How FDA underfunding is hurting All of us

[cjbrooksjc]

We all know you can't hire a fox to guard the chickens, but...

**http://www.asanet.org/cs/press/view_news?pressrelease.id=474

Remove the asterisks **

Brooks

[Brian C.]

"Light cites serious under-funding of the FDA, which creates a dependency on the pharmaceutical industry—the industry FDA regulates—to pay its staff. In return for drug company funding, Light says, the industry expects faster reviews, but faster reviews potentially fail to identify serious long-term side effects. "

Thanks for that link Brooks. That has clarified the murk beautifully.


Brian.

[Brian C.]

Of course, the problem is not restricted to the US...

*http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2008/10/20/strattera_adverse_effects_uk_medicines_agency_refuses_to_act.htm


Brian.

[Allen1]

Good Lord Brian, that frightened me.

It would appear that someone in "The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency" has more important things to do than following up the information that was supplied about those deaths. We all know how hard it is to dunk a choccy biscuit in your cup of tea when someone pesters you with the lesser problems like kids dying. :evil:

What the heck are these people being paid to do!

The above is the nice version of what I would like to say :twisted:

Allen

[Brian C.]

Here's a relevant short White Paper from Washington newspaper "The Hill" in PDF format...

*http://thehill.com/wppdf/POGOfda_final.pdf

POGO is the "Project On Government Oversight"


Brian.

[harley2ride]

Sorry, but what is their excuse for the prior 20 - 30 years.. They have not been doing their job for a long time...

[Allen1]

It would appear that the best way to use the resources that the FDA have would be to freeze any new product unless there is an absolute need for it and to process the quality and reliability of the products that have had problems reported as in statins. Meanwhile if the misconduct of the researchers still continues, then that is where a lot of the resources are being wasted and maybe a serious look at the individual researchers quality of work and the merits of keeping them employed should be part of the clean-up problem.

Basically if the people you pay to examine the safety of what you as a member of the public are being prescribed, do not do their job in a professional and competent manner, then surely they should not be doing that job in the first place especially with the nature and potential outcome that this job entails.

The same applies to the bodies that are meant to protect us here in the UK and elsewhere otherwise why do we even bother to have these agencies?

[Brian C.]

"why do we even bother to have these agencies?"

They have their purposes - as arms of pharma marketing and as cosmetics for govt.


Brian.

[Allen1]

"why do we even bother to have these agencies?"

"They have their purposes - as arms of pharma marketing and as cosmetics for govt."

Well Brian

we have all seen the mentality of those who should know better ie statins in the water supply etc. It would appear that there are too many Bimbos in charge, they seem to worry about what shoes will go with that new dress and handbag they just bought or does my bum look big in this, more than I wonder if that drug is safe to use (and the women are getting worried) :shock: :D :D :D

How on earth did we end up with a bunch of Idiots in charge of the nations health?

[Brian C.]

Psychological research conducted by the Tavistock Institute showed that just 17% of the population could be expected to think for themselves, the other 87% look to authority to tell them what to think.

I would not expect doctors or politicians to be exceptional :roll:

Brian.

[Brian C.]

Of course that doesn't add up

I should have said 13%!

However I cannot find the original source for that statement so it may be apocryphal

Sounds about right though


Brian.

[Allen1]

Ha-ha Brian,

your maths is on par with my own, you haven't by chance partook in statin therapy in the past have you

Someone did a post calling the followers of those who we look up to for inspiration "Sheeple" and a more precise name just does not exist when you get right down to it. I think that most folk would expect the people who are supposed to be experts in their fields, to be trustworthy and actually know what they talk about. I am guilty of expecting the very same in the past, but look at what blind faith has done for all of us, we did not deserve that.

I noticed your post about the beanstalk and understand your concern, on the other hand all that is in that post has been mentioned in his previous posts but maybe worded a little differently. I think he is trying to get doctors to reduce the high dosage myth in an attempt to lessen the harm to so many individuals while not making himself a target for prosecution from Pharma by categorically denouncing statins or make of statins which could give some snake of a lawyer a chance to sue him and maybe even close down this site.

I have been wrong about stuff so many times in the past, I just hope this is not another one of them

[Brian C.]

"your maths is on par with my own, you haven't by chance partook in statin therapy in the past have you?"

In fact I used to teach maths but statinization led me to take early retirement. It got to the point that around 3pm if a student was to ask me what 1 + 1 make I would have had to say "Could you ask me that again tomorrow morning please"

I'd "only" been on the stuff (Zocor) 4 or 5 years.
Then followed 12 years on Lipitor!!!

Of course my doctor put it down to ageing.
In a way he was right but what neither he nor I realised at the time was that statins accelerate the process.


"Someone did a post calling the followers of those who we look up to for inspiration "Sheeple" and a more precise name just does not exist when you get right down to it."

That was probably me
I didn't coin it.

