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With Contraceptive Mandate, who's really in bed with "Big Pharma" now?

A contentious relationship between drug manufacturers and the Drug Enforcement Agency may cause a continuing shortage of the attention deficit medication Adderall, which the FDA just added to its official drug shortages list, the New York Times reported. As of 2007, about 9.5 percent, or 5.4 million, of school-aged children were diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyper Disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Adderall prescriptions went up 13.4 percent from 2009 to 2010, and more than 18 million prescriptions were written for the drug, Reuters reported. As demand for the drug grows, more and more patients have...

PHOENIX, Arizona, November 7, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Research at Arizona State University (ASU) has found that the synthetic progestin hormone medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA), used in the injectable contraceptive Depo Provera, is linked to memory loss. Psychology doctoral student Blair Braden and Heather Bimonte-Nelson, associate professor of psychology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and director of the Bimonte-Nelson Memory and Aging Lab at ASU, led the study. This study was an extension of earlier research carried out by Braden that implicated MPA used as a component of hormone therapy for menopause to possible detrimental cognitive effects in...

Fresh off its successes in the green-energy patch, the Obama team is turning its investment skills to the life sciences. Last Friday, President Obama announced his intention to increase the federal government’s involvement in the business of biotechnology. His plan is for a new federal center inside the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that would be focused on the development and commercialization of new drugs. The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) would engage in early drug-development work, eventually handing off programs to private companies for completion. In return, the government would take a guaranteed royalty stream on drugs...

Chinese and Indian drug makers have taken over much of the global trade in medicines and now manufacture more than 80 percent of the active ingredients in drugs sold worldwide. But they had never been able to copy the complex and expensive biotech medicines increasingly used to treat cancer, diabetes and other diseases in rich nations like the United States — until now. These generic drug companies say they are on the verge of selling cheaper copies of such huge sellers as Herceptin for breast cancer, Avastin for colon cancer, Rituxan for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and Enbrel for rheumatoid arthritis. Their...

good times good times. Meanwhile, Bachman has taken somewhere north of $140,000 from pharmaceutical companies. Those donors include Abbott Labs, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Eli Lilly and Bayer. Yet, not a dollar of all that pharma money, from such a wide range of the world’s largest drugmakers, came from Merck. Might Bachmann be going after Merck on behalf of that company’s competitors who also happen to be Bachmann donors? She’s claiming a vaccine manufactured by Merck (Gardisil) causes mental retardation. Meanwhile, she’s taking campaign donations from Merck’s top HPV vaccine (Cervarix) competitor, GlaxoSmithKline.Hey, that’s not at all suspicious.Weren’t we...

Locally the news has been covering the shortage of Cancer Drugs. Patients are haveing life saving surgeries and trestments prosponded or delayed due to this shortage. This situation led me to ask WHY? I have found that Doctors are fighting to get drugs for their patients. Nuclear Medicine (lukemia etc) is having shortages of Isotopes due to the destruction of the Nuclear Industry. Have we missed the complicity of the Obama Admin in this silent genocide. When Gov policies result in a class of people dying it is in fact genocide. Big Pharma held meetings with the Administration and by...

Yet another panel of scientists has found no evidence that a popular vaccine causes autism. But despite the scientists’ best efforts, their report is unlikely to have any impact on the frustrating debate about the safety of these crucial medicines. “The M.M.R. vaccine doesn’t cause autism, and the evidence is overwhelming that it doesn’t,� Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton, the chairwoman ... --snip-- The panel did conclude, however, that there are risks to getting the chickenpox vaccine that can arise years after vaccination. People who have had the vaccine can develop pneumonia, meningitis or hepatitis years later if the virus used...

FORT WORTH, Texas - If your dog has heartworms it will be harder to get a cure. The only company producing the parasite-killing drug has run out and veterinarians don’t know when they’ll get more. Veterinarians across the country are in a quandary because Immiticide is the only FDA-approved drug available to treat dogs with heartworms. Drug company Merial said its supply is gone and it can’t produce any more because it can’t get the drug’s active ingredient in the United States. The FDA has been hesitant to allow overseas suppliers to fill American orders. Vets are working with what...

WASHINGTON (AP) — International business can be an ethical jungle, but it's rare to get details of bare-knuckle tactics on tape. According to a recording and sworn testimony provided to The Associated Press, a lawyer in Mexico for a leading U.S. drug manufacturer offered to pay an opposing expert in a lawsuit if he would leave the country on a key court date to undermine the case. *** Baxter said the lawyer was not authorized to make any offers, and it has severed all ties with him. The recording and its disclosure offer an unusual glimpse of fishy maneuvers in...

