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Quotes about Drug Makers from the world's top natural health / natural living authors

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"The upsurging of prescription medications is the result of several factors: the growth of insurance coverage for drugs, the aggressive marketing of drugs by pharmaceutical companies, especially after a 1997 ruling that made it much easier for drug makers to advertise directly to the consumer, and clinical guidelines that recommend greater use of drugs to treat such conditions as high cholesterol, drug use for which tripled between 1995 and 2002.7 Acute care is giving way to chronic or preventive care, for example, using drugs to manage high blood pressure." - Gerald E. Markle and Frances B. McCrea, What If Medicine Disappeared? (Get the book.)

"Current laws allow drug makers to hold sole rights to sell a new drug for twenty years, after which generics can be made and sold at much lower prices. When Mevacor has been on the market long enough to lose its patent protection, generic drug makers can manufacture the same chemical substance and sell it for far less than branded Mevacor. Assuming that the drugs are manufactured by a reputable company, the generic and brand-name drugs are identical to one another chemically. Asking for a generic version will save you and the health-care system money." - Hyla Cass, M.D., Supplement Your Prescription: What Your Doctor Doesn't Know About Nutrition (Get the book.)

"They represent dream marketing opportunities for drug makers, for a number of reasons. Psychiatric and neurological diseases tend to be chronic, meaning that those who truly suffer from them will, or should, take the medications for the rest of their lives. CNS diseases also tend to be serious, requiring high rates of hospitalization, and, according to industry analysts, they are on the rise, given the growing aged population and "the physiological/ psychological stress of current lifestyles." - Charles Barber, Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation (Get the book.) "Starting in 1997, the FDA waived the requirement that drug makers list a detailed summary of a drug's side effects and contraindications in advertising. It became sufficient for companies to cite only a drug's major risks and provide a Web address and toll-free number where consumers could get more information. It was that modest a change in regulations that made advertising on TV possible." - Charles Barber, Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation (Get the book.) "Even Psychiatric News, a journal of the American Psychiatric Association, said that drug makers like Glaxo found 9/11 "a marketing opportunity." According to Nielsen Media Research, drug ads increased dramatically in the weeks after the attacks. In October 2001 alone, Glaxo spent $16 million on advertising Paxil, almost twice what they spent the previous October.102 It worked. Medicaid recipients, for example, who lived within three miles of the World Trade Center filed 18 percent more antidepressant prescriptions in the three months after the attacks." - Charles Barber, Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation (Get the book.)

"But what doctors and drug makers often don't tell you is that the medications used to treat osteoporosis (see pages 219-226) increase the laying down of calcium on the outer, cortical bone, which is more densely packed. The inner bone, called the trabecular bone, is less dense but forms a latticelike network that is actually more important for the strength of the bone. With aging there is a loss of trabecular bone; therefore there is less area on which calcium can be laid down. Therefore calcium is preferentially laid down on the outer, cortical bone." - J. Douglas Bremner, Before You Take that Pill: Why the Drug Industry May Be Bad for Your Health (Get the book.) "The result of this comingling was a boon for drug makers: Approval time of their products decreased from twenty months to six months right after the law changed. However, the number of drugs that had to be later withdrawn also increased from 2% to 5% of drugs." - J. Douglas Bremner, Before You Take that Pill: Why the Drug Industry May Be Bad for Your Health (Get the book.)

"Medicine Merchants: drug makers and 3rd World: Study in Neglect," The New York Times, May 21, 2000. 4 transformation in the . . . industry over the last twenty-five years: This is described in detail in chapters 4 and 5. Also see comments by pharmaceutical executives about how the industry has entered an era of marketing and me-too drugs in "Viewpoint: In Your Own Words," Pharmaceutical Executive, Aug. 2006. 4 "pearlescent pigments": Andrew Bridges, "FDA OKs Pearly Pigments to Color Pills," The Associated Press, July 20, 2006." - Melody Petersen, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs (Get the book.)

"Current laws allow drug makers to hold sole rights to sell a new drug for twenty years, after which generics can be made and sold at much lower prices. When Mevacor has been on the market long enough to lose its patent protection, generic drug makers can manufacture the same chemical substance and sell it for far less than branded Mevacor. Assuming that the drugs are manufactured by a reputable company, the generic and brand-name drugs are identical to one another chemically. Asking for a generic version will save you and the health-care system money." - Hyla Cass, Supplement Your Prescription: What Your Doctor Doesn't Know About Nutrition (Get the book.)

"I argued that the free market would prevail, and that drug makers would thrive, ultimately, in a competitive arena. The following day David Schwab wrote in the New Jersey Star-Ledger, "It's not every day a successful executive embarks on a personal campaign criticizing the very industry in which he has worked for over 20 years—especially the pharmaceutical industry. But that's where Peter Rost found himself yesterday as he addressed a gathering of journalists in New York and strongly criticized the effort by drug makers to prevent the importing of cheaper medicines from overseas." - Peter Rost, The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman (Get the book.)

