DOCTORS MEDICAL INSURANCE. What happens when doctors harm patients? (4)

Conventional medicine, we are told, is very safe and effective. Yet it is easy to prove otherwise. Reading the side effects of drugs and vaccines outlined on the Patient Information Leaflets (PILs). Looking at compensation schemes for patients who have been damaged by drugs and vaccines. And medical insurance schemes for doctors is another.

During the last 2-3 years ago I have written about doctors medical insurance schemes, and the problems they face. Medical insurance protect doctors from the consequences of prescribing harmful and dangerous drugs and vaccines to patients.



In May 2016, in "What happens when doctors harm patients?" I began to outline the problem. Doctors were struggling to cope with ever increasing premium payments.

               "Multimillion-pound compensation claims against GPs and private consultants have risen three-fold over the past decade.... The Medical Defence Union (MDU) said that it has settled 12 compensation claims in excess of £1m in 2015.

In July 2016, in "What happens when doctors harm patients? (2)" I described how the British government had agreed to reimburse any price rises in GP's indemnity insurance for the coming years.

Yet even this did not relieve the problem. In August 2017, "Indemnity. What happens when doctors harm patients (3) I outlined how the situation was getting worse. The chair of the BMA GP Committee stated that the increases in litigation costs for defense organisations had ‘significantly increased’. So, the government decided that doctors should not have to pay insurance premiums, they would be taken on by the NHS. So what these 3 articles described was this  

• OUR government 
• is using OUR money
• to support conventional doctors
• prescribing pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines
• that harm and kill US
• in ever-increasing numbers
• at an ever-increasing cost!

I described it as "a conspiracy against both patients and taxpayers". In other words, we were actually paying for doctors to harm us!

Now, in an article in the GP magazine, "MDU raises concern over historic claims funds as legal battle with government continues". there is a clear indication that the situation remains unresolved, that the MDU continues to have a claim over government over 'historical clinical negligence claims', and that these claims means that it faces 'increased demand' for payouts - set against dwindling funds contributed by doctors (and taxpayers).

And this ongoing medical insurance situation is the result of operating a medical system we are regularly being told is both safe and effective!

Why is this important? Two other blogs outline the extent of the problem. In February 2018, in."Patient harm? Medical blunders are bankrupting the NHS! Or is it just dangerous medicine? I sought to place the blame for this desperate situation where blame should rest - with a medical system that is inherently dangerous, that does not harm patients through medical negligence but through drugs and vaccines that are known to be unsafe.

And the cost of conventional medicine is not measured just in insurance premiums. In March 2018, in "22,000 people die every year in England as a result of medical errors. How many more die from pharmaceutical drugs that are NOT given in error?" I provided details of just why medical insurance for doctors was proving to be such a huge cost factor in delivering conventional medical services within the NHS.

And all this happening within a conventional medical system that insists that its treatments are both safe and effective!

Loose Women? Loose editorial control? Or is ITV playing fast and very loose with honesty?

• Everyone in the homeopathic, and indeed the whole natural medical community, understands that the mainstream media supports the conventional medical establishment to the point of complicity.

• We no longer, expect to see fair or even honest reporting on medical issues in the press, or on the broadcast media. It has not happened for 15-20 years!

One of my doughty colleagues, Grace da Silva, recently watched the ITV programme, Loose Women, and noticed that they were running a poll. The question posed was whether parents who did not vaccinate their children should be fined - a topical issue considering that our government is considering the introduction of mandatory vaccination. So she decided to vote, and whilst doing so, she noted the voting figures.

The result was duly announced. There was a huge majority for the imposition of fines - a massive 70% in favour of fining parents, and only 30% against. Grace was aghast, and she tells me that she took 3 minutes to complain to the programme.

On 24th October 2019 'Loose Women' gave an apology, and gave out the correct poll result - 70% against fining patients, and 30% in favour of fines. They had made a 'mistake'! We were told that it has human error! There was, however, no explanation of why such an human error could ever have been made. Apparently several people complained to Ofcom so ITV had no option but to tell the truth. Yet serious questions arise.

