WHY DO PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS INJURE AND KILL?
Are WE the real
guinea-pigs?
Some revealing statistics:
According to the United States' Food and Drug Administration, 1.5
million Americans were hospitalized in 1978 alone, as a consequence of
pharmaceutical drugs administered to treat them. It was also found that
some 30% of all hospitalized people suffered further damage from the
therapy prescribed them. (1) In the 1990s, studies showed that 180,000
medically-induced deaths occurred each year in the USA. (2) Most of these
are prescription drug related. These astronomical figures are in spite of
the fact that a large number of pharmaceutical drug damages go unreported.
Since 1961, the total number of
"safety-tested" medical preparations marketed worldwide has risen to over
205,000. Approximately 15,000 new preparations are marketed each year,
while some 12,000 are withdrawn.(3) The United States has the greatest
annual sickness-care expenditure of any nation; $912 billion in 1993
alone.(4) If money and medical treatment equals health then one would
expect the United States to be the healthiest of nations. However, it only
ranks 16th in the world in female life expectancy, 17th in the world in
male life expectancy and only 21st in the world in infant mortality.(5)
Of course, a percentage of drug damages are due to the incorrect
administration of drugs by physicians and patients. But how are harmful
pharmaceutical drugs allowed onto the market in the first place, and why
do we have so much faith in them? Pharmaceutical transnationals defy the
intent of laws regulating safety of drugs by bribery, false advertising,
unsafe manufacturing processes, smuggling and international law evasion
strategies. But most of all they make dangerous drugs appear safe through
the use of fraudulent and flexible 'safety-tests', the subject of this
article...
Fraud in Clinical Trials - Human Tests.
Drug companies can easily arrange appropriate clinical trials by paying
a researcher to produce the desired results that will assist the intended
application of the drug. The incentive for researchers to fabricate data
is enormous. As much as $1000 per subject is paid by American companies
which enables some researchers to earn up to $1 million a year from drug
research.(6) And they know all too well that if they don't produce the
desired data, the loss of future work is inevitable. Unfortunately,
because of secrecy, most fraud in clinical trials is unlikely to be
detected.
However, cases of data-fabrication in clinical trials have been
uncovered where, for example, "patients who died while on the trial were
not reported to the sponsor....Dead people were listed as subjects of
testing... People reported as subjects of testing were not in the hospital
at the time of tests..." and where "Patient consent forms bore dates
indicating they were signed by the subjects after the subjects had
died."(7) Even if data from clinical trials is not falsified, it is often
of little worth, because they are not performed appropriately. Trials
involve relatively small numbers of people and the subjects taking part
usually do not represent those who will use the drug after its approval;
so many harmful effects of a new drug appear only when it has been
marketed.
Fraud in Vivisection - Animal Tests.
This problem of inappropriate and flexible testing of drugs and
chemicals is even more pronounced with the use of so-called animal
'models'; a practice termed vivisection. For instance, the fact that the
animal is relatively healthy before the experiment means that disease and
or trauma has to be induced by violent and artificial means. This bears no
relation to the spontaneous ways in which humans develop illness, often
through a faulty lifestyle and diet. For example, consider the case of
osteoarthritis, a human degenerative disease resulting in grotesque and
painful deformities of the joints. How do researchers attempt to mimic
human lameness in dogs, cats, sheep and pigs? Joints are beaten with
hammer blows, injected with irritating liquids, subjected to ionising
radiation and/or dislocated. It is obvious that the resulting fractures,
hemorrhages, thromboses, contusions and inflammation bear no relation to
human osteoarthritis, "which is a local manifestation of a generalized
illness of the collagen."(8) Drugs tested on such artificially diseased
non-human animals cannot possibly yield results relevant to a spontaneous,
naturally occurring human disease.
Moreover, there is no true correlation between different species. For
example, arsenic kills humans but is harmless to guinea-pigs, chickens and
monkeys; Digitalis which is used to lower blood pressure in humans
dangerously raises the blood pressure of dogs; Penicillin kills
guinea-pigs; Chloramphenicol damages the blood-producing bone marrow in
humans, but in no other animal: Many common laboratory animals such as
dogs, cats, rats, hamsters and mice, do not require dietary intake of
vitamin C. This is because their bodies produce it of their own accord.
However, if you deprive humans, guinea-pigs and some primates of dietary
vitamin C they will die of scurvy. There are enough of these species
differences to fill a book.(9) In the words of former animal researcher
Professor Pietro Croce, "No substance is toxic in itself, but only
according to the species."(10)
Not only are there differences between species, but even individuals of
the same species react differently to a substance. For example, research
carried out at the University of Bremen, published in a paper titled
"Problems of activity threshold in pharmacology and toxicology" found:
1. In ionising radiation -- young animals react differently from older
ones. In reactions to Tranquillisers -- again, young and old animals react
differently.
