Americans Are Over Medicated

 

The Drugging Of Americans and Medical Industry Greed 

Is America over medicated? 

Is the FDA more interested in Americans'  health, safety, & well being or the billions of dollars it receives annually from the pharmaceutical companies to approve new drugs & keep current drugs on the market? 

 Please read the following list of disturbing facts & statistics & decide for yourself.

• Based on a 2002 survey, 46% of Americans use at least one prescription drug daily.
• Total number of prescriptions filled in 2001:  3.1 billion
• Total cost of prescriptions in 2001: $132 billion
• Projected cost of prescriptions in 2014: $414 billion
• Percentage of incoming undergraduates using psychotropic, mind-altering drugs:  40%
• From 1992 - 2003, the abuse of psychotropic drugs grew at twice the rate of marijuana abuse; five times that of cocaine abuse; & 60 times that of heroin abuse.
• 20% of recently approved prescription drugs have serious, life threatening side effects. 
• 90% of authors of clinical practice guidelines received research funding from, or acted as consultants to drug companies. 
• Medical doctors, psychiatrists, & all those licensed by the government who can "legally" prescribe drugs are paid huge monetary incentives by the pharmaceutical industry to write prescriptions of their drugs. Those doctors & other professionals who choose financial incentives over a patients well being & health should be defined as "legal drug pushers" contributing to the overmedicating of America for profit.
• Percentage increase from 1985 - 1999 in stimulant psychotropic drugs prescribed to children: 327%
• Percentage increase from 1991 - 2000 in stimulant psychotropic drugs prescribed to preschoolers between 2 & 4 years of age: 50%
• The number of antidepressants prescribed annually for children under 19: 11 million 
• The number of children diagnosed with "ADD/ADHD" & drugged in 1985: 500,000
• The number of children diagnosed with "ADD/ADHD" & drugged today: approximately 6 million
• CHADD (Children and Adults with ADD) received over $700,000 in 2001 from pharmaceutical companies to promote & market their drugs.
• CHADD refers to the 1999 Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health when citing ADHD as a neurobiological disorder, yet the Surgeon General's report, the DSM-IV, the National Institutes of Health, and the American Academy of Pediatrics Clinical Practice Guideline for ADHD, do not confirm or state that ADHD is a "neurobiological" disorder. In fact, the Surgeon General provided no conclusive evidence to support this theory—a fact CHADD neglects to mention on its website.
• The epidemic use of psychotropic drugs started many years ago. In 1965, approximately 58 million new prescriptions & 108 million refills were written for psychotropic drugs. This accounted for 14% of all prescriptions written that year.
• Percentage of Americans taking anti-allergy medications who may not even have allergies: 65%
• The number of signs advertising the drug Claritin in Newark International Airport lobbies:  75
• The amount spent by Merck Pharmaceutical to advertise the drug Vioxx in 2001:  $161 million
• The total number of advertising violations issued by the FDA for misleading drug ads from 1997 - 2001:  88; Amount of fines levied for such violations: $0
• US direct-to-consumer drug ad spending soared to $2.49 billion in 2001 up from $859 million in 1997.
• Number of Americans annually who request & receive a prescription for a specific drug after seeing a commercial for it: 8.5 million
• Estimated prescriptions of Paxil in 2002: 37 million
• Amount spent on lobbying by pharmaceutical companies from 1996 - 2002: $500 million
• The number of former congressmen now serving as lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry: 24
• The approximate total number of lobbyists: 600; Their average annual income: $300,000 - $400,000
• The amount of direct contributions from the drug industry to the 2002 political campaign: $20 million; Percentage that went to Republicans: 75%
• Seven drugs recalled by the FDA between 1993 & 2000 after reports of death & severe side effects exceeded $5 billion in sales before being withdrawn.
• The major stockholders of the pharmaceutical industry: FDA workers, FTC workers, Congressmen, & the CEO's of the pharmaceutical companies.
• The Annual cost of prescription drug errors: $100 billion
• A natural herbal cure was found for diabetes. The amount paid to the person that discovered it to not market or announce the cure: $30 million
• Out of the last 20 FDA commissioners, upon leaving the FDA, the number who went to work directly for the pharmaceutical industry: 12
• The approximate number of Americans that die annually from FDA approved drugs: 125,000
• The approximate number of Americans that die annually from Aspirin use: 2,000
• The percentage of FDA workers who are paid directly through funding from the pharmaceutical industry:  55% at an average of $1.2 billion annually
• The FDA passed a law stating that only a "drug" can cure a disease therefore; farms, orchards, or any company promoting fruit as beneficial to your health were threatened with violations & the confiscation & destruction of their products. Their "cherries" for example were not approved as a new drug by the FDA & were not declared as "safe & effective". The average cost to get a "new drug" approved: $800 million.  Sound unbelievable? Actual FDA letter sent to a farm marketing cherries as a natural remedy.
• In 2004 approximately 12,000 Texas Foster Children each received 21 prescriptions of psychotropic drugs totally more than $29 million.
• According to a recent study, up to 20% of all prescriptions written are for "off-label" use not approved by the FDA & with no support from scientific studies.
• According to a recent study, 96% of all "off-label" psychiatric drug prescriptions lacked scientific support.
• 25% of 239 patients consuming Vioxx had heart attacks within the first 13 days of  being on the drug. Vioxx was pulled from the market on September 30th, 2004. 
• The amount of money the pharmaceutical industry & the FDA would loose if Americans turned to natural cures (vitamins, minerals, herbs, fruit, etc.) instead of prescription drugs: trillions!