"This is a no-brainer for drug makers since FDA approval is granted to anti-cancer drugs based on response rates that are at best in the 10-20 percent range (as happened, for example, with the popular drugs, Avastin, Erbitux, and Iressa). In addition, the "success" of most clinical cancer studies is measured by tumor shrinkage instead of mortality rate. In other words, even if most of the subjects died but had their tumors shrunk through aggressive treatments, the study would be hailed as a great success and a medical breakthrough." - Andreas Moritz, Cancer Is Not A Disease - It's A Survival Mechanism (Get the book.) "Although nearly one million people die each year from the side effects of medical treatments or medical errors, it is difficult for most people to forsake the illusion of a cure when learned scientists, doctors, pharmacists, the government, and drug makers so convincingly promise them a quick relief of their disease symptoms. It takes great courage, as well as trust in yourself, in your body's innate wisdom, and in nature, to heal what is only yours to heal. To heal cancer, the entire you must become whole again, including your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual self." - Andreas Moritz, Cancer Is Not A Disease - It's A Survival Mechanism (Get the book.)

"Expenditures for prescription drugs have been increasing seven times faster than the rate of inflation, but the 2003 legislation specifically prohibits the federal government from using its purchasing power to negotiate prices with drug makers, as is done successfully by the Veterans Health Administration and Defense Department (and by Canada and the European countries—which is why their drug prices are so much lower than those in the United States). The U.S." - John Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine (P.S.) (Get the book.)

"The combined sales of Remicade, Humira and Enbrel in 2007 earned the drug makers $13 billion. You can easily heal the causes of arthritis, Crohn's disease, and psoriasis through cleansing of the liver, kidneys and colon, eliminating animal protein from the diet and eating a nutritious vegetarian diet, while adhering to a balanced lifestyle. I suffered from rheumatoid arthritis over 35 years ago, and once I knew what caused it, I healed it quickly without any medical aid." - Andreas Moritz, Cancer Is Not A Disease - It's A Survival Mechanism (Get the book.)

"These "false and misleading" ads earned Bristol-Myers Squibb one of only five Warning Letters sent to drug makers for advertising violations in 2003. The FDA seemed particularly irked because, the letter said, it had sent two less severe letters to Bristol-Myers Squibb for similar "overstated" and "unsubstantiated" claims in 2001. If stroke prevention is the goal, lowering cholesterol with a statin drug is hardly the first strategy we should turn to." - John Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine (P.S.) (Get the book.) "Medicare prescription bill to determine the best drugs and therapies for seniors, or simply allowing the market to function so the government can negotiate the best price from drug makers to obtain the best value for American senior citizens. RECLAIMING RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR HEALTH Don't forget the good news. You can take charge of many of your biggest health risks. The recommendations about a healthy lifestyle may at first seem too simplistic, but the research repeatedly shows that this is the best way to stay healthy." - John Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine (P.S.) (Get the book.)

"The report also suggested putting a few teeth back into the agency's gummy mouth by giving it authority to issue fines, injunctions, and drug withdrawals from the market "when the drug makers fail—as they often do—to complete required safety studies." That gives you more of an idea of what the FDA and the drug companies have not been doing all these years—safety studies and safety enforcement." - Peter Breggin, Medication Madness: A Psychiatrist Exposes the Dangers of Mood-Altering Medications (Get the book.) "Even the corporation-friendly Wall Street Journal voiced concern about the increase in diagnosing and treating small children and felt constrained to mention Biederman's financial relationships with drug makers.3 The promotional efforts of drug advocates have been phenomenally successful. A recent survey found that the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children and youth under age nineteen had escalated forty times between 1994?995 and 2002?003.4 Over 90 percent of the children received psychiatric drugs with more than 62 percent receiving them in combinations." - Peter Breggin, Medication Madness: A Psychiatrist Exposes the Dangers of Mood-Altering Medications (Get the book.)

"If you consider drug makers, meter makers, test-kit makers...doctors, nutritionists., .kit manufacturers — those who help you carry, cool, and/or store your drug and supplies...alcohol swab manufacturers, the packager of specialty "sugar" to counteract low bGs...frequent laboratory tests, quarterly (or more frequent) maintenance visits to the doctor...diabetic socks, diabetic shoes, diabetic hose...diabetic recipe books, calorie/gram counters, record keeping logs, ad infinitum...you can see that from every perspective — except the diabetic's —this disease is all about profit!" - Brent Hoadley, Ph.D., Too Profitable to Cure (Get the book.)

"The consequence, as a congressional report would later find, was that in 2003 DDMAC issued drug makers 75 percent fewer warning letters, its chief enforcement device, than it did during the last two years of the Clinton administration. Even the pharmaceuticals trade press was stunned by the change, noting in one headline that "Most Medical Promotion Is Out of Sight of Regulators." And then, in March 2004, the McClellan epoch ended as abruptly as it had begun." - Greg Critser, Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies (Get the book.)

