“Vioxx is perhaps one of the better examples of what can happen when a drug is manufactured and sold under false pretenses. It killed more than 60,000 people in just a few years time, before it was removed from the market. In the case of Vioxx, there are lingering questions about the soundness of the research backing the drug in the first place. Back in 2008, Dr. Joseph S. Ross of New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine came across ghostwritten research studies for Vioxx while reviewing documents related to lawsuits filed against Merck.”

“According to an April 16, 2008 article on MedHeadlinesiii”:

“In about 96 journal publications, Ross and his colleagues discovered internal Merck documents and e-mail messages pertaining to clinical study reports and review articles, some of which were developed by the company’s marketing department, not its scientific department. In others, there is little evidence that the authors recruited for the report made substantial contribution to the research itself. … Some of the authors listed in the Merck study reports of concern… question the true nature of ghostwriting. One neurologist originally listed as “External author?” and then listed as Dr. Leon J. Thal, of the University of California, San Diego in the final draft, died a year ago in an airplane crash.”

From Article: Why Your Doctor’s Advice May Be Fatally Flawed, July 12, 2012, Mercola

Doc Blake

I’m myself a proponent of the cover up theory by big pharmas swallowing and burying fundamental advances to preserve their profits, the very process made possible by their powerful lobbies acting on FDA or Washington in order continue to milk the cow with captive “treatments” .

It’s about time for citizens to unite and oppose a counterpower to such depressing practices.

One step is to vote ONLY for political figures who will engage not to abide to those lobbies, this is tough.

But first step is to convince people that, indeed, there is an inadmissible cover up. Cases have to be monitored and evidence gathered as most of the news we are reading about here are over hyped, so where is the truth?

Of course greed will override all that, and we either will never hear about this again (especially considering that treating diabetes is the bread and butter of the pharmaceutical industry) or it will be prohibitively expensive. Drug companies do not like effective treatments that last for years or lifetimes per dose.

Just look at the gene rewriting drug approved recently in Europe ( http://dvice.com/archives/2012/11/europe-approves-1.php ), which is a staggering $1.6million per dose. It makes you wonder why they chose a relatively obscure disease as the target of that drug, considering the techniques could be applied to every genetic disease out there.

If the the theory is correct, this treatment might extend way beyond curing diseases.

Is there any evidence logic like this actually applies? Can life spans in different animals actually be proportionately compared to determine efficacy of a treatment? Off the top of my head, I would think basal metabolic rate would be a better measure than proportion of life span..

Note: I’m all for this treatment being approved soon, just wanting to apply reasonable measures to estimate its effect and not give in to hyperbole.

Asthma? I’ve had asthma since infancy and not one doctor ever mentioned that it could be an auto-immune ailment. Now they tell me?