congressional Budget Office did a write up
about this last week. The CBO found that in 2008 spending for drug
promotion came to $21 billion in just the US. Of that ¼ was spent on ads
to consumers. The CBO raises the very legitimate question of whether
this promotional effort by the drug companies is actually educating the
public or just manipulating the public to buy drugs that are either not
needed or simply don’t work at all.
I bitch and moan about the banks, the Fed, Treasury, the SEC and the
other financial players that seem to be lying and cheating us on a
regular basis. Add to that list the drug companies. The big pharmas are
the same as the banks. They don’t really care about their customers.
They just want to sell pills and make profits. They have the FDA in
their pocket. As usual, the average citizen gets thrown under a bus.
The best source for D3 is sockeye salmon oil...
http://www.vitalchoice.com/shop/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=126&idcategory=239
You can also get in in geltabs, which would be better, I think, because I got the liquid and- it's not that it tastes real bad but the flavour stays with you for hours.
Key nutrients per serving Each 3/4 tsp (3,000 mg) serving provides these naturally occurring nutrients†:(everybody do their own research and check out brands that don't charge a huge fee for shipping or that are hyped as better... when the best source for vitamin D is the sun and second is a teaspoon of unrefined cod liver oil which has 4 times the IU as that product, or better yet a couple ounces of salmon)
Vitamin D is a great supplement. Most folks should also be taking a supplement of magnsium (magnesim citrate) and vitamin K2 (the MK-7 form) (which will probably be "the next" vitamin D as far as its underreported-thusfar importance.
Half of todays drugs don't work well, they're just money makers. I tried Claratin for almost a year for allergies and it didn't work. Then I read an article in the NY Times that said it did nothing for over 50% of the people that took it!
Here's the basic problem: anything one takes, a sugar pill, for example, will have some effect on a perceived condition. This placebo effect is typically as high a 20% of a double blind efficacy study. So, the condition that a drug is effective is set higher, say at 30% of the test population. So, this means 70% of the trial population has no positive response to the drug. Yet the drug will be approved. So your observation is built into this method of determining efficacy. The individual variation in response is so large that statistical methods of efficacy determination (the only kind) can be rather useless.
But proper diet and more importantly, exercise, are hard and require discipline. So, people want a pill and the pill pushers want them to buy it. Side effects be damned.
Yep, same results for me with Viagra ....
Thanks for bringing this up Bruce.
I fell off the pharma-is-good wagon a half dozen years or so ago...the internet is quite a source of truth if one cares to find it. And, as almost is always the case, it is a follow the money story.
Turns out Rockefeller and Carnegie are probably to blame for our pharma led medical establishment. After Rockefeller was slapped down as a monopolistic in the oil business he had to have something to do...so he went medical.
The short version of the story is...he basically (bought) took over the nearly bankrupt AMA. Took over the boards of the allopathic medical schools and saw to that alternative medical schools got no funding, or were outright closed down. Made big investments in pharma's and had his, now controlled, medical establishment emphasize the need for patent protected pharmas in their teaching. And a funny side note, Rockefeller himself didn't like allopathic doctors. He used a Naturopathic doctor.
100% correct, Whatta. Drugs are shit, plain and simple. Most only treat symptoms, not causes. Homeopathic medicine was denied fund by the establishment, and away went our medical system.
Most of my friends are on some form of medication. I call them idiots and suggest diet, exercise, herbs, etc. None listen. Meanwhile, I'm 57, have smoked (natural tobacco for the past 15 years) since I was 16, play tennis, hoops, ride a bike, do yard work and everything without the assistance of Big Pharma or the medical establishment.
I have never carried any form of health care coverage as I despise the insurance companies almost as much as pharma and the banks. My father used to ask me what I would do if I was diagnosed with cancer, and my response was always, "die."
Accepting death as the eventual outcome makes for better living, IMO.
As someone who had cancer at the age of 12 (and now in my mid-20's am long-rid of it), I assure you that it is not that simple. While you are welcome to your own opinion, I assure you its much easier to say that you would just die if diagnosed with cancer when it has not actually happened to you. Many things may be curable through non-pharmaceutial/surgical methods, but many are not as well. You better believe my parents were glad they had health insurance for me or we would still be paying it off.