WASHINGTON, August 12, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The California legislature is now pushing through a bill to remove parental notification for children as young as 12 to receive the dangerous STD vaccine Gardasil. The American Life League reports that each treatment of the HPV vaccine Gardasil, has an average cost of over $360, a sum that would be footed by taxpayers. Gardasil, the most popular HPV vaccine, has been found to cause dangerous side effects and as many as twelve deaths in the United States alone. The state had attempted but failed in 2007 to mandate HPV vaccinations for all girls...

Bear with me, this isn’t a “sound bite” subject. The Human Papilloma Virus is an infection, and should not be a moral issue. In contrast, the vaccine against four strains of the virus, Gardasil, has become a political issue, even though the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) now recommends it for all boys and girls. Governor Rick Perry has been criticized for his February, 2007 Executive Order that made the vaccine mandatory for girls before entering the 6th grade. Very little is said about the part of the EO that affirmed the right of and facilitated parents who wish...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Michael O'Neal is a pharmacist. He purchases drugs for Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He often deals with drug shortages, but this one is bad. O'Neal is concerned about the availability of electrolytes. They are critical to a babies in neonatal intensive care and seriously ill adults. Electrolytes are administered to a critically ill patient for nutritional support intravenously. They are given to patients who cannot get their nutrition any other way. O'Neal said he's concerned that as supplies shrink, measures will have to be taken. "We are dangerously close, we believe, when we will have to ration...

Vid at source.

The court split along conservative-liberal lines. "It is beyond dispute that the federal statutes and regulations that apply to brand-name drug manufacturers are meaningfully different than those that apply to generic drug manufacturers," said Justice Clarence Thomas. "Indeed it is the special, and different, regulation of generic drugs that allowed the generic drug market to expand, bringing drugs more quickly and cheaply to the public." In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor countered, "These divergent liability rules threaten to reduce consumer demand for generics... ... Thomas acknowledged that from the plaintiffs' perspective in the latest cases, "finding pre-emption here but not in...

Lipitor. Actos. Plavix. These are some of the most-prescribed medicines in the U.S., drugs that are so commonplace they are responsible for a huge chunk of the $300 billion spent on brand-name pharmaceuticals each year. That is about to change as patents on these pricey pills begin to expire, opening the door for generic competition. And that can translate to savings of up to 90 percent, analysts say, making these drugs affordable to more consumers. Americans will see cheaper copies of some of the biggest drug names starting this fall. Out-of-pocket costs of the generic form of Lipitor, a widely...

Even short-term use of some painkillers could be dangerous for people who've had a heart attack, according to research published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. Researchers analyzed the duration of prescription non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) treatment and cardiovascular risk in a nationwide Danish cohort of patients with prior heart attack. They found the use of NSAIDs was associated with a 45 percent increased risk of death or recurrent heart attack within as little as one week of treatment, and a 55 percent increased risk if treatment extended to three months. The study was limited by its observational...

WASHINGTON -- The number of prescription drugs in short supply has more than tripled since 2005 and shortages are now more frequent than ever, [] Premier Healthcare Alliance -- a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,500 U.S. hospitals -- surveyed 311 pharmacy experts at hospitals and other facilities, such as surgery centers and long-term care facilities, about shortages during a six month period in 2010. The survey found that 89% had experienced shortages that may have caused a medication safety issue or error in patient care. Eight out of 10 times a shortage occurred, the patient's care was delayed...

An anonymous email making the cyberspace rounds is so upsetting that its author was correct to hide his name. The “Changes Are Coming” email details the demise of our post office, our newspapers, check writing systems, books and music as we know them along with the end of Cable TV and network systems as now constituted. But the harshest caveat bearing down on America is our demise due to deindustrialization. The email reports that “Tens of thousands of factories have left the U.S. in the past decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost. . .the U.S....

Dr. Theresa Deisher speaks at the HLI conference last weekend. WASHINGTON, D.C., December 8, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Every day in America, countless packages are carefully transferred for use by government, university, pharmaceutical and other biotechnology laboratories. Some of these end up advancing development of products such as cosmetics and food additives; others are used directly as a form of therapy. The material in those packages are human body parts - eyes, ears, limbs, brain, skin - now an indispensable commodity for many U.S. researchers and scientists, and a lucrative export of America’s abortion clinics. To see an example of an...

Publisher Peter Osnos, who admits to personally working with former Bush White House press secretary Scott McClellan on his new book, What Happened, began his career as an assistant to I.F. Stone, the pro-communist "journalist" named as a Soviet agent of influence who was the uncle of Weather Underground communist terrorist Kathy Boudin. But the connections don't end there. Boudin's son Chesa was raised by Barack Obama associates Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who were Boudin's comrades in the communist terrorist group, after Kathy Boudin went to prison for her involvement in an armed robbery and assault that took the...

This release is available in French.Quebec City, October 27, 2010—High doses or prolonged use of glucosamine causes the death of pancreatic cells and could increase the risk of developing diabetes, according to a team of researchers at Université Laval's Faculty of Pharmacy. Details of this discovery were recently published on the website of the Journal of Endocrinology. In vitro tests conducted by Professor Frédéric Picard and his team revealed that glucosamine exposure causes a significant increase in mortality in insulin-producing pancreatic cells, a phenomenon tied to the development of diabetes. Cell death rate increases with glucosamine dose and exposure time....

Merck (MRK), the world's second largest drugmaker, said Thursday it plans to close eight manufacturing plants and eight research facilities around the world in its bid to save $3.5 billion a year. The Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based company is also reducing its workforce by 15%, or some 16,000 jobs, it said. The actions are part of a restructuring the company has undertaken following its $41 billion acquisition of rival Schering-Plough in November. In addition to the plant closings, Merck said it will consolidate some offices worldwide, as part of the restructuring begun last December. "Today's announcement is another important step as...

A gene silencing approach can save monkeys from high doses of the most lethal strain of Ebola virus in what researchers call the most viable route yet to treating the deadly and frightening infection. They used small interfering RNAs or siRNAs, a new technology being developed by a number of companies, to hold the virus at bay for a week until the immune system could take over. Tests in four rhesus monkeys showed that seven daily injections cured 100 per cent of them. U.S. government researchers and a small Canadian biotech company, Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, worked together to develop the new...

Pfizer, the largest drug maker in the world, disclosed 35 million in payments during the second half of 2009 to doctors who consulted or spoke on behalf of drugs and to the medical centers that tested them, The New York Times reports. This is Pfizer's first disclosure of this nature. "While other pharmaceutical companies have disclosed payments to doctors, Pfizer is the first to disclose payments for the clinical trials. The disclosure does not include payments outside the United States" (Wilson, 3/31). "The drugmaker made the disclosure as part of a government settlement after it pleaded guilty last year to...

Dr. Arthur Laffer, one of the great economic minds of our generation recently published a piece whose title he adapted from a quote by Steven Landsburg: "Economics Can Be Summarized In Four Words: People Respond to Incentives." Companies are just like people. In the early 1990's when BillaryCare was on the table, the Clinton Administration decided they needed a villain (sound familiar?) so they began a vicious attack on the pharmaceutical industry. The only problem was, the pharmaceutical companies were busy developing drugs like Lipitor that prevent costly and serious health problems such as strokes and heart disease. BillaryCare failed...

Enfield, Conn. (WTNH) - Thieves broke into an Enfield warehouse filled with prescription drugs over the weekend, getting away with up to $75 million worth of narcotics. The large, non-descript brown building back in the woods in Enfield is a transportation hub of sorts for prescription drug company Eli Lilly . Over the weekend someone cut a hole in the roof and rappelled inside, stealing between $50-$75 million worth of drugs. It's the largest theft in town history. "The hole was very high up and there was no way they you would be able to leap to the floor," Enfield...

The Obama Administration plan to put new generic drugs on the street faster is another example of how Washington healthcare reformers just don’t get it. While it is true that more generic drugs will reduce healthcare costs, it also is true that health risks will increases for many individuals sensitive to even the slightest changes in their medications. The Obama drug plan imposes $10 billion in fees over ten years on the brand-name pharmaceutical industry, to be parceled out among big drug makers to eliminate the so-called donut hole, or gap, in Medicare prescription drug coverage. The idea is to...

... Mr. Tauzin, 66, will retreat, to contemplate the apparent collapse of the grandest in a career of fearless deals — a pact to trade the drug industry’s political support for favorable terms under President Obama’s proposed health care overhaul. Mr. Tauzin is leaving his $2 million-a-year job as the top lobbyist for the drug industry amid complaints from drug makers that he bargained away their profits too cheaply, spent too much in his $150 million advertising campaign to sell the overhaul and miscalculated in his assessment that the passage of the legislation was all but inevitable. Other drug industry...

BRITAIN’s biggest drugs company, Glaxo Smith Kline, is to axe up to 4,000 more jobs as part of its plans to restructure its workforce and focus increasingly on emerging markets. The bulk of the cuts will be in America and Europe, and are part of the company’s efforts to shift resources away from low-growth territories into parts of the world with greater scope to expand sales. Glaxo, which has been headed for nearly two years by chief executive Andrew Witty, employs 99,000 staff across the world and is expected to reveal plans for select cutbacks alongside its annual results this...

The drug industry is threatening to end its support for President Barack Obama's health overhaul effort because of a rift with the administration over protecting brand-name biotech drugs from low-cost generic competitors. In an e-mail obtained Friday by The Associated Press, the president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America told the trade group's board members that "we could not support the bill" if the industry is given less than 12 years of competitive protection for the expensive products. Obama and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., are leading the drive to shorten that period, which...

WASHINGTON -- The drug industry is threatening to end its support for President Barack Obama's health overhaul effort because of a rift with the administration over protecting brand-name biotech drugs from low-cost generic competitors. In an e-mail obtained Friday by The Associated Press, the president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America told the trade group's board members that "we could not support the bill" if the industry is given less than 12 years of competitive protection for the expensive products. Obama and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., are leading the drive to shorten that...

Following the MA Senate debate on Monday, Martha Coakley was off to Washington DC where a big fundraiser was being held for her. Per the Washington Examiner, "17 of the 22 names on the host committee are federally registered lobbyists. Fifteen of those 17 have big health care clients such as Pfizer, Merck, Amgen, Sanofi-Aventis, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Astra-Zeneca, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Cigna, Humana, HealthSouth, and United Health among many others. In addition, among the other five hosts there are direction connections via marriage and/or direct professional ties to the health care industry." After the fundraising event, Coakley took two...

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The pharmaceutical industry's powerful Washington lobbying group backs the healthcare reform legislation that is President Barack Obama's top legislative priority, but its important support for that effort could evaporate if drug imports are included. White House adviser David Axelrod said the administration will pursue the issue, but not in the healthcare reform bill. "Let me be clear. The president supports ... safe re-importation of drugs into this country," Axelrod told CNN's "State of the Union" program. "There's no reason why Americans should pay a premium for the pharmaceuticals that people in other countries pay less for." The importation of drugs...

One more item added to what candidate Obama said on the campaign trail about prescription drugs (see bolded paragraph) and what President Obama who cut a deal with drug companies has to say. No wonder Obama's poll numbers are falling so rapidly as he continues to do a 180 from what he said on the campaign trail. When we first heard about Obama's ties to radicals like Communist Frank Davis who was his mentor, Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Louis Farrakhan, and others we suspected he would lurch to the left if he was elected. That said, his lurch to the...

For days now, the health care legislation in the Senate has been stalled. Democrats are divided over a proposed amendment that would let consumers buy pharmaceuticals from abroad. During the presidential campaign, Obama promised to allow such purchases. But earlier this year he announced his opposition in return for pharmaceutical companies promising to spend at least $150 million, and possibly as much as $200 million, to push his health care legislation. President Obama obviously faces a dilemma: either he keeps the campaign promise he made to voters or he keep his later promise to drug companies. Passing the proposed drug...

NaturalNews) The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a report indicting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for allowing health professionals convicted of crimes to perform research for the agency and to supervise patients' safety during clinical trials. The FDA is required by law to disqualify from positions within its organization doctors that have been convicted of fraud or other crimes. Yet the GAO is publicizing that it takes an average of four years for criminals to be disbarred from their positions. In one case, a doctor who was convicted of 53 counts of criminal offense was allowed...

Democrats in Congress asked for two separate investigations of drug industry pricing Wednesday as they continue working on legislation to overhaul the nation’s health care system. Responding to news reports of unusually high wholesale price increases in brand-name prescription drugs, four House leaders and one senator asked for government reviews of the pricing practices. Although drug makers challenge the theory, some experts say the run-up in wholesale prices may be partly related to the industry’s concerns about future cost containment under any health care legislation. “Recent studies have indicated that the industry may be artificially raising prices for certain pharmaceutical...

Pfizer (PFE) has laid off 26,300 employees since 2005, and hopes eventually to lay off a total of 30,900 through 2012, according to its 10-Q filing with the SEC. The company had several rounds of layoffs before its acquisition of Wyeth in an attempt to get $6 billion in annual savings out of its business model. The company has said it wants to ax about 19,500 jobs to make the Wyeth merger work. The new company will have about 130,000 workers. The layoffs are ongoing, Pfizer said: In the third quarter of 2009, we reduced our workforce by approximately 1,100...

A pro-life organization is blasting a Switzerland-based cosmetics manufacturer whose website openly admits some of its products were developed from the tissues of an aborted baby. Children of God for Life is a non-profit organization focused on the bioethics of embryonic tissue use in medicine and manufacturing. One of its current campaigns includes petitioning pharmaceutical companies to produce safe, effective alternatives to vaccines derived or cultivated from aborted fetal tissue.

Julie Gibbons takes a measurement in the lab at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland's School of Pharmacy in Baltimore. The college is one of four U.S. colleges opening new pharmacy schools this fall semester at a time when the nation has a shortage of pharmacists. (CNS/Bob Roller) By Chaz MuthCatholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) -- With a projected national shortage of pharmacists, two U.S. Catholic colleges just inaugurated new pharmacy schools to help fill the gap in meeting the country's pharmaceutical needs. Seventy students at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland in Baltimore began their first...

Progressives Turn on Obama as Air America Exposes ‘Fascist’ Drug Deal Charming Liar’: Progressives Turn on Obama as Air America Exposes ‘Fascist’ Drug Deal http://www.breitbart.tv/charming-liar-progressives-turn-on-obama-as-air-america-exposes-fascist-drug-deal/

Drug Companies Resist White House Call to Reduce Rights to Exclusive Drug DataFOXNews.com Thursday, August 13, 2009 Drug companies that had agreed to support the Obama administration on health care reforms have found themselves once more at odds with the president, this time on exclusive rights to produce drugs that treat illnesses like arthritis, cancer and multiple sclerosis. **SNIP** The debate has rattled a deal that had been made between the White House and the drug companies to get the pharmaceutical industry on board with health care reform. In that deal, PhRMA agreed to cut its expected costs for drugs...

Here's the link. In exchange, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) agreed to cut $80 billion in projected costs to taxpayers and senior citizens over ten years. Or, as the memo says: "Commitment of up to $80 billion.. The health care lobbyist said that what deal still exists is uncertain, as a result of House pressure. "Now the White House is backing away from it, as you know, because of pressure from the House, because the House was not a party to the deal," he said. "The Speaker put enormous pressure on the White House, [saying], 'We weren't a...

I did everything I could—including risking life in prison. Back in the 1980s-1990s, the Life Extension Foundation® crusaded to enlighten Americans about the economic ruination that would occur if this country’s corrupt drug regulatory structure was not abolished. At the behest of pharmaceutical interests, the FDA brutally retaliated against us. What I am about to divulge is a shocking revelation about why prescription drugs cost so much. I want to remind readers what happens when an apathetic public allows archaic government regulations to rule the marketplace. In the 1940s, Argentina was the ninth wealthiest country in the world. At one...

A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week. The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return. It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government's leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada -- and also agreed...

As a political strategist, Big Pharma lobbyist Billy Tauzin is starting to look less like Dr. Faustus and more like Jack, trading away his industry for magic beans. Last week Mr. Tauzin ostentatiously blabbed to the media that his industry's deal to help fund ObamaCare with $80 billion in prescription-drug discounts was really protection money. In particular, he bragged that he had secured promises from the White House that President Obama would fend off Congressional Democrats who want to "negotiate" drug prices, which in practice means price controls. For days, the White House continued to confirm Mr. Tauzin's understanding: "We...

Government health officials in the Czech Republic have refused to buy H1N1 flu vaccines from US pharmaceutical firm Baxter International, citing safety concerns. According to a report by the Czech News Agency CTK, one of the largest English language news outlets in the country, the Czech Health Ministry has halted talks with Baxter citing “the firm’s inability to guarantee that the vaccine is safe and who will bear the risks for possible side-effects.” The country plans to buy vaccines to cover 25 percent of its population of ten million, but has said it will not buy swine flu vaccine from...

NEW DELHI: China has admitted that its pharmaceutical companies were involved in shipping fake drugs labeled 'Made In India' to Nigeria. "The Chinese authorities have accepted this position (that its firms were involved in the case)," an official said. "The Indian government took up the matter with the Nigerian authorities and on further probe, it was found that the drugs had actually originated in China and not in India," he added. In June, Nigeria's drug regulatory authority National Agency for Food and Drug Administration And Control (NAFDAC) had reported about the detention of a large consignment of fake anti-malarial generic...