DRUGS - ABC News Lead Story April 20th

I was pleased to see ABC Nightly News lead off the program with the story about America's growing prescription drug habit last night. (Interesting so many other media have ignored the story ... to their advertiser's delight.) In the past decade prescription drug use for pain has soared more than 50%, to the point that we now consume 80% of those drugs in the world.

Prescription drug overdoses have become a huge problem ... more people are killed with these drugs today than crack cocaine did in the 1980's or black tar heroin in the 1970's. Pain clinics are now passing out pills like M&M's with Florida being ground zero for the problem.

What does the DEA proposed to correct this problem? More education for doctors! Do they seriously think doctors don't know what they're doing? They're making money. More education for the drug supplier isn't going to solve the problem but more education for drug consumers about the addictive power of these drugs might. Maybe people will begin to realize that all drugs carry risks and we'll begin to reverse our drug-obsessed health care system in this country.

Prescription Drug Use Grows

A new government survey shows prescription drug use continues to increase in America. The report which covers through 2008 says that 48% of all Americans take prescription drugs now. The number of people taking 2 or more drugs grew to 31% but the biggest jump was in people taking 5 or more prescription drugs, nearly doubling from 6% to 11% in 2008.

Who says TV advertising doesn't work? It's sure worth the money when it comes to pushing prescription drugs!

Personally, I'm really getting tired of seeing at least one drug ad in every TV break at night, sometimes more than one. When is America going to realize there's a reason we're one of the very few countries in the world that allows this type of direct-to-consumer advertising?

Given the cost of these drugs is it any wonder why so many folks are turning to complementary and alternative medicine now?

Drug Industry Tactics

Last week one of my favorite shows (Leverage) featured a bad guy CEO at a pharmaceutical company. When he was told by one of the Leverage team that the FDA fined another pharmaceutical company over $2 billion for a bad drug he replied that they made $16 billion in profits so the fine only amounted to about 15%. He added "that's like tipping your waiter."

This week we read the news that the risks of Avania have been known and hidden by the manufacturer from the FDA and the public since 1999. When I read that GlaxoSmithKline had agreed to pay $460 million to resolve the majority of lawsuits they face I was reminded of the TV show. Sales for all drugs containing Avandia in 2008 alone were $1.5 billion.

Apparently GSK is willing to "tip the waiter" for selling Avandia.

And the pharmaceutical industry wonders why the public is suspicious of their drugs?

Drug Costs Jump

The headline on the front page of today's Dallas Morning News says it all: "Drug Costs Rise At Fastest Rate In Years." While the Consumer Price Index has fallen 1.3% in the past year the wholesale price of prescription drugs has gone up by 9%. This will bring the bill for drugs to about $300 billion this year. This is the fastest rate since 1992 but this time it's happening when the drug companies pledged to reduce costs by $8 billion a year after health care reform is in effect.

Does it look like a phony deal to you? The drug companies crank up sales by $10 billion in order to offer a price cut of $8 billion? I won't even go into the latest studies on heart drugs that show how they actually increase the risk of heart attack.

It's time for Americans to find better answers to their health problems than prescription drugs.

Pfizer Settlement

How could I not make a comment on the settlement with Pfizer which features the largest criminal fine ever imposed in United States for any legal matter? The announcement of the agreement has Pfizer pleading guilty under a $2.3 billion federal settlement over unlawful prescription-drug promotions. The settlement involves the drug Bextra but also resolves Justice Department investigations involving alleged past off-label promotional practices concerning Zyvox, Geodon and Lyrica and allegations related to certain payments to health-care professionals.

America is one of only two nations on earth that permit the direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs and even that's not enough for the drug companies. They want more and more and more. It's great to see the system working to protect consumers.

Even Edison Knew

Ran across a wonderful quote this week that shows the error of relying on artificial prescription drugs for our health today. Many people remember Thomas Edison as a great scientist and inventor. Even he could not understand why mainstream medicine continued to persist in treating diseases with drugs, when it was obvious to him that disease was caused by biological imbalances which drugs can do nothing to correct. He best stated his opinion in one of his writings when he said: "The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease."

Sounds an awful lot like Traditional Chinese Medicine and many, many other types of complementary and alternative therapies, doesn't it? Want to go back even further?

Four hundred years ago Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels, wrote that "the three best doctors in the world are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet and Dr. Merryman." Today four centuries later we're still figuring out the importance to our health today of what we eat and drink, the peace that we find within, and the joy that we find within life.

