HOW THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY
IS PREYING ON OUR CHILDREN

K.L. Carlson, M.B.A.

“I want to sell drugs to everyone. I want to sell drugs to healthy people. I want drugs to sell like chewing gum.” With those words former Merck CEO Henry Gadsden established the aim of the entire pharmaceutical industry more than 30 years ago. With that aim, a monster was born. A monster that feeds on public tax dollars and then passes a portion of those dollars back to “public servants.” A monster that has bankrupted some state Medicare programs and caused other states to reduce the number of recipients in order to pay for the cost of drugs. A monster that injures, cripples, and kills, without regard for the age of its victims. More than one million Americans have died due to prescription drugs in the past ten years. The fact is, because of the aim
to sell drugs to everyone, the pharmaceutical industry has systematically devised ways to hook children on drugs at the earliest ages possible, including infants under the age of one year.

Unlike street drug pushers who must try to entice children before
they reach school, the pharmaceutical monster bought the rights to
legally drug millions of children in their classrooms.
The monster has bought the rights to mental health testing of all
children and teenagers without parental consent, per the New Freedom
Commission (NFC) created by a presidential executive order in 2002.
Created without votes or public awareness, the NFC is a commission of
people with strong financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. The
commission exists for the purpose of getting mental health screening into
all public schools.

New FREEDOM Commission? Freedom is not mandatory testing
for disorders that are voted into existence without a single objective test
to diagnose; voted into existence by those who will profit.
Freedom is not labeling children with mental disorders; labels that
will follow them throughout life.

Freedom is not taking away children’s abilities to develop properly
because they are made to take drugs that actually destroy the brain’s
neurol functioning, kill nerve cells, and prevent natural brain
development.

Freedom is not making children take addictive, deadly drugs with
more than 100 serious side effects including suicide, sudden death,
heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, mania, paranoia, hallucinations, and
violence.

Freedom is not making children take mind-altering drugs that lead
to homicides and then incarcerate the children for the rest of their lives.
Freedom is not threatening parents that their child will be taken by
Social Services if they do not agree to drug their child.
All this is happening in the United States now because of the
pervasive control of the pharmaceutical industry relentlessly pursuing its
aim to sell drugs to everyone.

The results of the unscientific, non-objective mental health testing
promoted by the NFC has been that more than half the children tested
are labeled with psychiatric disorders and prescribed addictive drugs.
Label and drug, label and drug, label and drug…a monstrous,
continuous process that has limitless abilities to generate profits while
creating birth to grave prescription drug users.

Is the monster achieving its aim to sell drugs to everyone? The
2010 school year begins with 20 percent of all high school students
addicted to one or more prescription drugs.

The 2010 school year begins with 42 percent of foster children,
including preschool age, being made to take addictive, deadly drugs –
that have no health benefits, but do have extreme health risks.
The 2010 school year begins with 8 million children labeled with
mental disorders that are voted into existence. Labels that make the
children believe something is wrong with them, that they are not normal.
The 2010 school year begins with 4.5 million children being made
to take toxic, addictive drugs rated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
(DEA) in the same Schedule 2 of the Controlled Substances Act as
cocaine, barbiturates, and opiates.

The 2010 school year begins with an autism rate of 1 in every 100
children who were normal, healthy babies before vaccinations. Autistic
children are often treated with drugs.

And the 2010 school year begins with more than 200,000 parents
grieving for children who are no longer alive to attend school because of
prescription drugs and vaccines.

This story could be called “The Beginning of the End” because it
has been literally the end for more than 100,000 children in the past
decade. And it is creating the beginning of an entire society where the
majority of people will be drug addicts.

Is the monster achieving its aim? Absolutely. In 2005 the National
Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia
University reported an astounding 15.1 million Americans were addicted
to prescription drugs. Their report also described the 212 percent
increase of prescription drug abuse by children ages 12 to 17 years old.
An increase that was predictable if you look at the larger picture.
Drug addicts do not have futures filled with promise and potential.
Yet, we are allowing millions of our children’s futures to be wiped out by
the pharmaceutical monster.

Little Gabriel Myers was facing a tough life as a foster child at only
7 years old. He needed love and patience. They gave him multiple
psychiatric drugs. He won’t be starting third grade this school year
because he hung himself in 2009. Seven-year-old children do not
naturally think of suicide. They think of running away from home. The
suicide rate of adults taking antidepressant drugs in clinical trials is an
astronomical 718 per 100,000. The suicide rate for people not taking
any psychiatric drugs in the general public is about 11 in 100,000.
Jeremy Strohmeyer was a high school honor student taking no
drugs. A teacher diagnosed him with Attention Deficit Hyperactive
Disorder (ADHD) and he was put on Dexedrine. Within days, this
teenager with so much potential raped and murdered 7-year-old Sherrice
Iverson, then attempted suicide. Jeremy survived but is now serving a
life sentence with no chance of parole. If Jeremy had been taking an
illegal drug, his actions would have immediately been seen as caused by
the drug. Mind-altering drugs are mind-altering drugs, whether they are
labeled legal or not.

Matthew Smith would be fresh out of college and beginning his
career now, if he hadn’t died as a 14-year-old boy from “long term use of
methylphenidate” (Ritalin) as stated on his death certificate. Matthew’s
parents had never wanted him to take Ritalin. When Matthew was only 7
years old, school officials told his parents that Matthew had ADHD. The
school threatened that if Matthew, a healthy active boy, was not put on
Ritalin, they would contact Social Service Child Protective Services.
School authorities claimed his parents could be charged with neglecting
Matthew’s educational and emotional needs. His parents did not want
Matthew on drugs and saw nothing abnormal about his behavior. But
they felt helpless to the school’s authority. Matthew’s parents did what
millions of parents in the U.S. have done. They complied under duress.
Now their beautiful, creative son is dead. The monster won. For seven
years, Matthew’s parents paid the monster to poison their child. Now
they can’t pay anyone to bring him back.

