BMJ accuses Novartis of misconduct. RNIB implicated in supporting Novartis, who fund them!

What is the motivation of drug companies? 

Are they motivated by assisting public health? 

Or are they more interested in selling drugs, regardless of patient safety?

Another case of misconduct, probably fraud, has been reported (2nd March 2015) by the British Medical Journal (BMJ). Unusually, it has been picked up by the mainstream media, including BBC News. But typically, they discuss the issue only in the most superficial and unsatisfactory way - they fail to engage in the 'real health debate' that this blog has been demanding, for so long.

The situation, as reported, can be simply stated:

• The British Medical Journal has accused the drug company, Novartis of trying to block access, and undermine research, into a cheaper drug for treating the condition wet, age-related macular degeneration.
• The Novartis drug, Lucentis, licensed to treat the condition, costs around £740 per dose! The alternative drug, Avastin, costs about £60 per dose, but is not licensed for treatment the condition.
• Drug trials are said to show the Avastin is also an effective treatment.
• The BMJ claims it has evidence that clinicians with ties to Novartis urged some primary care trusts to pull out of one trial, and tried to derail a second trial.
• Continuing to use Lucentis rather than Avastin costs the NHS several £100 millions every year.
• Novartis are said to have denied the allegations, as, of course, they would be expected to do!

The BBC article outlines the battle that has been going on between the two drug companies involved in the scandal.

          "In November 2014, the Royal College of Ophthalmologists called for Avastin to be made available for treating the condition on the NHS, arguing that switching to the drug could save the NHS £100m. And in February clinical leaders from 120 clinical commissioning groups called on ministers and NHS England to clarify regulations that make it hard for physicians to prescribe Avastin for wet AMD".

On the BBC Radio 4 'Today' programme, the Health Charity, the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) were implicated in the scandal, supporting Novartis in trying to end one of the trials, whilst at the same time, admitting that Novartis provide about £150,000 to their coffers!

So what has our mainstream media been looking into? Not some of the major issues that might suggest to people and patients that their interests are not best served by the financial interests of the conventional medical establishment.

What, for example, are conventional doctors doing, prescribing a drug for which there is no licence, no clear evidence that it works, and no permission to use it? How often does this situation happen with other drugs, and other conditions?

What are the wider implications that can be learnt about the integrity of the entire drug testing and regulation system that is supposed to protect patients? How often, and to what extent, to drug companies pressurise researches to produce the result their business interests crave? How much do drug politics and vested interests play in determining the drugs that patients receive?

What is the motivation of drug companies? Are they more interested in profit than the health of the patients treated with their drugs?

What is the motivation of Health Charities like the RNIB, a "charity providing a range of information for blind or partially sighted people", including "fund raising details and events". Why do they accept money from for-profit pharmaceutical companies? Do they declare their vested interests when providing advice to blind and partially sighted people? Are other Health Charities, who most people will believe to be above this kind of scandal, compromised bb Big Pharma money in the same way?

And what about some information about the two drugs.

We were told that Lucentis is exorbitently expensive. Have the media ever invested why? Have they ever asked what the profit margin is that they are making on this drug?

And has anyone bother to tell us the long list of 'side effects' that patients receiving this expensive drug may suffer?

