Fraudulent drug research involving intravenous fluid management using colloids may have compromised surgery outcomes of millions of patients

The Telegraph reports that fraudulent drug research involving intravenous fluid management using colloids may have compromised surgery outcomes of millions of patients.

Many of my blogposts are about fraud involving drug research. Too many members of the medical profession have what is called 'a conflict of interest'. Put simply, this means that they are receiving payments/bribes/inducements of some kind from a pharmaceutical drug company in order to lie about the efficacy and/or safety of the company's drug/s in order to swell the profits of the company. When criminal court cases result from this fraud and from the massive harm and suffering caused to patients, the usual sanction is a huge fine on the company, but huge though the fines are, they pale into insignificance in comparision to the profits made by the fraudulent research claims, and are regarded as reasonable costs by the drug companies. This is why the fraud continues to flourish and why it is unwise to trust drug research findings.

It is vanishingly rare for any individuals involved in the criminality to suffer punishment personally. But in this case, the anaesthetist involved, Joachim Boldt, is at the centre of a criminal investigation. Let us hope that if found guilty he will receive a punishment of imprisonment appropriate to the suffering and worry his greed has caused to millions of patients, and that it will deter other members of the medical profession from being tempted into research fraud.

Drug company financial inducements corrupt doctors and damage the reputations of medical schools

Read about how drug companies corrupt doctors and medical schools with inducements in cash or in freebies to get them to give talks/lectures promoting their company's drugs. And read the Comments beneath the article.

CEOs should be prosecuted when pharmaceutical companies break the law

CEOs should be prosecuted when pharmaceutical companies break the law.

See this NewScientist article by Paul Thacker, an investigator at the Project On Government Oversight, a non-profit organisation exposing waste, fraud and abuse in federal government.

Psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry: an unhealthy symbiosis

I am very impressed by the article I have just been reading online: Psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry: who pays the piper? (Psychiatric Bulletin (2005) 29: 84-85 © 2005 The Royal College of Psychiatrists. As you can see, it was written some years ago, but its message is even more urgent today.

The three writers of the article are psychiatrists, concerned about the increasing grip the pharmaceutical industry has on the training of psychiatrists, on drug trials, on the inventing of new mental illnesses to be treated with psychotropic drugs, on the influencing of prescribing physicians to prescribe certain drugs, etc. It is a short and very clearly written article. I do urge you to read it.

My personal concern focuses mainly on the terrible suffering that psychotropic drugs can and do cause. I have written many times about the side-effect of morbid obesity (plus all its attendant illnesses and disabilities) resulting from many of these drugs.

Thousands upon thousands of children, mainly in America, are subjected to drug treatment for the flimsiest of reasons, and their young lives are blighted almost before they have begun. That is not even counting the effects on their brains themselves, and all the other systems of the body. The problem is compounded in America by the fact that so many of their legislators are in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry and are lobbyists for it.

Children are not the only group who endure unnecessary illness, unhappiness and pain in order to swell the profits of Big Pharma. In my country, the UK, many elderly people in care homes are drugged with psychiatric coshes, bringing frailty, disability, indignities and hastened death, and the doctors who bring about this horrifying suffering incur neither censure nor sanction: EVEN THOUGH THE FACTS ARE WELL KNOWN BY THE GOVERNMENT.

We have had the thalidomide tragedies, the tranquilliser tragedies. We presently have the ever-increasing and reckless prescribing of anti-depressants, which complacent doctors delude themselves into believing 'save lives'. See Anti-depressants are no better than dummy pills and amitriptyline

The 'developed' world, that has nurtured the pharmaceutical industry until it has grown into a multinational malign entity 'too big to be allowed to fail', apparently, will come to rue its failure to nip corruption in the bud long ago.

Ex Drug Company Executive jailed for bribing doctors to use his company's products

See article at bloomberg.com.

Well that's very good news. Jailing an individual is a much more effective deterrent than fining the company (in this case, Johnson & Johnson’s U.K. unit, DePuy International).

A further article about the reprehensible practice of ghostwriters, on the payroll of drug companies, writing articles for medical journals

Documents recently released in federal court cases against the drug company Wyeth have exposed one of the dirty secrets in the world of medical journals: the widespread practice of ghostwriting. While doctors are named as the authors of articles about treatments and diseases, behind the scenes is a paid writer who is largely responsible for crafting the piece. Not only is the ghostwriter on the payroll of a drug company with interests in the topic, the company often reviews the manuscript before the physician sees it.
Read article in the St. Petersburg Times (Florida/USA)

There's an excellent article in the Guardian about a bone expert at Sheffield Uni who faces action over claims of ghostwriting for a US drug company

Excellent Guardian article by Sarah Boseley about a UK doctor (Professor Richard Eastell, a bone expert at Sheffield University) who is facing action over claims of 'ghost writing' for a US drug company. The article is also about the prevalence of ghost-written medical articles in order to profit drug companies.