• Was it really a mistake?
• Is it possible that ITV did not just got the result wrong, but actually reversed it?
• Was there no editorial oversight?
• Would a correction have been made if there had no complaints?

As another colleague told me, an former TV producer, it would be highly unlikely that this was "human error", that everything, and especially programme content, is checked, double checked. She said that if she had allowed that kind of "mistake" on her job she would have been fired! She said that this was not just editorial control; there would be many other crew members whose job it would have been check everything.

The mainstream media regularly and gratuitously attacks homeopathy, natural medicine generally. It also provides the conventional medical establishment with an uncritical outlet for its propaganda. Yet does this 'mistake' mean that they are prepared to go further?

• To raise support for the policy of the conventional medical establishment?
• To provide the pharmaceutical industry with a captive and obligatory market for their drugs?

Just how important are pharmaceutical advertising revenues to ITV, and the mainstream media generally?

Is Homeopathy Dangerous? Or is Conventional Medicine trying to hide from its own failure?

Today (28th October 2019) has witnessed yet another full-frontal attack on Homeopath by the conventional medical establishment in the mainstream media. Well, the homeopathic community is used to it. It is a regular occurrence now!

NHS Chief's Blast at 'Dangerous' Homeopathy was the headline in the Daily Mail. On the same day the Daily Telegraph's headline was "NHS Leaders Declare War on Homeopathy', and the Scottish Daily Mail leads with "NHS Chief slams homeopathic remedies". I haven't bothered to read the latter two articles. So how do I know about them? They were referred to in the Daily Mail article, all published on the same day!. So how did they know what other papers were writing about - on the same day?

Might it be that this was a planned, coordinated anti-homeopathy campaign? Again, there are no surprises if this was indeed the case. The mainstream media is funded by pharmaceutical companies to the extent that these papers would not survive if their advertising was withdrawn. So for their own viability they have to stand alongside the conventional medical establishment. And they do - meekly, slavishly, dishonorably.

This epidsode means that there can no longer be any doubt that the UK's NHS (National Health Service) is now totally controlled by the pharmaceutical industry, not just because the treatments it offers to its patients are now almost totally drug-based, but because it routinely and gratuitously attacks any form of alternative medicine, not least homeopathy.

So are these attacks on homeopathy by the mainstream media, and the NHS, based on the fact that conventional medicine is winning the war of sickness and disease?

This is a difficult claim for anyone to argue, not least the NHS!

• The NHS has always failed to cope with the ever rising levels of illness and disease that we have witnessed over the past 70+ years.
• The NHS has never been able to manage patient demand for health care even though its has had an ever-expanding budget.
• And the more pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines the NHS has provided for us, to make us healthier, the sicker we have become.
• Disease is out of control. Allergy, Alzheimers, Arthritis, Asthma, Autism, Cancer, Dementia, Diabetes (and every other chronic disease you might want to add) are all now running at unprecedented levels.
• And the numbers of patients suffering from each of these diseases are not reducing, they are increasing, very rapidly
• And many of these chronic diseases are no longer 'old age' ailments, as they were once considered: younger adults and children now suffer from them. In increasing numbers.

If conventional medicine was ever going to work, if pharmaceutical drugs were ever going to be found effective, we would now be a healthier, not a sicker nation. And the conventional medical establishment would be presenting medical statistics to prove this. Instead we face these epidemics of chronic disease, and a medical system that cannot recruit sufficient doctors to deal with increasing health demands.

So what's the problem? How does the NHS explain these 70+ years of medical failure?

• It's all the fault of homeopathy!

Why do 10% of parents refuse to allow their children to be vaccinated (and probably another 10% are reluctant, but do so because of the constant pressure)?

• Its all the fault of homeopathy! And those dreadful anti-vaxxers, of course!

Only a tiny proportion of the NHS budget has ever been spent on homeopathy (or any other alternative medical treatment). 

Only a tiny proportion of patients use homeopathy for their medical treatment, mostly it is un-subsidised, they have to pay for it themselves, and broadly they are happy to do so.

So is something else going on here? Is the conventional medical establishment beginning to realise that it is failing to deliver good health?