"I noticed your post about the beanstalk and understand your concern, on the other hand all that is in that post has been mentioned in his previous posts but maybe worded a little differently. I think he is trying to get doctors to reduce the high dosage myth in an attempt to lessen the harm to so many individuals while not making himself a target for prosecution from Pharma by categorically denouncing statins or make of statins which could give some snake of a lawyer a chance to sue him and maybe even close down this site."

You're probably perfectly correct but dirty little memes must be extirpated by those who know the truth or there is no hope.

"I have been wrong about stuff so many times in the past, I just hope this is not another one of them"

No, the control system is so very, very strong and human beings have frailties so easy to exploit.

Brian.

Brian.

[Allen1]

Hi there Brian,

it is shocking what statins have done to our bodies and minds. I know what you mean about not being able to give an answer to a simple problem, mine was looking at setup sheets to load components onto various machines ie capacitors, transistors etc or resistors and diodes or dips, nothing seemed to make any sense any more and people's names that I had known for years and things I really knew about just faded away. If I had realised that statins were what was causing the problems way back then, I would have stopped then maybe I wouldn't be in the mess that I am now, and that goes for all of us that have found out too late.

My hobby was electronics and I learned from magazines and project books starting from vero board right up to CAD and UV exposure to create my own circuit boards. Although they were only single sided boards, they were very well designed and after more than 10 years, several fairground rides are still using the light sequencer PCBs that I made for them, one of which was a 3 phase circuit.

Nowadays I can hardly even solder and what I do manage is really poor quality most of the time, my handwriting is erratic and my thinking ability dwindles (even faster if I have to walk any distance). Things have improved since stopping statins and finally started the q10 and carnitine, of that there is no denying but the only job I would be capable of doing now would be as a mattress tester to make sure they were good to sleep on

I hope you didn't get bitten by any wild haggis while you were away, those wee beasties are savage at this time of year

All the best,
Allen.

[Brian C.]

Hi Allen, I survived the haggis
I build amplifiers but only using the simplest of circuits (valve) and they take me a long time since I can only concentrate for around half an hour then I'm whacked

Brian.

[Allen1]

Hi there Brian,

apart from changing a few valves in old black and white TVs and using one of the HT valves in a delay circuit, I know nothing about their internal circuitry or what a particular device does apart from a few of the TV valves many years ago. Compared to transistors and most small semiconductor devices, I would say that using valves would probably be more complicated to design and construct with than low voltage and low current devices as in modern technology. When you start to use eproms and memory devices things do get complicated but everything can be built into a circuit board with all the external connections plugged into headers on the board. You obviously know from experience that you have to be able to think logically to create a working circuit and to also be able to fault find any equipment that comes your way.

Some of the ways that things work has started to come back but as you mention the lack of mental stamina cuts short any real inventive ideas until I have had a rest again and I often find it easier to do my thinking while lying down nowadays.

Now if those who are meant to have our safety as their first priority were doing their job in the first place, we wouldn't have ended up not knowing how something we built ourselves worked, or had all of the health issues that have plagued us all.

Statins should be banned.

All the best,
Allen.

[Brian C.]

It's not only statins that should be banned. The long term practice of marketing-based medicine has resulted in a whole arsenal of harmful patented molecules that are presented as the only true path to health when in fact the very opposite is true, certainly when it comes to the treatment of chronic conditions.

There are two outcomes that are bad for medical business - death and cure.
The art of modern Western medicine is to maintain the patient at the mid-point as long as possible.

George Bernard Shaw nailed it in his play The Doctor's Dilemma:

"All professions are conspiracies against the laity"

Brian.

[Allen1]

"The art of modern Western medicine is to maintain the patient at the mid-point as long as possible. "

Or maybe make the patients so spaced out and docile that they just don't know what is real anymore and they then make good candidate for a drug trial as in statins and the elderly folk in care for example.

All the best,

Allen.

[xrn]

"The art of modern Western medicine is to maintain the patient at the mid-point as long as possible"

Not really. That imputes the medical profession, en masse, with some higher motives and it holds out the notion that they are just helping people. Depressingly, it was the survey of Medics in the New England Journal of Medicine which was more realistic. It could hardly be anything else... given that 93% of the respondents had admitted to links with the healthcare industry (read that as pharmaceutical producers because they own the majority of the healthcare industry and they have the most influence)

Western medicine only serves the needs of the high priests (physicians) and a few ambitious politicos. Any sense of helping humanity is suborned by the attractive public status of consultancies and drug company prizes. Very few medics have sufficient backbone to stand up and be numbered among the very few who would see an end to this nonsense... healthcare by fiat... clinical research based upon what the drug companies wish to be concluded... so that the medics can tell the great unwashed how to be healthy (for it is profitable if you are a member of the brotherhood of medicine) and write the deeply toxic scripts that threaten to kill us all or turn us into compliant vegetation. It appears to me that most medics look more than a little too well fed these days.

If you want to stay healthy, you must keep away from physicians.

Kin regards,
xrn

[Brian C.]

It simply means that sales are maximised by neither killing nor curing patients, ensuring dependency for as long as possible.


Brian.