Stephanie Hall would be a young woman now, maybe a mother, if
she hadn’t died in her sleep from a massive cardiac arrest six days before
her twelfth birthday. She had been in first grade less than one month
when her teacher told Stephanie’s mom she thought the little girl had
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Stephanie’s concerned parents took the
perfectly healthy child to a physician and everything was found to be
normal. But because the teacher had already labeled the child with
ADD, the physician wrote a prescription for Ritalin. Poor Stephanie was
too young to make her parents understand how ill the drug made her
feel. It began with headaches and over the years led to hallucinations.
Her heart disease was a silent side effect of the drug. Her parents paid
the monster for six years to poison and terrorize their daughter. Even
when Stephanie began to suffer hallucinations from the mind-altering
drug, the answer was always to increase the dosage. No one considered
the drug as the cause of Stephanie’s problems. Now Stephanie has no
problems and her parents live with the loss.

The loving parents of Candace would be seeing their beautiful
blonde daughter off as a freshman in college this fall, if she hadn’t hung
herself in her bedroom at the age of twelve. A pediatric psychiatrist had
prescribed Zoloft to Candace because “she was anxious about school
exams.” In 2004 when the drug took her life, the antidepressant carried
the FDA’s most severe warning, A Black Box Warning, for suicide for
anyone under 18 years old. But the psychiatrist didn’t tell her parents
about the risk. He told them the drug would make Candace “happy.”
Now Candace is not alive to be happy and her parents live with the loss.
Dominique Slater would be graduating from college this year if she
hadn’t committed suicide in 2003 after being put on a cocktail of
dangerous, mind-altering drugs including Celexa and Wellbutrin. The
drugs caused erratic behavior in the 14-year-old girl. Her physician’s
answer was to put her on high doses of Effexor, another deadly
antidepressant. Fifteen days later, Dominique committed suicide.
That is the extremely dangerous fact about labeling anyone,
especially vulnerable young children, with any type of mental disorder,
including ADD/ADHD. Once people are labeled, all their reactions
will be blamed on the label, not the prescription drugs. The monster
knows this and takes full advantage by teaming with the organization
that votes mental disorders and their symptoms into existence, the
American Psychiatric Association (APA). The number of mental disorders
created by the APA has exploded to over 350, not one with an objective
diagnostic test. Every new disorder has a drug treatment, therefore
reaping profits for both psychiatry and the drug industry. They are
conjoined twins – joined at the wallet. Most physicians who are not
psychiatrists remain naïve about how this system works.
The manual of mental disorders that the APA creates is called the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, usually just
referred to as the DSM. In the documentary film, Where the Truth Lies, a
British psychiatrist candidly states, “DSM stands for diagnosis as a
source of money. It brings in a lot of money.”

The APA receives more money from the pharmaceutical industry
than any other medical association. In July 2008, Senator Charles
Grassley’s demands that the APA provide an accounting of its finances
uncovered that in 2006 drug industry payments accounted for nearly 30
percent of the APA’s financing; more than $20 million dollars. While the
conjoined twins bask in wealth, people die from the drugs; children die
from the drugs.

The New Freedom Commission is not the first time the
pharmaceutical industry has bought Federal government actions to drug
children. In 1991 the Federal Education Department began to pay
schools hundreds of dollars for every child diagnosed with ADD/ADHD.
Schools are always looking for additional sources of funds and drugged
children sit zombie-like in a classroom. A national epidemic of these
contrived disorders that are not even recognized in other countries was
absolutely predictable. The 2010 school year begins with 4.5 million
labeled children being made to take methylphenidate or amphetamine
drugs.

U.S. sales of ADD/ADHD drugs in 2008 were $4.8 billion. The U.S.
uses 95 percent of all the methylphenidate and amphetamine drugs
produced annually. And more than 90 percent of it is given to children.
Without ADD/ADHD there is no market for these drugs because they
have no health benefits. Methylphenidate and amphetamine are rated by
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) as Schedule 2 drugs, the most
addictive and deadly drugs. Schedule 2 includes cocaine, opiates and
barbiturates. Would you give a child cocaine daily? Try to imagine how
children feel with these drugs in their young systems.

Adderall, an amphetamine, is now the most prescribed drug for
those labeled with ADD/ADHD. It was originally a weight loss drug for
adults only, called Obetrol. Obetrol was taken off the market because it
is extremely addictive. But the FDA allowed the exact same drug to be
renamed Adderall and marketed to children. The pharmaceutical
industry’s control is ubiquitous and insidious.

In 1970 the Committee on Government Operations of the U.S.
House of Representatives studied the use of behavior modification drugs
on children. At that time, 200,000 to 300,000 children were made to
take these drugs. The Committee’s report stated that “hyperactivity is
considered a disease because it makes it difficult for schools to be
run like maximum security prisons, for the comfort and the
convenience of the teachers and administrators who work in them.”
The government had it right in 1970, but children don’t have
money to hire powerful lobbyists. The drug companies do. So the
children lose. That is how the pharmaceutical industry continues to prey
on the children every day, month after month, year after year.
Why are 4.5 million children fed amphetamine and
methylphenidate drugs daily? For profit. The schools profit by receiving
hundreds of dollars of Federal money for every child labeled ADD/ADHD.
Some parents profit because a child can be declared as disabled and
receive monthly Social Security payments. The psychiatric profession
profits. And the pharmaceutical industry profits the most, $4.8 billion in
sales in just one year. The monster is achieving the aim by creating
prescription drug addicts at very early ages. Addicts mean continued
profits. The children do nothing but lose.

