opioids

Why I Don’t Trust Big Pharma

Why I Don’t Trust Big Pharma

Trust Big Pharma? I Don’t Think So!

Here are a few reasons why I don't trust the pharmaceutical industry

Opioid Crisis

The damage to society from opioids is something that is not in question.  In an article on canada.gov

“Measuring the impact of the opioid overdose epidemic on life expectancy at birth in Canada” shows that in the USA and also in British Columbia “a decrease in life expectancy due to opioid drug overdose deaths.”

In researching it was difficult to find individuals that were more interested in curtailing the production or addressing the causes of the epidemic.  Most of the articles that I can find speak of making it safe for addicts to do the drugs: “Harm reduction.”

This article reviews a book called:

Overdose Heartbreak and Hope in Canada’s Opioid Crisis
by Benjamin Perrin, professor at University of BC

“From all of the information put forth in the book, Perrin makes a hard case that safe consumption sites are the answer. Getting people the support they need, giving them access to safe places to use drugs with people there to help if they need it. These sites are there to connect people to services and support. Perrin puts forth a strong argument to stop criminalizing people who use drugs, and how this would positively impact all levels of society, those who are taking the drugs and those who deal with the fallout from the illicit drug trade. Perrin also takes a hard look at the evidence for and against the decriminalization of all drugs, with Portugal giving some insight into how the strategy can play out. “
Heartbreak and Hope

This, as a solution, doesn’t really do anything to help the fact that there is a crisis. This solution, in no way prevents or slows the increase of people starting and using these deadly drugs.  All this will do is increase the burden of society to support more and more drug addicts and their habit.  I understand that many of these people, if not the majority, are not ‘street people’ and became addicted somewhat accidentally.  So, let’s take this back a bit.  When we were young and had a bone set or tonsils out, we weren’t prescribed opiates.  After tonsils being removed, one got a little extra ice cream to soothe the throat.  For the mending bone in an arm, say, one was instructed to be careful not to sleep on it.  I had a greenstick fracture of my radius at age 14.  Knocked out at the hospital to straighten it.  That was it.  I may have slept a little extra the first couple of days.  Then I was out playing and going to school.  Too busy to notice the pain, I guess.

This would be one of the first things one would think to do:

British Columbia Opioid Lawsuit

“B.C. sues opioid makers for 'negligence and corruption' about addiction risks”

“B.C. Attorney General David Eby spoke of the "terrible toll" opioid addiction has taken on many British Columbians and their families as he announced a lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies to reclaim costs associated with the ongoing opioid crisis.”

Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of Oxycontin claims that it is not their fault, they claim no wrongdoing.

Simon Fraser University drug policy researcher Donald MacPherson: “MacPherson said the government should be working on providing a clean supply of opioids for people with addictions if it wants to stop the overdose crisis.”

Supplying ‘clean’ opioids to addicts will do nothing to prevent more and more people from becoming addicted.

And from the Globe & Mail:

There are doctors out there that would like to limit patients’ use of opioids, bring these patients off the drugs slowly, recommending other solutions or less addictive drugs for pain.  But complaints and demands from certain public, and I’m sure influence from Big Pharma leads to this:

“British Columbia doctors treating patients with chronic pain will be required to prescribe opioids without limiting dosage or refusing to see patients who are on the medication that has come to be associated with illicit overdose deaths.” The Globe & Mail

Methadone:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6612a2.htm

Methadone:

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/767338

In 2010, “It [methadone] accounted for 39.8% of single-drug OPR deaths.” (OPR - Opioid Pain Reliever)

https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates

Figure 3. National Drug Overdose Deaths Involving Any Opioid—Number Among All Ages, by Gender, 1999-2018. The figure above is a bar and line graph showing the total number of U.S. overdose deaths involving any opioid from 1999 to 2018. Any opioid includes prescription opioids (and methadone), heroin and other synthetic narcotics (mainly fentanyl or fentanyl analogs). Opioid-involved overdose deaths rose from 21,088 in 2010 to 47,600 in 2017”

Above you will see this graph from the CDC website that shows increase from 8,048  in 1999 to 49,068 deaths in 2017.  Not sure if these deaths include methadone.  Either way this is a 600% increase in deaths in that time.  Add in the data below, the unclassified opioid deaths, it will be a lot higher.

