Ministers launch urgent inquiry into NHS officials' second jobs at drugs firms

Government announces "urgent investigation" as Telegraph reveals how scores of officials involved in assessing which drugs are given to patients are also acting as paid consultants to pharmaceutical companies

Alistair Burt, the health minister, said: “These are very serious allegations – an urgent investigation is under way and action will be taken against any NHS staff attempting to influence purchasing decisions in return for payment, gifts or hospitality.

Pharmaceutical industry, under scrutiny for prices, has history of big political wins

Soaring drug prices already had customers unhappy. The pharmaceutical industry hardly needed a new poster boy to add volume and passion to the complaints.

But that’s just what it got last week when Martin Shkreli, the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, made a name for himself after he hiked the price of a drug for AIDS and cancer patients by more than 4,000 percent. Now, some lawmakers are scrutinizing another company, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, for increasing the price of two heart drugs this year.

Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, vying for the Democratic presidential nomination, have both released plans for lowering prescription drug prices.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, acutely aware of its image problem – 72 percent of Americans say prescription drug costs are unreasonable, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll – promptly distanced itself from Turing (whose CEO has now said he will lower the price of Daraprim, the drug involved in the controversy). And the powerful industry trade group itself is in reboot mode with a new president and CEO, Stephen Ubl.

HealthNutNews

July 5, 2015

by Erin Elizabeth

The past 2 weeks I’ve reported on 3 alternative doctors (2 MD’s and 1 DC, PhD) who were found dead in less than two weeks (Click through for stories and funds for families as well as numbers to report tips to authorities) It was with heavy heart, as I knew a few of the doctors and have many mutual friends with all three. The only update on the third one, Dr. Teresa Sievers MD, is that they have absolutely no suspects in mind, and her husband and kids were out of state at a family reunion that she left early to get home to see patients. (update: Initially I said I would not post a link Dr. Sievers in this article and I didn’t. People started questioning me so, as much as it pains, me, here is the most recent article from NBC . Click through at your own risk. I’m not posting the details here.)

Now, in just a few days, we have 2 more doctors missing. The first is Dr. Fitzpatrick DO ( a doctor of Osteopathic medicine ) of North Dakota who went missing in or around July 3rd. NBC is reporting on his disappearance. I’m already being asked today if DO is an “alternative doctor” My significant other of 6 years is a D.O and you can feel free to research the meaning. I would like to clarify that Osteopaths go to med school just like an Medical doctor as the links describe. I just interviewed a famous Cardiologist this week who is a D.O. He explained how now the doctors coming out are more like traditional doctors, whereas back when this missing D.O. would have presumably gone to school, they would have learned more about traditional Osteopathic medicine in their schooling

CCHR International

June 18, 2015

There is overwhelming evidence that psychiatric drugs cause violence. 22 International drug regulatory warnings cite violence, mania, hostility, aggression, psychosis and even homicidal ideation. Individuals under the influence of such drugs and committing these acts of senseless violence are not limited to using guns are not limited to just schools. Recent examples of individuals under the influence of such drugs including Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis and Fort Hood shooter Ivan Lopez.

Fact: Despite 22 international drug regulatory warnings on psychiatric drugs citing effects of mania, hostility, violence and even homicidal ideation, and dozens of high profile shootings/killings tied to psychiatric drug use, there has yet to be a federal investigation on the link between psychiatric drugs and acts of senseless violence.

Fact: At least 35 school shootings and/or school-related acts of violence have been committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs resulting in 169 wounded and 79 killed (in other school shootings, information about their drug use was never made public—neither confirming or refuting if they were under the influence of prescribed drugs).

Fact: Between 2004 and 2012, there have been 14,773 reports to the U.S. FDA’s MedWatch system on psychiatric drugs causing violent side effects including: 1,531 cases of homicidal ideation/homicide, 3,287 cases of mania & 8,219 cases of aggression. Note: The FDA estimates that less than 1% of all serious events are ever reported to it, so the actual number of side effects occurring are most certainly higher.

Health Impact News

June 5, 2015

Photo courtesy of Parismatch.com

Health Impact News Comments:

Here is a story that originates from the French media about 5 families with vaccine-damaged children who are suing the drug manufacturers for vaccine damages.

