World sales of Merck’s blockbuster asthma drug, Singulair, were about $5 billion a year until last year when its patent expired in the United States. But the drug also has a darkening cloud over it. The Australian medicine watchdog has received 58 reports of adverse psychiatric events in children and teenagers taking Singulair since 2000 and reports have also surfaced in the US. Continue reading
A study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives found detectable levels of arsenic in chicken from grocery stores in 10 American cities, including in organic chickens. If the drug were fed to all chickens, over 100 US deaths would result from arsenic-related lung and bladder cancers, report the authors. Continue reading
At the end of a week that reminds us to be ever vigilant about the dangers of government overreaching its authority, whether by the long arm of the IRS or the Justice Department, we should pause to think about another threat—from too much private power obnoxiously intruding into public life. Continue reading
Dr. Omar Manejwala, a psychiatrist, is the senior vice president and chief medical officer of Catasys in Los Angeles and is the former medical director at Hazelden Foundation. Dr. Manejwala is a leading expert in addiction medicine and public speaker who addresses the topic of addiction and compulsive behaviors. He also is the author of Craving: Why We Can’t Seem to Get Enough. Continue reading
Despite 20 years of “Got Milk?” mustache ads, milk consumption in the US falls more every year. The National Dairy Promotion and Research Program and the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Program cite competition from calcium-fortified and vitamin-enhanced beverages, milk’s lack of availability “in many eating establishments” (You can’t find milk anywhere!) and a growing percentage of African Americans and Latinos in the US population who are not traditionally big milk consumers. Continue reading
The blockbuster pill profit party is over for Big Pharma. Bestselling pills like Lipitor, Seroquel, Zyprexa, Singular and Concerta have gone off patent with nothing new in the product pipeline. But Pharma isn’t going to deliver disappointing earnings to Wall Street just because it has few new drugs coming online and has failed at its very purpose. It is recycling old for brand new uses. Continue reading
We’ve come a long way since I first wrote about 9/11 first responders battles with cancers in 9/11’s second round of slaughter. That was in Online Journal, January 16, 2008. It was a review of the documentary Dust to Dust: the health effects of 9/11, a landmark film by Heidi Dehncke-Fisher that began by pointing out the list of toxins in the air that day . . . Continue reading
The Philadelphia murder trial of late-term abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell has now made the national news. Gosnell is accused of murdering seven preterm infants who were born alive during attempted abortions, as well as a pregnant Nepalese woman who died from an overdose of a sedative delivered by Gosnell’s untrained staff. Continue reading
If red meat had a publicity agent, he or she would be fired by now. Publicity agents are supposed to plant positive news about their client and kill any negative publicity. But ever since James Garner, the face of the “Real Food for Real People” beef campaign, suffered a heart attack in 1988, there has been nothing but bad publicity about red meat. Continue reading
According to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control, a staggering 6.4 million American children between the ages of 4 and 17 have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), whose key symptoms are inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity—characteristics that most would consider typically childish behavior. High school boys, an age group particularly prone to childish antics and drifting attention spans, are particularly prone to being labeled as ADHD, with one out of every five high school boys diagnosed with the disorder. Continue reading
I received a letter from a friend last month. Continue reading
Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas) opposes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), and vows to block the expansion of Medicaid in his state. Continue reading
Experts Alan Schwarz and Sarah Cohen write in their latest NY Times Article, ADHD Seen in 11% of US Children as Diagnoses Rise . . . “that breaks down to one in five high school age boys in the United States and 11 percent of school-age children over all having received a medical diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to new data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” Continue reading
Thyroid abnormalities have now been confirmed among tens of thousands of children downwind from Fukushima. They are the first clear sign of an unfolding radioactive tragedy that demands this industry be buried forever. Continue reading
Recently some of the nation’s top researchers, clinicians and scientists convened in Washington, D.C,. for the first annual Selling Sickness conference—examining how Pharma “sells” diseases to move the medications intended to treat them. Continue reading
Most people have heard of the drug companies Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Merck. But they may not have heard of the animal-drug companies Fort Dodge, Elanco, or Intervet and the drugs they make. “Animal Pharma,” the animal-drug divisions within drug companies, tends to operate under the public’s radar. First, because the people who eat food grown with its products are not its actual customers and secondly because the additives, hormones, growth promoters, antiparasite and fungal drugs, and vaccines it uses would make people lose their appetites. Continue reading
