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Monday 9 July 2012

Fraud and corruption. The Media? Banking? Or Big Pharma? Which is worst?

Everywhere, Big Corporations seem to be under fire for corruption and fraud. 

The mainstream Media, and in particular News International, has been beset with difficulties arising from phone hacking scandals. The Banking industry is facing serious investigations into its business practices. And as a recent blog on this website has indicated, Big Pharma is facing serious problems relating to serious fraud and corruption.

So which is worse?
The Media has intervened in people's lives, and no doubt engaged in illegality in order to do so. The Regulatory Agency is accused of being weak and ineffective. But to my knowledge, no mainstream Media organisation is accused of actually killing anyone, and certainly not with the knowledge and connivance of the Regulator!

The Banking industry has brought the world's economy to the brink of bankruptcy through various nefarious activities designed to produce profit. Financial Regulatory bodies are being heavily criticised for failing to control the activities of Banks, that have led to the virtual bankruptcy of several states, the general destruction of economic activity, and the resulting tarnishing of the lives and livelihoods of countless millions. The stress this has caused has no doubt led to an increase in sickness, death, and suicide. But to my knowledge, no Bank has been accused of actually killing anyone directly, and certainly not with the knowledge and connivance of the Regulators!

The fraud and corruption of Big Pharma industry appears to be an entirely different case - and far, far more serious. It has come to light, in recent years, through many prosecutions in the USA courts.

* Eli Lilly, in January 2009, fined $1.42 billion for mis-selling its drug Zyprexa.


* Pfizer, in September 2009, fined $2.3 billion for defrauding and misleading promotion of its painkilling drug, Bextra (which was later withdrawn from the market for safety reasons).


* Astra Zeneca, in April 2010, fined $520 million for illegally promoting the anti-psychotic drug, Seroquel.


* Merck, in November 2011, fined $950 million for illegally promoting its painkiller, Vioxx, another drug that had to be withdrawn from the market for safety reasons.


* Abbott, in May 2012, fined $1.5 billion for its illegal promotion of its anti-psychotic drug, Depakote.


* GlazoSmithKline, in July 2012, fined $3 billion for its promotion of its drugs, and its failure to report safety data.

So why do these matters, and many, many similar matters, make Big Pharma fraud and corruption more serious than that found in Journalism or Banking?

First, not many people are aware of what the Pharmaceutical Industry is charged with, or what is happening to them as a result. It is surely quite amazing that when Big Pharma admits to these offences, which have killed people, that nothing beyond fines is done.

Whilst Governments and the Media rail against the Media, and the Banks, it is almost entirely quiet on this particular area of human activity. The reasons for this have often  been mentioned and discussed on this blog.

Second, there is no doubt that Big Pharma has become a major cause of disease and death, and that these outcomes have been directly caused by the products, and in particular the drugs, it sells to us. And it is undeniable that Drug Regulatory agencies, like the FDA, the MHRA, and the EDA, appear to be fully aware of this fact - but are doing little or nothing to prevent it, or to stop it happening, time and time again. See, for instance, this article on the FDA in the USA.

It also has to be questioned why it is that police authorities have never been asked to investigate who is criminally responsible when Big Pharma drugs have been found to have killed people. Is it the drug company, and its Executives who have marketed the drugs? Is it the Drug Regulator who have approved the drugs as being safe? Is it the Government, or the NHS, in passing these drugs to patients? Or is it the GP, who actually prescribed the drug?

So no criminal court has yet been asked to adjudicate on who is responsible for these regular deaths. No one, from Drug Company executives, to Drug Regulators, to the NHS, to the local GP, is being held accountable for their actions in producing, approving and prescribing these killer drugs.

So, as this article asks, are the drug companies literally getting away with murder?

This situation has been described as "The Moral Collapse of Western Medicine", and not without exaggeration. The fraud and corruption of Big Pharma does not just concern an industry bent on making profits, and apparently unaware or unconcerned with the damage it is doing to our health.

The situation surrounding Big Pharma, and drug-based medicine is by far the most serious case of corruption and fraud. And the reasons for this is because the situation also concerns, and implicates, many of the public agencies that are supposed to be advising, protecting, and looking after our best interests.