2. In the common method of testing pharmaceuticals and chemicals, the
Lethal Dose 50% test, it was found that in the experiments carried out in
the evening almost all the rats died: in those carried out in the morning
all of them survived. In the tests carried out in winter, survival rates
were doubled in contrast to those carried out in summer. In tests carried
out on mice overcrowded together in cages, nearly all of them died, while
those carried out on mice in normal conditions, all the mice survived.
The authors of this research, themselves vivisectors, concluded: "If
such trifling environmental conditions bring about such widely differing
and unforeseeable results, this means that animal experimentation cannot
be relied upon in assessing a chemical substance and it is all the more
absurd to extrapolate to problems of human health results which are
intrinsically wrong."(11)
Numerous medical historians such as Hans Ruesch and Dr. Robert Sharpe,
have documented that the true medical progress of the past was achieved
through scientific study of the real world of natural human disease, and
not from the artificial world of the experimental animal laboratory.(12)
How Many Pharmaceutical Drugs Do We Really Need?
Why do drug companies rely on such unreliable and dubious methods for
testing drugs? The answer is simple. If drugs were tested properly using
true scientific methods, such as in vitro cultures of human cells and
properly carried out human clinical trials, the vast majority of them
would not be approved for marketing because their harmfulness and
ineffectiveness would be all too apparent. For instance, in 1981 the
United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in
collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), published a list
of a mere 26 drugs, from the 205,000 marketed drugs, that were considered
"indispensable", with 9 being more indispensable than the others.(13)
Other medical commissions in Chile 1972, and Sri Lanka 1978, came to
similar findings, that there are not more than a few dozen drugs worth
keeping. However, both existing governments were ousted shortly
there-after by US backed forces. They were replaced with administrations
open to American trade and the products of the chemical-pharmaceutical
industry.(14) This should cause anyone who thinks that we need more drugs
to reconsider their opinion. It is plain to see that inconsequential and
ambiguous methods of drug-testing are essential to protect the
astronomical profits of the pharmaceutical industry.
Drug Companies Make These Admissions!
If you have difficulty accepting this explanation then consider the
following statement from Eli Lilly's August 1993 Prozac 20 Consumer
Product Information pamphlet:
"There can be no such thing as absolute safety with prescription
medicines. Individual patients sometimes react differently to the same
dose of the same medicine and it is possible that some unwanted side
effects will not be known until a medicine has been widely prescribed for
a number of years."
If they admit that even individuals of the same species react
differently to an identical product, then why test on other species? Dr
Herbert Gundersheimer, one of many doctors against vivisection, explains:
"Results from animal tests are not transferable between species and
therefore cannot guarantee product safety for humans...In reality these
tests do not provide protection for consumers from unsafe products, but
rather are used to protect corporations from legal liability." (15)
When people are damaged by unsafe products (such as pharmaceutical
drugs, industrial and household chemicals, cosmetics ...etc.) and attempt
to take legal action, manufacturers can claim to have adhered to "safety"
tests and are thus absolved of having consciously marketed a harmful
product.
Thalidomide: A Case Example
Children of Thalidomide with artificial limbs.
This is what happened in the case of Thalidomide, a drug which after
years of extensive animal tests was marketed as a perfectly safe
tranquilliser for pregnant mothers. The end result: more than 10,000
grossly deformed babies. During the lengthy trial of the manufacturers in
1970, numerous court witnesses, all animal experimenters, stated under
oath that the results of animal experiments are never valid for human
beings. (16)
One of these experts was the Nobel Prize winner Ernst Boris Chain who
co-discovered the anti-bacterial effects of penicillin. According to the
court records on 2 February 1970 he stated:
"No animal experiment with a medicament, even if it is tested on
several animal species, including primates, under all conceivable
conditions, can give any guarantee that the medicament tested in this way
will behave the same in humans: because in many respects the human is not
the same as the animal."(17)
Because they had performed the required animal safety-tests, and
because these did not show evidence of any danger, the manufacturers of
Thalidomide were found not guilty by the court of consciously marketing a
harmful drug.
This is the real value of animal experiments. Firstly, they can be
manipulated, whether consciously or unconsciously, to produce results
favourable to a financial backer. Secondly, they serve as a legal alibi
for corporations when their products kill and injure people. It is worthy
of note that Professor S.T.Aygun, a virologist at the University of
Ankara, who uses only the so-called 'alternative' non-animal research
methods, discovered the danger of Thalidomide to humans and Turkey was
spared the tragedy.(18)
Birth Defects Skyrocket
The (incredible) reaction to the Thalidomide tragedy by the
pharmaceutical lobby was that it was a 'rare exception' and that it
'emphasises a need for more rigorous animal testing, not less.' This
explanation was accepted by most people. So animal testing increased,
along with the output of 'safety-tested' drugs. The consequences of this?