• their drugs are unsafe, and increasingly cannot be used because of their dangerous side effects.
• their drugs are ineffective, they are not capable of dealing with chronic disease epidemics.
• we invest exclusively on a medical system that is exorbitantly expensive
• even when the NHS budget is regularly increased by £billions, and bankrupting the nation, it still cannot cope.

So what to do? Focus on these problems? Investigate its own failure?

Or attack other medical systems?
Rage that some patients won't vaccinate for diseases that are no longer a major problem (and were not major problems when their vaccines were first introduced)?

No! Attack the competition! Insist that pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are safe and effective! State that any other medical therapy is unproven, worthless, even dangerous!

A wounded, and cornered animal is a very dangerous animal. It will strike out, randomly, blindly, to defend itself from further harm. And this is what we can see happening.

But questions are being asked, even if they are not currently being asked within the NHS, within government, or within the media. The 10% who are refusing vaccines are the one's who are asking questions, with no help from doctors, politicians, or journalists.

• Is what is being offered by the NHS (drugs/vaccines) really safe? 
• Are they effective? Are their reducing or increasing disease? 
• And is the NHS being bankrupted by a medical system that needs ever more money, more resources, with each successive year.

Another 10% of the population will soon be asking questions too.

• Is homeopathy really to blame for medical failure? 
• Why is the NHS obsessing with measles and mumps?
• Why is it so unconcerned about ever-rising levels of autism, dementia, cancer, et al?

When this new 10% joins the present 10% it will be the beginning of everyone becoming aware. The NHS has nothing safe or healthy to offer us. It's drug cabinet is almost bare. We are getting sicker.

But homeopathy is dangerous - isn't it!

DOCTORS IN DISTRESS. The suicide rate is the highest of any profession. Why is this?

One doctor commits suicide every day in the USA, according to the WebMD website, the highest suicide rate of any profession, and more than double the general population. These were the findings presented at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in 2018 . Yet this problem is not confined to America, studies from Finland, Norway, Australia, Singapore and China have shown an increase in anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts among medical students and health care professionals.

In England the situation is no different. In September 2018, Pulse (the GP's e-newsletter) outlined data that showed over 400 doctors had committed suicide in 4 years.

So why is being a doctor such a stressful occupation? Doctors are generously paid. They are respected members of local communities. They are portrayed positively in an endless stream of television series. And their social role is an aspiration for many young people. It is widely known that doctors work long hours, and they work daily with patients who are very sick. Yet even so, why do so many doctors feel it necessary to end their lives?

The main reason may reside within the performance of the conventional medical system, and our expectations of it.

• It is widely believed that conventional medicine, and pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, are winning the war against illness and disease.
• When we are ill our first thought is usually to visit our doctor, who we confidently expect will be able to make us well again.

It is this that motivates people to enter the medical profession, and they do so full of hope and expectation of doing good, and helping people. Unfortunately, the reality is all too different.

• Sickness is increasing. Chronic disease, in all its many forms, is now running at unprecedented levels. Pharmaceutical drugs are causing serious side effects, which is making us sicker. Many drugs have been withdrawn or banned. Many more are failing.

• So patients are just not getting better. They get sick and they are prescribed a drug. The drug, if effective at all, has only short-term effects; so the patient needs more, repeat prescriptions. And the longer they take the drug, the more likely they are to suffer side effects. And these side-effect-illnesses then have to be treated - with more drugs.

• Doctors don't see their patients getting better. They actually get worse, month by month, often before their very eyes. The number of patients waiting outside the surgery door does not reduce, it grows, with older patients returning regularly because they are still ill, and new patients arriving all the time.

•  The pharmaceutical drugs that doctors prescribe are also failing, so doctors find that as time goes by they have fewer treatment options. Some drugs are banned or withdrawn. The drugs that remain are no safer, and more and more restrictions are placed on prescribing them.

• Yet patients are not part of this loop. They continue to believe the conventional medicine is the route to good health, that doctors have the answer to all their medical problems. After all, this is what patients are told, in the mainstream media, by leading health professionals, by pharmaceutical industry propaganda. They face expectations they are unable to meet.