“We are taking away their future,” Dr. Tony Appel, a
neuropsychologist (brain specialist) and expert child advocate, told NBC
News. “We are taking away their ability to relate to people. Trust, love,
caring, the ability to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and to see
how they see you. We take all that away from these children.”
They lose their ability to develop mentally and socially as indicated
by approximately 35 percent of all children made to take these drugs
never complete high school. Thirty-five percent of 4.5 million children
are 1,575,000 who will not graduate from high school because of
prescription drugs. Don’t blame it on the labels ADD/ADHD. Would
you expect to see a high graduation rate from children drugged with
cocaine or opiates?

They lose their ability to develop socially and emotionally. They
grow up thinking they are not normal, that something is wrong with
them, when nothing is wrong with them. Certainly they are not mentally
ill. There are treatable physiological reasons why some children are
especially active or unable to focus. They may have lead poisoning. They
may lack sufficient vitamins and minerals. They may be living on
unhealthy junk food that can cause hyperactivity, as shown in research.
They may not spend enough time as physically active children releasing
their natural energy. They may live in an extremely chaotic home
environment. But very likely, they are simply healthy normal children
like Stephanie and Matthew were. And like Stephanie and Matthew,
hundreds of thousands of children will die because of prescription drugs.
Ritalin has been found to increase sudden death of children by 500
percent. And the suicide attempt rate of both amphetamines and
methylphenidate has been ten percent in multiple studies. Ten percent
of 4.5 million children are 450,000 children at risk of suicide – for
financial profit. It is monstrous.

And the pharmaceutical industry has turned the suicides into a
campaign to test children for emotional disorders and put the children
on antidepressant drugs. It always comes back to how the monster can
make more profits. And, for the most part, the public has allowed
themselves and their children to be led along like lambs to the slaughter.
“We don’t have an independent, valid test for ADHD, and there is
no data to indicate that ADHD is due to a brain malfunction.” The
National Institute of Health’s consensus statement clearly indicates that
ADD/ADHD is a contrived label; a label that is given no legitimacy in
most countries.

“These entirely bogus junk science, pseudoscientific labels are
barcodes on the foreheads of children. And once the label gets in their
records, it sticks. They can’t get rid of them.” Fred A. Baughman, Jr.,
M.D. states emphatically. Dr. Baughman is a board certified neurologist
for both adults and pediatric neurology. He has been speaking out
against the labeling of children for two decades and is the author of The
ADHD Fraud.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities
can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire
The pharmaceutical industry has done exactly what Voltaire
described. It is absurd to believe millions of U.S. children have mental
disorders and it is an atrocity to drug children with addictive, deadly
drugs that take the children’s futures away from them.
When will this monster with its insatiable desire to have everyone
taking prescription drugs be seen for what it really is? How long will the
American public and physicians remain in a state of denial?
And now the monster preys on children using the Internet.
MSNBC.com reported on Sept. 3, 2010: “Consumer advocates worry
pharmaceutical companies are increasing efforts to reach teenagers
through online ads.” Musical videos featuring teen idols are now used
by pharmaceutical companies to directly market drugs to children using
the Internet. Also games, children’s books, and stuffed animals are
designed to lead children to drugs.

The only thing standing between a child and the monster is
dedicated, loving parents who are aware that their child’s life is not
enhanced by any drug – not even when the drugs are FDA approved.
That is why foster children and children in institutions are the most
vulnerable. No one is protecting them from the monster that simply sees
these vulnerable children as a means to make profits. The numbers show
it.

In Ohio in just one month (July 2004) physicians prescribed
psychiatric drugs for 696 babies aged newborn to 3-years-old who were
covered by Medicaid.

In Texas in just the months of July and August 2004, more than
63,000 teens were prescribed psychiatric drugs and billed to a public
funded program. In just 2 months!
In Florida, where 7-year-old Gabriel hung himself last year, the
Florida Department of Children and Family Services found that in the
year Sept. 2002 to Sept. 2003, nearly 42,000 children aged 12 years and
younger were given almost 200,000 prescriptions for psychiatric drugs.
The monster is winning. It is imperative that every parent and
guardian of a child become aware of the aim of the pharmaceutical
industry and the pervasive control that the monster has to achieve its
aim. Until the public becomes aware and alert, children will remain easy
prey to the monster.
Sources:
Henry Gadsden: Ray Monihan and Alan Cassels, Selling Sickness, How the World’s
Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients (New York:Nations
Books, 2005)
New Freedom Commission: http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov
Autism rate: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/05/autism-rates-government
Children on psych. drugs: http://esciencenews.com/articles/2010/04/20
Children labeled ADD/ADHD: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08
Gabriel Myers: http://www.cbsnews.com
Jeremy Strohmeyer: “Ritalin Kids: Prescription Drugs and Murder,” by Bruce Wiseman,
presented to the Pennsylvania House Democratic Policy Committee,

