A very well done video from former pharmaceutical rep Gwen Olsen. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFbs8s3VI6M

Very informative pharmaceutical industry video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzLoVLERE6c&feature=response_watch

I will be having my last glutathione treatment in June. I know it has helped some people and some people it hasn’t  I was hoping that it would really help me a lot but it hasn’t. It hasn’t hurt me though so maybe down the road it will slowly help me. It costs about $45.00 per iv for the doctor’s charge. I used Wellness pharmacy for the glutathione. I was hoping it would help enough to where I don’t have to take the Lyrica and Oxycodone for the pain. I hate being on medications. They take the edge off the pain but give me fatigue. It’s always a trade-off. Who knows what the Lyrica and oxycodone are doing to my body on the inside. My liver enzyme test came back normal so I guess they aren’t too toxic to my liver. Who knows.  

I am thinking of asking my medical doctor to see if he thinks glutathione would be helpful for my dad who turned 88 years old in April. He has really declined a lot in the last year. He was diagnosed two weeks ago with myositis and possible diabetes related neuropathy. He is going to have amuscle biopsy soon. As hard as it is to accept quinolone damage it is tougher seeing my father decline. My dad’s family doctor referred him to a Rheumatologist and said that doctor may prescribe steroids for his condition. I researched Prednisone and it can help a lot of people but it can also have some terrible side effects. Hard to know what to do. My dad’s family doctor wantsto do chelation therapy but I am not sure if that would help. I try and go with my mom to appointments for him. I read IVIG may help with bad neuropathy but it can be costly and time consuming and may not even be covered on my dad’s medicare insurance. I try and mention about quinolones at the end of the conversation and give out quinolone cards to doctors. The office staff seems much more interested in quinolone damage than the doctors do.

I sent out information on the Black Box warning not being on the prescribing literature to some more media outlets. Bob G sent out a lot of quinolone packets years ago to try and get stories done. I have a lot of respect for him doing that and others who have tried.  Hopefully one of these days a big media outletwill do some good quinolone stories. It takes too much time and effort to try and blog about quinolone poisoning and mail media packets with my mom doing a lot of the work  and then try and research what can help my dad and myself. I am going to blog every week but blog less often for the time being. I am going to concentrate a little more on my dad, myself and working with Bob G on quinolone advocacy. Maybe some day I can get off the lyrica and narcotics and have a little more energy to do more things. Thanks very much for everyone’s contributions. It is very much appreciated. The comments really help in validating this severe antibiotic toxicity. And many thanks to all others who try to raise awareness on this important issue. One day fluoroquinolone toxicity will be more widely known.

 

Here is a video that Bob G and I were in about fluoroquinolones. Ivanhoe produced this short news story.  The producer of this story told Bob and I that it will eventually be going out to over two hundred news stations across the country. After speaking to Mr. John Cherry, he has told me it would be fine to put this story on this blog.  

 http://ivanhoe.com/viewers/watch_video.cfm?vid=MB2979&title=The%20Safety%20Gap:%20Money,%20Medicine%20and%20You

I was disappointed with a few items in this story. First, they should have mentioned Cipro for Bob’s problems and that Cipro is also a fluoroquinolone that has a “black box” warning along with Levaquin.

 Secondly, I thought it was very irresponsible to have Tim Wells on this news piece saying that you don’t have to worry about reading drug labels. That the drugs on the market are safe. That was a very reckless statement by Tim Wells, former FDA employee. Drug labels should always be read. 

At least with this news story going out to a lot of news stations across the country it will help to spread the word on the dangers of fluoroquinolones. I will see if I can get Ivanhoe to do a follow-up story specifically on fluoroquinolones. Maybe they can get a victim or two from Cipro, Levaquin,  Avelox, or any other fluoroquinolone. Even though I didn’t agree with having Tim Wells in this news story I do very much appreciate Ivanhoe doing a story on this subject to help inform people about the dangers of these antibiotics. Cyndy Donaldson, from Ivanhoe, spent a lot of time with Bob G and I for this piece and she was really supportive of our cause and was great to work with. Many thanks to her, Mr. John Cherry, and Melissa Medley.      

Behavior: Small Gifts Found to Influence Doctors 

 

Pharmaceutical ghostwriters promote dangerous drugs
Thursday, January 8, 2009
By: Anne Gamboni New Jersey drug giant Wyeth Pharmaceuticals is under investigation for paying ghostwriters to produce articles favorable to its female hormone replacement therapy Prempro. (New York Times, Dec. 12, 2008)

 

 

Wyeth paid ghostwriters to write favorably about a drug linked to breast cancer.

Prempro medication is a combination of estrogen and progestin used to treat symptoms of menopause. In 2002, a federal study linked use of Prempro to breast cancer. In May 2003, the “American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology” published an article on Prempro that argued there was “no definitive evidence” that progestins cause breast cancer, and went further to assert that women who used hormones had a better chance of surviving cancer.