• Blindness (Yes, really, described as 'common'!!)
• bloody eye
• blurred vision or loss of vision
• decreased vision or other changes in vision
• disturbed color perception
• dizziness
• double vision
• dry eye
• eye pain
• fainting
• feeling of having something in the eye
• halos around light
• headache
• night blindness
• overbright appearance of lights
• pain or tenderness around the eyes and cheekbones
• red, sore eyes
• redness of the white part of the eyes or inside of the eyelids
• redness, swelling, or itching of the eyelid
• seeing flashes or sparks of light
• seeing floating spots before the eyes, or a veil or curtain appearing across part of vision
• sensitivity of the eye to light
• tearing of the eyes
• tunnel vision
• watering of the eyes
• Body aches or pain
• chest pain
• chills
• cough
• difficulty with breathing
• dry mouth
• fainting
• fast, slow, or irregular heartbeat
• general feeling of discomfort or illness
• head congestion
• hoarseness, loss of voice, or other voice changes
• loss of consciousness
• muscle aches and pains
• nasal congestion
• pain in the chest, groin, or legs, especially the calves
• painful blisters on the trunk of the body
• pale skin
• runny nose
• severe, sudden headache
• shivering
• shortness of breath
• slurred speech
• sneezing
• sore throat
• sudden loss of coordination
• sudden, severe weakness or numbness in the arm or leg
• sudden, unexplained shortness of breath
• sweating
• tightness in the chest
• trouble sleeping
• troubled breathing
• unexplained weight lossunusual tiredness or weakness
• Back pain
• difficulty having a bowel movement (stool)
• difficulty with moving
• muscle stiffness
• swelling or redness in the joints

All these side effects for just £700 per shot!

So what about the cheaper alternative drug, Avantis? Is this perhaps also safer? Well, not really.

Avantis is a cancer drug. I was introduced in February 2004, and was being hailed as the great new breakthrough in the treatment of cancer. However, in just 9 months, by November 2004, the Magazine 'What Doctors Don't Tell You' were reporting that it could cause stroke, heart attacks, angina, and doubled the risk of a fatal blood clot. Even when it was approved in was known to cause fatal stomach perforations and congestive heart failure! WDDTY commented:

          "

These new concerns must make Avastin one of the untouchables, but the new discoveries raise concerns about the efficacy and reliability of the pre-licensing clinical trials that too often miss adverse reactions that could even kill the patient. 

It's not for the first time, when faced with these deadly therapies, that we've said we'd rather take our chances with the cancer."



Eleven years later it is still available to us!

In September 2006 it was found to cause a rare brain condition, reversible posterior leukoencephalopathy syndrome (RPLS), and damage of nasal tissue in patients using it.


In 2008, the Independent reported on 27th June that the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) had, for the first time, terminated an assessment of a powerful new cancer medicine "because of a row about its price with the manufacturer". Not, you notice for unacceptable side effects, but on the grounds of cost! Nice is reported as saying that Roche had supplied "insufficient evidence" about the product, which costs £3,600 a month for a typical patient!

In 2011 FDA withdrew the drug because of it dangerousness, although incredibly it allowed doctors to prescribe it ‘if they feel like it’.

Also in 2011, and most pertinent to the treatment of macular degeneration, Avantis was found, in 5 separate reports, to cause blindness. This was reported in the New York Times, on 1st September. This article rehearses the same argument, 3.5 years ago, that we are now going over again.

So what are our free media in Britain, including the BBC, telling us about the side effects of these two drugs? Side effects that patients might want to know about in order to make an informed choice?

Absolutely nothing!

Big Pharma's snout at the feeding trough!

Some Big Pharma drug companies are annoyed, and are threatening to take the British government to court. The problem? They may be denied access to a large pot of NHS money.

The government set up the 'Cancer Drugs Fund in 2010, one of its first acts following their election, to provide extra funding for medicines that were considered 'too expensive', and 'poor value for money' by NICE, and so could not be prescribed within the NHS. £200 million was set aside. This has risen to £280 million. And apparently the fund is already overspent by £30 million this year.

Does that sound generous? Well, apparently not generous enough for the Big Pharma companies. Two drug companies are threatening to take the government to court because their drugs are being 're-assessed'. Their feeding frenzy at the NHS feeding trough is being threatened!

Just how arrogant is this? Public money is being spent on ludicrously expensive drugs, and the drug companies object to a decision that seeks to ensure that taxpayer's money is being spent appropriately! They must assume they have some kind of 'right' to the money being spent on their drugs. And that our government has not responsibility to make decisions that are detrimental to their profitability.

Of course, that is not the way they put it, or how our meek mainstream media is describing it. The government is denying patients access to 'life-saving' drugs (according to the BBC), or, if you prefer the 'Mail Online',

"Thousands of women with advanced breast cancer are set to be denied ‘last chance’ medication that can give them extra months, if not years, with their loved ones".