• So patients demand the impossible of them. They demand that doctors prescribe - something, anything. Yet they have nothing safe or effective to prescribe. My recent blog about the Opioid scandal is a case in point. Doctors have been told to restrict opioid prescriptions: but they are actually prescribing more. Why? The study on which this finding was based said that doctors are limited in the choices they have for dealing with chronic pain.

• The same can be said about the prescription of antibiotic drugs. Patients are becoming resistant to them. Doctors need to prescribe less of them but they are actually prescribing more of them! Why? I outlined my answer here, 'Patients are demanding antibiotic prescriptions'. And doctors, again, have no alternative to offer them. The drugs cupboard is, indeed, getting bare!

* So whilst teachers teach - and reap the rewards of seeing their pupils learn.....

* Whilst the police undertake their duties, investigate crime - and keep the public safe.....

* Whilst carers care for their clients - and are rewarded by their gratitude.....

.... doctors treat their patients and they never get well; they get sicker, they are not able to meet their patients demands for drugs, they become grossly overworked by increasingly un-deliverable demands being made on their time.

It is the most depressing situation I can imagine.

On top of this, more recently, there have been problems in recruitment. For many years fewer people are wanting to become doctors. So whilst there is more demand for doctors most colleges are failing to recruit sufficient students to fill the number of places they offer.

So as doctors retire, many taking early retirement, or leave the profession, or indeed, commit suicide, those who are left are put under an even greater strain, and this seriously affects the mental health of many of the remaining doctors. So my conclusion, my answer to why so many doctors are taking their own lives, is almost inevitable.....

Doctors are in serious distress because they are in the front-line of a profession, a medical system, that is failing badly

For more information on doctor burn-out, where the problem is linked to the concept of "moral injury", watch this video, "Burned out doctors or broken system".

ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE. A new wonder drug for dementia? What is the truth behind the media hype?

There is news today 23 October 2019) of a new wonder drug that can treat Alzheimer's disease. It's called aducanumab. It has hit the headlines in BBC News ('First drug that can slow Alzheimer's dementia'), the Times ('Alzheimer's drug suggests our research billions were not for naught'), the Telegraph ('New drug that halts mental decline is 'best news for dementia in 25 years'), and no doubt the rest of the mainstream media too. You do not need to read all these accounts as they are all virtually identical. The source material will undoubtedly be a press release by the drug company, Biogen, which is seeking regulatory approval in the USA for this 'groundbreaking" drug.

The news will encourage, and raise the expectations, of millions of people who suffer from, or have loved one's who suffer from, dementia. The pharmaceutical industry has done it again! It has come up with yet another wonder drug that will transform our health! Or so they are led to  believe.

The truth is rather more uncertain than the media coverage, who as usual have meekly accepted what the drug company has told them, without investigating any of the downsides. So what is the truth about aducanumab? What is known about it that we are not supposed to know?

• In March 2015, Biogen presented 'positive interim results' of a study.
• In March 2019, just four years later, Biogen discontinued all trials into the drug.

Why was this? We are told that an "independent data monitoring committee advises aducanumab unlikely to meet primary endpoints", although we were also told that "the recommendation to stop the studies was not based on safety concerns". So what was it based on? Presumably it was found not to be effective!

But what about the safety of aducanumab? Conventional medicine frequently dismisses any safety concerns that are known about drugs, both old and new. This is the warning statement about aducanumab on the Drugs.com website.

               "Patients treated with adalimumab are at increased risk of infection, some of which may become serious and lead to hospitalization or death. These infections have included TB, invasive fungal infections, bacterial, viral, and those caused by opportunistic pathogens including Legionella and Listeria." (my emphasis).

For conventional medicine (and the Drugs.com website is owned by pharmaeutical interests) such safety concerns do not warrant any more than a warning, however drastic that warning might be! And, of course, the trials abandoned in March 2019 had nothing to do with 'safety' concerns! Instead, doctors are advised to take care about how the drug is used.

