GSK whistleblowers handsomely rewarded for their evidence which helped in the US prosecution of Glaxo for drug mispromotion and fraud

The Telegraph reports that four former GlaxoSmithKline employees will share up to £159 million for their part in the successful prosecution of the drug company. Unfortunately Glaxo's crimes and misdemeanours are regarded with amazing leniency in Britain, as evidenced by the award of a knighthood earlier this year to Andrew Witty, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline. Drug company profits trump patient safety and corporate ethics.

What's the best way to prevent asthma, and by extension, prevent deaths from asthma?

Well it was reported in the Telegraph this week that doctors, by way of Dr Dinesh Saralaya, who runs a specialist clinic in Bradford, are saying that 1,000 Asthma deaths a year could be prevented if patients, even those with only mild asthma, would regularly use "their ‘preventer’ inhaler - which contains a low-dose steroid" rather than relying "solely on the ‘reliever’ inhaler when undergoing an attack. " The evidence for this claim appears to be "a poll of 333 people with severe asthma, conducted by Ipsos MORI and funded by drugs firm Novartis". Personally, I would never give much credence to research funded by companies with a financial interest in the results, and in particular to research funded by drug companies hoping to increase the sales and use of their drugs and consequently their company profits. - Would you?

But I have even stronger reasons to regard this report with scepticism. The newspaper report is illustrated with a photo of a child using an inhaler, so I'll consider in particular child sufferers from asthma. - Now I am not a doctor and I have no medical qualifications whatsoever, so if you are wanting a medical opinion you would be better looking elsewhere than on my blog. But like you I do have a brain and I can read. My personal opinion is that the best way to prevent asthma, and to prevent deaths from asthma, is to protect children from a high intake of salt/sodium. My opinion is based on the following research evidence:

In this Telegraph article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2137775/Too-much-television-is-an-asthma-risk.html, about research in Rome, Italy, led by Dr Giuseppe Corbo, despite its misleading title, the crucial finding is, "The study of 20,000 six and seven-year-olds, published in the medical journal Epidemiology, confirmed a strong link with asthma and obesity, but found that salt was the biggest risk. Those with the highest intake of salt were two and a half times more likely to develop asthma." (My emphasis.) I'll bet your brain comes to the same conclusion as mine does, doesn't it? - Protecting children from a high salt diet is the simplest, safest and most effective way to reduce their risk of developing asthma and also from any necessity to take steroid meds as treatment for asthma. (I'm not a big fan of steroid meds, especially if they can be avoided.)

This article, too, supports the wisdom of a low salt intake for children. "According to a new study published by the American Dietetic Association, high-salt foods and snacks are linked to lung changes that trigger asthma symptoms.," and that researchers in Greece found, using questionnaires, "Kids who ate high-salt foods more than three times a week saw their risk of asthma symptoms go up almost five times."

Another drug-free and very important measure to protect children from developing asthma is to avoid dosing children with paracetamol/acetaminophen (aka Tylenol and Calpol). A wealth of statistical data on this webpage http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/health/evidence-mounts-linking-acetaminophen-and-asthma.html?_r=1 suggests a link between acetaminophen and childhood asthma. Also have a read of this article from the Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3233550/Delaying-baby-vaccine-could-cut-asthma.html for another simple measure that "could halve the likelihood of a child developing asthma by the age of seven."

As well as reducing the suffering of many thousands, even of millions, of people, these simple measures could also save about £1 billion a year - nearly one per cent of the NHS entire NHS budget - that is spent on asthma. - What it would not do, of course, is boost the profits of the drug company, Novartis...

Off-label marketing of drugs: damages patients and corrupts healthcare

I STRONGLY URGE you to read the whole of this article about repeated law-breaking by drug companies:
Read article in the Washington Post (USA)

That UK prisoners who are no longer drug-dependant are being deliberately put back onto methadone beggars belief!

See the report in the Telegraph. - No, it's not a late April Fool joke. There really are criminally stupid decisions being made to put prisoners back onto extremely addictive methadone before their release from prison "to minimise the risk of them taking an overdose." I submit that this practice would undoubtedly increase the risk of further criminal activity and ill-health and unhappiness.

Does this country have a drugs policy or not? - I suggest it does have a drugs policy and I suggest that that drugs policy appears to be to promote the taking of pharmaceutical drugs when these are prescribed drugs, however harmful they are, however much they damage lives, as long as their sale brings profit to the drugs companies. The government seems only to want to discourage drug-taking when the drugs are illegal drugs that have not caused any enrichment to the bloated drug companies. My submission fits in with the scandalous, catastrophic waste of many millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on unneeded swine flu jabs (BBC News report) and with the persistant failure to put legal curbs on the over-prescribing of anti-psychotics: see http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2010/04/anti-psychotics-double-risk-of.html

Another Warning of Adverse Side-Effects of Simvastatin

The Telegraph reports on an American study which has found that "high doses can cause muscle damage and a rare condition which induces kidney problems and may be fatal."

