Big Pharma Death Throes

Record levels of television advertisements for psychiatric drugs and wild forays to create pro-drug legislation may only be the thrashing throes of death for Big Pharma. Long able to somehow cloak the less-than-positive test results for many new pharmaceuticals, especially certain pain relievers and psychiatric potions, the lies have now reached a critical mass, and the truth is starting to erupt in waves. In the last two days there have been no less than three major news items chronicling the tailspin of the industry that more than any other seems to care nothing for people and the public.

Following scathing testimony in congress regarding suppressed tests for depression drugs showing they cause suicidal tendencies and many other dangerous side effects, the recent exposure of the pain-reliever Vioxx as a killer drug has been followed by continual bad news for the industry.

The front page news a few days ago was the government survey of the staff of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) -- the group that approves or disapproves drugs for use by the public. Apparently long in bed with Big Pharma, the FDA has been under attack. The survey showed that two thirds of FDA scientists don't trust the FDA to do what is best for the public.

This shocker is followed by the emergence of yet another PR disaster. The National Institute of Health stopped a study on Celebrex and Naproxen, drugs that Big Pharma was trying to foist off as solutions to Alzheimer's disease. It turned out after three years of testing that subjects taking the drugs had a 50% greater incidence of heart attacks and strokes than the control subjects in the same test. At about the same time, officials stopped advertising for Celebrex in it's already-approved capacity as a pain reliever, because of a discovered heart-attack risk. Another pain reliever in the same chemical family, Aleve, is also under attack.

Then, to add insult to injury, or maybe injury to injury, the FDA ordered a warning added to the ADHD drug Strattera. Use of the drug has resulted in liver failure and death in some cases, apparently. So yet another bogus drug for yet another bogus psych-defined disease is on its way to the scrapheap.

The nosedive is spectacular. We can hear the propeller winding up faster and faster as this insane industry speeds to its ultimate crash, propelled by the weight of decades of lies and deception, making billions of dollars on the sale of drugs that cause insanity rather than help it, kill rather than cure.

There is a place for drugs. Many lives have been saved by antibiotics. Diseases that used to ravage the world have been exterminated or reduced to next-to-nothing. But sitting on their laurels, and forgetting their real purpose, which was to help man and make him better, these pharma gorillas have been attacking the lives and sanity of our society for long enough. It's about time we put a stop to it.