After adjustment for secular and seasonal trends and variation in population size, there was a small but significant reduction in the number of emergency admissions for myocardial infarction after the implementation of smoke-free legislation (–2.4%, 95% confidence interval –4.06% to –0.66%, P=0.007). This equates to 1200 fewer emergency admissions for myocardial infarction (1600 including readmissions) in the first year after legislation. The reduction in admissions was significant in men (3.1%, P=0.001) and women (3.8%, P=0.007) aged 60 and over, and men (3.5%, P<0.01) but not women (2.5% P=0.38) aged under 60.…and can decipher it for us ordinary plebeians and pull their ‘junk’ science to shreds.
Ok, the above is smoking related and we at Freedom2Choose know that those ‘scientists’ are funded by Tobacco Control (yes we know who you are and you are being monitored) and Big Pharma, who have a vested interest in the nanny state because the nanny state brings in the big buck$ but you dress it up as though you are doing us a favour…
The "nanny state" mostly gets a pasting from critics who dismiss government efforts to make us fitter or slimmer or healthier as unwarranted intrusion into individual's lives.…yeah right!
Today, the critics get their comeuppance with research showing that nannying works. In the first year after the smoking ban was introduced in July 2007, the air in bars, restaurants and offices suddenly became sweeter - and more than 1,000 heart attacks were prevented. . . .
All of our lives are touched by the Pharmaceutical Industry who have thrived since the early 1900’s and their tentacles are far reaching:
In the early half of the 20th century, petrochemical giants organized a coup on the medical research facilities, hospitals and universities. The Rockefeller family sponsored research and donated sums to universities and medical schools which had drug based research. They further extended this policy to foreign universities and medical schools where research was drug based through their "International Education Board". Establishments and research which were were not drug based were refused funding and soon dissolved in favor of the lucrative pharmaceutical industry. In 1939 a "Drug Trust" alliance was formed by the Rockefeller empire and the German chemical company I.G. Farben (Bayer). After World War II, I.G. Farben was dismantled but later emerged as separate corporations within the alliance. Well known companies included General Mills, Kellogg, Nestle, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Procter and Gamble, Roche and Hoechst (Sanofi-Aventis). The Rockefeller empire, in tandem with Chase Manhattan Bank (now JP Morgan Chase), owns over half of the pharmaceutical interests in the United States. It is the largest drug manufacturing combine in the world. Since WWII, the pharmaceutical industry has steadily netted increasing profits to become the world's second largest manufacturing industry; [1], [2] after the arms industry.So I will never view Big Pharma as philanthropic, and why should I?
When you are ill the very first person you come across is your GP, your doctor. Do we ask them questions when they prescribe you drugs? Say Champix (which I will cover in another story) if you want to give up smoking for example?
Well we should ask questions:
And there are a lot of questions to ask. Thankfully, again, there are those that ask questions. Below Dr. Beatrice Golomb, MD, PhD did just that.
Greed? It’s a killer.
Hat Tip to Bill Gibson (CEO TICAP) and TICAP'S Brussells Declaration on Scientific Integrity.
1 comment:
Dr Golomb mentions that she does not know how pharma funding works in Europe. Well here's some info about the UK:
In 2005 the UK Parliamentary Health Select Committee investigated the 'Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry'. Their report was pretty much a whitewash and the Government ignored it anyway. But the following excerpts might be of interest:
"160. The pharmaceutical industry determines to a great extent what drug research is carried out. Although expert groups may recommend that research be conducted in certain areas, there is no way of ensuring that companies themselves undertake or fund such research. Approximately 90% of clinical drug trials and 70% of trials reported in major medical journals are conducted or commissioned by the pharmaceutical industry. As it does most of the research, inevitably the industry not only has a major effect on what gets researched, but also how it is researched and how results are interpreted and reported."
Also:
"The MHRA is unusual in being one of few European agencies where the operation of the medicines regulatory system is funded entirely by fees derived from services to industry (drug regulatory agencies in other countries are more often only partly funded by licence fees). The MHRA’s activities are 60% funded through licensing fees paid by those seeking marketing approvals and 40% through an annual service fee, also paid by the industry."
Note: The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is the UK government agency which is responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work and are acceptably safe.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmhealth/cmhealth.htm
Tony
Post a Comment