The new cholesterol lowering guidelines are proving to be a windfall for statin drug manufacturers like Pfizer and Merck: most news articles and medical advice concerning the new guidelines recommend drugs -- and drugs only -- to reduce cholesterol level. As a result, the guidelines are perhaps better described as profit generators for pharmaceutical companies.
Today, we're finding out why: six out of nine panelists that issued the new decision about cholesterol levels have received grants or consulting payments from statin drug manufacturers. That's right: two thirds of the panel members have financial ties to the very pharmaceutical companies that are being financially helped by the new guidelines.
Not surprisingly, this little detail was left out of the report due to an "oversight," the report publisher says. As a result, the vast majority of journalists and news publishers never even questioned the bias of the report. It sounded scientific to them, so they published it as fact, even while remaining ignorant to the fact that this advice came from a group of people who are essentially on the payroll of these pharmaceutical companies.
What ever happened to full disclosure? Doesn't the medical industry have a responsibility to disclose precisely these sorts of financial ties between panelists who write public health guidelines and the drug companies who benefit from them? To any intelligent outside observer, this whole thing smells like a drug racket. The panelists get paid "consulting fees" and grant money, the guidelines are arbitrarily lowered to a level that suddenly puts millions more Americans into the "high cholesterol" category simply by changing the definition, the popular press runs headlines screaming that millions of people should now suddenly be taking statin drugs for life, and the drug companies receive a windfall in sales and profits. Nice scam there, folks.
It's business as usual in the medical industry: underhanded deals, refusal to disclose financial ties, and the willingness to do practically anything to generate more profits. That's because everybody's on the payroll of these companies: the doctors are getting "consulting fees" for doing nothing other than signing a blank piece of paper, the researchers are getting "grant money" to carry out research that almost always supports the drug companies, and the mainstream media is receiving billions of dollars in ad revenue as long as they keep pushing drugs to customers, both in advertising and news content.
May 2004 Newstarget.com
-------------------- “The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.” -- Rudiger Dornbusch
Edited by zorbman (07/22/05 08:13 AM)
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Drugs and drugs only? I don't think so. I've never heard of a doctor telling a patient with high cholesterol that its okay to eat whatever they want as long as they take Lipitor.
Naturally, if a drug isn't risky, what's the problem with taking it, if it will seriously reduce risks? Any decent doctor will tell you that excercise and a good diet are key as well, but any doctor who knows his shit also knows that there are some people who have increased cholesterol no matter how well they treat themselves. Genetics are a huge factor in these things.
Naturally drug companies will push their drugs, that's the way a market works, but just because they want to make money doesn't mean that their drugs are fraudulent, ineffective, or unsafe.
-------------------- "I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson http://phluck.is-after.us
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Drugs and drugs only? I don't think so. I've never heard of a doctor telling a patient with high cholesterol that its okay to eat whatever they want as long as they take Lipitor.
The sentence you are talking about was referring to most news articles highlighting the drug angle of cholesterol, not doctors. Not that doctors are that knowledgeable about nutrition. Most doctors are not required to take even one course in nutrition in medical school.
just because they want to make money doesn't mean that their drugs are fraudulent, ineffective, or unsafe.
The article did not claim that. It was referring to the process being fraudulent.
Naturally drug companies will push their drugs, that's the way a market works
Of course, but shouldn't those drugs be marketed in an ethical, open manner? What's with the lack of full disclosure?
It doesn't bother you that two thirds of the panelists who issued the new decision about cholesterol levels have received grants or consulting payments from statin drug manufacturers who stood to benefit? Do you suppose money had any influence upon their decision?
-------------------- “The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.” -- Rudiger Dornbusch
Edited by zorbman (07/22/05 11:15 AM)
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