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by Ethan A. Huff
staff writer
December 17, 2013
from
NaturalNews Website
A prominent Harvard University professor
has compiled a new report that slams the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA)
for its failure to honestly and ethically approve new drugs.
Set to be published in a special issue
of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, the damning report
declares that the FDA "cannot be trusted," noting that virtually all
new drugs approved by the agency over the past 30 years are little
or no better than existing drugs already on the market.
Entitled "Institutional
Corruption of Pharmaceuticals and the Myth of Safe and Effective
Drugs," the report by Professor Donald W. Light
provides solid evidence to show that the FDA is nothing more than a
pay-for-play front group that caters strictly to the interests of
the pharmaceutical industry.
Since
drug companies are what primarily
funds the FDA these days, the agency has lowered the barriers to
entry for new drugs, speeding up the approval process while at the
same time putting patients at increased risk.
Prescription
drugs used as prescribed kill at least 125,000 people annually, says
report
As the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S., prescription
drugs are among the most dangerous substances in the world.
According to Prof. Light's research,
tens of thousands of patients are hospitalized annually due to
adverse effects from prescription drugs, and another several
thousand die - and all this from taking prescription drugs as
prescribed.
"[O]ver the past 30 years, approved
drugs have caused an epidemic of harmful side effects, even when
properly prescribed," explains a preface to the Harvard report.
"Every week, about 53,000 excess
hospitalizations and about 2,400 excess deaths occur in the
United States among people taking properly prescribed drugs to
be healthier."
Much of this is due to the fact that FDA
scrutiny of new drugs is on the decline.
Based on the evidence, the FDA spends
far more time rushing new drugs to market than it does actually
assessing the safety and efficacy of new drugs, many of which are
nothing more than old drugs repackaged with minor changes.
These changes, of course, allow drug
companies to renew their patents and thus earn new record-breaking
profits.
"The FDA in effect serves as the
re-generator of patent-protected high prices for minor drugs in
each disease group, as their therapeutic equivalents lose patent
protection," explains the report.
"The FDA routinely approves scores
of new minor variations each year, with minimal evidence about
risks of harm... One in every five drugs approved ends up
causing serious harm."
"This is the opposite of what people want or expect from the
FDA."
FDA conspiring
with Big Pharma to market 'diseases' that don't even exist
If this is not bad enough, the FDA is also actively complicit in a
massive Big Pharma scheme that
involves inventing new diseases and marketing them to the
public in order to sell more drugs.
So-called "preventative" drugs for
diseases like Alzheimer's, for instance, are the drug industry's
latest form of 'snake oil' that the FDA is welcoming with
open arms.
"The New England Journal of Medicine
has published, without comment, proposals by two senior figures
from the FDA to loosen criteria drugs that allege to prevent
Alzheimer's disease by treating it at an early stage," explains
Prof. Light.
"The proposed looser criteria would
legitimate drugs as 'safe and effective' that have little or no
evidence of being effective and expose millions to risks of
harmful side effects."
Sources
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