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.
I got my dad off insulin. Suffered from the 'sugar disease' as did his father. Sad thing is hefound the diet too bland and prefered his lifelong habits. He didn't last very many years as it literally wasted him away. My bro has the same and thinks I'm an idiot for suggesting a connection beteen food and diet. Sad to see him sticking himself everyday.
I used to think that seafood was less loaded with toxins than factory farmed beef and pork. But I recently read that over 80% of our seafood is imported. But less than 5% of the foreign processing plants and less than 1% of the arriving seafood is inspected. Mostly you are eating seafood that is raised in fish farms in the most unsanitary and chemically intensive methods imaginable.
That nice piece of shrimp you had on your sushi or in your stir-fry probably was raised in a tank of sewage water in India or Cambodia or Vietnam and then bleached to hide the toxic discoloration before being frozen. The chemical load in most of what passes for food is insanely high. It actually takes a lot of knowledge and effort to eat stuff that's not a slow form of poison.
Which is why I'm constantly expanding my garden and have started to take on farm animals. I also benefit from my parents' farm (naturally raised beef and lamb) and my dad's hunting skills (we've been enjoying elk all year).
Remember the Chumbawamba Trilogy:
Gold, Guns, Garden
And the corollary:
Silver, Bullets, Seed
As for medicine generally, there is no magic to it. When a bone breaks, you set it: the body will do the rest. When you're sick, you give the body what it needs; it'll do the rest. Doctors are not there to heal you, because they can't. It's as impossible for them to fix you as it is for you to fix the healthcare system in this country. Doctors can only be there to help you give your body what it needs so it can fix itself.
Buy a book on traditional herbal medicines and you will become a better doctor than your doctor. They'll start coming to you for advice.
Everything you think you know is a lie.
P.S. Sorry you got junked. I didn't realize the seafood lobby was active on ZH.
I am Chumbawamba.
what happened to the woman in your trilogy? or is it confidential? you sound like you are ready for WW III!
Exactly! There was a woman in the store the other day just going on and on, raving about this wonderful fish that they get from halfway 'round the world.
I could tell she was very proud of herself for having remembered the exact location, so I just nodded, smiled and walked away.
"It's from Vietnam" she said. "From the Mekong River!"