 

The article was prepared by Wyeth in conjunction with a professional medical writing firm, DesignWrite.

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals reported earnings of up to $17.5 billion worldwide for the first nine months of 2008, and earned almost $3 billion from Prempro during the hormone therapy’s height in 2001. It is estimated that more than 126 million prescriptions were written for women for hormone replacement drugs—most of them for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals’ Prempro.

This is not the first case of pharmaceutical companies publishing ghostwritten articles in medical journals. Merck used professional medical writers to promote their painkiller Vioxx, which was withdrawn in 2004 after it was linked to heart problems. Wyeth had also paid writers to tout its Redux and Pomdimin diet pills, which were taken off the market in 1997 after being linked to heart and lung problems.

Other investigations have revealed that drug company executives themselves come up with ideas for medical journal articles, going so far as to title them, and even drafting outlines. They pay writers to compose the manuscripts, then recruit academic authors to identify journals to publish the articles. Meanwhile, journal editors and readers have no idea what role the drug companies play in the process. (New York Times)

Drug companies hire professional medical writers in hopes of influencing doctors to prescribe their drugs to patients. In reality, the articles published in journals function as advertisements rather than independent research. They do not rest on scientific observations, but rather marketing needs.

DesignWrite, the medical writing company used by Wyeth, asserts on its website that it offers “a comprehensive approach to product positioning, providing strategic marketing, scientific, and editorial support to meet individual challenges throughout a product’s life cycle.” Moreover, that its long experience in blending scientific and clinical issues with marketing needs allows us to develop successful science-based medical marketing programs.”

This is yet another example of how medical science takes a back seat to profits in the United States. Medicine and health care, like everything else under capitalism, are for-profit industries that throw out the needs of human beings for the sake of the bottom line.

 

Drug of Choice has a Downside

Treatment: Doctors are concerned that widespread, possibly unnecessary, use of the antibiotic Cipro could mean more incidents of the drug’s potentially devastating side effects.

By CAROL KRUCOFF

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Watching a panicked nation stockpile Cipro makes Linda Baldwin want to cry.

“That drug absolutely ruined my life,” says the 61year-old Oxnard woman, who was given Cipro and its sister drug, Floxin, for a urinary tract infection in 1996. She blames the drugs for causing blurred vision, excruciating muscle and joint pain and a cascade of other disabling side effects that have left her unable to work or even play with her grandchildren.

The former election technician for Ventura County says, “I never in a million years thought an antibiotic could do this to me. It makes me heartsick watching people on TV grabbing up Cipro when they’re not even sick and letting themselves in for so many adverse reactions that their doctors may not even recognize.”

Yet thousands, if not millions, are grabbing up Cipro. In recent weeks, public health officials have prescribed the drug to thousands of postal workers, congressional staff members and others possibly exposed to anthrax. And countless more Americans have purchased Cipro on their own, wanting it on hand just in case they develop symptoms of the potentially lethal infection. Cipro’s German-based manufacturer, Bayer, says it has cranked up production to make 200 million pills within 60 days, enough to treat 12 million people.

The tremendous potential for misuse of this powerful drug has some health professionals worried. The very strengths that make Cipro and other fluoroquinolone antibiotics — such as Levaquin and Floxin — so effective against serious infection also raise their potential for severe side effects. If Americans who have hoarded Cipro decide to inappropriately self-medicate at the first sign of a cold during the upcoming flu season, drug experts say, they will needlessly expose themselves to the risk of an alarming array of adverse reactions.

“Although it’s not widely recognized, Cipro and other fluoroquinolones are associated with serious, rapid side effects that can be devastating and sometimes permanent,” says Dr. Jay S. Cohen, an associate professor of family medicine at UC San Diego.

Two kinds of side effects are most commonly linked with fluoroquinolones: musculoskeletal problems such as tendinitis, tendon rupture and joint pain, and central nervous system problems such as insomnia, hallucinations, depression and paranoia. “Less well-known are the adverse reactions that affect the peripheral nervous system, such as tingling, burning pain, twitching or spasms,” Cohen adds.

Adverse reactions to fluoroquinolones are often simply overlooked-blamed on other factors, for example, says Cohen, who contends that the drugs are much riskier than is widely believed. He has written a report, scheduled for publication in the December issue of the Annals of Pharmacotherapy, documenting severe sensory disturbances associated with fluoroquinolones. Baldwin is one of 45 patients cited in the study.

Although warnings about most of the drug’s side effects are listed in the Physician’s Desk Reference, Cohen says, “many patients reported that their doctors either failed to recognize the adverse events or dismissed their significance. They were told to continue taking the drug, when it’s imperative that someone with these reactions discontinue use immediately unless medical circumstances such as severe infection and no alternative treatment-warrant otherwise.”