"Passing it means granting immunity to the drug makers, allowing them the unrestricted expansion of their deadly business with disease at the expense of patients. As the direct consequence of this law, tens of millions of Americans will suffer disability and die from preventable diseases within the next decades. 4. Withholding life saving information about the health benefits of vitamins and natural therapies." - Kevin Trudeau, More Natural Cures Revealed: Previously Censored Brand Name Products That Cure Disease (Get the book.)

"The PMA represented the nation's biggest brand-name drug makers, who were often referred to simply as "big pharma" or simply "pharma." (The organization itself formally changed its name to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, PhRMA, in 1994.) The PMA believed that the industry was in a crisis, suffering from increasing costs, slipping sales, foreign competition, and government over-regulation. It was a crisis so severe as to provoke pharma CEOs to wonder out loud "whether there will even be a U.S. pharmaceuticals industry in twenty years." - Greg Critser, Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies (Get the book.)

"Junk-food companies, drug makers, surgical instrument companies, hospitals, and physicians would probably be the biggest losers. The New York Times articles pointed out that in the treatment of diabetes, insurers balked at paying $75 for a nutritional consultation, but they were willing to pay more than $300 for each dialysis treatment (due to diabetes-related kidney disease). Likewise, insurers hesitated to pay $150 for a visit to a podiatrist, whc can address diabetes-related foot problems, but the insurers would pay more than $30,000 for an amputation." - Jack Challem, Stop Prediabetes Now: The Ultimate Plan to Lose Weight and Prevent Diabetes (Get the book.)

"Much of this new research, says Petersen, comes from 'extension trials' funded by the drug makers to look for additional benefits to approved drugs. In extension trials, patients know they are taking a drug and there is no placebo arm to compare the results with. What you get is a measure of patients' perception of how well the drug is working, something that is notoriously difficult to assess, particularly in a degenerative disease. 'Often the drugs don't improve a patient's cognitive function,' Petersen continues. " - Jacky Law, Big Pharma: Exposing the Global Healthcare Agenda (Get the book.)

"He hated a growing practice by drug makers and their marketing representatives known as off-label promotion. "Off-label promotion" is the term used for a pharmaceutical company's advocacy of a prescription drug for a use that the FDA has not specifically approved. Often, this type of advertising involves the distribution of medical journal articles that discuss such uses — Paxil for shyness, for example — with the intent of subtly encouraging physicians to, let's just say it, experiment." - Greg Critser, Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies (Get the book.)

"The article states that both NEJM and JAMA "are beholden to drug makers for their economic viability"; each takes in about $20 million annually from drug company advertising.9,10 This perverted view of science and education, sanctified by a professional association that represents practicing physicians amounts to little more than a mob-controlled workplace. If pharmaceutical corporations can be likened to the godfather of a crime family, then the upper echelon of the American Medical Association (AMA) could be considered consigliores." - Brent Hoadley, Ph.D., Too Profitable to Cure (Get the book.) "Why doesn't he/she report to doctors, drug makers, or the FDA? Because he/she isn't required to? Because he/she isn't asked to? Because he/she doesn't know she can or should? Is it better to be a good corporate employee—just go along to get along—than to take action against wrongdoing? As a corporate being, the safety and well-being of his family might be determined by how well he toes the corporate line. But, his act(s) of omission should not shield him from accountability when a patient is endangered." - Brent Hoadley, Ph.D., Too Profitable to Cure (Get the book.)

"Their policies are calculating and manipulative. drug makers conduct trials in preparation for an FDA review and then withhold the studies that could be damaging - submitting only the research that encourages regulatory approval. Obviously, by withholding the negative studies' results, doctor are encouraged to prescribe a drug without knowing about some of the associated problems. Fortunately, the scandalous practices surrounding HRT research were discovered and announced by the mass media." - Andreas Moritz, Timeless Secrets of Health & Rejuvenation: Unleash The Natural Healing Power That Lies Dormant Within You (Get the book.)

"The death rate from diabetes continues to climb and maintenance drug makers know it. This fact would be too devastating for newly diagnosed diabetics to handle. Let's not tell them that they need a real cure. 3. [Unstated] Advertisers selling specialty foods, pumps, kits, paraphernalia, and maintenance drugs might be offended. Let's not tell them, we might lose advertising dollars. 4. Patented new insulins, which will replace most insulins currently on the market, are analog hormones with no track record." - Brent Hoadley, Ph.D., Too Profitable to Cure (Get the book.)

"Jere Goyan, requiring drug makers to provide a "patient information insert" with every prescription. Reagan's deregulation-minded cabinet hated the idea, and saw it as one more example of too much government. Hayes was instructed by the White House to get rid of the program, and he did. But in the process of wrestling with that issue, Hayes quietly became a convert to the notion of direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertising." - Greg Critser, Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies (Get the book.)

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