http://www.oikos.org/ritalinkids.html

Matthew Smith: “Death from Ritalin, The Truth Behind ADHD,” by Lawrence Smith,

http://www.ritalindeath.com

Stephanie Hall: “ADHD – Exposing the Fraud of ADD and ADHD,” by Dr. Fred
Baughman, Jr., http://www.adhdfraud.com
Candace: Documentary film, “Making a Killing,” by CCHR.org
Dominique Slater: http://www.modbee.com
Senator Grassley’s investigation: “Psychiatric Group Faces Scrutiny Over Drug Industry
Ties,” by Benedict Carey and Gardiner Harris, The New York Times, July 12, 2008.
Federal Education Department paying schools: “Resolution to Ban Ritalin,” by Patti
Johnson, presentation to Colorado State Board of Education,

http://www.nfgcc.org/banritalin.html

Suicide rate of antidepressants: Dr. Arif Kahn’s study results

http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/04/06/10.php

Dr. Tony Appel’s quote: NBC News, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SFPJL66p4c
Fred A. Baughman, Jr. M.D.: http://www.adhdfraud.com
Ohio babies on drugs: “Even Babies Getting Treated as Mentally Ill,” by Encarnacion
Pyle, Columbus Dispatch, April, 25, 2005
Texas Medicaid children: “Big Phara Bankrupting US Healthcare System,” by Evelyn
Pringle, August 29, 2006, http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com
Florida children: “Biggest Off-Label Drug Marketing Scheme in U.S. History,” by Evelyn
Pringle, November 30, 2006, ibid

VACCINE HOAX USES CANCER SCARE TACTICS

K.L. Carlson, MBA

According to FDA documents, HPV infections do not lead to cervical cancer.
“Most infections by HPV are short-lived and not associated with cervical cancer,” states a FDA news release dated March 31, 2003.   According to another FDA document, the Gardasil vaccine has been found to increase the risk of developing precancerous lesions by more than 44 percent in young women already infected with the HP virus strains used in the vaccine. So why are there ads in most women’s and parental magazines stating that HPV causes cervical cancer and the Gardasil vaccine should be given not only to girls as young as nine years old, but also to boys?  It’s about money, not health. Charlotte Haug, MD, PhD, stated her concerns about the Gardasil vaccine in an editorial in the Journal of American Medical Association. “Whether a risk is worth taking depends not only on the absolute risk, but on the relationship between potential risk and the potential benefit…Even if persistently infected with HPV, a woman most likely will not develop cancer if she is regularly screened.” The death toll due to Gardasil is now up to 71 girls and more than 18,000 girls have suffered serious injuries. Ashley Ryburn’s life as a healthy, active teenager changed completely when she was vaccinated with Gardasil.  She had to quit all sports activities and cannot even ride her bicycle around the small town where she lives.  Ashley’s video story can be seen at http://www.rockymountainnews.com/videos/detail/ashley-story/ Physician Scott Ratner’s daughter became seriously ill with a chronic immune disease after her first dose of Gardasil.  Dr. Ratner told CBS News, “She would have been better off getting cervical cancer than the vaccine.” Merck, maker of Gardasil, continues to seduce states with money.  Time Magazine reported that Merck has set aside an undisclosed amount of money specifically to lobby states for mandatory HPV vaccinations.  In February 2007, Texas governor Rick Perry bypassed the state legislature and announced an executive order requiring all girls aged 12 and older to receive Gardasil vaccinations.  In May 2007 the Texas legislature responded to public outcry and passed a bill that would not allow mandated vaccination. Even if HP viruses caused cervical cancer, researchers have identified more than 100 strains of the virus.  Gardasil allegedly vaccinates for only four strains. And there is no evidence for how long the vaccination of the four actually lasts.  Would you risk your daughter’s life for that?
Facts about cervical cancer:
1.  It can develop in women who have never had any HPV infections.
2.  It is a cancer that can be diagnosed early with annual PAP smears.
3.  It is easily treatable when found early, without chemo, radiation, or surgery.
4.  It is not contagious.
5.  The annual death rate in the U.S. from cervical cancer is 2 to 4 women per
100,000 women.

How will the public hear the truth about HPV and Gardasil over the cacophony of Merck’s marketing campaign?  How many more children will die or be made seriously ill before this ineffective, dangerous vaccine is removed from the market?  Warn all your family members and friends who have young children.  Cervical cancer is not what they have to fear for their daughters.  The vaccine is the health threat.

Sources:

“Post Licensure Safety Surveillance for Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus Recombinant Vaccine,”
Journal of American Medical Association, Aug. 19, 2009, 302 (7); 750-757.

www.fda.gov

“Virginia Law Guaranteeing Parents’ Medical Right Routed by Mandatory HPV Vaccination,” by Ben
Kage, NewsTarget.com, Feb. 20, 2007.

“Yikes! An STD Vaccine for Sixth-graders” by Carolyn Sayre, Time, Feb. 8, 2007.

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009

THE GREAT CHOLESTEROL SCAM

By K.L. Carlson, MBA

Cholesterol guidelines have been created to increase pharmaceutical profits, not to improve peoples’ health.  I know from my experience as a pharmaceutical sales representative for a statin drug.  We were trained to emphasize to physicians the new lower LDL guidelines that were ostensibly created by health experts. The truth is the majority of the experts who created the lower guidelines have multiple financial ties to pharmaceutical companies.  One expert was found to have ties to ten drug firms.

There is no research that supports the assumption that lower LDL cholesterol reduces cardiovascular events or death in people who have do not already have heart disease. Statins do not prevent heart disease, but that is the myth that the drug companies have made billions of dollars from for more than 20 years.  The lower guidelines simply created a larger lasso to rope more people into buying statin drugs.

