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

            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.

Americans believe health comes in drug bottles and the few in the medical community who know differently (they ALL should but are hypnotized by drug claims) aren’t advertising the truth.

 At the FDA they’ve long forgotten it’s the public they’re supposed to be serving.

Drug Culture Created by the FDA

and Big Pharmaceutical Companies

Costs Government Programs Heavily

Obama plans to put a new health care system in place doomed to failure at huge expense, personal-healthwise and economically to the country . . .  as we mentioned in rant #4, there are four main 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 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.”

          American medical scientists have time and time again concluded research that underlines the simple fact that there is absolutely NO need for new drugs that mask pain but do not help cure the underlying problems. There are enough old pain medications at large, and the newer ones are just far more expensive and much, much more dangerous. But the drug companies keep cranking them out and despite the best medical advice ever known (First Do No Harm!), the FDA keeps approving them. The pure cost in money; the cost in iatrogenic ailments (problems caused my errors from doctors, nurses or the hospital itself; or by reactions to medicine) in money and lives; and the cost to the U.S. government all demand that the FDA deny approval to about 90-95% of all such drugs.

          However, the FDA in its inanity and corruption (see Rajjpuut’s earlier FDA rants) doesn’t even deny approval to 10% of these dangerous new concoctions. Year after year the list of horrendous side-effects for new medications we hear advertised on TV grows longer and more virulent. 

          Drug companies then go out of their way to see that their dangerous, expensive concoctions become popular:

A.      Nurses are paid by drug companies for using their products when they have that discretionary power

B.      Schools get paid thousands of dollars monthly for every child they help get prescribed for psychiatric drugs like Prozac or Ritalin.

C.      Doctors routinely get visited by drug sales men with huge amounts of literature “pushing” their drugs and even kickback offers and bonus offers if certain “quotas” are

 met

D.      A, B, and C above are clearly abuses that endanger the patients and the government’s coffers. The FDA which has the power to stop A, B, and C above from happening

never does anything . . . never.

The biggest abuse of all, however, is that drug companies routinely pay scientists and doctors on government advisory panels to recommend their drugs. And often the payments even come for recommending their drugs in front of FDA evaluation hearings and the FDA condones the practice.

Drug companies can now legally bribe** the FDA to hasten their drugs onto the market. 

It’s all a huge pack of lies, deceit, shady practices and outright corruption that endangers the public and costs the government immense amounts of money every second of every day. The FDA knows but will not tell you that:

A.      An aspirin a day makes strokes much more likely

B.      Almost all sunscreens cause cancer but don’t do much to prevent skin cancer (since sunscreens have become common, American skin cancer rates have risen dramatically, far worse than people under the tropic sun typically encounter)

C.      Lowering cholesterol does nothing to stop heart attacks.  The 33-year old high-cholesterol lie is the most profitable charade in the history of medicine making all the quack medicine salesmen ever known look like Honest Abe.

D.      Estrogen therapy is an extraordinarily dangerous practice.

E.       Roughly 60% of the most frequently prescribed drugs for the elderly are found on lists of drugs NOT to be given to elderly persons.

F.       Every prescription drug has dangerous side effects, nevertheless 20% of them have NO printed warnings on the packaging.

G.      Average Americans consume fifty pounds worth of prescription, non-prescription, and over the counter drugs every year (400 times more than Rajjpuut does!)

H.      People who don’t need drugs are now going into their doctors and demanding certain drugs they’ve seen advertised on TV.

J.        The FDA could IMMEDIATELY stop every one of these sad situations, the FDA does nothing!

            At the FDA they’ve long forgotten it’s the public health they’re in the business of protecting; and the public they’re supposed to be serving but the President, congress, and the American Public needs to remember that key fact RIGHT NOW!

The first necessary step in any health care change is to UNDO, REDO and UNcorrupt the FDA.

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.

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.