That is a wonderful thing a congrats for being cancer-free.
I don't believe that most posters here would opt-out of a cancer regimen if proven they had it. They would prefer to avoid getting it and have made changed in their lifestyles to try to avoid it.
I think we are saying that we don't need a pill to make our eyelashes grow longer. Do not take if pregnant or nursing...
FreeNew...
I am pretty much doctor free. I am a fair-skinned, too-much-sun TX boy though and getting treatment for some basal cell skin cancers a few years back pretty much "cured me" of going to the doctors. I had to see three doctors at the time for something that my previous dermatologist successfully treated by himself in one visit. I aksed each of the three (dermatolagist, Moh's surgeon and Plastic surgeon) the same question...
What can I do to keep this from happening again?"
There answers: derma: slather spf 50 every day, Moh's guy: shrug of shoulders and 'we can try blue light ALA treatment', and plastic surgeon: (the gall of the guy)," I cut to cure".
Next, when my mom passed a few years back my bros and myself were cleaning her house out. We knew she was seeing three different MD's and taking meds, but GEEBUS, she must have had 50 different Rx bottles.
I have pretty much sworn off MD's except in the case of acute trauma...a vitamin won't do much to fix a broken bone, but otherwise as was said by the ancient philosopher...
...The Purpose Of Modern Medicine Is To Amuse The Patient While Nature Cures Him.
I'm a masters student in an orthopaedic surgery lab. 30-40 Hz vibration at 0.3 G will accelerate fracture healing with a more mineralized/larger callus. You don't need any drugs or surgical intervention (well depends on how comminuted or misaligned it is). If interested look up Clint Rubin's work out of SUNY stoney brook <http://bme.sunysb.edu/people/faculty/c_rubin.html>. High frequency low magnitude vibration has been proven to enhance fracture healing- no hocus pocus.
While we are having some fun bashing pharma...thsi is out of an entry I made back in 2009 on my own attempt at blogging (and was the only person to have ever read it...LOL...
From a Price Waterhouse Coopers publication entitled "Pharma 2020: The Vision". Ooh, sounds intriguing and insightful. I downloaded the pdf, I forget where I found it, but I imagine it is still available somewhere on the web.
Page 7
So, this "vision" hinges on specific "profitable" diseases. And, packages of products...sell them more drugs at a time. Maybe that'll make us better in more of a hurry? And "targeted treatments"...is that a code word for "disease mongering"? The PLoS had an entire issue devoted to disease mongering
Page 22
I don't like to be a Negative Nelly, but this is undoubtedly going to offer false hopes to many people. And it is, yet again, a "give me a pill, Doc" false cure for a personal behavior issues. And, we are talking about targeting drugs and treatments for The Healthy. Pharma can't live with only treating the sick and in need...they must expand and grow. The healthy are next in line.
Page 24
Non-compliance, meaning someone gets a prescription from the Doc and either says, I am NOT going to fill it, or take it...or maybe does fill it and does take it for a while and has side effects, etc. Pharma sees you as the enemy. They need you to take that drug, and mostly thye NEED you to get the refills. Imagine a Public-option government controlled healthcare system - where lobbyists have "sold" (actually bought) the idea to government that you can't be "cured" if you are not taking your meds, and that you can't be trusted to take them on your on. That knock on the door is your GCO (Government Compliance Officer), there to give you the pill and watch it go down the hatch. Could happen, very easily that could happen.
Your research is exactly correct, Whatta. Imagine the man was a money-making hypocrite. He went to a doctor who prescribed vitamins, water and exercise!
The main problem is the ties in big pharma to the AMA, along with the insurance companies. It is all a roundabout scam of back-scratching that goes on. As Whatta said, the be in the club was to get paid because they have made it such that if you have no sponsorship from the AMA, you can't get a job as a physician.
You can open your own clinic, sure, but there would be a backlash campaign wrought against you by the local physicians for upsetting the apple cart. Don't believe me?