“The diet-heart idea – the notion that saturated fats and cholesterol cause heart disease – is the greatest scientific deception of our times…The public is being deceived by the greatest health scam of the century,” states George V. Mann, ScD, MD, the co-director of the well-known Framingham Heart Study.  In the study more than 240 risk factors for heart disease were uncovered.

The fact that statins, brand names Crestor, Lescol, Lipitor, Mevacor, Pravachol, Vytorin, and Zocor, are not the heart disease preventing wonder drugs that drug companies want physicians and the public to believe is not the worst of it. Both men and women with the lowest cholesterol levels died earlier of all causes, including cardiovascular events.

The death rate was 5 times higher for elderly women with very low cholesterol in a French study reported in the medical journal Lancet.

A 15-year study of several European countries included 149,000 men and women and found low cholesterol was significantly associated with increased all- cause deaths.

A University of Hawaii study conducted over 20 years and involved 3,500 Japanese-American men found men with the lowest cholesterol levels died at younger ages of all causes.  Lead researcher of the Hawaiin study, Dr. Irwin Schatz, warns, “Prudence dictates that we be less aggressive in lowering cholesterol in the elderly.”  The research findings also state: “Our data accords with previous findings of increased mortality in elderly people with low serum cholesterol, and show that long-term persistence of low cholesterol concentration actually increases risk of death. Thus, the earlier that patients start to have lower cholesterol concentrations, the greater the risk of death.”

Marketing drowns out the truth of science.  The number of young Americans taking statin drugs continues to climb.  Now there are more than 5 million men and women aged 20 to 44 taking statin drugs.

Women of childbearing age are especially at risk.  Cholesterol is extremely important to the development of the fetus and is naturally contained in breast milk. Pregnant women taking statins have a high rate of premature births and unhealthy babies.  The nonprofit organization March of Dimes has expressed its concern about the dangers to infants when pregnant women are taking statin drugs.

“The same cholesterol that we have been led by the pharmaceutical industry to believe is public health enemy number one, is now proven to be absolutely vital in the formation and function of trillions of synapses in our brains,” explains former NASA physician, scientist and astronaut, Dr. Duane Graveline.  Dr. Graveline was found wandering in his neighborhood, unable to recognize his own home, only six weeks after he began taking the statin Lipitor.  Fortunately he came to his senses later that day and began to suspect it was due to the Lipitor.  His physician assured him that memory loss is not listed as a side effect of statins.  But when Dr. Graveline suffered a second extreme memory lapse, he stopped taking the drug and wrote an article about his experience.  Hundreds of people responded that they had also suffered memory loss from statin drugs.  Dr. Graveline did more research and found, “Thousands of cases of memory dysfunction have been reported to the FDA’s Medwatch program, but the agency still has not acted. And most practicing physicians are unaware of the problem.”

Think of the forming brains of children.  In July 2008 the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published a report recommending that children as young as 2 years old have cholesterol levels tested and, based on the pharmaceutical industry’s guidelines, be put on statin drugs.  The AAP receives millions of dollars from drug companies every year and the Associated Press reported that Dr. Stephen Daniels, the lead author of the AAP report to test children’s cholesterol and give children statin drugs, admits he has been a paid consultant for drug companies. “Cholesterol is vital to proper neurological function. It plays a key role in the formation of memory and the uptake of hormones in the brain…Cholesterol is the main organic molecule in the brain, constituting over half the dry weight of the cerebral cortex,” explains Mary Enig, Ph.D. and Sally Fallon in their report, “Dangers of Statin Drugs: What You Haven’t Been Told About Cholesterol Lowering Medicines.”

The most recent attempt to increase statin sales is the Jupiter study funded by statin maker AstraZeneca. Dr. Paul M. Ridker, in charge of the study, reports financial ties with more than ten pharmaceutical companies.  Although 90,000 people were screened, less than 18,000 people were selected to participate in the Jupiter study that took place in 1315 sites in 26 countries. “If you extrapolate that, it means there are not all that many people exactly like those who were studied,” said Dr. Nieca Goldberg, Director of the women’s heart program at New York University Longone Medical Center.

As a former pharmaceutical rep. turned whistleblower, let me cut through the boloney and give you the actual facts that came from this study.  All the people selected for the study were at a low risk of serious heart problems.  The absolute difference in risk (the drug-company-paid researchers only talk in relative terms, not absolute) between the study’s statin group and placebo group was actually less than one percent.  The New England Journal of Medicine editorial about the Jupiter study concluded that treating 120 people who have the same health profile as the study participants for about 2 years would benefit only one person.  In other words, 120 people, with a specific health profile, have to take the drug daily for about 2 years in order for one person to benefit.  All 120 people would be susceptible to the multitude of the drug’s side effects.  The two lead selling statins, Lipitor and Zocor, are in the top fifteen drugs for severe side effects in the FDA reporting system.

A serious fact from the Jupiter study that is not widely publicized is that the statin group developed diabetes at a higher rate than the placebo group.  The development of diabetes in people taking statin drugs has also been reported inprevious statin studies.

The Jupiter study was stopped early, less than two years, ostensibly so that the people in the placebo group could be offered statins.  Since the negative outcome of the trial – the higher rate of diabetes, a disease that often leads to heart disease, in the statin group – was more significant than the positive outcome of one person out of 120 benefiting from the drug, I suspect the study was stopped early because the drug company was fearful of how high the diabetes numbers would climb if the study continued.  Drug companies create studies to sell more drugs, not to disclose
the truth.