Public Health Concerns

In recent weeks, public health officials have been struggling to inform Americans that antibiotics other than Cipro – such as doxycycline and penicillin — are effective against anthrax and to urge them not to take any antibiotic without the specific advice of a physician and a clear indication that exposure to the organism may have occurred. All antibiotics can cause gastrointestinal disturbances such as stomach upset and diarrhea-and kill “good bugs” in the body, setting the stage for problems such as yeast infections and the growth of drug-resistant bacteria. Yet penicillin and doxycycline are less risky than Cipro, whose very strength makes its side effect profile much wider.

“Cipro is basically a big gun whose benefits outweigh its risks in certain circumstances,” says David Flockhart, chief of clinical pharmacology at the Indiana University School of Medicine. He is considered by many to be the country’s foremost expert in fluoroquinolone-related side effects. “But the bigger gun you use, the more damage you can expect as collateral.” For a variety of reasons — from anthrax hysteria to incentives from drug companies — Flockhart says some physicians start with the “big gun” rather than the lower-level antibiotics, such as penicillin, which can be just as effective, less expensive and less risky.

Fluoroquinolones “should absolutely not be given to kids or pregnant women,” says Flockhart, since they can interfere with bone growth. Cipro and other fluoroquinolones also have been associated with ruptures of the shoulder, hand and Achilles tendons that required surgical repair or resulted in prolonged disability. This prompted the Food and Drug Administration in 1996 to ask manufacturers to add a warning to package inserts advising patients to discontinue treatment, inform their physicians and refrain from exercise if they experience pain, inflammation or tendon rupture. Some sports medicine specialists now say they avoid prescribing fluoroquinolones to athletes.

Incidence of Side Effects

Although there are no firm figures on how many people have suffered tendon rupture or any other serious adverse reaction to Cipro, the accepted range for common side effects from any drug is 5% and for uncommon side effects is less than 1%, says Daniel AIbrant, a spokesman for the American Pharmaceutical Assn. and president of the health care consulting firm Pharmacy Dynamics in Arlington, Va. This mean that, for every million people who take Cipro, as many as 10,000 might experience the less common-and often most serious-side effects.

One of Cipro’s strengths is its ability to penetrate the central nervous system, says Flockhart, who adds that the downside is that this increases the risk of adverse psychological reactions. About 30% of patients given intravenous Cipro and about 10% of those who take oral Cipro tablets may experience psychological side effects, he says. These range from feeling “out of it” to being anxious and jittery to, in extreme cases, having seizures.

These adverse reactions generally go away when the drug is stopped, says Flockhart, who notes that, in rare cases, an underlying psychiatric concern may be exacerbated by the drug and persist.

One of the best known of these cases is the experience of Philadelphia fiction writer Diane Ayres, who in 1992 took a single Floxin tablet that her physician prescribed for a minor urinary tract infection and wound up delirious in the emergency room six hours later.

She is now diagnosed with manic-depressive illness triggered by the powerful antibiotic, for which she has been treated with medication for nine years, says her husband, investigative journalist Stephen Fried. Fried chronicled his wife’s struggle as “friendly fire in the war on disease” in the 1998 book “Bitter Pill: Inside the Hazardous World of Legal Drugs.”

“Cipro is the quintessential kind of drug that people take like candy because they think all drugs are safe,” says Fried, whose original article probing drug safety for Philadelphia magazine received the 1994 National Magazine Award and set off a Food and Drug Administration investigation. “With so many horrible things going on in this world, some people want to believe that if they take this pill, it will protect them. But that’s not how it works, and what people don’t understand is that these drugs can cause illness.”

Mortality of Adverse Drug Reactions

More than 100,000 Americans die each year from adverse drug reactions, making legal drugs the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States, Fried notes. Yet the general public and some physicians often don’t consider the risks versus the benefits when selecting medication, he says. Certain people may be at greater risk of experiencing adverse reactions to fluoroquinolones, including the elderly, people with existing psychiatric or neurological symptoms or a history of head trauma, impaired kidney function and those taking certain medications, including caffeine and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories such as ibuprofen. Fatal reactions have occurred in patients taking Cipro with the asthma drug theophylline.

“A lot of people get these drugs for the most minor infections,” says Fried. “But there are a lot of people who should think twice before taking a quinolone for anything.”

Study uncovers truth about antidepressants 

Seems like most Americans these days have bought into the lie that taking some form of pill can solve any and all emotional or mental issues. If only it were that easy! And every time I try to give people a good dose of the truth, they point to one Big Pharm study or another that “proves” me wrong. Boy, have I got a doozie for them…

According to new research from Stephen Wisniewski, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, antidepressants are only effective in a small percentage of patients with a narrow range of psychological disorders. Patients with multiple issues — which can be as many as 60 percent of the psychiatric patients in the U.S. — may not be getting any benefit at all from antidepressants.