“Using this information, the team estimates that 72 per cent of unclassified overdose deaths involved opioids. This finding suggests that 99,160 more people in the US have died from opioid overdoses than previously thought, an underestimate of 28 per cent. According to these new results, a total of more than 450,000 people in the US have died from an opioid overdose since 1999.”
www.newscientist.com

This epidemic has been created by the pharmaceutical industry, one of the biggest culprits being Purdue Pharma owned by the Sackler Family.  They still think they have done nothing wrong. If fact they are now producing “millions of doses of lifesaving opioid overdose reversal medications.” So, this family is responsible for the murder of thousands and destroyed families beyond measure, and they now make money from the medications to fix it!! 

No small wonder that I don’t trust the pharmaceutical industry

Add in the deaths resulting from prescription drugs and the total per the CDC is 70,237 in 2017.

But from a study by Donald Light, who is a professor of comparative health policy at Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Stratford, New Jersey:

“Estimates dating back nearly two decades put the number at 100,000 or more deaths annually, which includes a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998 that projected 106,000 deaths. A more recent analysis estimates 128,000 Americans die each year as a result of taking medications as prescribed – or nearly five times the number of people killed by overdosing on prescription painkillers and heroin."

health.usnews.com

and…

‘ “Donald Light, a medical and economic sociologist and lead author of a 2013 paper that detailed the estimate, entitled “Institutional Corruption of Pharmaceuticals and the Myth of Safe and Effective Drugs.” “About 2,460 people per week are estimated to die from drugs that were properly prescribed, and that’s based on detailed chart reviews of hospitalized patients,” ‘

That’s 2013.  Times 52 weeks.  That’s about 128,000 deaths per year.  Numbers now, in 2020, would be much higher.

Add that to the 70,000 plus deaths from Opioids and other overdoses and you have a total of about 200,000 deaths per year directly resulting from carelessness and neglect of the pharmaceutical industry. 

And these numbers are just in the USA. 

Again, no small wonder I don’t trust the pharmaceutical industry

This leads me to another so called controversial subject: vaccines.  In 1986 a law was passed preventing Big Pharma from being sued directly. (The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act)  A ‘committee’ was set up where complaintants (usually parents of vaccine damaged children) could present their case.  The lawyers that represent the defendants are Justice Department lawyers.  Any money awarded is paid by the US Government (read: taxpayers).  There is no jury and one person adjudicates. 

Per fairwarning.org, as of 2018, $4.2 Billion has been paid out to families of children damaged by vaccines.  Parents of the children affected are

how to end autism epidemic

much more likely to get compensation if they don’t mention autism.  There is an excellent book on the history of this mess written by J B Handley, called ‘“How to End the Autism Epidemic”.

(Note: As the Pharmaceutical Industry is protected by the The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, the money paid out comes from the US Government. Taxpayer’s money.)

Austism has gone from 1 in 10,000 in the 1960s/1970s to 1 in 36 in 2018.  The numbers started to jump dramatically when Big Pharma became protected with the passing of the aforementioned law. at the same time increasing the vaccine rollout exponentially.   

Every baby today is given about 72 doses of 16 vaccines (per CDC).  In the 1960s and 1970s one received about 3-5 doses of vaccines.  These numbers vary slightly depending on where you look but the point is starting in 1986 with the passing of the The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act they increased by a factor of about 12. 

The pharmaceutical industry has yet to admit any wrongdoing with regard to vaccines and autism. 

But…

Who controls the narrative?  I mean, who decides what you hear on the radio? What articles will you see in newspapers? What is going to get pushed in the 6 o’clock news. 

Per the Periscope Group 

“70% Of News Advertising Now Belongs to Big Pharma”

Media owners and editors are rarely going to bite the hand that feeds them.   

“Are you still going on about that, that science is done! There is no proof of that! That’s a conspiracy theory.” - That is what you will hear if you try to counter Big Pharma’s narrative.

There is lots of information out there. But the majority of people will not do their own research, will unwarrantedly trust the media, doctors and researchers that are paid by pharmaceutical companies. 

As you can see earlier in the article by some of the links, that much of the information available is on government websites.  Not that difficult to find if you know where to look and are willing to look

So, you can see that maybe, just maybe, there are some very good reasons to NOT trust the pharmaceutical industry and their supporters.

 

Posted by greymouser in Blog, 0 comments
Tylenol and Opioids

Tylenol and Opioids

Tylenol and Opioids

Is Tylenol leading us into an Opioid epidemic?

We had a surprise answer to one of our questions at a recent Drug Education lecture.  We lecture Junior and High School children on drugs.  We cover drugs in general but do spend a bit of time on alcohol and marijuana.  Alcohol because it destroys so many lives and marijuana because it is becoming and has become legal in many areas.  And is no less dangerous because of it.  

