After thirteen anti-FDA Rants and another fourteen Better Health Care Alternative series blogs, it still needs to be said: the FDA is the single biggest thing wrong with the American health care system as it now stands.

            Cars work much better if proper levels of oil, water, tire air, etc. are maintained. More importantly, don’t put eggs or sugar or potting soil in the gas tank. Doing what’s right is very important;  avoiding all the wrong things is even far more important. The human body is the same. Recognizing this Hippocrates, the father of medicine gave us this simple rule: “First, do no harm.” First don’t put eggs or sugar in the gas tank. First don’t put harmful substances into the human body. Rajjpuut’s parents died iatrogenic deaths. That means the systems in place expected, hopefully, to save them, killed them both. Iatrogenic illnesses, injuries and deaths come in three varieties:

A.     Doctors, hospitals, nurses, etc. make terrible mistakes and the patient suffers

B.     Prescribed medicines, approved by the FDA, from a doctor hurt the patient

C.    Combinations of A and B above

Looking at case B and case C above more closely . . . virtually 100% of these incidents are caused by the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) ineptitude or willful disregard of the nation’s health. You are ten times more likely to be hospitalized and four times more likely to die from a negative reaction to an FDA approved drug . . . than you are to be hospitalized or die from an automobile accident. 

Right now the two classes of medicines that are creating the most profit for the big pharmaceutical companies are called PPIs and Statins. Statins are cholesterol-lowering drugs. Statins barely work to lower cholesterol. They are basically prescribed till death. They cure nothing. They are “palliatives” which means they cover up or lessen symptoms. They are very expensive. They carry many disagreeable side effects including death. Most importantly statins treat a disease condition that does NOT exist . . . . 

Elevated cholesterol is NOT a cause of heart attacks. This has been suspected for roughly 43 years and known for a fact since 1975, 34 years ago. Science expects that people with the worst indicators of disease die much more often than people with the lightest symptoms. This is medical cause and effect. If high cholesterol levels were the main cause of heart attacks, than roughly 100% of those who died from heart attacks would show elevated cholesterol. Only 47% of them do. That, far from being cause and effect is worse odds than the Las Vegas casinos will give you on a zero/double-zero roulette wheel. The FDA knows this, that has not prevented them from allowing statins to be sold; and that has not prevented them from lying about the safety of these UNNEEDED drugs. No products in history have made drug companies more money. No products in history have done more harm in the last 43 years.

Today, statins are rivaled in harm by a new challenger: PPIs. PPI’s stand for “proton-pump inhibitors.” Proton pump inhibitors “treat” another disease that does not exist. Acid reflux disease is a creation of Madison Avenue in order to sell drugs. Supposedly if you suffer from constant “heartburn” you may be at risk for acid reflux disease which supposedly threatens your esophagus. There is in reality NO acid reflux disease. If you have heartburn . . . 90+% of the time you have too LITTLE stomach acid, not too much. Drugs that lower stomach acid are very dangerous and they don’t cure anything but indeed make it much worse in the long run. They are also highly addictive, dangerous and expensive.

One of the worst of the many dangerous side effects of PPIs is something called “c. dificile” which is 99.999% of the time an iatrogenic disease caused by too freely prescribing antibiotics (many doctors immediately prescribe an anti-biotic even when a virus is suspected even though viruses cannot be killed by antibiotics and the doctor knows this, he just wants you out of his office). Our friend c. dificile is an iatrogenic form of dysentery: like Montezuma’s Revenge on steroids – and worse, because it’s almost impossible to cure and utterly debilitating and often deadly. If, however, a doctor not only prescribes overly ambitious or unneeded antibiotics but does so in combination with PPIs (which Rajjpuut reminds you are ALWAYS unnecessary) the chances for c. dificile outbreaks not only multiply, but the illness once contracted becomes even more deadly and less easily cured.

Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

The Hippocratic Oath says, “First Do No Harm” . . . indicating that 90% of the time, doctors could be sued for malpractice for prescribing drugs they know can do enormous harm according to the official list of side effects.

Drug Culture Created by the FDA

and Big Pharmaceutical Companies

Endangers Citizen’s Health

            We all know that Obama plans to put a new health care system in place. Most of us know that it’s doomed to failure at huge expense, (personally and economically) to the country . . . here are the reasons why: 

A.    Government spending programs seldom work. 

B.     The two earlier programs, Medicare and Medicaid, did not help and only made health and cost trends already in place much worse.

C.    And mostly because, the President is NOT expected to address FDA re-organization or FDA clean up in his new program: huge mistake, HUGE!

D.    Additionally, as far as is known, the President is not expected to address a single one of the points brought up by health educator Rajjpuut in his blog series “A Far Better Health Care Alternative.”

The Hippocratic Oath, which doctors swear to, says “First Do No Harm” . . . since study after study indicates that 70% of the expensive drugs Americans take actually have “no effect,” and all drugs created, that means 100% of them, have proven and listed side effects: arguably from 90%-100% of instances when a doctor prescribes a drug for a patient, he is at least technically, if not in fact, breaking the Hippocratic Oath. America is a drug culture. People believe health and happiness comes in bottles. The information found in this paragraph is highlighted because of whistle-blowers who in study after study say that internal memos and other documents generated by the drug companies themselves reveal pretty much those same two sad statistics.