Sources:

Ray Monihan and Alan Cassels, Selling Sickness, How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are
Turning Us All Into Patients (New York:Nations Books, 2005) pp 7-8.

“Coronary Heart Disease: The Dietary Sense and Nonsense,” edited by Dr. George V. Mann, M.D., (New
York:Veritas Society, 1993)

“Cholesterol Skeptics and the Bad News About Statin Drugs,” by Maryann Napoli,
www.medicalconsumers.org/pages/cholesterol_skeptic.html

“Yet Another Study Show Low Cholesterol Increases Risk of Early Death!” by Chris Gupter,
www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2006/06/08.html

“Cholesterol and All-Cause Mortality in Elderly People from the Honolulu Heart Program,” by Irwin J. Schatz,
M.D. et al, The Lancet, vol. 358, no. 9279, pp. 351-355.

www.marchofdimes.com/aboutus/10651_11516.asp

Duane  Graveline, M.D. at www.spacedoc.net

“Dangers of Statin Drugs: What You Haven’t Been Told About Cholesterol-Lowering Medicines,” by Mary
Enig, Ph.D. and Sally Fallon, at www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/statin.html

“A Call for Caution in the Rush to Statins,” by Tara Parker-Pope, The New York Times, Nov. 17, 2008

Pharmaceutical Industry and Psychiatry
Conjoined Twins – Joined at the Wallet

By
K.L. Carlson, MBA

“Unlimited spending!  Schedule all the programs you can.”  That was the
management directive announced at the regional business meeting I attended
when I first became a pharmaceutical rep.  When I heard the announcement I felt
like I was on an Enron train that was roaring down the tracks, and the company
expected everyone to be on board. The company was giving its sales force
unlimited funds to hire physicians as paid speakers, sometimes to influence
other physicians to prescribe the company’s drugs, at other times to simply
financially reward physicians who wrote high volumes of prescriptions every
month for the company’s drugs.

Former Merck regional sales manager, Gene Carbona, told the New York
Times that the only thing the company considered when selecting physicians to
provide presentations was “the volume or potential volume of prescribing that
the doctor could do.”   This is true of all pharmaceutical companies. According to
The Wall Street Journal (August 31, 2009), Eli Lilly alone paid physicians $22
million dollars in just the first quarter of 2009.

The higher a physician is on the influential ladder, the greater the financial
rewards to be reaped.  Pharmaceutical companies pay influential leaders who
can sway public opinion and influence research. And the area of medicine
receiving the greatest amount of pharmaceutical money is psychiatry. The
American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the most drug industry financially
supported medical association.  In July 2008, Senator Charles Grassley’s
demands that the APA provide an accounting of its finances revealed that in
2006 the pharmaceutical industry accounted for about 30 percent of the APA’s
financing; more than $20 million dollars.

The New York Times found psychiatrists were paid more by drug
companies than any other medical specialty in Minnesota, the only state
requiring full reporting of financial relationships between physicians and drug
companies. Between 1997 and 2005 psychiatrists in Minnesota collected $6.7
million from drug companies.  The New York Times also found drug companies
were not selective about psychiatrists paid to conduct clinical trials of drugs.  At
least 103 of the physicians had been disciplined, criticized, or had their license to
practice revoked by the Minnesota state medical board.  In the case of one
psychiatrist, the FDA concluded he had violated the protocols of every drug
study he led that the FDA had audited.  The FDA found he had reported
inaccurate data to the drug makers. Despite all this, drug makers continue to hire
this psychiatrist.

Senator Grassley continues to investigate the strong financial ties between
the pharmaceutical industry and influential physicians.  His efforts have
disclosed drug industry payments to individual psychiatrists in extremely
influential positions.  Such as former Director of the National Institute of Mental
Health (NIMH) and former radio host, Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, who was
taking money from drug companies and promoting their psychiatric drugs on
his weekly National Public Radio (NPR) program, “The Infinite Mind.”  Dr.
Goodwin never warned the public about the extremely dangerous side effects of
psychiatric drugs.  When the head of NPR learned of Dr. Goodwin’s financial
relationships to pharmaceutical companies, the program was ended.
Based on his investigations, Senator Grassley accused the APA current
president-elect, Alan F. Schatzberg, MD, chairman of psychiatry at Stanford
University, of failing to disclose ownership of about $6 million in shares in
Corcept Therapeutics.   Dr. Schatzberg is listed as principal investigator of a
government-funded trial of a drug Corcept is trying to commercialize.
In October 2008, Sen. Grassley discovered that Charles Nemeroff, M.D.,
Chairman of Psychiatry at Emory University, had earned more than $2.8 million
in consulting fees from pharmaceutical companies from 2000 – 2007. During that
time Dr. Nemeroff was researching drugs with government money in the form of
NIH grants.  He failed to report this income to Emory and violated federal
research rules.

Another influential psychiatrist at Emory Senator Grassley’s
investigations disclosed had strong relationships with drug companies is Dr.
Zachary Stowe.  Senator Grassley uncovered an email that demonstrates the
degree of control that drug companies have with physicians in influential
positions.  The email was sent to the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline
(GSK) from a public relations firm that worked for them.  GSK is the
manufacturer of Paxil, an antidepressant drug with severe side effects, including
suicide.  The email was titled “For Your Review/Paxil Breast Milk Press
Release.”  The email states:

“Please review the attached press release and forward me any
comments/edits.  As you may know, Dr. Stowe is on board
for publicity efforts and name withheld and I are coordinating
time to meet with him next week to arm him with the key
messages for this announcement, which is slated for early
February.  We are sending the release for your review at the
same time in efforts to secure distribution on Emory letterhead
(as you know, would provide credibility to data for the media)”

GSK paid Dr. Stowe at least a quarter of a million dollars in 2007 and 2008
according to Sen. Grassley’s investigations.  Dr. Stowe also received money to
promote psychiatric drugs from Eli Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer, and
Wyeth.