Although the Media is sufficiently honest to point out the costs of these drugs, up to £90,000 per year per patient, little or nothing was said about the safety of effectiveness of the six drugs, Eribulin, Avastin, Kadcyla, Afinitor, Tyverb and Perjeta. So let's consider just one of these, Avastin, and consider it's history.

Avastin was approved in February 2004 by the FDA, the US drug regulator. Within 5 months, however, it discovered that the new 'wonder drug' could cause stroke, heart attacks, angina, and double the risk of a fatal blood clot. Apparently, even when it was approved, Avastin was known to  cause fatal stomach perforations and congestive heart failure. The situation only got worse, though.

• Avastin has been found to cause 'potentially fatal' brain inflammation.
• Avastin has been found to cause blindness.
• FDA withdraws approval for Avastin, declaring it medically useless, but doctors still allowed to prescribe it (a useless drug)!
• NICE finds that Avastin is 'Too Expensive' For NHS (August 2014) 

So, it would seem that what is being 'denied' to 'thousands of women with advanced breast cancer' is a 'life saving' drug that is exorbitantly expensive, dangerous to our health, and useless too!

Does that sound like a good deal? Well, it is good enough for the drug companies. And apparently it is good enough for our mainstream media, including the BBC, who continue to refuse to tell us the truth about conventional drugs and vaccines.

I suppose we are just expected to believe the passive and unquestioning promotion of pharmaceutical drugs, take it when they are given to us regardless of their affects on our health, and pay exorbitantly for the privilege!

Anyone want to stop jumping to Big Pharma's tune?

Avastin. The new Conventional Medical breakthrough for some cancers?

Mimms have announced that the drug, Avastin, has now been licensed for ovarian, fallopian tube, and peritoneal cancers.

What a wonderful breakthrough! So for more of this good news from ConMed and Big Parma, look at this link.

But before rejoicing too much, look at these articles:

* Avastin can cause potentially fatal brain inflammation.
* Avastin can cause blindness.
* Avastin was (almost) withdrawn in the USA in 2007.

Avastin drug sales dropped as a result of this, and other evidence known about Avastin for many years. So, if this new 'evidence' an attempt by Big Pharma to rehabilitate the drug? You will note the Mimms article makes no mention whatsoever of these DIEs (disease inducing effects) of the drug.

So presumably, Roche,  the drug company thinks it is okay to go on selling it.

And the Drug Regulator thinks it is okay to approve it for these cancers.

And one of the magazines giving advice to GPs thinks it is okay for doctors to prescribe it.

But is this not normal practice for Conventional Medicine and Big Pharma? Why should uncomfortable facts get in the way of making big profits selling dangerous drugs to sick people?

What do you think?

The Failure of Conventional Medicine

Conventional medicine is failing because it is both ineffective and highly dangerous for patients. 

Yet, the public are not being given the evidence of this catastrophic failure. Governments, National Health Services throughout the world, doctors, and perhaps most alarmingly of all, the mainstream media, are failing to tell us about the gross failings of the ConMed Establishment, and of Big Pharma drugs in particular.

Each week, this blog will collect together a series of articles from the internet that demonstrate this failure, and the underlying reason for an increasing number of people looking for non-drug medical therapies that are both safer and more effective.

Big Pharma drugs - the new epidemic sweeping across America (and Europe too)?
Did you know, for instance, that Big Pharma prescription drugs now kill more people than illegal drugs? Indeed, pharmaceutical drugs have become the biggest single cause of death in the USA.

Fresh doubts over flu vaccines
Click on this link if you did not know about the increasing doubts about the safety and effectiveness of flu vaccine we are all being exorted to take. No such doubts have been seen in the mainstream media - we have just been told of the benefits of the vaccine? Did you know, for example, that whilst doctor's might be recommending you to have the vaccine, doctor's themselves, in huge numbers, are refusing to have one?

