A man left brain dead, and then dying. Five other people being treated in hospital in the French city of Rennes, four of whom have serious 'neurological' problems. Concern about the health of the 90 other fit and healthy young people involved. The Paris prosecutor opening an investigation.
Just another mundane event in the life and history of the Big Pharma companies?
The Portuguese drug company, Bial, was apparently testing a cannabis-based painkiller. The drug trial has been 'suspended'.
BBC News tells us that "this is the bitter price of the new medicines we take for granted. Testing such experimental drugs, at the cutting edge of science, can never be completely risk-free." Their analysis goes on, blandly and unquestioningly.
"The safety and effectiveness of these drugs are rigorously tested in animals."
"The risks are low......"
"This trial has been taking place since July without such major events being reported."
"It is a high price to pay, but thousands of people do safely take part in similar trials each year."
"The trial was conducted by Biotrial, a French-based company with an international reputation which has carried out thousands of trials since it was set up in 1989."
"Before any new medicine can be given to patients, detailed information about how it works and how safe it is must be collected."
"Clinical trials are the key to getting that data, and without volunteers to take part in the trials, there would be no new treatments for serious diseases ......."
So the BBC's 'analysis', typically, is more about justifying the process of developing conventional medical drugs than seriously questioning what has gone on in this case. I focus on the BBC, but the coverage in most of the mainstream media was similar. Yet as a public service broadcaster they should, surely, know better.
They should be more questioning, do more investigation, and be more critical of what they are told by the drug-dominated, drug obsessed conventional health establishment!
Pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines kill millions of people throughout the world every year. Every one of them have gone through this process of testing, but they continue to cause disease and kill patients. Our mainstream media seems oblivious to this - it is, they tell us, a necessary evil - otherwise "there would be no new treatments for serious diseases..."
So most people, most patients, don't ask too many questions. They don't have the information. They just take the pill. Surely, we think, our doctors would not give us anything that is unsafe!
In 2006 at Northwick Park Hospital in London, drug trials almost killed six young volunteers. The drug, TGN 1312 was designed to treat multiple sclerosis, leukaemia and arthritis. The manufacturer, TeGenero, thought the drug would 'subtly retune' the immune system, but instead, it catastrophically turned the immune system against the very body it was supposed to protect, and caused multiple organ failure, and left them battling for their lives for several weeks. One victim had to have several fingers and toes amputated. All six men were told they would be likely to develop cancers or auto-immune diseases as a result of the drug.
At the time this story made headline news, not because drug trials are normally safe, they aren't, but the outcome in this case (and presumably the one in France too) was almost instantaneous. It could not be denied or discounted, the consequences on fit and health young volunteers was so obvious and drastic. The pharmaceutical industry has a long and infamous history of hiding, even destroying trial data that is detrimental to their main interest - selling drugs, regardless of the dangers to our health.
The BBC has told us that the Northwick Park drug, just like the new one in France, had previously been tested on animals, apparently without any "side-effects". So the media has invented no new justification for the devastation caused by Big Pharma drug trials - they are quite happy with the old ones! And this particular one should teach us one other lesson too.
That animal testing is completely worthless, and fails to protect young, fit volunteers, and later, of course, to the millions of patients subjected to the drug.
Yet the pharmaceutical drugs industry has a long history of disastrous, and deeply disturbing drug trials. President Clinton of the USA admitted this on 16th May 1997.
More and more people are beginning to realise the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, despite the reluctance of the media to tell us. They are causing mayhem to our health. Many diseases are now at epidemic levels - and it is well known that pharmaceutical drugs are known to cause most, if not all of them. This is never admitted by the conventional health establishment, of course. And our doctors don't tell us. The links are never investigated by the BBC, of course, or any other part of the mainstream media. Our politicians don't tell us either, the Big Pharma industry is just too strong, to powerful to stand up to, and call to account.
So it is up to us, as individuals, to realise what is happening to our health, the part played by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, and to say, firmly, "No" when offered them - either as a volunteer tester, or as a patient.
Just another mundane event in the life and history of the Big Pharma companies?
The Portuguese drug company, Bial, was apparently testing a cannabis-based painkiller. The drug trial has been 'suspended'.
BBC News tells us that "this is the bitter price of the new medicines we take for granted. Testing such experimental drugs, at the cutting edge of science, can never be completely risk-free." Their analysis goes on, blandly and unquestioningly.
"The safety and effectiveness of these drugs are rigorously tested in animals."
"The risks are low......"
"This trial has been taking place since July without such major events being reported."
"It is a high price to pay, but thousands of people do safely take part in similar trials each year."
"The trial was conducted by Biotrial, a French-based company with an international reputation which has carried out thousands of trials since it was set up in 1989."
"Before any new medicine can be given to patients, detailed information about how it works and how safe it is must be collected."
"Clinical trials are the key to getting that data, and without volunteers to take part in the trials, there would be no new treatments for serious diseases ......."