Those of you familiar with the Ornish Program will recognize those features as being key to the program's success. The Ornish Program has been medically proven to reverse heart disease without drugs or surgery. It's so successful that Medicare last year approved it as the first lifestyle therapy in Medicare history.

Bottom line: drugs don't solve problems, they solve symptoms.

Running Scared

Interesting to see how the pharmaceutical companies are responding to health care reform efforts in Washington. The first quarter of this year their spending on lobbying jumped +36% from the same period in 2008. They spent $47.4 million in the first three months of the year to influence our elected officials not to ruin their party.

At the same time the Insurance industry decreased lobbying expenses by 2% to just $41.4 million for the first quarter. Either they're keeping their powder dry or they accept that change in health care is inevitable this time around are are willing to work with the process.

Fewer Prescriptions Filled

The current economic problems may have a silver lining. Due to their high cost fewer prescription drugs prescriptions are being filled today as people find ways to cut back. In the last quarter of 2008 6.8% of patients didn't fill their prescriptions for brand-name drugs and 4.1% failed to fill their generic prescriptions. May not sound like much but it's a 22% jump compared to the first quarter of 2007.

I say there may be a silver lining in this problem because many patients are going to realize how little the prescriptions were doing for them in the first place, or at least appreciate the cost-benefit ratio. They may also discover some of their health problems were actually side-effects from the prescriptions they were taking, either by themselves or as in combination with other drugs they're taking.

Hopefully some folks are going to look for other, better answers to their health problems. Most of us start to use complementary and alternative medicine because we're out of options. Hopefully a few people are going to try CAM because they're looking for a better, cheaper and safer alternative.

Supreme Court: Drug Makers Can Be Sued

The pharmaceutical industry received bad news from the Supreme Court this week - they can be sued after all, even if their drug is FDA approved. Reversing a Bush Administratio policy the court ruled 6-3 to uphold the rights of Americans to sue manufacturers if they're harmed by a defective product.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that lawsuits "uncover drug hazards and provide incentives for drug manufacturers to disclose safety risks promptly."

FDA Approves Genetically Altered Drug

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made history today when it approved the first drug made with materials from genetically engineered animals. This decision opens a new Pandora's box of treatments from the pharmaceutical industry.

The government approved the drug ATryn, which is manufactured using milk from goats that have been scientifically altered to produce extra antithrombin, a protein that acts as a natural blood thinner.

The biggest problem is that the FDA does not require any labeling to warn patients that this product comes from genetically engineered animals, once again protecting the profits of the drug companies.

Cancer Treatment Changes Aren't Always Better

A Dutch study has shown the danger in new cancer treatments. Doctors tried combining Erbitux and Avastin, two new cancer-fighting drugs, because lab tests and an earlier small study had shown promising results.

"This will stand out as a warning," said Cornelis Punt, the study's leader. "You have to do the randomized studies to see what really happens." The study shows that instead of treating the cancer better, it actually made the cancer worse.

The new research was done at hospitals throughout the Netherlands involving 755 patients who had colon cancer that had spread. In the U.S. colorectal cancer was expected to kill almost 50,000 Americans last year but rates have been dropping due to better screening and treatments.

Medicare's Cancer Drug Expansion

Last November Medicare expanded "off label" drug uses to treat cancer by expanding from one to four guides that can be used to authorize coverage. Critics say the drug guides aren't always supported by research and could be influenced by ties to the companies manufacturing the drugs.

As an example, one of the four designated guides is published by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, a group of hospitals. The guide relies on panels of experts to review drugs, half of whom have financial ties with a cancer drug maker.

While it's compassionate to try and help cancer patients afford drug treatments the profit motive of the drug companies would seem to be the real reason behind this change and yet the latest illustration of their influence in Washington.

More Drug Safety Issues

People taking the newest antipsychotic drugs are twice as likely to suffer heart attacks and death as non-users according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. In other words they're no more safe than the older drugs they're replacing.

Sales of atypical antipsychotic drugs were up 12% in 2007 to $13.23 billion.

And the pharmaceutical industry calls this progress.

2009 Is New Year For Medical Marketing

Welcome to 2009 and a new year for medical marketing! Today the pharmaceutical industry begins its voluntary moratorium on their branded gifts like pens, mugs, soap dispensers, bandages and everything else that can have a brand slapped on it. Many people feel it's a superficial gesture since it does nothing to reduce the millions of dollars spent to influence doctors (and millions more to influence patients).

