Drugs for Profit, the Same for Care

Pfizer worries about financial impact of the Aricept 10mg dose patent approval ending so it gets double dose OK from FDA.

Aricept 23 mg failed to demonstrate a clinically meaningful benefit

Public Citzen petitioned  FDA Commissioner to immediately removal from market Pfizer's Alzheimer's drug, Aricept  23 mg dose, because of serious safety hazards and failure to demonstrate efficacy. The petition also urges FDA to add a label warning on Aricept and generic donepezil (5 mg and 10 mg) stating: "Use of 20 mg per day is counter indicated."

Aricept  (donepezil) 23 mg was approved July 23, 2010 on the basis of a single clinical trial (Study 326) --despite the recommendation by both FDA medical reviewers and statistical reviewers NOT to approve the drug  because it had failed to demonstrate efficacy but significantly increased risks to patient safety.

Patients in the trial had already been taking Aricept 10 mg for three months. They were randomized to Aricept  at either 10 mg dose or 23 mg.  Complete article

Vitamins for Alzheimers

Natural Health News: The TSH Test Can't Tell You About Thyroid Health

May 04, 2011

UPDATE: 3 February 2010 In the brain of his low dose test animals, Isaacson observed a tangling of capillary blood vessels, reduced oxy... Vitamins for Alzheimer's. September 2010 Good News for B Vitamins and Your Brain Ranks now in the ...

Natural Health News: Vitamins for Alzheimer's

Dec 27, 2009

Vitamins for Alzheimer's. September 2010 Good News for B Vitamins and Your Brain Ranks now in the TOP10 out of 3.9 M Access the May 2007 issue of herbalYODA Says! that focuses on vitamin B12 with a donation to help us continue this work ...

Additional Resources: Health, Vitamins and Alzheimer's

Dec 13, 2008

REF: High-dose vitamin B12 for at-home prevention and reversal of Alzheimer's disease and other diseases. REF: Vitamin C, E, Selenium. Daniel Fabricant, Ph.D., writes about the JAMA study denouncing the benefit from Vitamins C and E. ...

For-profit hospice industry raises worries

BLOOMINGTON, Ind., May 19 (UPI) -- End-of-life hospice care is being dominated by investor-owned chains that cherry-pick patients and cut labor costs to maximize profits, U.S. researchers say.
Dr. Robert Stone, an emergency medicine physician in Bloomington, Ind., and Joshua Perry of Indiana University say end-of-life hospice care was once the province of charitable organizations, but 52 percent of hospices are now part of the for-profit sector.
For-profit hospice industry grew by 128 percent from 2001 to 2008, while the non-profit sector grew by only 1 percent. During the same period, government-sponsored hospices increased by 25 percent.
"Research shows that for-profit hospices, and especially publicly traded chain providers, generate higher revenues than their non-profit counterparts," Stone says in a statement. "They do this in part, studies show, by selectively recruiting longer-term patients, most of whom do not have cancer, thereby gaming the Medicare payment system."  Complete Article

Hospice Patients Alliance

Selections from Natural Health News

Paging Doctor Nurse

Apr 16, 2010

Dying hospice patients have been denied morphine in their final hours because a doctor couldn't be reached in the middle of the night, nurses told The Associated Press. Massachusetts, the model for the federal health care overhaul,

Ultrasound in Cancer Detection

Oct 07, 2009

Ellen Wild told The Times that her father died at a hospice in Edina, Minn., on Sept. 18. This information is provided by Creating Health Institute through our Health Matters(c) project.

Hawking Retires

Oct 24, 2008

This item is important to me in relation to a recent case of the demise of a person with ALS in N. Idaho, through the hospice system. Dr. Hawking is renown as one of the great minds of our times, and yet with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease)

1984 is Now

Aug 15, 2008

I received this article from Hospice Patient's Alliance. If people contemplate and really see the sanctity of life, their "quality of life" arguments fall away and they will understand that we are here to care for each other, ...

Patient Rights Under Attack Again

UPDATE: 6/28/11 

This argument is taking a new disguise in hopes no one will notice.  

Remember, tort reform does not make health care more affordable or safer.

Last evening's HBO program about the efforts of the US Chamber of Commerce and their false flag effort to make you believe that tort reform will control health care costs was certainly eye opening, even for those who have been aware of the fraud for years.  This includes how a corrupt effort involving buying elections cost Justice Oliver Diaz his seat on the Mississippi bench.

