By Carolanne Wright Contributing writer for Wake Up World
“It is scary how many similarities there are between this
[pharmaceutical] industry and the mob. The mob makes obscene amounts of money,
as does this industry. The side effects of organized crime are killings and
deaths, and the side effects are the same in this industry. The mob bribes politicians
and others, and so does the drug industry …” ~ former Vice-President
of Pfizer pharmaceuticals ¹
If you
believe pharmaceutical corporations hold the health of the general public
in high regard, it’s time to reconsider. The industry is filled with examples
of wrongful death, extortion, fraud, corruption, obstruction of justice,
embezzlement, fake journals, harassment and hit lists that would make even the
most hardened Mafia godfather blush. Big Pharma has been fined billions by
the U.S. Department of Justice, but these enormous fines don’t curb the
corruption, it’s just looked upon as “the cost of doing business,” similar to
paying the utilities.
As a physician and
researcher, Peter C Gøtzsche has firsthand experience with the criminality
behind the pharmaceutical industry — and subsequently exposed the massive
fraud in “Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime: How Big Pharma Has Corrupted
Healthcare.”
Dangerous Science
Dr. Gøtzsche has an
impressive clinical background, as noted by The Nordic Cochrane Center — a
not-for-profit organization that produces credible, accessible health
information that is free from commercial sponsorship and other conflicts of
interest:
Professor Peter C Gøtzsche
graduated as a Master of Science in biology and chemistry in 1974 and as a
physician 1984. He is a specialist in internal medicine; worked with clinical
trials and regulatory affairs in the drug industry 1975-1983, and at hospitals in
Copenhagen 1984-95. With about 80 others, he helped start The Cochrane
Collaboration in 1993 with the founder, Sir Iain Chalmers, and established The
Nordic Cochrane Centre the same year. He became professor of Clinical Research
Design and Analysis in 2010 at the University of Copenhagen.
Peter has published more than
70 papers in “the big five” (BMJ, Lancet, JAMA, Ann Intern Med and N Engl J
Med) and his scientific works have been cited over 15,000 times. Peter is also
author of:
·
Deadly Psychiatry and Organized Denial (to
appear in September 2015)
·
Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime: How Big
Pharma Has Corrupted Healthcare (2013)
·
Mammography Screening: Truth, Lies and
Controversy (2012)
·
Rational Diagnosis and Treatment:
Evidence-Based Clinical Decision-Making (2007)
A large part of Dr. Gøtzsche’s academic career has focused on
bias, trials and evidence synthesis.
In “Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime,” Gøtzsche
reveals the corruption behind exorbitant prices for branded drugs,
bringing attention to the fact that drugs are not expensive because of
development costs, but because of the political lobbying, marketing and excess
profit taking. He also points out many trials are nothing more than smoke and
mirrors, where pharmaceutical companiesorganize
research in such a way that the best populations and comparison groups are
selected for the very reason that they support the preferred outcome of
the company; they control data and do analyses in-house and
hire professional writers to write the papers. The pharmaceutical companies
then cherry pick the results to suit their marketing needs, instead of
what’s in the best interest of patients. Many times, academics are paid to be
listed as contributors to the study, yet in reality, they had very little input
and cannot substantiate the data. According to Gøtzsche, “The ‘best’ drugs may simply be those with the most shamelessly
biased data.”
Moreover, Gøtzsche drives home the truth that
pharmaceuticals are just plain dangerous for a variety of reasons:
“Our prescription drugs are the
third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer in the United
States and Europe. Around half of those who die have taken their drugs
correctly; the other half die because of errors, such as too high a dose or use
of a drug despite contraindications. Our drug agencies are not particularly
helpful, as they rely on fake fixes, which are a long list of warnings,
precautions, and contraindications for each drug, although they know that no
doctor can possibly master all of these. Major reasons for the many drug deaths
are impotent drug regulation, widespread crime that includes corruption of the
scientific evidence about drugs and bribery of doctors, and lies in drug
marketing, which is as harmful as tobacco marketing and, therefore, should be
banned. We should take far fewer drugs, and patients should carefully study the
package inserts of the drugs their doctors prescribe for them and independent
information sources about drugs such as Cochrane reviews, which will make it
easier for them to say “no thanks”.”²
Before you shrug-off
Gøtzsche’s argument as simply one man’s view on a complex issue, consider
pharmaceutical giant Merck’s tainted history.
Hit Lists, Fake Journals,
Harassment and Big Money
During testimony in an
Australian class action case, emails between Merck employees
presented labels such as “neutralize,” “neutralized,” or “discredit” next
to doctors’ names who criticized the drug Vioxx.
One email said:
“We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live
…”
The court was told James
Fries, professor of Medicine at Stanford University, wrote to the head of Merck
in October 2000, complaining about the harassment certain members
of his team were receiving who had criticized the drug.
“Even worse were allegations
of Merck damage control by intimidation,” he wrote, … “This has happened
to at least eight (clinical) investigators … I suppose I was mildly threatened
myself but I never have spoken or written on these issues.”
Jump to 2001 and the
company was still engaging in unethical tactics. Merck apparently:
Produced a fake ‘peer
reviewed’ journal under the name of “Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint
Medicine” for the sole purpose of marketing pro-Vioxx articles.
Published an entirely
ghostwritten journal article and had a doctor sign his name to it, even though
a Merck employee felt the data presented was “wishful thinking.”
With this three-ring
circus of corruption projected to become worse in the future, the
American Medical Association (AMA) has — right on cue — brought forward new
guidelines which will essentially place a gag order on any physicians who do
not tow the party line, including those who speak out against pharmaceuticals.
“There’s a great deal of
dissent among medical professionals when it comes to natural health, and many
refuse to entertain the idea that healing involves more than pharmaceutical
chemicals. The American Medical Association has recently set forth new
guidelines that will: “create ethical guidelines for physicians in the media,
write a report on how doctors may be disciplined for violating medical ethics
through their press involvement, and release a public statement denouncing the
dissemination of dubious medical information through the radio, TV, newspapers,
or websites,”’ said Dr. Edward Group, founder of the Global Healing Center.
Incredibly, the AMA
represents only 17% of medical doctors, many of which are medical students who
were given a free membership. And yet, the organization is the fifth most
powerful special interest group on Capitol Hill, paying out a staggering $19.7
million for lobbying efforts in 2014 alone.
Read more about the silencing of medical dissenters — and how to
take action — here.
Article sources:
·
¹“Richard Smith: Is the pharmaceutical industry like the mafia?
Retrieved on July 13, 2015 from: http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2013/09/10/richard-smith-is-the-pharmaceutical-industry-like-the-mafia/
·
²“Our prescription drugs kill us in large numbers” Gøtzsche PC,
Pol Arch Med Wewn. 2014;124(11):628-34. Epub 2014 Oct 30. Retrieved on July 13,
2015 from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25355584
https://wakeup-world.com/2015/07/25/big-pharma-and-organized-crime-they-are-more-similar-than-you-may-think/
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