In Houston a few years ago, there was a challenge to the status quo in medicine delivery. A couple of giant hospital systems basically control the market: Memorial Hermann and The Methodist. A group of surgeons got together and created their own surgical facility outside of the duopoly. It was good size, as people travel to Houston from all over the world for their medical care.
The funny thing was, when they tried to get insurance coverage and approval for their medical facility, they found it nearly impossible to get through the red tape and the foot-dragging by the insurance companies, despite the fact that they had created a world-class facility. A couple of years later, it was discovered that the insurance companies were in cahoots with the duopoly, particularly Memorial Hermann, and deliberately sabotaged the surgeons' venture.
A million dollar fine or so, and it was all forgotten. The facility is now a hotel or a mall or something on Beltway 8.
The problem goes deeper than whether niacin is indeed a drug or even whether B3 is even effective in preventing heart disease. There is a giant game being played with the health of the American people, even as costs sky-rocket. The AMA, insurance companies and giant hospital systems are to blame for this and, you're right, Bruce, their immoral deeds are right up there with the banksters.
I don't believe the original post was about the healthcare in general, but since you brought up the issue, I have something to say. Healthcare, in it's primitive form, is between one patient and one doctor. The practice of medicine, in essence, will not change, it will not change in the next centuries. The issue is how to pay for service. Whether you bring a insurance card or a live chicken to pay the doctors' service or even who should pay for your care is the central issue. Healthcare cannot be a business, like the way it runs today. Saving a life cannot be motivated by money. We run healthcare today for a complete wrong reason. Furthermore, healthcare insurance is misleading, because almost everyone will use healthCare, how can that be insurance? Insurance is for low probability event. On the other hand, healthcare costs a lot money. It's up to the society to decide what kind of society we want. Back to the care, your doctor will need a pill or a scalpel to do the job. You will not be satisfied by just talking to you and advising you to have a healthy life style in general.
Lies coming from anyone whose income is derived from an untruth.
Imagine that.
And in this US world order, that is a lot of a lot of people.
Actually, it's not all simply lies. Pharmas can only say things backed up by clinical trials, so in order to plain lie, they need to fake a clinical trial, which requires complicity of a lot of participating doctors, and is not actually easy to do.
In this case, as Bruce's quotes make clear, they had earlier trials which indicated that niacin worked (supposedly raised HDL "good" cholesterol). The ads were based on that. Of course, trials can be a bit squishy and badly designed, but rarely are they outright frauds. The fact that this new trial blew away their drug shows some integrity in the system.
Actually, the whole HDL "good" cholesterol hypothesis is possibly fading. Pfizer had a highly touted drug called torcetrapib which raised HDL, and they were counting on many $$$billions from that. But in a large trial the treated arm showed higher cardiac deaths and they abandoned the trial early. (More of that there integrity showing.)
The FDA is not simply in the pharma pocket. They are tasked with evaluating trials and their results to determine if drugs are safe and medical indications are supported. In that role, they are in a perpetual squeeze between the pharmas who invest a lot of money and want a yes answer; and politicians who take a lot of pharma money and don't want "bureaucratic regulation" to interfere with free enterprise; and patients (yes, a lot of patients love these drugs as an alternative to pesky lifestyle modification or as a last hope for the dying) and scientific integrity. The FDA does say no sometimes (though usually the pharma sees the writing on the wall and abandons the applicaton if the answer will be no.) The drug regulation system is not perfect, but has a lot more integrity than Wall Street. You can go read the trial data yourself and see what the indication is based on, and judge for yourself if you want to take the medicine. No need to whine or depend on adverts on cable news.
you might want to do a little research on the FDA & the connections to Monsanto, particularly with regards GMO & irradiated food and how pervasive it is within amrkn fud.
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-07-08-monsanto-FDA-taylor
this may get you started (and I didn't junk you, fyi)
Plaquing in the body has nothing to do with cholesterol. It is a myth they having been trying to shove down our throats, like so many other things.
Instead, it has to do with the body's reaction to inflammation, particularly in arterial mura, which are muscles. Statin drugs help reduce the inflammation reaction in that case, which is why they work.
But nothing- at all- to do with the wonderful brain food called cholesterol. You can bring down the cholesterol all day long but if you don't stop the inflammation reaction, you're only commiting harm.