               "The risks and benefits of therapy should be carefully considered prior to treatment initiation in patients with chronic or recurrent infection. Evaluate for latent TB and treat if necessary prior to initiating therapy. Monitor patients closely for signs and symptoms of infection during and after treatment, including the possible development of TB in patients who tested negative prior to treatment. Consider empirical antifungal therapy in at-risk patients who develop severe systemic illness. Lymphoma and other malignancies, some fatal, have been reported in pediatric and adolescent patients treated with tumor necrosis factor (TNF) blockers such as adalimumab. Postmarketing cases of hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma (HSTCL), usually fatal, have been reported in patients treated with TNF blockers including adalimumab, primarily in adolescent and young adult males with Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis." (my emphasis).


Clearly, the concept of 'first do not harm", and the precautionary principle" do not apply to conventional medical practice.

Nor does it appear to be a concern for the mainstream media. I did not have to struggle to find this informaton. It is not hidden. Nor is it information that comes from anywhere else but conventional medical literature. But the mainstream media does not bother to inform us. And the drug companies are, as sure as hell, will not do so!

What guides the BBC, the Telegraph, the Times, et al., is what drug companies want us to know; not what we need to know about these 'wonder drugs' before we begin to consume them.

This is not unusual. Whenever we face an epidemic of chronic disease, such as dementia, but also allergy, arthritis, autism, diabetes, and so many more, the first questions asked by the conventional medical establishment is "how can we respond?" "What treatments (usually what drug) do we have to combat this epidemic?"

The first question that should be asked, both by doctors and patients, is - "what has caused this epidemic?" Why are the numbers of older people, and even young adults and children, now suffering from dementia increasing so rapidly?"

Unfortunately it is a question that conventional medicine, and the drug companies that controls it, do not want us to ask. The cause of these epidemic levels of chronic disease are pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines - at least in large measure. They are certainly known to cause dementia, and although doctors know this (it's in their medical literature) they certainly do not want us to know!

Asking such a question does not fit in with the business plan of the pharmaceutical industry, which is to treat illness with drugs that cause other illnesses through side effects, and then treat these illnesses with other drugs, which also cause side effects............. and so on.

So investigating the CAUSE of Alzheimer's is not part of conventional medical strategy. Finding new, and every more harmful (and profitable) drugs to treat it, most certainly is! And our mainstream media is complicit in this.

Postscript (7th June 2021)

This awful drug, Aducanumab, has raised its ugly head again. 18 months after this free advertising of a nasty drug the mainstream media is at it again.

 

"US approves first new Alzheimer's drug in 20 years" is the BBC's headline. It is good, free advertising, although this time the BBC does mention the "uncertainty" about the drug trial results; but of course this  is not reflected in the headline.

And it's more than just 'uncertainty'. Members of the FDA (the USA drug regulator) have resigned "amid backlash over controversial drug approval". Even members of the pharmaceutical medical establishment will take action to prevent patient harm by such an approval. Perhaps all is not well within conventional medicine!

STATIN DRUGS. Doctors are prescribing them for healthy people they consider in danger of heart disease. But a study has found they have little benefit. However, the serious side effects remain!

NICE encourages doctors to prescribe statin drugs to patients considered to have just a 10% risk threshold for heart disease. Many doctors feel that this uses up vast amounts of clinical time when waiting times to see a doctor continues to increase. They have been reducing these threshold (that is, increasingly the number of well people who are told to take statins) for decades.

The reason for this is simple. Conventional medicine believes that (i) statin drugs reduce the risk of heart problems; and (ii) the drugs are 'entirely safe'.

Safety.
I have written several blogs over the last 10 years about the assumed safety of statin drugs (do a search on 'statins', above to see them all). You will see that they are now known to cause serious disease, such as diabetes, prostate cancer. arthritis, structural muscle damage, serious skin disease, prostate cancer, and even heart disease (yes really!) The most recent serious disease found to be caused by statins is confusion - so these 'safe'  drugs may well be an important factor in the epidemic tise in levels of dementia/alzheimers that we are now experiencing.

Effectiveness
The assumption about statin drugs (as with all pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines) is that they are effective. This is surely necessary to counteract the harm they are now known to cause - that they are, at the very least, effective - they actually do what doctors have told us for so long they do!

