"When my brother went into the hospital with pneumonia, he quickly contracted four other infections in the intensive care unit…Michael died in the ICU." Maureen Dowd, NYT Columnist.
This year alone, because of patent expirations, the drug industry will lose control over more than 10 megamedicines whose combined annual sales have neared $50 billion.
The filing by Dow Jones & Co., in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, comes after a series of articles in the Journal about abuses of the Medicare system.
"Despite ongoing controversy, there has never been a large-scale, prospective study of the cognitive effects of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)." Dr. Harold Sackeim, et al, 2007.
Two major analyses of U.S. hospital safety found that: "harm to patients was common and the number of incidents did not decrease over time."
"When you’re selling $1 billion a year or more of a drug, it’s very tempting for a company to just ignore the traffic ticket and keep speeding.”
"What’s gone on with the pharmaceutical industry is a physician arms race to buy off doctors…"
Evidence that GlaxoSmithKline concealed adverse events in their trial testing their diabetes drug, Avandia, raises the question “whether the entire system is corrupt.” “To the extent that we can’t trust the data. We are in jeopardy of giving patients the wrong drugs.” Dr. Jerome Kassirer
“The way Dr. Punjwani treated Emilio Villamar and the manner in which these drugs were prescribed is a picture of everything that’s wrong with this industry and the relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies.”
Twelve-year old, Denis Matez (weighing 68 lbs) is a human casualty of psychotropic drug "overmedication"– a notorious psychiatrist entrusted with the care of 800 Florida children in Florida foster care prescribed lethal mega doses for unapproved uses.
AHRP PROPOSAL:
Any FDA-approved drug, whose manufacturer has been found by a court of law or the Department of Justice–to have illegally marketed the drug by concealing risks or incidence of adverse effects, or making unsupported claims of clinical benefit–should be denied coverage by taxpayer funded insurance programs–including Medicaid, Medicare, VeteranstAffairs.
Unlike patients in other fields of medicine, those who are designated mentally ill–or even declared to be "at risk" for mental illness in the future–are at once stigmatized and suffer losss of their autonomy.