            When it’s also considered that a huge percentage of drugs are only designed to mask or alleviate symptoms but NOT to cure any underlying conditions and all these drugs too have annoying, dangerous and/or deadly side effects . . . the magnitude of the problem becomes clear. The FDA, by approving these palliatives and their side effects is making America’s health problems worse. The fact that drug companies now have the option to legally bribe** the FDA to expedite putting the drugs on the market has exacerbated an already horrendous problem. 

Need Rajjpuut mention that statins are the single most profitable drugs of all time and PPIs are very nearly as profitable?????? Of course a more horrendous example of FDA corruption is the conflict of interest that lead to the Celebrex (used for osteoarthritis; rheumatoid arthritis and painful menstruation) disaster in the first place and that same conflict of interest has kept that deadly drug on the market right up to the present moment with extra warnings added to its packaging. “First Do No Harm,” indeed!

Live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut   

**   the correct term is "bribe" but the FDA calls them "expedited evaluations" or "expedited reviews"

Regular readers of Rajjpuut’s little rants will recognize a strong personal antipathy toward the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). That once great organization created in 1906, the very year that Upton Sinclair’s monumental novel/expose` “The Jungle” hit the bookstore shelves, has degenerated into the most corrupt federal organization in America. Rajjpuut, health educator he, believes that only a complete top-to-bottom remake of the FDA will allow any health care plan, now or in the future, any hope of success. 

At the FDA it’s not considered “conflict of interest” if the public doesn’t know

At more than 90% of evaluation and recommendation meetings at least one member has a conflict of interest

is NO Concern of the FDA

            Before a drug is approved for the public the FDA will listen to a presentation by the drug manufacturer and then listen to expert witnesses.  Federal law prohibits the FDA use experts with financial stakes riding on the FDA decisions. According to NY Times Best-selling author Kevin Trudeau, however, this is a rule that is quite commonly waived.  Trudeau says that the FDA keeps these meetings secret as well as which companies are involved, what the nature of the conflict is, and how much money may be involved. Your tax dollars at work protecting you!  Rajjpuut has heard that waiving the conflict of interest rule might happen nine or ten times a month. Reuters and USA Today has run articles that imply a far greater degree of financial involvement than that, however -- that well over half the experts the FDA calls upon for testimony have a direct financial interest in the drugs or subject matter being evaluated. With stock ownerships, grant money, consulting charges or other incentives involved, Rajjpuut believes that if three times in every hundred instances the “expert” testified against his own best financial interests that would be very surprising. 

At the FDA what the public doesn’t know, can’t hurt them (“them” being the FDA). According to Trudeau, once the experts have been heard from (and there’s only one side represented in 85% of instances) it’s very rare that the FDA rules against their advice in broad general matters. If a specific drug is the subject of evaluation, the FDA appears far less biased: at these meetings only 30% of the experts on average have financial conflicts.

            Does this “unbiased” FDA evaluation process work? Listen to the extensive list of side effects that get mentioned every time some drug is advertised on the air. And what happens when the side-effects are truly dangerous or even deadly? The FDA very seldom “pulls” a drug from the market. Instead they typically recommend including another warning on the packaging. Before 1990 less than 60% of drugs were approved today it’s over 80%. Before 1990 about 5% of the drugs approved by the FDA were brand new to the world. Since 1998 the FDA has made enormous amounts of fees approving drugs, 2/3 of them first-time drugs on the market. It is now also considered part of doing business normally for the drug company to legally bribe** the FDA to conclude it’s business much faster than unbribed examinations take. 

            The Celebrex story is one of the most infamous of FDA approved drug debacles, Celebrex is still on the market despite a horrendous record with deaths and injuries. Despite this when it was reviewed the FDA recommended it stay on the market.  According to Kevin Trudeau virtually every advisory panel member profited from the decision to keep it on the market. Statins (cholesterol lowering drugs) are dangerous, expensive and amount to a virtual life-subscription. Guess what? Only 47% of the people who die from heart attacks have elevated cholesterol readings.  The FDA was aware of studies showing that cholesterol had no cause-effect relationship with heart attacks back in 1976. For several years the FDA allowed eggs to be attacked as dangerous causes of high cholesterol and to this day allows drug companies to sell dangerous, expensive statins with utter impunity.

Acid Reflux medicines (proton pump inhibitors) are potions without a real disease. 90% of the time when heartburn strikes, the cause is too little acid, not too much. Acid reflux medicine actually makes heartburn worse.

Rajjpuut wants to puke when he thinks about the FDA and its horrendous corruption, but he’s afraid someone might give him some FDA recommended medicine – oh no!

Regular readers of Rajjpuut’s little rants will recognize a strong personal antipathy toward the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). That once great organization created in 1906, the very year that Upton Sinclair’s monumental novel/expose` “The Jungle” hit the bookstore shelves, has degenerated into the most corrupt federal organization in America. Rajjpuut, health educator he, believes that only a complete top-to-bottom remake of the FDA will allow any health care plan, now or in the future, any hope of success.