* It concerns our politicians who do not appear to be looking after our best interests when they allow increasing expenditure on drugs, whilst at the same time failing to offer patients real choice in the medical therapies they can select to use when they are ill.

* It concerns the Regulatory Agencies whose task it is to ensure that the drugs we are given are safe, but who have regularly failed to do this - both before, and often for many years after they have been known to be dangerous.

* It concerns the massive ConMed Establishment, which is apparently intent in increasing our use of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, and maintained drug-based medicine as a monopoly.

* It concerns the NHS, both its bureaucracy, and its front-line doctors and specialists, who advice us about our health, and prescribe medications that cause disease and death.

* It concerns the mainstream Media, and its failure to investigate what is happening to our health within drug-based medical practice.

It would seem that the only way we have to protect ourselves is to refuse drug-based medicine entirely, and look for safe, and more effective alternatives!


Friday 6 July 2012

BBC News. A sudden conversion to honesty?

The BBC Today programme this morning featured a piece on GlaxoSmithKline's recent $3 billion fine for fraud in the USA.  


So is this a sudden (and welcome) conversion to honesty for the BBC when reporting on health matters? Or was this news just too big for them to ignore, and brush under the carpet? (which is what the BBC normally does when it deal with the Big Pharma industry).

The questioning in two interviews by John Humphrys would have appeared to be direct, and indeed quite critical - for anyone who was not aware of 'the health debate', but as this series of articles explains, journalist's like Humphrys are not really conversant with this debate. Certainly, the interviews he conducted made it clear that he believed, or wanted to believe, this was a 'one-off' situation, and he seemed relatively happy to accept the re-assurances that 'this situation was all in the past'. The interviews certainly failed to to bring out the full seriousness of the fraud that GSK has now admitted too.

Nor did it highlight the several other important court cases in the USA, involving several Big Pharma companies, in recent years. These have all been studiously ignored by our mainstream Media, just as they were this morning by BBC News.

* Eli Lilly, in January 2009, fined $1.42 billion for mis-selling its drug Zyprexa.
* Pfizer, in September 2009, fined $2.3 billion for defrauding and misleading promotion of its painkilling drug, Bextra (which was later withdrawn from the market for safety reasons).
* Astra Zeneca, in April 2010, fined $520 million for illegally promoting the anti-psychotic drug, Seroquel.
* Merck, in November 2011, fined $950 million for illegally promoting its painkiller, Vioxx, another drug that had to be withdrawn from the market for safety reasons.
* Abbott, in May 2012, fined $1.5 billion for its illegal promotion of its anti-psychotic drug, Depakote.

So the GSK incident is only the latest of a number of scandals - all ignored by the BBC, and other Media sources. And these stories are, of course, only the tip of an iceberg of fraud and corruption that have been perpetrated by Big Pharma companies on patients over the last 50-60 years.

Conventional drugs have created disease, in epidemic proportion. And they have caused death, and has done for decades, on an unprecedented scale.

This article, by Child Health Safety, states that Big Pharma drugs are now the 4th biggest killer in the USA (if the British media were honest enough to report these issues, perhaps we would know how it was ranked in the UK). But it should not be the task of small, internet based organisations like this one to inform the public, and patients in particular, about the dangers of Conventional Medicine. Patients should not have to turn to the internet to learn the truth about Big Pharma's drugs.

BBC News, in its public service broadcasting role, should be at the forefront of investigating the dangers of Conventional Medicine. It is not there yet.

But at least this morning's brief flirtation with honesty on the Today Programme might just be a start for BBC News, and if so, it is a welcome, if long-overdue conversion to open reporting on health matters.

We are currently in a time when the morality of large multinational companies is being brought into serious question. The Murdoch press has plumbed the very depths of corruption. The Banking industry is under very serious review. But do Media organisations, or Banks, really cause the same amount of pain, suffering and death to the general public as Big Pharma companies?

* Is phone-hacking worse than causing disease through drug 'side-effects'?
* Does financial impropriety, however corrupt or serious, kill more people that pharmaceutical drugs?

Unlikely! And this is what makes it even more important that BBC News, and other mainstream media organisations, to begin reporting honestly to us about health news issues.