You will not, of course, ever read a story like this in the U.S. mainstream press for the simple reason that families cannot sue drug manufacturers for damages due to vaccines – it is against the law. There were so many lawsuits due to vaccine damages and deaths in the 1980s, that Big Pharma blackmailed Congress by threatening to get out of the vaccine business (which is exactly what should have happened if there were truly a free market in the U.S. where failed products and companies were allowed to fail) unless they were given legal protection from ALL lawsuits.

So Congress gave Big Pharma total legal immunity to any harm due to vaccines back in 1986, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld that law in 2011. Instead, the U.S. law has set up a special “vaccine court” funded by taxes consumers pay on the vaccines. The U.S. Government has attorneys that fight on behalf of the government not to pay damages for vaccine injuries and death. But they have paid out millions of dollars in damages nevertheless, even though the mainstream media seldom reports this.

Cash-strapped Greece has racked up mounting debts with international drugmakers and now owes the industry more than 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion), a leading industry official said on Wednesday.

The rising unpaid bill reflects the growing struggle by the nearly bankrupt country to muster cash, and creates a dilemma for companies under moral pressure not to cut off supplies of life-saving medicines.

Richard Bergstrom, director general of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, told Reuters his members had not been paid by Greece since December 2014. They are owed money by both hospitals and state-run health insurer EOPYY.

GreenMedInfo

May 18th 2015

By: Jonathan Latham, PhD

Originally published on Independent Science News.

The tide is turning against the globalization of GMO-based agriculture and forced feeding with consumers leading the charge from the bottom up demanding informed consent (e.g. labeling, independent science) and organic alternatives.

The decision of the Chipotle restaurant chain to make its product lines GMO-free is not most people's idea of a world-historic event. Especially since Chipotle, by US standards, is not a huge operation. A clear sign that the move is significant, however, is that Chipotle's decision was met with a tidal-wave of establishment media abuse. Chipotle has been called irresponsible, anti-science, irrational, and much more by the Washington Post, Time Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, and many others. A business deciding to give consumers what they want was surely never so contentious.

The media lynching of Chipotle has an explanation that is important to the future of GMOs. The cause of it is that there has long been an incipient crack in the solid public front that the food industry has presented on the GMO issue. The crack originates from the fact that while agribusiness sees GMOs as central to their business future, the brand-oriented and customer-sensitive ends of the food supply chain do not.

NaturalNews

May 18, 2015
by: David Gutierrez

(NaturalNews) The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld a lower court's judgment that pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson should be required to pay $50 million to a girl who suffered a rare but devastating side effect from Children's Motrin when she was seven years old. The judgment took more than a decade to be reached.

Samantha Reckis experienced toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN), which burned off 90 percent of her skin, destroyed 80 percent of her lung capacity and left her blind. Only luck and the efforts of her doctors prevented her from dying or suffering permanent brain damage.

Johnson & Johnson will also be required to pay $6.5 million to each of Reckis' parents. On top of that, the company will owe interest on all three payments, bringing the total owed to more than $109 million.

American Council on Science and Health Is a Front Group for Vaccine, GMO, BPA and Pesticide Companies

GreenMedInfo

April 24th 2015

By: Bretigne Shaffer

Originally published on LewRockwell.com

10 ways the pro-vaxxers shut down reasonable debate on vaccines.

Earlier this year I spent a few days at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center with my daughter who was having an EEG done. On our way home, I learned that there had been an outbreak of an antibiotic-resistant bacteria while we were there, that it had infected seven people and killed two of them. My daughter and I were fine – the infection having been limited to people using a particular kind of duodenoscope.

When the story hit the news, I fully expected nationwide outcry similar to that inspired by the recent measles "epidemic" that began at Disneyland. That outbreak killed no-one, yet set the country on fire with calls for mandatory vaccination and even prison sentences for parents who choose not to vaccinate their children. Drug-resistant "superbugs" kill nearly 15,000 people a year in the US and a recent report predicts that they could kill as many as 300 million people by 2050. Surely this far more deadly health threat would lead to similar widespread outrage and calls for those even remotely responsible to be held accountable.