Archived News of the Week

Death by Big Pharma

(Plus a favorite recipe)

It's appalling how many deaths occur from prescription drugs. Although there are more than 500 rogue pharmacy sites on the internet where you can get anything from Cialis to Vicodin, most of these killer drugs are prescribed by a legit doc for a legit reason. There are 700,000 visits to the ER each year as a result of an adverse drug reaction, and these are the supposedly properly prescribed and administered drugs.

USA Today reported that there are 26,000 fatal overdoses each year from prescription painkillers and there are 120,000 admissions to ER's after overdoses of opioid painkillers. Iatrogenic deaths number in the many thousands per year due to either badly administered drugs, carelessly administered drugs or - and this is very common - the prescribing M.D.not having the time to carefully ascertain a patient's history, as in, "Just how many doctors are you seeing, for what reason and what are they prescribing?"

Then there is poly-pharmacy. This is rampant among the elderly and kills many of the elderly in nursing homes and hospitals; in fact, 28% of hospital admissions of the over-65's were for poly-pharmacy. My mother died almost 25 years ago of congestive heart failure, but a good two years before she died, I noticed that she was slurring her words when we spoke on the phone. She had her two drinks per year - a bourbon and ginger ale on Thanksgiving and on Christmas - so it wasn't elderly alcohol abuse I was hearing. (Drug and alcohol abuse among the elderly is also becoming rampant.)

I asked her about the drugs her doctor was giving her and she toddled off to her "pill drawer" and while I was on the phone, counted 22 different pharmaceuticals she was taking on a daily basis, including Haldol which is an anti-psychotic drug! She was no more psycho than Mr.Rogers, but, as she said, "I told Dr. Paul that I was down in the dumps and that's what he gave me." I high-tailed it out there, found her a new M.D. and got her down to 5 medications. Watch your beloved old folks, please.

How many deaths were there in 2009 from dietary supplements? None, folks. Zero, zip, nada. No deaths at all from supplements. And yet, there is this continued hue and cry from the FDA and their minions about the purity of supplements, and how they need to oversee everything and make sure these alleged spawns of Satan won't hurt anyone. But as I always say, follow the money. There is no realistic reason for anyone to question the potential danger of supplements other than that cursed bottom line. And yet...

... there was an article in the September Consumer Reports which is a magazine I happen to like and read because it's nice to know which toaster to buy. But they were so OFF in their assessment of supplements that I was hyperventilating after reading the article. For one thing, they love Costco vitamins which I can see why they would because you get A LOT for your money. But it's A LOT of low quality crap. They don't look at that part of it.

Furthermore, they discussed the bad effects of a single mislabeled supplement out of the 54,000 sold in a year in our US of A then went on to decry their "dirty dozen" supplements which are these: Aconite, bitter orange, chaparral, colloidal silver, coltsfoot, comfrey, country mallow, germanium, greater celandine, kava, lobelia and yohimbe.

I remember some years ago a yahoo downed a whole bottle of ephedra all at once. I guess he thought he needed some energy, or something. He died, but he was an idiot. However, no matter the idiocy quotient, ephedra is now off the market thanks to ONE mistake by a stupid person and those responsible people who could well use ephedra to clear mucus from their lungs, just won't be able to find it anywhere. How long did it take the FDA to remove both Avandia (diabetes) and Vioxx (arthritis) from the market? Years. How many deaths? Thousands. Ephedra? One Death. Immediate reprisal.

Please keep in mind that NO ONE died of a supplement overdose, mislabeling or misuse in the year 2009! Some of the above "dirty dozen" could possibly give you an abreaction if taken irresponsibly, but essentially, no more "dirty" than an overdose of marshmallows or Colgate toothpaste.

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