    


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Disclaimer:  The information posted on this website is for educational purposes only. We are not licensed Medical Doctors & do not intend to substitute the advice of professionals. The information presented is based on our opinions on the benefits of alternative treatment vs. drugging for treatment. Some of our sources include websites of licensed Medical Doctors & websites of others sharing our opinions. Any mention on this site of alternative treatment & healing through natural remedies, organic or herbal, have not been evaluated by the FDA. Again, some  information on this site is based solely on personal experiences & personal opinions & is protected under Free Speech.

Former Bain Capital Partner Edward Conard Outs Romney

A former Bain Capital partner acknowledged Sunday that Mitt Romney "legally" remained the head of the private equity firm until 2002, contradicting Romney's claims that he left the company in February 1999.

During an appearance on MSNBC's "Up w/ Chris Hayes," Edward Conard, who worked at the private equity firm during Romney's tenure as CEO, noted that Romney remained "legally" in charge of the company for at least two years after the former governor says he left to take over the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City.

"Mitt's names were on the documents as the chief executive and sole owner of the company," Conard said. Conard served as managing director of the firm from 1993 to 2007.



MSNBC reports:

Despite Romney's statements that he left in 1999, Conard's new remarks suggest that, in fact, Romney's continued ownership of the firm enabled him to negotiate a better exit deal. "We had to negotiate with Mitt because he was an owner of the firm," Conard said.The legal transfer of ownership dragged on for three years after Romney's informal departure to run the Olympics in Salt Lake City, Conard said, because Romney was aggressively negotiating his retirement package and compensation with executives and lawyers at the company.

"He'd created a lot of franchise value, and we were going to pay him for that," Conard said, adding: "We had a very complicated set of negotiations that took us about two years for us to unwind. During that time a management committee ran the firm, and we could hardly get Mitt to come back to negotiate the terms of his departure because he was working so hard on the Olympics."

Conard's comments are the latest in a growing pile of evidence that contradicts Romney's repeated claims that he ended his active role at Bain in 1999. On Sunday, The Huffington Post reported on a corporate document filed in December 2002 that lists Romney as a "managing member" of Bain Capital Investors. Earlier reports show Romney listed as CEO on 2002 Securites and Exchange Commission filings, attending board meetings for Bain-affiliated companies after 1999, and receiving an at least $100,000 salary from Bain in 2001 and 2002.

The discrepancies between these documents and Romney's account of his departure have become the focus of the presidential campaign, as President Obama's team raises questions about the Republican candidate's truthfulness. Beyond the issue of honesty, there are deeper implications for Romney if he was involved in the company after 1999, as Bain's outsourcing activity during that time has raised concern.

Obama addressed the controversy on Saturday, telling DC-based ABC affiliate WJLA that Romney should come clean on his record.

"Ultimately, I think, Mr. Romney is going to have to answer those questions because if he aspires to being president, one of the things you learn is you're ultimately responsible for the conduct of your operations," the president said.

Obamacare Will Cut Deficit...

CBO: Health reform to cut deficit by $50 billion more than we thought... Republicans lie about health care. See them get busted.

http://www.washingto...gPSES_blog.html

I’m getting a lot of e-mails quoting articles like this one, by John Ransom, that say something like, “In a wholly predictable development, it turns out the cost for Obamacare will end up being twice the original price that the Democrats said.” Ransom also writes that I was “w-w-w-wrong” to say, back in January 2011, that the law “cuts enough spending and raises enough taxes to more than pay for itself.”

Actually, no, I wasn’t. That statement, in fact, is even truer today than it was then.