It's good to see Tim Kendall, joint director of the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, speaking out on the matter, and saying that the problem is the close relationship between doctors and the industry.

Extract from the article: "Ghost writing was one manifestation of a bigger problem which he believed was the institutional bias of doctors who work closely with and for drug companies. "In mental health 85% of all published trials are funded by the drug industry," he said. Allowing for the unsuccessful trials the industry does not publish, the figure is probably nearer 95%, he said. Studies have shown that drug company-funded trials are five times more likely to come out with a positive result for the drug than independent trials."

Others criticise the GMC for its leniency towards doctors involved in dubious research practices.

Look at this startling and scandalous fact: A study of 4,000 physicians found that 96% received money from drug companies, and yet "the majority did not see it as a conflict of interest."

Doctors fall over themselves in their eagerness to preen themselves about their scholarly articles being 'peer-reviewed' and therefore worthy of respect not to be accorded to writings by lay people who have studied matters usually thought of as the sphere of the professionals only. - But what respect or even credence should be accorded ghost-written articles based on false data, false claims and false evidence, falsely by-lined by corrupt medics motivated by greed? - My question is rhetorical, of course. No respect whatever should be accorded to these junk articles, written about junk pharmaceuticals, by medics who dishonour their high calling.

Record Fraud Fine for Pfizer

BBC News reports that "US drugmaker Pfizer has agreed to pay $2.3bn (£1.4bn) in the largest healthcare fraud settlement in the history of the Department of Justice."

As well as the criminal fraud, there were allegations of bribery to encourage healthcare providers to prescribe some of the company's drugs.

I reckon it's best to avoid pharmaceutical drugs if you can.

Good nutrition is the best physician and the safest medicine.

Appeals court has revived a multibillion-dollar Medicare fraud case alleging Johnson & Johnson paid doctors kickbacks to prescribe an expensive drug

Read Newsmeat.com article here.

What's wrong with Psychiatric Drugs? - A LOT!

About the psychiatric drugs racket and the corrupt health professionals who collude with it: see

The psycho-pharmaceutical industry

Almost 30% of cancer studies report conflict of interest

A new analysis finds that many clinical cancer studies published in respected medical journals have financial connections to pharmaceutical companies.
Read article at physorg.com

Read about Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa's ongoing investigation

Read The Boston Globe's article about Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa's investigation into whether Harvard child psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Biederman's association with pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson influenced his research findings about their psychotropic drugs, and therefore harmed children.

It's great that the spotlight of publicity is being beamed onto possible abuse of trust and honesty in the medical profession. The powerless need to be protected from the abuse of power. Sleaze in the medical profession is especially reprehensible, and the drug companies have a poor record for transparency in their research findings.

A cholesterol-lowering drug, Inegy, may increase the risk of cancer.

Cholesterol-lowering drug 'may increase cancer risk'
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The drug called Inegy is taken by thousands of people in the UK and the drug regulator is studying research which has linked to indicated a link to increased cancers and deaths from cancer.

It is a combination of the statin simvastatin and ezetimibe for use in patients whose cholesterol cannot be controlled by one drug alone.

Just under 300,000 prescriptions were dispensed for Inergy in the last two years in England and Wales, official figures show.

The American Food and Drug Administration issued a statement saying preliminary findings from a study has shown found the drug did not reduce cardiovascular problems as expected and a larger percentage of patients on the drug were diagnosed with and died from all types of cancer than those on the placebo during the five year study."

So! - It doesn't actually work and it also causes extra deaths from cancer? - Best not to take it then...(o: - or prescribe it!

You may wonder why doctors prescribe these rubbish drugs that don't work and are so harmful. - There was a good clue on the radio today. - There was criticism of pharmaceutical companies that provide expensive junkets/trips abroad for doctors and other health professionals to go to 'conferences' and other euphemisms for free holidays in exchange for prescribing more of the drug companies' pharmaceutical junk to their innocent patients...)o:

'Twas ever thus. There have been many eminent critics of the medical profession's venality and cupidity, e.g. Dr Joe Collier, clinical pharmacologist, was writing about this influencing/bribery of doctors by drug companies 20 years ago in The Health Conspiracy - How Doctors, the Drug Industry and the Government Undermine Our Health and other publications. See also Sleaze

Actually a great many, possibly even most, prescription drugs increase the risk of developing cancer - steroids, HRT, anti-psychotics, tricyclic antidepressants, etc.

