A Professor of Medicine lectures on pharmaceutical companies.

luv_gardening

A Professor of Medicine lectures on pharmaceutical companies.

luv_gardening

Sadly, I knew most of this information about drug companies before but Dr. Beatrice Golomb, Associate Professor of Medicine at University of California, San Diego says it much better than I ever could, though she speaks so fast I needed full concentration to follow it.   The writing below the videos summarizes it well though.

 Video: How Corrupted Drug Companies Deceive and Manipulate Your Doctor

 http://dprogram.net/2010/05/20/video-how-corrupted-drug-companies-deceive-and-manipulate-your-doctor/

 Each half of the video goes for ten minutes so you need 20 minutes to watch it.

Janeluvsdogs

Thank you for that fabulous link to Dr. Golomb's exciting lecture. That was quite shocking that the drug companies are writing the research studies and the financial compensation doctors receive. Also, that universities and hospitals must kiss up to the drug companies or they will lose their funding.

luv_gardening

Hi Jane, the funding aspect would explain why funds and resources are not available to test natural supplements. Here's just one example... full RCT's were granted for the synthetic form of strontium... strontium ranelate... so they now have a patent on this drug, meanwhile the natural forms of this trace mineral which can't be patented such as strontium carbonate, strontium gluconate and strontium lactate have shown the same bone strengthening results in smaller studies as strontium ranelate did.

If a patient dares to say they are taking a natural form of strontium then the oncologists will say it hasn't been approved and no trials have shown it to work.  Well of course not, the pharmaceuticals have a stranglehold on which drugs go to trial, doctors, oncologists, hospitals, the decision makers on all levels and the general public.  They have pulled the wool over everyone's eyes.

My oncologist looked shocked when I said I had taken strontium caltrate for my osteoporosis and refused to keep me on Arimidex. giving me a choice of two drugs I don't feel comfortable with, Tamoxifen or a bisphosphonate.  I take Vitamin K1 and K2 also and they weren't interested. She offered me a free bisphosphonate prescription from Astra Zeneca as they have some special deal for arimidex clients.  Meanwhile the resident who opened the consultation was wearing a gold badge bearing the name of a statin drug on her lapel.  Now I'm stuck with a prescription for Tamoxifen and I don't know what to do.  I don't have the option of changing oncologists as I'm a public patient in Australia and anyway they are all bound to the "standard of care".  

The link below is to a sub-standard web page, for example they don't state the number of patients in the metastatic bone cancer study and I notice some exaggerations, but it does give references and a good overview of the subject.

 http://www.worldhealth.net/news/strontium_breakthrough_against_osteoporo/

 PS, the spell check recognised the word Arimidex but not statin... even spell checks have been won over!

sandilee

 

[quote]My oncologist looked shocked when I said I had taken strontium caltrate for my osteoporosis and refused to keep me on Arimidex[/quote]

 

 

  Good reason not to tell my onc I'm taking it.   

NativeMainer

And docs wonder why people don't tell them everything they are taking!

Anonymous

Wow, what a great lecture! I was surprised to learn how the studies of drugs are ghost-written by the drug companies and that they bury the studies that don't support use of the drug.  I see Dr. Golumb has quite an impressive resume.

I wonder if she would look at the studies on Arimidex? It is seen as heresy to question these drugs.

Anonymous

Native Mainer,  If you tell mainstream docs what you are taking, most of the time they haven't read up on it and they get this awkward, embrassed look on their faces or they brush it off.

I spare them the embrassment of telling them. They don't like to be thought of as "uninformed." Even the nicest docs can be this way.

luv_gardening

Sandilee, I told her about the strontium and VitK in the hope that she would give me a year till I had the next BMD test to see if my efforts were working.  If my osteoporosis worsened then she would have a right to worry and urge me to take stronger drugs.  I do understand the position of onco's who are tied to their recognised treatments.  She also objected at one stage that she was well trained and knowledgeable so I guess I didn't stroke her ego enough before rejecting her beloved pharmaceuticals.  

luv_gardening

NativeMainer, I've been trying hard to be honest and my onco has had a lovely warm bedside manner up till now.  I really hoped she would be more accommodating but now I'll just tell her what  I need her to know.  I still have a month of the Arimidex and there's always the natural AI's to turn to if I want, but I do feel vulnerable being stage 3 and will probably give the tamox a year and hope the BMD test is better next time.

luv_gardening

Lucy,  I don't know how good the AstraZeneca - Arimidex studies are, but here's their record on other issues with other drugs.

April 2010

 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100427/ap_on_bi_ge/us_doj_astrazeneca

"By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer Pete Yost, Associated Press Writer - Tue Apr 27, 4:38 pm ET

WASHINGTON - The federal government on Tuesday reached a $520 million settlement with pharmaceutical manufacturer AstraZeneca, resolving allegations of illegal marketing of the company's antipsychotic drug Seroquel.

.....

U.S. Attorney Michael Levy of Philadelphia, where the settlement was filed, said that the company had "turned patients into guinea pigs in an unsupervised drug test." 

....

The government said AstraZeneca paid kickbacks to doctors recruited to serve as authors of articles by Astra Zeneca and the company's agents about the unapproved uses of Seroquel.

The company also made payments to doctors to travel to resort locations to advise AstraZeneca about marketing messages for unapproved uses of the drug, the government stated."

2003

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/AstraZeneca+fined+$355+million+as+U.S.+cracks+down+on+medicare...-a0107697604

June 2005

"AstraZeneca fined for misuse of patent law

Written by JDPGlobal | Monday, 20 June 2005

AstraZeneca has run into trouble in the UK and have recently been fined a massive amount of €60m (£40m). This is for misleading government agencies, for trying to block the sale of copies of its ulcer drug Losec and serious abuses of its dominant market position. Even though the amount levied was huge, the drug firm admitted that the profit from the anti-competitive behaviour was far larger."

Also read this thread to see how they've manipulated the system to keep getting big profits from Arimidex  in USA.

http://community.breastcancer.org/forum/78/topic/747389?page=3 

There's plenty more but that's a start.

Edited to correct link.

Anonymous

Sheila, thanks for these.

Did you hear there was some kind of dust-up at the Oncologist's conference, ASCO, this week about Avastin? Apparently Avastin has been used but there is no overall (OS) survival value. The breast cancer advocates are demanding that the "endpoint" be survival, not recurrence. But Genentech is kicking and screaming.

MsBliss

This is a very interesting piece.  Thank you for posting it.

I have several medical professionals in my family.  For years they have been complaining about the influence of big pharma on medical decisions.  One of them, an oncologist, was fuming over a paper that twisted the truth so thoroughly, it was almost criminal. 

I believe in taking control of your health and making informed decisions.  But many are used to delegating their medical decisions to their doctors and that is probably not going to be good in the long run.  I know of people who were put on statins, even though they had little medical need for it, and now they have issues and side effects; one of them is so weak muscled now, she is bedridden, but she won't stop taking what the doctors prescribe. They could have made their own decision about whether to take the statins or not, but chose to leave something this critically important to someone else.  I will never do this.