We also explain opioids, from morphine to oxycodone to Fentanyl and Carfentanil.  One of the key things that a lot of kids don’t know or understand is that opioids are pain killers. And as such are very effective. Tylenol is also a pain killer.

If you want a decent article describing Fentanyl and Carfentanil, what they are, comparisons and dangers, check out The Cabin Group 

One of the questions that we sometimes ask the kids is to name some ‘safe’ drugs.  Tylenol comes up pretty consistently.  Our point in the lecture is to make sure that the students know that even prescribed, medical drugs can be used incorrectly and create an overdose.  

Per drugs.com Tylenol (acetaminophen) is a pain reliever and fever reducer.  Used to treat “headaches, muscle aches, arthritis, backache, tooth aches, colds, and fevers.”  Acetaminophen is also in other pain relief drugs such as Vicodin and Percocet.  Percocet for one, is extremely addictive.  

The Question:

We  don’t always ask this question but it seemed pertinent so we asked for a show of hands of how many in this class had taken Tylenol.  Almost 100% of the students put up their hands.  To me, this was a bit of a shock.

Now, I’ve spoken to numerous people that grew up in the 50s, 60s and 70s.  The ‘go to’ drug after one got their tonsils removed was ice cream.  If you broke your arm, you might have been knocked out while it was being set by the doctor, but then you were told that it would likely hurt a bit when it was healing.  Most parents in the 50s and 60s may have had some aspirin in the medicine cabinet and some band aids.  My parents were a doctor and a nurse and they were hesitant to even give us that (aspirin).  The standard fix for a fall, bump or scrape was ‘kiss it better’ and ‘get back on the horse’.  

For a fever, it was a hot bath.  If you want to know why you should NOT use Tylenol for your child’s fever, and why a bath would be better, check out this page on The Healthy Home Economist 

Two things come to mind with this ease of dispensing drugs to children for every runny nose or scraped shin.  One, these small bodies are not built to handle the volume of drugs that are currently poured into them. 

"Acetaminophen poisoning has become the leading cause of acute liver failure in the United States," report the authors of a new study in the December 2005 issue of Hepatology, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD). Tylenol is the leading brand name for acetaminophen.

(The site with the above quote also gives some alternatives to toxic drugs like Tylenol:  Rejuvenation Science

The liver cleans out the toxins from our bodies. Overworked and weakened at a young age is going to affect a person’s immune system.  If you don’t mind an extremely technical article, (you may have to look up a lot of words), here is one that explains how a weakened liver can result in poor immune response to disease.  Science Direct

And as noted in the Healthy Home Economist page above:

“… reaching for the Tylenol or ibuprofen to suppress what is actually one of the body’s most important defensive reactions to a pathogen. In some cases, caregivers may erroneously believe that reducing the fever somehow makes the child well again, sending him/her to school or an important sporting event rather than to bed for as long as it takes for the fever to resolve itself naturally.

  Suppression of one of Mother Nature’s most important protective and detoxifying mechanisms is harmful to the child both in the short term and the long term.

  In the short term, fever suppression actually opens the door to a secondary infection and the likely need for antibiotics to resolve the illness. In other words, if you want to avoid antibiotics, don’t bring down the fever. The heat of the fever significantly slows the speed with which a pathogen can replicate and spread, thus giving the body more time to resolve the problem naturally.”

Secondly, and this is equally important, it can easily put the young person in the frame of mind where he or she would turn to a drug as a solution to any sort of problem, physical or emotional.  Over the last twenty, thirty years or so, pain, a symptom, has become something that one treats instead of finding and treating the actual cause.  Often masking or exacerbating the issue.  There are all kinds of natural treatments for inflammation for example.  But even with that, what is causing the inflammation.  But this doesn’t get resolved if a person is trained at an early age to pop a pill for a quick fix.  

A sad thing about this is that doctors are now pretty much trained to take this route.  Doctors have become pill dispensers, treating symptoms and rarely do you find a physician that will take the time to find the underlying cause.  

Take this a step further to the damage that could be caused with regard to emotional and mental issues.  If the whole ‘pop a pill’ solution transfers over to emotional issues then no one may ever have to feel anything again.  As the fellow said, you still have the problems when you stop taking the drugs. 

Opioids, pain killers, are horribly addictive.  Over the counter products like Tylenol don’t have the quantities to be terribly addictive but if your goal is to become addicted to something like oxycodone, well, it is a natural progression.  

So, please look at your life and see if you are conditioning your children to look for the quick solution of a drug, or are you teaching and training them to solve life’s issues, whether physical, mental or emotional.  

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Posted by greymouser in Blog, 2 comments