For years a Harvard child psychiatrist recommended powerful antipsychotics for use in children, without disclosing that he was paid by the drug makers

A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators.
Read article in the New York Times (USA)

Many (possibly even most) doctors in positions of being able to influence prescribing practices are in the pockets of the drug companies. Sleaze is rife in the medical profession. - See http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2006/07/sleaze-in-medical-profession.html

I invite you to read this page, the author of which has a particular interest in the drug, Seroxat - http://fiddaman.blogspot.com/2007_04_05_archive.html - Here is an extract from the page:

"I've looked through the pdf file for THE COMMITTEE ON SAFETY OF MEDICINES ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2004 and will show you all those members who have ties with Glaxosmithkline.

Remember, The Committee on the Safety of Medicines (CSM) was 'apparently' an independent advisory committee that for 40 years advised the UK Licensing Authority on the quality, efficacy and safety of medicines - In other words they offered advice to the MHRA. It was replaced on 30 October 2005 by the Commission on Human Medicines which combines the functions of both the former committee and the Medicines Commission

I've just gone through the declared Personal Interests to highlight the members whom had ties with Glaxosmithkline.

PERSONAL INTERESTS

MEMBER

Professor A Blenkinsopp - GSK Specific – Fees

Professor H Dargie - GlaxoSmithKline Consultancy

Dr M Donaghy - GSK Shares

Dr J C Forfar - GSK Shares

Dr R Leonard - GSK Fees/ Publicity work

Prof D J Nutt - GSK Consultancy Psychotropics and 300 shares

Professor J F Smyth - GSK Consultancy

Professor Christopher Bucke - SKB Shares

Prof Nicholas Mitchison - GSK Shares

Dr Brian J Clark - GSK PHD student funding

Professor Robert Booy - GSK Consultancy

Professor S M Cobbe - GSK Research grant

Professor J E Compston - GSK Consultancy

Dr A Glasier - GSK Shares (£10,000)

Dr Andrew A Grace - GSK Consultancy

Dr P Hindmarsh - GSK Consultancy on growth, probably lapsed by now

Professor P D Home - GSK Consultancy

Dr R F A Logan - GSK Shares

Professor R MacSween - SmithKline Beecham Shares

Professor J O’D McGee - SmithKline Beecham Shares

Is the MHRA- Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency - in the pocket of the drug companies? - Read this!

If anybody is under the misapprehension that the MHRA - Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (An executive agency of the Department of Health) is doing a good job and is not overly influenced by or even in the pocket of the drug companies I invite you to read this page, the author of which has a particular interest in the drug, Seroxat - http://fiddaman.blogspot.com/2007_04_05_archive.html - Here is an extract from the page:

"I've looked through the pdf file for THE COMMITTEE ON SAFETY OF MEDICINES ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2004 and will show you all those members who have ties with Glaxosmithkline.

Remember, The Committee on the Safety of Medicines (CSM) was 'apparently' an independent advisory committee that for 40 years advised the UK Licensing Authority on the quality, efficacy and safety of medicines - In other words they offered advice to the MHRA. It was replaced on 30 October 2005 by the Commission on Human Medicines which combines the functions of both the former committee and the Medicines Commission

I've just gone through the declared Personal Interests to highlight the members whom had ties with Glaxosmithkline.

PERSONAL INTERESTS

MEMBER

Professor A Blenkinsopp - GSK Specific – Fees

Professor H Dargie - GlaxoSmithKline Consultancy

Dr M Donaghy - GSK Shares

Dr J C Forfar - GSK Shares

Dr R Leonard - GSK Fees/ Publicity work

Prof D J Nutt - GSK Consultancy Psychotropics and 300 shares

Professor J F Smyth - GSK Consultancy

Professor Christopher Bucke - SKB Shares

Prof Nicholas Mitchison - GSK Shares

Dr Brian J Clark - GSK PHD student funding

Professor Robert Booy - GSK Consultancy

Professor S M Cobbe - GSK Research grant

Professor J E Compston - GSK Consultancy

Dr A Glasier - GSK Shares (£10,000)

Dr Andrew A Grace - GSK Consultancy

Dr P Hindmarsh - GSK Consultancy on growth, probably lapsed by now

Professor P D Home - GSK Consultancy

Dr R F A Logan - GSK Shares

Professor R MacSween - SmithKline Beecham Shares

Professor J O’D McGee - SmithKline Beecham Shares

Professor David R Matthews - GSK Honorarium for advice

Dr A Smyth - GSK Conference expenses

Professor A D Struthers - GSK Shares

Professor J C E - GSK Shares

Dr A Gerard Wilson - GSK Consultancy

Dr Rosemary Leonard - GSK Fees/ Publicity work

Mr David P S Dickinson - GSK Fee paid work

Dr Charlotte C D Williamson - GSK Shares

Professor Anthony H Barnett - GSK Advisory work and lectures diabetes related products

Professor V Krishna K Chatterjee - GSK Consultancy on preclinical research with a Vanillord Receptor antagonist (Consultancy end of 2004)

Professor Albert - GSK Shares

An 'independent' advisory committee huh?"