How’s that for depressing news? It gets worse. This new study showed how Big Pharma pumps up the efficacy results of the drug trials for their antidepressants.

Wisniewski’s team examined data compiled in a massive, government-funded review of more than 40 psychiatric facilities. This study, known as the “Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression” (“STAR*D” for short), is a picture of nearly the entire population of depression patients in the U.S.

Researchers compared STAR*D patients to a group of subjects for a standard antidepressant drug trial conducted by a pharmaceutical manufacturer (the trials that the FDA commonly reviews as part of the approval process for new medications).

As it turns out, the parameters for joining a typical antidepressant drug trial were so narrow that just 22 percent of the patients in the STAR*D survey would qualify to be part of the trial.

This means that Big Pharma tests its antidepressants using patients who fall within a very small range of depressive symptoms… and then markets these same drugs to EVERY depression patient in the country.

Wisniewski said that “current efficacy trials suggest a more optimistic outcome than is likely in practice.” Let’s cut to the chase here. What he’s really saying is that Big Pharma is gaming the system to get new SSRIs approved by the FDA.

Of course he’s too afraid to come right out and say that. Instead, he said that he doesn’t intend his new study to be a smoking gun that proves Big Pharma is intentionally taking problematic patients out of the testing mix to get better efficacy results. He might not have “intended” it, but that’s exactly what he did. And it’s about time.

“If the population in a [clinical] trial were more representative, it would come at a cost,” Wisniewski says. “That’s why trials to determine efficacy are done on a relatively homogeneous population.”

Here is an interesting 4 minute video. I thought it was interesting in this video that suicide is listed as one of the possible side effects of the anthrax vaccine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT-OnlYVpds

Here is another terrible injustice- Accutane toxicity.  This is a well written comment from an unfortunate victim of this drug.   

…just wanted to give you my condolences. Though I was not posioned by Levaquin. My Life was damaged by another horrendous Drug.
 
Called Accutane Aka Isotrenition/Clarvis/ Retinic acid/Toxic doses of Vit A… Drug Agency Roche Pharma …..Given to many young adults and teens for acne, When acutally it is Chemothreapy drug used to treat Brain, Pancreas,Bladder, prostate cancer…
 
We have been fighting for years to have this taken off the market. We did finally get a black box warining and booklet that goes to patients, but even then doctors downplay the medication and prey on teens insecurity about thier acne,  telling them it is a miracle drug. It will take away your acne for good. Telling them side effects will go away when thier course is over.
 
They don’t tell you it is a Chemotherapy drug. Then When you are damaged or you loved one commits suicide they tell you it’s all in your head.
 
Yes, numerous of Teens and young adults have taken thier lives on this drug, it alters the brain. I was badly damaged and Had similar symptoms like Levaquin vicitims.
 
The diffrence is we don’t get better, we get worse in time, we can’t have any Vit A, we have to stay away from certian supplements or we get worse…..Our bones, joints, skin, brain, eyes, internal organs evenutally get damaged…It also cause IBD/Chron’s and other autoimmune disorders. It alters DNA.
 
The only way we got sooo far is Because a Michigan Congressman’s son commited Suicide on Accutane, however he even still couldn’t get it off the market. Numerous of lives taken, destroyed….
http://www.house.gov/stupak/accutane_srma_statement.shtml
 
Not only that, one young adult killed his dermatologist in 2006 b/c the damage the drug did to him. His last words were this “Justice will not be found through the legal system.  Would taking some of their money even be justice?  Their lives would go on, Just with a little less mony.  Our lives will never be the same. ” -Hans Peterson,
 
I watched a documentry the other day called Corprate…Guess who was the biggest frauds Yep, Pharma companies. Roche had the largest fine ever in one year for fraud. 500 million dollars.
 
I tell you this John, Because if you get that black box warning, Then you will still need to get the word out, many people believe thier doctors even when the risks are printed.  Millions still take accutane when 300 side effects are listed, dying to get thier pimples off thier face, for years Roche kept theese side effects hidden, till they were forced to bring out the truth, and yet it still didn’t make a diffrence.
 
When is the FDA gonna take a stand for americans? How can they let drugs be on the market to people when a Pharma company states Mechinisms Unknown, knowing they know how theese nasty drugs work.
 
I feel for all of you.  Keep up the good work and I wish you the best.
 
” We simply assume, that the doctors have personal responsibility. They are specialists, who have the information either in thier heard or they know wherre to find it.” -Andres Schneider, Swissmedic.
 
All victims of drug posioning, pharma fraud are in my prayers.
 
Jen