P.S. Aspirin is only slightly less effective than statin drugs in that regard.
:D
Loving you so much right now baby.
cellular level inflammation and chronic disease = massive Big Finance Capital profits.
Big Finance Capital BFC) sits atop all mega industries - agra, pharma, chemical, military, security, government, etc...
the "system" in place is one designed to maximize Big Finance Capital profits.
BFC Agra: Industrial GMO foods increase inflammation and drive hunger - more sales for BFC Agra.
BFC Pharma: reap profits from BFC agra's inflammatory "food" as the inflammation turns to chronic disease. in addition, BFC pharma puts out inflammation increasing vaccines, thereby creating more customers down the line. the flu shot has never been proven effective in a randomized, double blind placebo study.
BFC Chemical: puts all sorts of chemicals in the food and the water that result in negative health incomes over decades - cha-ching!
BFC Media: they won't hurt their advertising money flow - so you get propaganda that maximizes BFC profits AND NOT THE TRUTH.
if you want out, combine dr. barry sears' zone diet (with high dose, high quality fish oil), eat non GMO natural foods, avoid vaccines, drink organically remineralized filtered water and use all that extra energy to get active (but wait until Fukushima dies down a bit, IMHO).
dupl
These findings were the conclusions of an Indian study of its' railroad employess. It was the largest of its' kind and investigated the commonalies of coronary disease, using hundreds of thousand of people,IIRC. Iteresting stuff which gets no play in our 'free and open' media.
Short and concise Mr Raccoon.
It would be nice to live in a world where everyone wasn't being screwed all the time by just about everyone else. Anyone want to start a little "punisher" type team?
count me in! Do we need "them" to destroy our families first?
Or can we do a little prePunishment?
i think a reactive approach might be best. easier to get recruits with evidence of foul play. not to mention popular support for the "team." Save your own family of course. The rest will be a culling of the general populace.
Sure, but until then let's fling poo at the elites.
Funny how they can patent viatmin B3.
they probably patented the formulation (tablet, capsule) which is slow release
how about the patents on genes in your body,, now thats a croc...
Wait till people start getting sued for 'patent infringement'.
too complicated... I`m going for exclusive rights to distribute breathable air.
All things must be monetized. I'm predicting a Convenience Fee for the use of Verbs, RSN.
It's a good thing you didn't use a question mark because we invented it and have the patent.
Sincerely,
Bristol Myers Squid
big pharma is the FDA is big pharma
Big pharma is part of the elite control system, along with baks, government and the military industrial complex. The depth of the lies has not come to light, not even close. You need er treatment? Great western medicine is fine. Otherwise, beware.
Unless you've broken a bone stay away from doctors, even then - think twice.
Western medicine has a terrible history of quackery, most of the useful things have come out of the many wars and deal with accute presentations and their management. Other cultures, such as China and India have recorded medical proceedures spanning thousands of years, until very recently much has been simply dismissed. (I think Nixon's visit to a dentist in China and the use of acupuncture as an anesthetic got attention globally).
Just had lunch with family and it was surreal. Sitting around complaining about allergies and headaches with eating crap that I wouldn't feed to a dog. American food is mostly shit. Hard to buy real bread, the red meat and poultry is loaded with poison, maybe seafood is ok. Hey just ask the drug dealer for a pill and pray for the best.
I have many anecdotal stories: One buddy, in his 80's was bedridden with sciatica. His doctress was worthless, she couldn't find the right magic pharma offering. I too him to an old time Chinese acupunturist. I was having a smoke while waiting for him to finish his session when I heard some one running towards me. Turning around there he was charging at me with a big smile. BTW, when he told his doctress what happened she was pissed for having gone off the reervation.
American red meat and white bread medicine, what a deadly, miserable joke.
+1. Sciatica...ugh!
About 10 years ago I got hit by a cop car during a training ride. Aside from scars, bruises, a busted bike, and a big fat dent in the cop car, there were no outward signs of injury. After a couple of weeks, my lower back was in so much pain, that I could only lie face down on the floor with ice packs.
