Pfizer agrees to pay .3 billion in fines to settle allegations that it illegally marketed 13 drugs, including Bextra. It is the largest fine ever levied for fraud in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Dispatch/market-dispatches.aspx?post=1247520&_blg=1,1247520
Definition of reform: the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory.
How about let’s not argue sematics and agree that if the government saves money by stopping this kind of fraudulent activity, there will be more money to improve other aspects of health care.

Since it is not covered by the regular flu shot, it is still pretty much a brand new big pharmaceutical industry field. Big pharma seems to be getting as lot of negative publicity lately eg.
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The Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex: A Deadly Fairy Tale

By Dr. Doug Henderson and Dr. Gary Null

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15758

Global Research, October 21, 2009
Progressive Radio Network - 2009-10-20

It has been a particularly bad month for the pharmaceutical industrial complex in its ongoing litigations in American courts. Among the main pharmaceutical headlines, Merck s Gardasil vaccine for HPV, now being widely administered to pre-teens, was found to be linked to amyltrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig s disease; following a .4 billion fine in promoting one of its blockbuster drugs Zyprexa off-label, deceptive correspondence was uncovered by Eli Lilly gaming the system again by promoting another one of its drugs, Cymbalta, off-label for fibromyalgia; AstraZeneca was fined 0 million for scamming the Medicaid system in Kentucky after being fined 5 million for ripping off Alabama; Glaxo lost a Pennsylvania trial for failing to warn doctors and pregnant women of the dangers of its antidepressant drug Paxil related to birth defects; and Pfizer scored a record-breaking fine of .3 billion for illegally marketing several drugs over the years: Bextra, Zyvox, Geodon and Lyrica. These kinds of charges, among the many others, have become a habit for drug makers for the past dozen years.

When we speak of the pharmaceutical industry complex, it does not refer solely to private drug manufacturers. The complex, like a Matrix that holds captive the health of the nation in medical slavery by its own design and manipulation, is a consortium, a spiders web woven with financial attachments throughout the medical profession. In addition to the pharmaceutical and medical device firms, this complex includes every government health agency the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and or course the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as well as drug lobbying firms now employing a large number of former Congresspersons, insurance and HMO companies, all of the leading professional medical associations such as the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the majority of medical schools and their research departments who are heavily funded by drug money, many of the most prestigious medical journals, and ultimately all of this filtering downward to the physicians who diagnose our illnesses and prescribe our medications and treatments.

America is rightly regarded as having led much of the world in many qualitative innovations in all fields. That reputation is duly deserved. However, there is a new dynamic at work that is causing this reputation to be challenged. We are a nation that prides itself in our humanity, our sense of fairness, but today there is a growing concern that we are now being monikered as a country held hostage to a national security complex, which includes the largest military complex in the world, an obscenely expensive healthcare system and self-serving bureaucracies and private industries that serve their own financial ends. So it is not surprising that after spending this year .6 trillion on healthcare, we have such little health to show for it. There are second world countries where people live longer and healthier lives. And we have the worst healthcare among developed nations. So what have we received for our .6 trillion.

As the current healthcare debate continues to rage over in sundries the 0 billion net profit health insurance industry the entire deliberation over disease prevention and treatment has been overshadowed. And amidst this partisan and ideological anarchy, perpetuated by our elected officials, the media, and fueled by the pharmaceutical complex, two other areas America excels as a leader above all other developed nations is in being the premier breeding ground for the pharmaceutical industrial complex s greatest profits and, second, as the world s exemplar in medical fraud and corruption. The fairy tale of America s health as being best served by drugs is a creation of this complex, a lullaby that brings ill citizens repeatedly to their doctors and hospitals for diagnosis and treatment, or simply to deny healthcare altogether to the uninsured.

The country is pacified by a blind belief that the drugs being prescribed to them have been proven safe because our government health agencies have our physical health and well-being in their best intentions. This is a lie, an extraordinarily deadly lie. Iatrogenesis, medically induced injury and death, is the number one cause of death in Am

I need yor help !!!!!!!!!!!?