Statins, of which this drug is an example, are taken by people to lower their cholesterol level and reduce the risk of having a heart attack. They cost the NHS a great deal of money because they are prescribed to millions of people, who take them every day, often for the rest of their lives. This makes them an obvious cash cow for the drug industry, but the benefit to patients is less obvious. See relative risk and number needed to treat. And painful side-effects are much more common than is usually admitted.

A cost-free, drug-free, completely safe way to reduce hypercholesterolaemia is to cut down on salt and salty food. Avoiding salt and salty food also reduces excess weight and the risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improves your health in countless other ways

Unfortunately, too many people benefit financially from conning the public into thinking that statins are a good and necessary therapy. If you click on the STATINS label beneath this post you will find further information about this controversial class of drugs.

Risks from Overuse of Tamiflu and Other Antivirals

Reported by the LA Times here.

Since the risk of drug-resistant strains of viruses resulting from overuse of antimicrobial drugs is so well-known, why, exactly, was the on-demand supply of Tamiflu to all and sundry resulting from the Telephone for Tamiflu debaclé allowed? and why is it so erroneously referred to as "a safety-first approach?" The only possible beneficiaries from this cavalier distribution and over-supply of Tamiflu are the drug companies.

This leads me to wonder which members of the government/Dept of Health are wanting to favour the drug companies with huge profits from Tamiflu at £15 a dose - and WHY - even at the risk of endangering public health? What is the quid pro quo?

Psychotropic drugs are killing children

In Massachusetts, a four-year-old girl named Rebecca became the center of a murder investigation after being found dead from an overdose of a dangerous combination of drugs. Both her parents and psychiatrist are facing criminal prosecution and will stand trial later this year. In Florida, a seven-year-old boy named Gabriel made headlines because he hanged himself with a shower hose in his foster home. It was later discovered that the boy was on an unauthorized cocktail of psychiatric drugs while in the state’s protective custody. He had been taken from his mother who was herself deemed a danger to the child because of drug addiction. In Texas, a fourteen-year-old boy named Matthew died suddenly after only 29 days of being on a powerful stimulant for ADHD. His devastated parents are suing the drug manufacturer and were recently interviewed on ABC’s “Good Morning America”.
Read article at healthnewsdigest.com (USA)

Children should not be prescribed these dangerous psychiatric drugs. Their health and happiness are being sacrificed to add to the profits of drug companies.

Good nutrition is the best medicine.

Drug licences for cash scandal unfolds in Italy

The director of Italy's medicines regulatory agency has been suspended along with another top official, as the drug licences-for-cash scandal surrounding the organisation continues to unfold. Nello Martini, director of Aifa (the Italian Agency for Pharmaceuticals), has been suspended along with Caterina Gualano, head of medicines registration for the agency. The development follows a two-year investigation in which police found evidence that money had changed hands in return for the falsification of clinical data required for drug licences.
Read article at pharmatimes.com

Is your cholesterol level high? Do you take statins?

If you want to feel younger, forget your statins - Sunday Telegraph article by Dr James LeFanu

Extract:

"A doctor accused of wittingly prescribing useless or possibly lethal drugs would vehemently - and understandably - deny it. This makes it rather difficult to oppose the prevailing medical consensus on statins - the cholesterol-lowering drugs prescribed to four million people in Britain at a cost of £1 billion a year.

That's quite a sum. It could pay the salaries of 700,000 nurses or build two spanking new teaching hospitals.

An even bigger sum is £15 billion. That is the profit the pharmaceutical industry made last year from this, the most profitable class of drugs ever invented. They are so profitable that the latest statins to reach the market came with a £600 million promotion budget, to "promote" the notion to family doctors and policymakers that the lower the cholesterol the better, and that at least half the population would benefit from the drugs.

But it is not so. Statins are useless for 95 per cent of those taking them, while exposing all to the hazard of serious side-effects. Hence my ever-growing file of letters from those who regrettably have had to find this out for themselves, illustrated by this all-too-typical tale from Roger Andrews of Hertfordshire, first prescribed statins after an operation for an aortic aneurism (that he had cleverly diagnosed himself)."

The drug-free way to reduce your cholesterol level (or to prevent ever developing problems with cholesterol) is to cut down on your salt/sodium intake, because you are much more likely to have cholesterol problems if you are sensitive to salt.

And remember, high cholesterol levels are often the result of taking prescribed steroids or HRT, because these drugs often cause salt sensitivity and obesity.

Remember - many prescribed medications do more harm than good.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)