Insurance/lawyers wanted to medicate, send me to surgery (based on opinions), then to PT. Instead, I started working with this mountain mystic-yogi, and having regular deep tissue body-work/PT done. Torquemada had nothing on this guy, but his methods, while incredibly painful, worked. I started practicing Yoga, and eating better...it was a total "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" (a book I highly recommend) kind of experience.
From something bad, came an incredible awakening. It bothers me to this day when people go under the knife without exploring such alternatives, where possible. The body has an amazing ability to heal itself if fed, and maintained correctly. HTH.
Having worked in construction back in the 80's, I injured my lower back. It became progressively worse until I found a Doctor who used Prolotherapy. Essentially the injection of sugar into the injured ligaments. After three treatments my back was better than ever. The sugar causes locallized inflamation which brings healing blood and oxygen to the damaged site and results in ligament repair. Sure worked for me.
+2. Same experience.
About 25 years ago, I suddenly developed a bad sciatica and, like you, I could only gain [temporary] relief by lying face down on a hard floor and pressing my shoulders into the floor (this 'McKenzie technique' came from a book called 'Treat Your Own Back'). Had regular sessions with a prominent sports physiotherapist that only gave relief for a few days after each session; had a few sessions with a highly recommended chiropractor that were a complete waste of time and money; saw a leading orthopaedic surgeon, who diagnosed degenerative spondylitis and planned to operate to fuse a few vertabrae together (but I won't let anyone near my body with a knife)! Also tried a few other things, like acupuncture and moxi.
Then....after about 2 years of excruciating pain and regular, fruitless medical expenses....I happened to see a '60 Minutes' "exposé" on how a Torquemada-like natural practitioner in Sydney was curing kids of tunnel vision and migraines by effectively stretching them between two 'gorillas'! They were "shocked"; I was "intrigued". So I immediately got on the phone to a friend in Sydney to see if he knew anything about this guy and it turned out that one of his close friends was actually being trained by him!... so I booked the 5,000 mile flight and saw him a few days later. He fixed my back in a SINGLE freaking one-hour intensive massage session!! I had another short 'top-up' session a few years later while travelling through Sydney and have not had a back problem since! I have since sent family and staff to him with similar results.
On the OP's topic of diabetes, cholesterol and drugs: I am a director of a pharmaceutical company with patented natural cures for most common cancers, gastro-intestinal problems and auto-immune diseases (including MS and chronic asthma). Way too many diseases are simply caused by a combination of bad diet and too-early childhood immunisation. The bad diet introduces harmful proteins (like gluten) and the body's immune (digestive) system then over-reacts to these proteins, generally as a result of having been triggered too early by vaccinations as an infant but it can also be genetic. Diabetes and weight gain are usually the direct result. It's too complicated to discuss here but, suffice to say, don't let any medical practitioner with a needle anywhere near your kids and, if you have ANY weight, gastric or auto-immune problems, get gluten (wheat flour) out of your diet immediately and totally!!
The medical "profession" was far more effective back when they only prescribed leeches or aspirin.
I-Dog. What is your company and what is your view on the correlation btn body acidity, inflammation, and cancer?
Apologies for the delayed reply.
Re: Inflammations: I don't have any direct knowledge of the causative effects of body acidity. But I can say that most inflammations are the result of immune system over-reactions (hypersensitivity) to 'foreign' proteins - where the body's amplified attempt to 'digest' the 'foreign' protein causes it to generate highly reactive molecules (can't remember the name offhand, will edit this post tomorrow after talking to The Professor) that wreak havoc with tissues throughout the body and in unpredicable places (maybe in adjacent tissue [eg. ulcers] or maybe even in the brain).
Re: Cancers: As time goes on, more and more cancers are being 'discovered' to be caused by viruses. Again, proteins are involved - insofar as the protective coating of the virus, and the active 'spikes' that they use to enter and exit from host cells, are protein strands that the body's immune system cannot 'digest' in order to either disable the virus or attack the viral nucleus. Our natural plant extracts [proteases] actually 'chop up' these protein strands to both disable the viruses and expose the nuclei to the body's standard defenses. In the same way, these proteases also 'chop up' harmful food proteins (like gluten in wheat flour and casein in milk) so that those who are extremely allergic to them can actually eat them normally and gain the essential amino acids they would otherwise miss.