There is an interesting nonprofit organization started by a doctor called No Free Lunch that encourages doctors to reject drug company giveaways. Our poor doctors still don't have to worry about going hungry because drug companies can still provide "free" lunches and dinners.

Let's hope that 2009 begins a year of real change in the medical community and they begin to reject the influence peddling from the pharmaceutical industry.

Older Americans At Risk From Drugs

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association confirms what most of us have already discovered the hard way ... that older folks take too many dangerous drugs. Older folks take more drugs to begin with and their more frail bodies are less able to handle drug interactions.

How big a problem is it? Experts say that among older men the number could be 10% or one man in every ten. The study says that there could be 2 million people in America taking potentialy harmful mix of medications today.

It's not just medications but combinations of medications with over-the-counter supplements that can be a problem. There are so many prescription drugs on the market and so many supplements that no one really knows all of the possible combinations or how each person will react.

BUYER BEWARE and be careful!

Drug Firm Lawsuit in Texas

Front page of the Dallas Morning News today features an article about the lawsuit the State of Texas just filed against Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a division of Johnson & Johnson. The filing claims they used kickbacks, distributed false marketing materials and deployed phony advocacy groups to get its expensive schizophrenia drug prescribed to low-income Texans.

The lawsuit claims that in the mid-1990's Janssen provided "substantial funding" to Texas officials to influence the adoption and implementation of drug protocols by funneling it through third-party vendors, charitable organizations, advocacy groups and governmental entities. Janssen is said to have used Texas' mental health officials as "pitchmen" to get other states to adopt the drug by providing them with trips, perks, travel expenses, honoraria and other payments.

Texas has spent millions of state Medicaid dollars on the drug. Risperdal appeared on the Texas list of approved drugs for children for eight years before it was approved by the FDA for use in juveniles. Recent studies show that Risperdal fails to perform better than older, generic drugs.

"It's standard practice in the industry to influence a few key decision-makers," according to Allen Jones, a Pennsylvania whistle-blower who brought the case to the attention of Texas authorities. "But this is the most transparent example I have seen."

A Janseen spokesman said none of the allegations has any merit.

The Duct Tape of Health Care

Added a new article to my website today (www.unbreakyourhealth.com/articles.htm) called the Duct Tape of Health Care. I compare duct tape to prescription drugs because both only treat symptoms and don't repair the source of the problem.

Once in awhile it's fun to get on the soap box!

Drug Reactions, Deaths Rise

Another day, another news report about the increasingly dangerous world of prescription drugs. Today it's a report from the FDA about the first quarter stats this year showing 21,000 reports of serious drug reactions including 4,800 deaths. This dramatic increase sets a new record, not the sort of news the drug companies want you to hear.

The numbers reflect a 38% increase over the previous four quarters and was almost 3x higher than any quarter in 2007. You'll be glad to hear their spokesman say "The FDA is aware of the increasing number of reports and we take them seriously."

And the medical community wonders why more and more people are turning to complementary and alternative medicine?

Supplement Safety

I don't usually talk about diets and supplements because my book does not contain any information on them. Just can't resist the news about the new supplement reaction law. During the first six months after the law took effect, only 604 adverse events were reported, versus an annual prescription drug adverse event total of 482,154. On an annual basis, that works out to 1 dietary supplement adverse event for about every 400 drug adverse events.

Many supplements have been used for hundreds of years while our modern drugs have a track record of only a few years. Even pharmacists will tell you they don't know what the long-term interactions are going to be for all of these prescription drugs.

Drugs In Your Water

Whether you want to take prescription drugs or not, you are, because they're in your drinking water. The Associated Press has been following the story of drugs in America's water supply for months but now comes news of a huge source of the drug contamination. Nursing homes and hospitals are dumping 250 million pounds of prescription drugs into the water supply every year!

In a survey of 5,700 hospitals and 45,000 long-term care facilities the AP estimates that millions of pounds of outdated, over prescribed and simply unwanted drugs are simply flushed down the toilet for disposal. This includes the most toxic and dangerous drugs available today. In most states and areas there aren't even any regulations preventing this method of disposal.

This is a dangerous practice because in tests of wastewater tested near European hospitals and one in Davis County, Utah, scientists were able to link drug dumping to virulent antibiotic-resistant germs and genetic mutations that may promote cancers.

Even state and federal prisons are contributing to the problem by flushing thousands of pills every year.

The EPA hopes to begin looking into the problem next year ... sometime.