Surely personnel working to protect the public from the harm that prescription drugs can and do cause, should be strictly forbidden from being paid consultants to drug companies and doing research and publicity for them and from being holders of drug company shares?

Prescribed drugs do far, far more harm than good. Their side-effects account for most of the serious avoidable illness in the parts of the world that have the misfortune to be users of Westernised medicine.

As well as giving information about salt, salt sensitivity and about obesity, my blog heavily criticises the drug companies and their drug-pushers - i.e. the medical profession.

My website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ is about the special harm that prescribed steroids. HRT, amitriptyline and some other drugs do. See in particular http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

My Mensa article is here: Obesity and the Salt Connection

My 'political' page is http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html (Do, please, try to read the whole of the page.)

Anyone interested in anti-depressants would find this material very interesting indeed - The Antidepressant Web

Guard your health! - As far as you possibly can, steer clear of doctors and their dangerous drugs!

Medical staff (doctors and nurses) in Turin hospital suspected of bribery and corruption in funeral parlour selection for corpses.

Turin hospital cash for corpses scam

Extract:

"As part of the scam, doctors and nurses allegedly allowed employees of the funeral parlours into the mortuary and gave them white coats, so they could break the news of a loved one's death to relatives and then suggest a burial company.

Police estimated that the corrupt employees were making more than €5,000 from the hospital's average of 10 deaths a week.

If they are convicted of bribery and corruption, the medical staff could face a minimum of five years in jail."

The World Health Organisation, the drugs company and the $10,000 funding offer

The World Health Organisation, the drugs company and the $10,000 funding offer - Guardian article.

Extract:

"The World Health Organisation is facing allegations that it attempted to secure a $10,000 (£5,100) donation from a drugs company by asking a patients' group to act as a covert channel for the funds, in the light of documents published today. The alleged arrangement would have broken the WHO's own rules on accepting money from the pharmaceutical industry.

Emails between Benedetto Saraceno, the WHO's director of mental health and substance abuse, and the European Parkinson's Disease Association appear to suggest that the WHO was willing to take $10,000 from Britain's biggest drug company, GlaxoSmithKline, to help pay for the preparation of a report on neurological disorders, for which GSK makes drugs.

However, Dr Saraceno made it clear that the money must pass through the coffers of the EPDA first because of the rules on WHO accepting drug industry funding. "

Nothing surprises me about the World Health Organisation! - Apart from its name, that is! - See my previous post for further criticism of this very flawed organisation. - See also Sleaze in the Medical Profession - You wonder whether the medical profession cares more about the health of patients or about the health of the sleazy drug companies' profits. - Or maybe, like me, you don't wonder...)o:

Pharmaceuticals 'need clinical trial regulation'

Pharmaceuticals 'need clinical trial regulation'

Never was there a truer statement!

See this report:

Pharmaceuticals 'need clinical trial regulation'

See also Sleaze in the Medical Profession - an earlier entry in this Blog.

Sleaze in the Medical Profession

In the British newspaper, The Sunday Telegraph, last Sunday 9th July 2006, I read an report in the online edition, and it was headed: "Sleaze in the Medical Profession" and it began:

Doctors who take drug firm 'freebies' face being struck off
By Michael Day
(Filed: 09/07/2006)

Doctors who accept gifts or hospitality from drugs companies could be struck off.
Under revised rules, due to be published later this year, the General Medical Council (GMC) will warn doctors who take "freebies" from pharmaceutical companies that they may be putting their registration at risk. The GMC will also encourage doctors to blow the whistle on colleagues who are taking bribes from drug companies.


The report ends:

Dr Richard Nicholson, the editor of the Bulletin of Medical Ethics, said: "I'm afraid there is an awful lot of sleaze going on in the medical profession.
"If doctors are at risk of being disciplined, or even struck off, they are more likely to think twice about accepting money or gifts."


That there is widespread sleaze in the medical profession was not news to me, the writer of this blog. - I have been aware of it for many years...)o: - Many other damaged patients are all too aware that doctors care far more about money than about the well-being of their patients...)o: