Deadly Politics of Modern Medicine

A recent drug study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine (”Serious Adverse Drug Events Reported to the Food and Drug Administration, 1998-2005,” Arch Intern Med. 2007; 167(16): 1,752-1,759), reveals that over the past 8 years, the number of prescription-drug related deaths has more than doubled.

This research provides yet further proof of our warnings about the serious (even deadly) “side effects” of prescription medications. (Note that this study didn’t even examine the many other serious “side effects” of meds… only deaths.)

Even more alarming is the fact that the majority of this increase in deaths was attributed to 298 out of the 1,489 pharmaceutical drugs studied. This group of drugs accounted for 407,394 of the 467,809 events. In other words, 20% of the medications were responsible for 87% of these prescription-related deaths.

No question, this alarming research should have made front-page news…

Yet the pharmaceutical companies — nor did the FDA — made NO moves to withdraw these 298 drugs from the market… Neither did they make any attempts to make the public or media aware of the grave dangers these medications pose.

Even scarier is the fact that many top health experts concede that fewer than 10% of prescription-drug related deaths ever get reported. Some place those figures at 1%-2%. Thus, a conservative estimate would put the actual medication-related deaths at well over 1 million annually.

It would appear that the billions upon billions dollars of profit of the powerful pharmaceutical companies is more important than the lives of a “mere” million Americans each and every year…

- Trevor K. Neuman