Show us the evidence for the flu jab.
In fact, doctors are even asking the government, who are criticising them, to provide them with the evidence that the flu vaccine is effective.

Flu vaccines effective in 1.5% cases - not 60% as we have been told
The concern about the effectiveness of the flu vaccine is shown in this 'shock vaccine study'! A shock, of course, only if you have not discovered the truth about ConMed, and the length's Big Pharma will go to sell their drugs.

Flu? There is a better defence
And why aren't we all being told that there are better, safer, more effective alternatives to flu vaccines?

20 Vaccine 'Trivia' Facts
Of course, vaccines have never been safe. No vaccine. Is this right? Have a look at this article from Vactruth, which outlines just 20 examples when vaccines have proven to be either useless, dangerous, or both. Vactruth is one of the foremost websites investigating the dangers of vaccines, and seeking to educate a misinformed public.

US Government Agency has known all along how dangerous vaccines are
Or perhaps look at this, from Tim Bolen's website, frightening evidence that government agencies know about the dangers of vaccines, but haven't been prepared to tell us.

Vaccines and the increasing rate of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma Cancer
This sort of negative evidence about vaccines, though, is coming out all the time though - so we don't have to look at the history of vaccine cover-ups in order to know that they are linked with patient harm, and the increasing rate of diseases of all kinds.

Healthy babies given dangerous and unnecessary drugs
Or, how often are we told about Big Pharma giving us drugs when we do not need them? And it would appear that not even healthy babies are not safe.

ADHD Drugs are a common source of drug reaction.
Of course, children are more susceptible to the disease-inducing-effects of drugs, and this link states that ADHD medication cause substantial adverse reactions in children.

NHS Breast Screening programme under review
And it is not just drugs that are a problem. What about useless tests that lead to taking toxic drugs - unnecessarily? Well, the BBC did report on this (26th October 2011). But the point it not just that the test is 'being questioned' but that lot's of women, who did not need treatment for breast cancer, received it - despite its toxicity and dangers.  Of course, in their reporting, the BBC did not focus on this, or inform us about the dangers (and sheer nastiness) of ConMed cancer treatment.

Pfizer pays $14.5 million to settle Detrol off-label suit
So do Big Pharma tell us that their drugs are dangerous? Of course not, they are in business to make money by selling drugs. Big Pharma companies are regularly paying out $millions of dollars in compensation for the dangerous drugs they provide for patients. In some parts of the more litigious world, they abound. And if you want more - here is another example (there are many, many more). My question is - shouldn't patients be told before they are harmed by such drugs?  But again, we rarely, if ever, hear about these dangers.

So why the cover-up? By government? By government health agencies? By the NHS? By our doctors? And above all, by the mainstream media? Why do we not hear about these compensation payments? And, indeed, who pays to set up these cover-up's?

On BBC Radio, on 25th October 2011, I heard a programme discussing the cost of treatment for Macular Degeneration. One treatment, they said, was cheaper, but it had 'side-effects'. However, not once did the programme tell the listeners what the 'side-effects' of this drug (Avastin) were!

The BBC, like most of the mainstream media, does this all the time - it salutes new wonder drugs - but never tells us about the damage drugs do to us. The question is - why? Who is controlling the BBC? Here are a couple of articles on the subject that the BBC certainly did not use.

Can using Avastin for Macular Degeneration cause blindness?
So Avastin can cause blindness? Yes, a drug used for a condition that can cause blindness is actually being treated by a drug that causes blindness! Somehow, this does not seem to be a good deal - at any price! This is especially so as Avastin has also been associated with causing fatal brain inflammation!

Macular Degeneration affects nearly 15 million Americans leading patients to seek alternative healthcare solutions
Nor, of course, did the BBC say anything about alternative treatments. This article states that there are 15 million people with Macular Degeneration in the USA alone - and that many people are seeking alternative therapy. The article focuses on Acupuncture - but homeopathy, and many other therapies, are a safer alternative to Avastin.