Diabetes drugs cost us dearly!
One drug, now banned, is Avandia. Not long ago, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), were fined $3 billion when they pleaded guilty to a felony in the USA. Apparently, when they marketed the drug GSK admitted that they decided to hide data about Avandia increasing the risk of heart attacks, and congestive heart failure. They continued to do so between 2001 to 2007, during which time they made enormous profits - at the expense of our health.
So was this just a one-off situation? A rogue Big Pharma company who broke the rules? No, GSK's biggest rival, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co, which makes a diabetes drug called Actos, have now been accused of withholding safety data in order to make it appear safer than its rival, Avandia. It is know that the adverse reactions to Actos include diseases such as bladder cancer and congestive heart failure.
So, was this just a two-off situation? No. Other Big Pharma companies have since sought to fill the gap left by Avandia and Actos, and introduced more diabetes drugs. Four years ago, Victoza was introduced, the latest magic pill,the cure for diabetes. Unfortunately, it has since been discovered that this drug can cause disastrous harm to the pancreas, increasing the risk of an early, unnecessary death.
So was this just a three-off situation? No. According to Agora Health's 'Daily Health Alert', a new study in the journal Diabetes has now implicated more than a dozen drugs, in the same class as Victoza. Brand names include Byetta, Nesina, and Januvia, and that US researchers have found that these drugs, incretin mime tics, can drastically increase your risk of pancreatitis.
"Here's where it gets insane. None of this is new to the medical authorities. In fact, the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) previously warned that post-marketing reports about these drugs include "fatal and serious nonfatal cases" of acute pancreatitis".
There is also evidence that Januvia can increase a patient's risk of cancer.
In their newsletter, dated 3rd July 2012, and their magazine, dated November 2012, "What Doctor's Don't Tell You" stated that the 'new generation' of diabetes drugs were 'killers'. They said that research, at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, had found that anyone taking these drugs were 50% more likely to die than people taking the older diabetes drugs. The drugs Glucotrol, Daonil, and Diabeta were analysed in this research.
So this is yet another situation that demonstrates that the Drug Regulation system, designed as they are to protect patients, quite simply fail to do so. At the test stage evidence of drug dangers are either hidden, or not acted upon even when they are known. Once introduced, drugs are allowed to harm patients, and Big Pharma companies are allowed to profit from them, with only inadequate restrictions being placed on their prescription. In the meantime, our doctors are offered inducements, by the drug companies to sell the drugs; and in the main, they meekly go along with it.
Only when pharmaceutical drugs are found to be killers, and only when the evidence is overwhelming and incontrovertible, do drug regulators act to protect patients.
See 'Medical Science: the failure to protect' for more about this.
There has been an epidemic of diabetes in recent decades, at least partly caused by other pharmaceutical drugs, such as diuretics and Beta Blockers, and the result is that many diabetics are, or have been, taking these 'anti-diabetes' drugs. Clearly, these patients cannot be assured that they are safe taking them. There is a long history of too much obfuscation, too many lies, a record of fraud and dishonesty, a lack of concern about patient safety,within the entire conventional medical establishment (starting with Big Pharma companies, through regulation, right up to our doctors).
So what should patients do? The Daily Health Alert says that anyone taking any diabetes drugs should talk to their doctors "about an alternative treatment plan". They add that
"... you can usually restore normal pancreas function by making the right dietary changes. These might not be easy but they certainly won't increase your risk of cancer, heart attack or premature death".
If this is so, it has to asked - why is it that doctors don't prescribe a better diet, and not dangerous pharmaceutical drugs?