But they don't! Like every drug you might care to mention, when they are first marketed we are told that they are (i) safe, and (ii) effective, only to find out later that they are neither.

               "The benefits of statins for primary prevention in healthy patients is unclear and in some cases a ’waste of healthcare resources’.

This is according to a study published in the British Medical Journal in October 2019.The study was conducted by the National University of Ireland, Galway. Researchers drew upon primary prevention data drawn on the findings of three recent peer reviewed papers on statin drugs, and they concluded that the benefits of statins to this group....

               "were not statistically significant when the baseline risk of developing a cardiovascular disease was factored in, raising uncertainty about the benefits of statins for primary prevention."

This was reported in the GP magazine, Pulse, which quoted one of the researchers saying that the use of statins for primary prevention ‘may be an example of low value care and, in some cases, represent a waste of healthcare resources’.

And Pulse provided these statistics.

               "Although the benefits of statins among healthy patients remains unclear, the study also showed that the proportion of over-50s eligible for statins increased from 8% in 1987 to 61% in 2016 due to a change in guidelines on cardiovascular disease." (my emphasis).


So whilst increasingly 'lower risk' patients became eligible for statin treatment, "none of those patients ... would reach acceptable levels of risk reduction to justify taking a daily statin."

So will patients be informed of this?

• Will this study have any impact on conventional medicine's approach?
• Will healthy statin users, considered to be low and medium risk, be told about this? 
• Will the media pick up the study, and inform the public?

It is would seem that the answer to all these questions is a definite "NO"! Pulse quoted the response of Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of GPs, which showed of the usual defensiveness about pharmaceutical drugs.

               "Evidence has shown that statins are safe drugs and an effective preventative measure against heart conditions when prescribed and used appropriately. Nevertheless, the College has previously voiced concern around lowering the threshold for initiating statin therapy, which has significantly increased the number of patients eligible, due to the potential for over-diagnosis. Patients certainly have the right to question whether statins are the best course of therapy for them - as they do with any prescribed medication - and as with any long-term medication, it’s important that regular reviews are undertaken to determine if they are proving beneficial for the patient, based on their current circumstances." (my emphasis).

In other words, nothing is likely to happen. The study will be ignored because Statins are both safe, and effective. There is no suggestion that the threshold for giving healthy patients statin drugs should be raised. There is no suggestions that patients should be told. So whilst patients may have "the right to question"  how, when, and by whom will they be told? How will they find out about this new information?


In the meantime, as Pulse points out, the NHS is currently considering allowing a range of professionals to prescribe ‘low-risk’ medicines to patients. More 'primary prevention' without any evidence that it has any benefits.

Both the BMJ and Pulse articles are suggesting that there is a need for more information. As the study said, "we need to assess and understand the evidence underlying these trends." However, this is clearly not what the drug companies want to do. After all, statin drugs are one of the most commonly prescribed medicines in the world, with estimated sales said to be approaching $1 trillion by 2020. So, as is made clear in the article, the pharmaceutical industry is not playing the game!

               "Yet despite calls to make access to full clinical trial data a legal, regulatory, or ethical requirement, key statin trial data remain unavailable for independent analysis." (my emphasis).

So what are patients on statin drugs to do? Even if they do get to know? The study says that "we need to assess and understand the evidence underlying these trends" but conventional medicine will not agree to this. The drug companies don't want them to have access to important information that might affect their profitability.

So patients - carry on taking the Statins! Even if no-one knows exactly how safe, or how effective they are. Pharmaceutical profits are, after all, more important than our health!


 

THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY. Greed, corruption, fraud, dishonesty. Would you buy a 2nd hand car from them? Leave along drugs that can seriously damage your health?

Conventional medicine, what we invariably get when we see our doctor, or visit a hospital is dominated by the pharmaceutical industry. And the pharmaceutical industry is dominated by greed, corruption, fraud, and dishonesty.

This is not a new claim. Nor is it one from which the drugs industry can defend itself. It has form, a history that demonstrates that it will go to any lengths to sell us drugs and vaccines, quite regardless of the damage they do to our health.