I cannot advertise our products here (both the FDA and WHO would jump all over me): I'm only giving advice on what is known and what the medical profession will never tell you (because they have no fucking idea of the actual biochemical mechanisms involved).
FWIW, the sciatica treatment was for my buddy, I went for a back problem. I had this recurring stabbing feeling between my shoulder blades and othe concerns. I had been to an MD,two chiro's, a muscle 'therapist', and one acupunturest (also Chinese). I had only very temporary respite. With this second acupuncts urist (who correctly referred to me aa 'white round eyed devil' I got enough improvement to become active enough normalize my circulation and heal.
What I getting at is that much depends on the skill of the doctor, and the desired result is for the patient to heal - not to be a source of recurring income. One test of a practitioner is to have him diagnose you without you having to explain your discomfort, it can be done by checking pulse stregth at various points of your body.
Years ago I herniated a disk in my neck. The pain was intense and eventually my fingers went numb. I did the usual surgical opinions and was near having the surgery when a friend mentioned the book "Pain Free" by Pete Egoscue. I read the book, travelled to Del Mar on my buck, and went through their therapy. Within six weeks of diligent physical therapy based on a specialized program the pain was gone as well as the numbness in my fingers. I oftern refer folks to this book as it works. Downside: My health insurer Anthem Blue Cross rated me for not having the surgery. Yep, gotta love it. I paid for my own recovery only to get screwed by the insurers....
Also try reading Bill Moyer's book "Healing and the Mind" Wake up call...
From something bad, came an incredible awakening.
Sad thing is, the body wants to heal itself. We constantly undergo destruction and reconstruction, and uder natural conditions things will repair. Airway, breathing circulation - sound familiar? If circulation is disrupted dis ease begins. Add your psudo phamicals and disruption commences.
But hell, every body wants to make a buck and the medical scam is better them some. I mean if someone steals your money you get upset. OTOH, buiding a spider web of meds around you lets the spider suck your life force out a little bit at a time.
Tired, No junk from yaby. I work in a ER, the correct use of antibiotics is God send for people. The pneumonia that would kill you thirty years ago is cleaned up 750 mg of levaquin iv with some take home meds. UTI's URI's all cleaned up for the good of the patient. You are VERY correct in your assessment of the US diet, it is based on garbage. Diabetes is growth industry for big Pharma.
while I understand that people presenting themselves in ER's probably will "benefit" from antibiotic pills, and the pills themselves are easier to prescribe than dietary & life changes, there is growing evidence that "superbugs" are evolving faster than the "antibiotics" - including some great new pathogens:
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/newPathogenInRoundupReadyGMCrops.php
for what it's worth, I have successfully used alternatives to allopathic medicine most of my life, and can recommend folk doing some research to verify for themselves:
colloidal silver
garlic - one clove, crushed, let sit for 15min to maximise allicin, swallow (raw only for healing purposes, cooked as flavouring)
eucalyptus oil - few drops in hot water, inhaled - for persistant lung infections
bentonite clay - for binding & removing toxins
apple cider vinegar - helps alkalise the body
these are the basics I am never without, inexpensive & easy to use, and share, with others. . . also add various herbs & vitamins at times, but the above is the core.
(with regards diabetes, it is a cultivated dis-ease, and the explosion of diagnoses can be related to High Fructose Corn Syrup & GMO Corn in the food supply - fed to animals on feedlots to bulk them up prior to weighing, selling & slaughter as fud - think about it!)
CA,
Thanks for the great suggestions. I'm never without mint (from my garden) and ginger root (I'm hoping to plant some soon). Was a big help recently when I came down with mysterious abdominal pain. A spearmint/gingerroot tea would absolutely quell the (dull) pain and now the symptoms are going away.
I only recently read about using bentonite clay to remove heavy metal pollutants and other toxins from the body, including radioactive isotopes. Here's a useful read:
http://farmwars.info/?p=6062
Modern medicine, like everything else "modern" in our modern society, is a FUCKING FRAUD.
I am Chumbawamba.