So the BBC's 'analysis', typically, is more about justifying the process of developing conventional medical drugs than seriously questioning what has gone on in this case. I focus on the BBC, but the coverage in most of the mainstream media was similar. Yet as a public service broadcaster they should, surely, know better.
They should be more questioning, do more investigation, and be more critical of what they are told by the drug-dominated, drug obsessed conventional health establishment!
Pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines kill millions of people throughout the world every year. Every one of them have gone through this process of testing, but they continue to cause disease and kill patients. Our mainstream media seems oblivious to this - it is, they tell us, a necessary evil - otherwise "there would be no new treatments for serious diseases..."
So most people, most patients, don't ask too many questions. They don't have the information. They just take the pill. Surely, we think, our doctors would not give us anything that is unsafe!
In 2006 at Northwick Park Hospital in London, drug trials almost killed six young volunteers. The drug, TGN 1312 was designed to treat multiple sclerosis, leukaemia and arthritis. The manufacturer, TeGenero, thought the drug would 'subtly retune' the immune system, but instead, it catastrophically turned the immune system against the very body it was supposed to protect, and caused multiple organ failure, and left them battling for their lives for several weeks. One victim had to have several fingers and toes amputated. All six men were told they would be likely to develop cancers or auto-immune diseases as a result of the drug.
At the time this story made headline news, not because drug trials are normally safe, they aren't, but the outcome in this case (and presumably the one in France too) was almost instantaneous. It could not be denied or discounted, the consequences on fit and health young volunteers was so obvious and drastic. The pharmaceutical industry has a long and infamous history of hiding, even destroying trial data that is detrimental to their main interest - selling drugs, regardless of the dangers to our health.
The BBC has told us that the Northwick Park drug, just like the new one in France, had previously been tested on animals, apparently without any "side-effects". So the media has invented no new justification for the devastation caused by Big Pharma drug trials - they are quite happy with the old ones! And this particular one should teach us one other lesson too.
That animal testing is completely worthless, and fails to protect young, fit volunteers, and later, of course, to the millions of patients subjected to the drug.
Yet the pharmaceutical drugs industry has a long history of disastrous, and deeply disturbing drug trials. President Clinton of the USA admitted this on 16th May 1997.
"The United States government did something that was wrong - deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. It was an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens. . . . clearly racist".
This refers to the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis experiments that took place between 1932 and 1972. This involved 399 black men, in the late stages of syphilis. The men, illiterate sharecroppers from Alabama, were never told they had the disease, or about its seriousness, but were told they were being treated for 'bad blood'. The sharecroppers were pleased at the prospect of 'free medical care', but the purpose and consequences of the experiment were kept from them in order to ensure their cooperation. Indeed, the doctors had no intention of curing them of syphilis. Instead, data was collected from autopsies after they had been deliberately allowed to degenerate and die.
The purpose of the study, apparently, was to discover how syphilis affected black people, as opposed to white people. It has been estimated that by the end of the experiment 28 men died directly of syphilis, 100 died with related complications, 40 wives had been infected, and 19 children were born with congenital syphilis.
What the benefits of such an experiment were is difficult to imagine!
Perhaps the drug companies will, one day, tell us! Yet this story gets worse. Apparently, the men were kept from receiving any treatment that might have helped them. When penicillin became available in the 1940s the Tuskegee 'guinea pigs' were denied the medication!
These drug trial were eventually uncovered by the Washington Star in 1972 (at a time when investigative journalism was still possible within the mainstream media). Only then did the government end the experiment. Even so, the drug companies remained unrepentant, claiming the men had been volunteers and were always happy to see the doctors!
For the full story see "Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment" by James H. Jones (New York: Free Press, 1993).
However, the government did not accept the media's comparison of Tuskegee with the appalling Nazi experiments on Jewish victims during World War II.
Nor has the bad practice surrounding drug trials stopped, with drugs and vaccines notoriously being 'tested' in poor 3rd world countries. The film 'The Constant Gardiner' outlines the kind of activity drug companies get involved in in Africa, and other parts of the world.
So whilst the BBC, and other mainstream news organisations, may not want to focus on what the pharmaceutical drugs companies are doing, and have been doing for many decades, it is important that we should all know - particularly those people who are considering earning some money taking new drugs - and patients who are taking pharmaceutical drugs now.
More and more people are beginning to realise the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, despite the reluctance of the media to tell us. They are causing mayhem to our health. Many diseases are now at epidemic levels - and it is well known that pharmaceutical drugs are known to cause most, if not all of them. This is never admitted by the conventional health establishment, of course. And our doctors don't tell us. The links are never investigated by the BBC, of course, or any other part of the mainstream media. Our politicians don't tell us either, the Big Pharma industry is just too strong, to powerful to stand up to, and call to account.
So it is up to us, as individuals, to realise what is happening to our health, the part played by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, and to say, firmly, "No" when offered them - either as a volunteer tester, or as a patient.
After all, it would appear that no one else will look after our safety!