In the 1950s in the Federal Republic of Germany, 3 out of every 100,000
babies were born malformed. By the 1980s, 500 out of every 100,000 were
born malformed.(19)
This is more than a 100-fold increase. In
the United States birth defects have increased more than 350% in the last
25 years. In the late 1950s, 70,000 American babies were born with birth
defects every year. In the 1980s this toll reached 250,000 a year. (20)
The reason for this increase in human birth defects is known. A survey
by doctors in West Germany revealed that 61% of malformations in new-born
children and 88% of all stillbirths are attributable to the damage caused
by drugs taken by the mother during pregnancy. (21)
Remember, all these drugs were found to be "safe" through extensive
animal testing!
Why do people believe so firmly in vivisection? The answer to this lies
in their education.
Drug Lobby Influence on Education & The Media
With many of the world's major drug companies under its control, the
Rockefeller organization has, since the early part of this century, been
the largest single private source of funding for medical science and
education in the United States and Britain. It is a major contributor of
funding in many other countries. The aim of this lavish funding for our
education is to produce a curriculum designed to indoctrinate students
with beliefs favorable to the profits of the pharmaceutical-chemical
industry. Only colleges and medical facilities that advocate the massive
consumption of chemical drugs, "safety-tested" on animals, as the secret
to health, are recipients of drug company finance. Drug companies also
exercise a dictatorial influence over the mass-media, through ownership
and advertising revenue, as well as upon party politicians through
'donations'. Meanwhile, doctors who heal by inexpensive natural means,
thereby threatening pharmaceutical profits, are decried as quacks, driven
out of the country or into jail. (22)
Perhaps the most revealing point, however, is that the founder of the
Rockefeller dynasty, John D Rockefeller, lived in excellent health to the
age of 98 as did his son John D Jr., who died aged 86. What was their
secret to a long healthy life? Both attributed this to a frugal diet of
natural food, the advice of a homeopathic doctor only, and the complete
avoidance of synthetic drugs! (23)
In summary:
the most powerful corporations in the world do not want us to know the
truth about pharmaceutical drugs and drug-testing even if our lives depend
on it. And of course, they do. As the drug companies acknowledge, it means
that every time we take a drug or are exposed to chemicals in our food and
environment, we are the real guinea-pigs.
+ + + + + + + +
Authored by J. Citizen in 1994-96, for EYE, Blatant Propaganda zine
& the CAMPAIGN AGAINST FRAUDULENT MEDICAL RESEARCH. CAFMR -PO Box 234
Lawson 2783 NSW Australia. Information kit $18. Web-site: www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr for extensive free
information.
+ + + + + + + +
Recommended Organisations:
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References:
(1) Hans Ruesch, Naked Empress-the Great Medical Fraud, CIVIS,
Massagno/Lugano, Switzerland, 1992, p.12.
(2) Lucian Leape, "Error in medicine", Journal of the American Medical
Association (JAMA), 1994, vol. 272, nr 23, p. 1851.
(3) Hans Ruesch, Naked Empress, op. cit., 1992, p.12.
(4) Arthur Baker, Awakening Our Self-Healing Body-A Solution to the
Health Care Crisis, Self Health Care Sytems, LA, California, 1994, p. 5.
(5) ibid., p.9.
(6) John Braithwaite, Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry,
Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1984, p.105.
(7) ibid., pp.51-52.
(8) Pietro Croce, Vivisection or Science-a Choice to Make, CIVIS,
Switzerland, 1991a, p.37.
(9) ibid, p.22-23.
(10) Piedro Croce, "That's Why I am Against Vivisection", CIVIS
Foundation Report, Massagno/Lugano, Switzerland, 1991b, nr 7, p.1.
(11) Croce, op. cit., 1991a, p.19.
(12) Hans Ruesch, Slaughter of the Innocent, CIVITAS Publications,
Hartsdale NY, 1991, pp. 147-287; Robert Sharpe,The Cruel Deception,
Thorsons Publishing Group, Wellingborough, U.K.1988.
(13) Hans Ruesch, Naked Empress, op. cit.,1992, p.191.
(14) ibid., p.92-96,191.
(15) Herbert Gundersheimer, 1988, in 1000 Doctors Against Vivisection
(and Many More), Hans Ruesch (Ed.), CIVIS, Switzerland, 1989, p.29.
(16) Hans Ruesch, Slaughter of the Innocent, op. cit., 1991, pp.
359-367.
(17) Werner Hartinger in CIVIS International Foundation Report, Hans
Ruesch (Ed.), CIVIS Massagno, Switzerland, 1991, nr 11, p.3.
(18) Ruesch, Slaughter of the Innocent, op. cit., 1991, p. 367.
(19) ibid., pp-365-366.
(20) Javier Burgos, Hidden Crimes (Film), SUPRESS, Pasadena,
California, 1986.
(21) Croce, op. cit., 1991a, p.52.
(22) Ruesch, Naked Empress, op. cit., 1992, p.97-119.
(23) ibid., p.115-116.