The pharmaceutical industry has been involved in a large number of legal cases over the years, cases that have demonstrated the lack of ethics that drives the industry. I have highlighted some of them, those from 2007 to the present day, here - it makes sobering, frightening reading.

My question is this. Each of these legal uses illustrates the extreme lengths drug companies will take in order to sell us dangerous drugs. So can they be trusted? Is any drug or vaccine peddled by these companies, for profit, safe for us even to consider taking? Can we, should we believe anything pharmaceutical drug companies tell us?

Especially when drug company executives in the past have told us that judicial fines are 'merely another cost of doing business"? An amount to little more than 'pocket money'?

Johnson & Johnson is a drug company that (in the words of Bloomberg News) has taken some costly beatings in USA courts this year. "And it could get worse."

In October 2019 J&J were ordered by a jury to pay $8 billion for wrongfully pushing doctors to prescribe the anti-psychotic drug, Risperdal. As Bloomberg outlines, this came on the heels of many $billions paid out for damage claims involving opioid painkillers, artificial hips, and even their renowned baby powder.

               "The health-care giant still faces at least 100,000 lawsuits alleging injuries from those products and others, including vaginal-mesh devices and the diabetes drug Invokana....... Analysts say the cost of resolving those cases may reach $20 billion, and J&J’s handling of the various litigations is likely to spark questions when the company reports results on Tuesday."

This is the problem, as highlighted by Bloomberg. Not so much a concern for the damage J&J has done to patients, but the implications for the financial viability of the company. Shares of J&J were down 12% "partly because there’s no end in sight for liability costs".

I am not concerned with the shareholders! They have profited greatly from these drug companies for many decades. "Investors are tired or it", Bloomberg tell us. Well, I am more concerned about the patients who have used and taken, quite innocently, these profitable J&J products for personal health reasons, only to find that their health was damaged. A business ethics professor, Michael Santoro, at California’s Santa Clara University, gets closer to my concerns.

               “J&J used to be the gold standard of ethical behavior in the pharmaceutical industry. They just seem incapable of properly managing their ethical behavior at this point. They’ve lost their way.”

Indeed they have certainly lost their way! The Bloomberg article outlines the enormity of their current problems.

Opioids. J&J face 2,000 pending cases, with an estimated cost of $5 billion

Baby Powder. J&J face 15,5000 pending cases, with an estimated cost of $5 billion

Risperdal. J&J face 13,000 pending cases, with an estimated cost of $800 billion

Vaginal Mesh. J&J face 2,000 pending cases, with unknown costs

Artificial Hips (Pinnacle, ASR). J&J face 12,000 pending cases, with an estimated cost of $4 billion

Xarelto. J&J face 31,700 pending cases, with an estimated cost of $775 billion

Invokana. J&J face 1,000 pending case, with unknown costs

Details of each of these cases is further outlined in the Bloomberg article, who make the point that J&J are not the only pharmaceutical drug company that faces such action, and that "battling in court has become routine for many drugmakers, and J&J is no exception." This is absolutely true.

J&J were quoted saying that it has an expansive legal strategy that carefully evaluates all claims to determine when to settle and when to fight, that they were operating within a very litigious environment, and that they must at times be willing to go to trial when necessary. They also said that they remained open to resolving cases through settlement when and where that was appropriate. 

               "We have a proven track record of being able to successfully and appropriately manage this balance.”

I have no doubt that they do! But there was no mention (there rarely is) about their track record for keeping patients safe from dangerous drugs and medical devices. And that's probably because making such a case is more difficult - given their track record - and the track record of most other pharmaceutical companies.

What we must remember is that each one of the cases listed above represent people, and their families, who have been damaged by 'medical' products. Moreover, they represent only a tiny proportion of people and families who would be similarly damaged. And then only people and families living in the USA. The damage cause by J&J, and other drug companies, is much greater than these court cases could ever represent. So the real question for each of us is this.

WOULD YOU BUY A SECOND HAND CAR FROM J&J?

WILL YOU RISK YOUR HEALTH BY BUYING DRUGS FROM THEM?

OR ANY OTHER PHARMACEUTICAL DRUG COMPANY?