Two child psychiatrists from Harvard Medical School, Dr. Joseph
Biederman and Dr. Timothy E. Wilens, reported to Senator Grassley that they
each earned several hundred thousand dollars from drug companies from 2000
to 2007.  However it was found they each earned at least $1.6 million.  Dr.
Bierderman’s support of the use of powerful antipsychotic drugs in children led
to a sharp increase in the use of these dangerous drugs in children as young as
three years old.

While psychiatrists are being paid by pharmaceutical companies to
promote psychiatric drugs, people who are taking the drugs are dying. One in
145 adults died in clinical trials of those taking the antipsychotic drugs Zyprexa,
Risperdal, or Seroqual according to FDA data. Dr. Biederman has financial ties
with Johnson and Johnson, owners of the company that makes Risperdal.
“We know the drug companies are throwing huge amounts of money at
medical researchers, and there is no clear-cut way to know how much and
exactly where,” Senator Grassley said in a news release.

The public and practicing physicians cannot trust the research results and
the promotion of drugs by what appears to be eminent sources.  The pervasive
financial control by the pharmaceutical industry has destroyed their credibility,
and left us in a position where:

Hearing the truth about drugs is like trying to
hear a mouse tap dance during a hurricane.

References:

“Eli Lilly’s Payments to Doctors Revealed” by Shirley S. Wang, The Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2009.
Minnesota psychiatrists is from “After Sanctions, Doctors Get Drug Company Pay,” by Gardiner Harris
and Janet Roberts, The New York Times, June 3, 2007.
“Radio Host Has Drug Company Ties” by Gardiner Harris, The New York Times, Nov. 21, 2008.
“Grassley Seeks More Info on Conflict of Interest Policies at Medical Schools” by Evelyn Pringle, website
lawyersandsettlements.com, June 25, 2009.
“Psychiatric Group Faces Scrutiny Over Drug Industry Ties,” by Benedict Carey and Gardiner Harris, The
New York Times, July 12, 2008.
FDA data for deaths in clinical trials is from Allen Jones’ whistle-blower article, http://psychrights.org.