But let’s back up. The occasion for this dust-up is a set of updated cost estimates for the coverage provisions of the health-care law. The new estimates reflect a couple of factors. The Congressional Budget Office lists them:

- An increase of $168 billion in projected outlays for Medicaid and CHIP;

- A decrease of $97 billion in projected costs for exchange subsidies and related spending;

- A decrease of $20 billion in the cost of tax credits for small employers; and

- An additional $99 billion in net deficit reductions from penalty payments, the excise tax on high-premium insurance plans, and other effects on tax revenues and outlays—with most of those effects reflecting changes in revenues.

You’ll notice something about the above list: It appears to add up to a net reduction in the cost of the health-care law. And, sure enough, here’s CBO: “the insurance coverage provisions of the ACA will have a net cost of just under $1.1 trillion over the 2012–2021 period—about $50 billion less than the agencies’ March 2011 estimate.” You would get the opposite impression reading Ransom.

The problem for Ransom and others is that they didn’t read this analysis closely, or, if they did, they didn’t understand it.

Ransom quotes CBO saying “those provisions will increase deficits by $1,083 billion,” but he either didn’t notice or didn’t choose to include the CBO’s warning that this analysis does “not encompass all of the budgetary impacts of the ACA because that legislation has many other provisions, including some that will cause significant reductions in Medicare spending and others that will generate added tax revenues.”

As it says right in the title, this is just a look at “the insurance coverage provisions” of the Affordable Care Act. That is to say, it’s a look at the spending side of the bill. So it doesn’t include the Medicare cuts, or many of the tax increases, that pay for the legislation. It’s like reading only the “outlays” side of the budget and ignoring the “revenues” part. Of course that would make the deficit look huge.

But those other parts of the bill aren’t a secret. They’re mentioned right there in the analysis. Quoting again: “CBO and JCT have previously estimated that the ACA will, on net, reduce budget deficits over the 2012–2021 period; that estimate of the overall budgetary impact of the ACA has not been updated.”

It’s easy to do at least some of the update ourselves. This analysis shows the net cost of the coverage provisions will be about $50 billion less than previously estimated. That implies the law will cut more, not less, from the deficit than previous estimates suggested. In other words, this estimate says the bill is more, not less, fiscally responsible than was previously reported.

One other thing that’s confused some people is that this estimate is looking at a different timeframe than the original estimates. The CBO’s first pass at the bill looked at 2010-2019. But years have passed, and so now they’re looking at 2012-2021. That means they have two fewer years of implementation, when the bill costs almost nothing, and two more years of operation, when it costs substantially more.

But it also means that the included cuts and taxes, which grow with time, are larger. That’s why, when House Republicans wanted to repeal health reform in 2011, the estimated increase in the deficit was $230 billion, rather than the $130 billion that would have been expected from the 2010-2019 analysis. As you extend the analysis, the bill both costs more and saves more, and the savings grow more quickly than the costs.

There are a few other interesting things in the CBO report: It says, for instance, that the bill is now expected to cover 30 million Americans, rather than 33 million Americans. It doesn’t give a reason for the revision.

Glenn Beck On Health Care Reform

A Compliation of FDA Corruption

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBeXPYah6yw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6eGQDuU88E&feature=related

Hear Doctor/Congressman Ron Paul Explain It!

Shocking Facts About FDA Corruption

Chris Rock Doctors and Drugs

Think about what he's saying. There have been damn few cures in the past 40 years. I think Hib Disease has a minimally effective vaccine and Chicken Pox had a vaccine in 1974. Medical greed keeps people sick.

Checkout Medical Holocaust

The FDA's Long History of Corruption

Going as far back as the 1950s -- and likely even much earlier than that -- the FDA has made it routine practice to ignore and even deny the dangers associated with drugs and medical devices when approving them. In the case of the Upjohn Company, for instance, which unveiled the antibiotic drug Panalba back in 1957, the FDA ignored many years of complaints about the drug's safety in order to protect the company's profits.




At the time, data showed that as many as 20 percent of patients taking Panalba had suffered severe allergic reactions to the antibiotic, and yet the FDA did nothing. Even Upjohn's own research studies on Panalba showed that the drug was less effective and less safe than alternative drugs on the market, and still the FDA did nothing, effectively sheltering Upjohn's enormous profits from Panalba, which represented 12 percent of its overall profit earnings.



Sadly, the same is true today, as the drug industry and the FDA essentially work in tandem to get dangerous, but highly-profitable, drugs and medical devices to market. It is a win-win situation for both groups as the FDA gets kickbacks in the form of exorbitant new drug and medical device application fees, and the drug industry rakes in billions of dollars for blockbuster drug and device products that would never have been approved had science and facts been legitimately factored into the equation.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/035641_corruption_FDA_Big_Pharma.html#ixzz1xuTGyyFa