An article last week in the British Medical Journal finds that one egg per day is not associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease or stroke. That is good news for the egg industry and egg lovers—but it also contradicts several other studies. Continue reading
Why does the suicide rate among military personnel continue to climb—even among those who never saw combat? Last week, the Pentagon announced there were more suicides among active-duty members of the armed services in 2012 than combat deaths—a staggering 349. Eighty-five percent had not even seen combat, reported Bloomberg. Continue reading
It’s happened to anyone who’s attended an open-mic session at an FDA advisory committee hearing. A queue of “patients” materializes out of nowhere to testify, often in tears, about the crucial need for approval of a drug the public has often not even heard of. Sometimes the drug has not been approved by the FDA at all, but often it’s just not been approved for the use the patients wants—so it’s not reimbursable. Continue reading
As early as 2004, Merck knew its blockbuster osteoporosis drug Fosamax was causing osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ) after in-office dental procedures and ridiculed afflicted patients. The condition, also called jawbone death, occurs when traumatized tissue doesn’t heal but becomes “necrotic” and dies. Continue reading
The genetically engineered AquAdvantage salmon, (AAS), often referred to as a “Frankenfish, is moving through the FDA approval process despite doubts raised at 2010 hearings, in scientific reports and by 400,000 consumers. Continue reading
United States and European Union sanctions against Iran prevent much needed medical care for the Iranian people. Those with cancer, for example, have lost the option of treatment through chemotherapy while hemophiliacs are at high risk for any surgery due to a denial of essential pharmaceuticals. Continue reading
It was a great moment in Pharma-funded physician “education.” At a symposium at the American Psychiatric Association’s 2010 meeting, called “Mood, Memory and Myths: What Really Happens at Menopause,” two Wyeth/Pfizer funded speakers tried to resurrect the benefits of cancer-linked hormone therapy. But the mostly-female audience was having none of it: what can we do about our “tamoxifen brain” from the cancer we already have, they wanted to know. Continue reading
As many still struggle to address the devastation of Superstorm Sandy, another facet of this epic battle is underway, though, many remain unaware of it. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, many of the people of New Orleans found themselves faced with unusual health symptoms, respiratory problems being the most common and obvious among these. They coined a name for such airways issues—Katrina Cough. Continue reading
It was supposed to replace the millions Wyeth lost when its hormone drugs Prempro and Premarin tanked in 2002, thanks to links to breast cancer, heart disease, blood clots and strokes. So many women quit the Wyeth menopause drugs when the risks surfaced, the company announced it would close its Rouses Point, NY, plant where it manufactured them and eliminate 1,200 jobs. No wonder Pristiq, a serotonin/norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) looked like the way to retain the lucrative menopause market. It wasn’t a hormone. Continue reading
One of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s (D-MA) last legislative fights was about the overuse of livestock antibiotics. “It seems scarcely believable that these precious medications could be fed by the ton to chickens and pigs,” he wrote in a bill called the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2007 (PAMTA). Continue reading
On Thursday, November 8, 2012, a press conference was held in the offices of constitutional lawyer Rocco Galati. The subject was to announce a class action lawsuit that was recently filed, on the behalf of their clients, against Health Canada. Continue reading
It has been almost ten years since a US government study found that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) did not prevent heart disease and memory loss as advertised but increased the risk of heart attacks by 29 percent and doubled the risk of dementia. Oops. Continue reading
William C. Moyers, the eldest son of television journalist Bill Moyers and his wife, Judith, is known for his 2006 bestseller, “Broken” which describes his near-fatal addiction to alcohol and other drugs. In his new book, Now What?, Moyers uses his recovery experiences to help addicts and their loved ones recognize when help is needed, find and navigate treatment programs and establish support systems to maintain sobriety and abstinence. Moyers is executive director of Hazelden’s Center for Public Advocacy. Continue reading
The US-led sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran which directly and painfully target the population have created an inconceivable situation for those whose very lives depend on the medicine adversely affected by these barbaric sanctions. Continue reading
Several times during the first presidential debate, Mitt Romney claimed President Obama had stolen $716 billion from Medicare to fund the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. Paul Ryan repeated that lie, as well as several other distortions and half-truths, in the vice-presidential debate. Continue reading
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