MOTHERS ACT MAY PUT NEW MOTHERS
AND INFANTS IN GRAVE DANGER –
POSSIBLY LITERALLY IN THEIR GRAVES

By K.L. Carlson, MBA

Mom’s Opportunity to Access Health, Education, Research, and Support
for Postpartum Depression Act sounds very supportive of new mothers. The
truth is just the opposite. The cleverly worded title can be shortened to the
Mothers Act and it was written by and for the pharmaceutical industry. It was
introduced by Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey; the state with the most
pharmaceutical companies’ headquarters. According to the public interest group,
Common Cause, Senator Menendez received over $2 million from the healthcare
industry, including drug companies.
The Mothers Act was included in the immense health plan that was
recently signed into law. New mothers need to be made aware that this Act was
not written to benefit them, but to benefit the drug companies. This Act will have
grave results – for some mothers literally.
Postpartum depression, as defined in the Act, is a “mood disorder” that
has three categories. The most severe category is “postpartum psychosis.” Notice
the use of psychiatric terms. The public is supposed to believe that motherhood
can cause mental illness. Fear of a new mother suffering “postpartum psychosis”
is then increased by the Act stating that one in every one thousand new mothers
will suffer the mental illness.
The Act states that postpartum depression goes undiagnosed and
untreated due to “social stigma surrounding depression and mental illness.” So
giving birth and becoming a new mother with vastly fluctuating hormones and
physiological changes, as well as the demands of a new baby, is now a mental
illness. What is the probability the Mothers Act would have been written if
psychiatric drugs did not reap more than $330 billion dollars a year?
The Act establishes federally funded grants to screen all new mothers
before they leave their birthing centers and to continue screening during the first
year. Although it is unknown why some women suffer depression after giving
birth, and most likely there are many reasons including concerns of financially
supporting a new baby, the pharmaceutical industry has ensured that it is
considered a mental illness that will lead to non-curing, addictive, dangerous
psychiatric drugs. As stated in the Act, “the new mother shall be referred to an
appropriate mental healthcare provider.”
“There is no evidence that any mental disorder is caused by chemical
imbalance,” a Surgeon General’s report states. The much-touted idea of brain
chemical imbalance is a total myth with no scientific research ever supporting it.
All psychiatric “disorders” are voted into existence by the American Psychiatric
Association and have no objective diagnostic tests, such as blood tests or
hormone tests. The Mothers Act is the latest version of the old story of the
Emperor’s New Clothes – get people to believe something exists when in fact it
does not. Mothers who have trouble emotionally after giving birth do not have
any mental illness. They may have temporary hormonal imbalance. They may
need a stronger emotional support system to feel confident they can get help
with the new baby. They may need financial assistance. But they are not mentally
ill.
The Act also funds clinical research “for the development and evaluation
of new treatments for postpartum conditions, including new biological agents.”
That means synthetic drugs. The pharmaceutical industry has ensured more tax
dollars will continue to flow into its coffers.
“The suicide rate is 718 for every 100,000 people taking SSRI/SNRI
drugs in clinical trials,” Dr. Arif Khan told NIH in August 2002. SSRI/SNRI
drugs are antidepressant drugs, which is an oxymoron because the drugs cause
depression. They should be called pro-depression drugs. The suicide rate in the
general population, not taking psychiatric drugs, is about 11 for every 100,000
people. In fact, all 33 brands of SSRI/SNRI drugs carry the FDA’s most severe
warning, a Black Box Warning, for suicide. Besides suicide the drugs have more
than 100 other severe side effects, including anxiety, panic attacks, irritability,
hallucinations, hostility, aggressiveness, and mania. Antidepressants are mind-
altering drugs that have never been shown in any clinical study to help
depressed people much more than the herb St. John’s Wort or the placebo (sugar
pill). In one study the placebo group had significantly better results than the
group receiving the antidepressant drug, confirming that the body has natural
ways to deal with the ups and downs of life.
Once people are labeled with a mental disorder, such as postpartum
psychosis, their behavior is then blamed on the disorder when in fact the drugs
are causing the behavior. For a real life example, check out Amy Philo’s story on
You Tube. She was anxious because her newborn son had a severe allergic
reaction to a formula given to her by a physician. Amy’s fear and anxiety for her
child was absolutely normal and would have subsided once she had her baby
safely at home. Instead, she was diagnosed as suffering from postpartum
depression and given an antidepressant. She asked if the drug would be safe for
her baby since she was breast-feeding. A physician told her yes, the drug would
make her baby happy too. Research results do not support what the doctor told
Amy. “In conclusion, our results suggest that maternal exposure to fluoxetine
(Prozac, Luvox, Sarafem, and Symbyax) during pregnancy and lactation results
in enduring behavioral alterations throughout life.” All psychiatric drugs,
including antidepressants, are neurotoxins. That means they kill nerve cells
everywhere in the body.
“After only being on the antidepressant for a couple of days I had
thoughts of killing my baby.” Amy was horrified, but instead of blaming the
drug’s known side effects, the physician blamed the label of postpartum
depression. Obviously, Amy’s “mental illness” had worsened and she now
needed to be put in a psychiatric ward. She didn’t agree to the incarceration but
her resistance was again labeled as due to her mental illness. The white coats
know best! Fortunately Amy’s story has a happy ending. She suspected the
antidepressant was causing her strange thought patterns. She managed to be
released from the psychiatric ward after only a brief stay and she stopped taking
the drugs they had given her. All of Amy’s symptoms that had been labeled by
the medical community as postpartum depression symptoms ceased when she
stopped taking the drugs. Her baby and she were home together; a happy
ending. That will not be the case when they initiate the Mothers Act. Since every
mother is potential income to psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry, we
can predict that the majority of new mothers will be labeled and drugged for
postpartum depression. It is about money, not health.
The pharmaceutical industry and psychiatry are conjoined twins joined at
the wallet. “Adoption of the Mothers Act is a positive development for women
and their families,” says Alan F. Schatzberg, MD, President of the American
Psychiatric Association (APA). Scharzberg was one of several influential
psychiatrists who Senator Grassley’s investigations found had failed to disclose
financial ties to pharmaceutical companies.
“In order to survive we psychiatrists must go where the money is,” Dr.
Steven Sharfstein, APA Vice President told Congress. The money is in
prescription psychiatric drugs as demonstrated by the astounding fact that in
2007 the five leading psychiatric drugs grossed more money than the gross
national product of half the countries in the world.
The French philosopher Voltaire wrote, “Those who can make you believe
absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” The conjoined twins of the
pharmaceutical industry and psychiatry are doing their best to have the public
believe the absurdity that the stress and emotional roller coaster of becoming a
new mother is a mental illness. Then they get these vulnerable women to commit
the atrocity of taking mind-altering, addictive antidepressant drugs that go
directly into the baby through the mother’s milk. These drugs can make a new
mother’s life a living hell. Ask Amy Philo.
Even if the mother does not suffer visible side effects from an
antidepressant, she is still consuming an addictive drug that is a neurotoxin. And
if she breast feeds, her baby is consuming a drug that has been shown to cause
severe, irreparable damage.
Pregnant women taking antidepressants have babies who are 6 times
more likely to have primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH) or a developing
lung disorder. PPH is extremely serious. The drug causes developmental
distortion of the lungs leading to lack of oxygen to crucial organs such as the
brain, kidneys and liver. PPH is often fatal. Babies who initially survive PPH
have long-term health problems including breathing difficulties, seizures and
developmental disorders.
The Mothers Act will encourage all new mothers to submit to mental
health screening for a psychiatric disorder that was voted into existence. It will
not get to the root cause of a woman’s temporary depression after giving birth.

Sources:

Mothers Act: www.govtrack.us

Amount spent on psychiatric drugs: documentary film “Where the Truth Lies,” by Citizens
Commission on Human Rights.

Dr. Arif Khan’s study result: www.ahrp.org/infomail/04/06/10

Antidepressant side effects: www.fda.gov

Senator Grassley’s investigations: “Psychiatric Group Faces Scrutiny Over Drug Industry Ties,”
by Benedict Carey and Gardiner Harris, The New York Times, July 12, 2008.

Dr. Sharfstein’s quote: “MH System Reform Must Start with Funding,” by Kate Mulligan,
Psychiatric News, Vol. 38, No. 1, January 3, 2003, p.9.

Money grossed by 5 leading psychiatric drugs: documentary film “Making a Killing,” by Citizens
Commission on Human Rights.