1.WHAT IS THE MEANING OF SUMMYY
2. WHY DOES HE PRONOUNCE FEEDBACK AS FEELBACK.
3.WHAT DOES BEXTRA MEAN?
4.WHY DOES HE ALWAYS SAY AAAAJJNUOOBOL?
5.WHY MOUNGI SLEEPS ALL THE TIMES?WHY IS MOUNGI HERE?WHAT IS MOUNGI’S PROBLEM
6.WHAT IS MUMMUM?
7.WHY IS PAANCH PRONOUNCED AS POUCH? WHAT IS HANG?
8. PLEASE DO NOT TELL HIM THAT I AM ASKING THIS QUESTION

Drug companies push new products really hard. Just before Prozac became available in generic form, meaning Eli Lilly and Company was losing its patent on it, they developed a slow release, once-a-week version so they could still market the drug (one of the most popular for depression) under a patent and make a mint on it. My doctor told me that the Eli Lilly reps offered all-expenses-paid trips to doctors who could successfully move patients from the daily (which was going generic, and thus quite inexpensive) to the new patented version. In his office, which is quite large, the "target" to get yourself a trip was successfully moving 100 patients over to the weekly product. I asked him if that was a challenge, and he said that in a large practice like his, it really isn’t. He’s one of the partners in the practice, and he said he could easily, with almost no effort, have moved that many patients to the weekly if he had wanted to. He didn’t want to, because he’s not convinced the mechanism is quite as effective at treating depression as a daily drug is. Despite that, other doctors in his practice pushed the new drug, and went on trips.

It seems drug companies are very interested in pushing their new drugs–new patients with prescriptions in hand mean money in their pockets. But there’s a catch with moving so fast. Here’s an example:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/vioxxsheartrisklingeredlongafteruseended

Different drug, same problem. Bextra was pushed so hard I had it offered to me for an amazing array of things. It was first offered to me for menstrual pain the month after it came on the market. It was offered again and again for various pains, and when my main pain problem was diagnosed as fibromyalgia, that was the only drug the rheumatologist would consider giving me. Luckily for me, it never worked for me, so I never took it for more than two weeks.

Which leads to my main question. Who is responsible for these drugs which can cause long term damage and problems? Is it the drug companies who are required to do testing before the FDA will approve the drug for patient use? Are they not being careful enough in their testing by not testing for long-term effects? Or is it the FDA, for not forcing more stringent testing requirements?

I have several friends who rode the Phen-Fen train, and ended up with heart damage. I have a friend whose mother had a debilitating stroke after taking Vioxx for just six months. And I know more than one person who attempted suicide as a teen after they were given second-generation depression drugs like Zoloft and Paxil. (One actually has a sibling who was given the same drug and did commit suicide.) Those drugs are now labeled as having increased risk for teens and kids.

So, who’s to blame? And what can consumers do when doctors are generally so eager to prescribe the newest medicines, which may not be safe?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thank you.

Any info; i wonder if that applies to BEXTRA , ALSO–A SIMILAR DRUG - USED FOR RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS AND OTHER TYPES ARTHRITIS TOO ( I THIN); THANKS FOR COMMENTS AND/OR HELP BOUT THIS…

Vioxx and Avandia?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/usa_qaeda_doctor_dc;_ylt=Alva5FC8Rn8qwkzR1j_1JgBhr7sF
or Cylert
http://specialed.about.com/b/a/156660.htm
or Zelnorm
http://www.webmd.com/ibs/news/20070330/ibs-drug-zelnorm-taken-off-us-market
redux, seldane, bextra how many do I have to name?

Do you think he had all his special infidel patients on this stuff?

I think I read that Enbrel is made from Chinese Hamster Ovaries!;
I quit going to R A Doc (Rheumalogist) 2 yrs ago; now i just take two 200 mg. of ibuprorion per da for it and i’m doing pretty good; hurt much less that I did 2 yrs. ago; I took Bextra right before it was taken off market due to causing persons to have heart attack? Any comments? ( I’m not sure if I ever want to take Enbrel - due to what I think it is made- of.) - but I think if read that Premarin (female ? hormones are made from " horse– pee " / any comments?

I had taken Bextra and Vioxx before they were taken off the market and they worked well for bad arthritis pain in my neck. I am worried about my stomach as this med is bad for stomach. I already have acid relflux. Did you have any stomach problems? Does it work well for you?

3 years ago i O.D..ed on bextra & alcohol.they kept me in ER for 50 hours b/c they said the O.D. enlargened my heart.and had 1 1/2 days of irregular ekg.could my heart still be enlarged?i have no clue…..any help at all much appriciated.

will My RLS ever get better?

I am 54 years old and have severe RLS. I am currently taking Clonazepam 1MG. at bedtime and Mirtazapine15MG at bedtime. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn,t. My sleep pattern is up all night for 2 to3 nights in a row and then 1 or sometimes 2 nights sleep. if I had 8 hours to sleep in 7 days.{56} hours, then I Average 24 hours sleep. I,m totally exhausted 24/7. I take the mirtazapine for depression. My doctor said it also has an agent to help me sleep in it.I feel as if I have no life or purpose. I also have fibromyalgia that keeps me tossing and turning with pain. Out of fear I do not take anything for that due to a Stevensjohnsons reaction from taking Bextra and Plaquniel that put me down for 3 months. Is there anyone that can help me? Thanks .
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