 Big Insurance Profits
 Tort Reform and Corporate Greed
 Tort Reform Myth 
 Corporate Agenda to Destroy Civil Justice System 
 'Doctors Flee' Myth
 Karl Rove
 Karl Rove 2


In Attempt to Limit Patients’ Rights, Republicans Trot Out Tired - and False - Arguments About Medical Liability 

Statement of Christine Hines, Consumer and Civil Justice Counsel, Public Citizen

It’s telling that before the membership of the House Judiciary Committee for the 112th Congress was even finalized, incoming chair Lamar Smith (R-Texas) scheduled a hearing on medical liability. The new House leadership apparently can’t wait to get started in pushing forward draconian measures to limit patients’ rights. It is heeding its party’s talking points without noticing the facts.
Today’s hearing, creatively called “Medical Liability Reform - Cutting Costs, Spurring Investment, Creating Jobs,” will undoubtedly dig up the same old arguments trotted out in years past to support policies that would absolve negligent medical providers of responsibility for actions that injure or kill their patients.
Despite the fact that malpractice litigation and payments are at historic lows, according to the federal government’s National Practitioner Data Bank, proponents of limiting patients’ rights continue to incorrectly blame ideas like “runaway jury awards” and “defensive medicine” for the nation’s escalating health care costs.
Of all people, Chairman Smith should know that liability limits do not curb health care costs. For example, yesterday in a FoxNews.com editorial, Chairman Smith claimed that malpractice liability limits in Texas have been a success and that they reduced health care premiums in his home state. However, according to official U.S. Census Bureau data, the state’s uninsured rate and health insurance costs have more than doubled since the state’s liability reforms took effect in 2003. Further, closing the courthouse doors to patients in Texas has not alleviated expensive medical tests. The cost of diagnostic testing in Texas (measured by per patient Medicare reimbursements) has grown 50 percent faster than the national average. Texas’ liability system is clearly not the solution for the country, much less Texas.
Bailing out negligent doctors and limiting individual patients’ rights will neither save us money nor protect patients from harm.
###
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org.

Selections from Natural Health News -

Natural Health News: HIPAA: Privacy Still at Risk

Sep 22, 2010

But since that law doesnot require consent before health information is shared for most purposes (including treatment, payment, and health-care operations), the modifications will fail to truly protect health privacy rights. ... Rather than tinkering around the edges modifying the weak HIPAA privacy rule (as required by the stimulus law), it's time to call on Congress to change the law to ensure that patient consent is required before personal health information is shared ...

Health Links

Feb 09, 2009

HIPAA Facts *** HIPAA Patient Rights Information CODEX Alliance for Natural Health Diet and Lifestyle. American Health Freedom Doctor-Patient Confidentiality Relationship in Jeopardy. The economic stimulus bill, as currently written, ...

Surviving Mesothelioma

Mar 10, 2009

A chapter about patient's rights is included, which I cannot stress enough how important this is in today's mainstream medical venue. Reading each page in each chapter is uplifting, as well as providing good information. ...

REAL ISSUES AND TORT REFORM

Jun 16, 2007

If you talk to people in the corporate world they say that tort reform is a movement to bring fairness and predictability to a legal system that they consider nothing short of a form of legalized extortion. ...

So you believe tort reform is necessary to keep hea...

Sep 26, 2006

Tort reform is always the battle cry of those who want to put profits above health and human need. At no time have I ever received a reply when I asked hospital administrators (I used to be one) and government officials about the impact ...

Mixed Messages

Jul 15, 2007

It is really not tort reform that is needed but if you might dare to suggest the problems lie elsewhere than with trial attorneys, you might find yourself out of a job. I have a lot of answers, based on the fact that I have saved a ...

Doctors Checking Out Early

Oct 26, 2007

Tort reform was a gift from the Congress to the heavy betters (sharks)on the side of the industry, freely plying their trade. Maybe you know that as "payola" if you are at least a Baby Boomer, or a better description known as buying ...

Real Age? Real Cagey...

Oprah's doctors, Oz and Roizen, are linked to RealAge, an on-line actuarial questionnaire that evaluates your lifestyle to give you an age that reflects how healthy your choices are. You may end up older or younger than your chronological age as a result of their quiz.

I took it once when they first published it and came out about 20 years younger than my chronological age.

Then along came one of their daily facts I disagreed with, and so did the science.

Do you think they would correct the error of their ways? No way, Jose!

Now it appears - according to some data dug up by Public Citizen, that the folks who bring you the RealAge questionnaire also sell your info and email to pharmaceutical companies.

Website Collects Medical Data and Uses That Data for Drug Company Solicitations

Online Age Quiz Is a Window for Drug Makers

A word to the wise: You'd better skip this test.

Drugs Contribute to Dementia, Delirium

I'd like to thank Public Citizen for bringing their report to the attention of Natural Health News.

For Immediate Release: April 1, 2009
Contact: Joe Newman (202) 588-7703, Rick Claypool (202) 588-7742

Drug-Induced Dementia and Delirium Common in Seniors But Often Undetected, Public Citizen Says
Condition Is Usually Reversible, Can Be Caused By 136 Drugs Listed on WorstPills.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Older patients become more susceptible to drug-induced dementia and delirium as they age, but the symptoms are often overlooked by doctors who don’t realize that the condition may be caused by drugs and reversed, Public Citizen writes in a Worst Pills, Best Pills News article released today on WorstPills.org, the organization’s drug safety Web site.

Unlike most forms of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease, which cannot be reversed, dementia caused by prescription drug use may be stopped by discontinuing the offending medication. The drug safety experts at Public Citizen have identified 136 commonly prescribed medications, especially certain antidepressants and pain medications, that can cause difficulty thinking.

Drug-induced dementia and delirium are commonly misattributed to underlying medical illness or merely to “old age.” But by stopping or modifying the dosage of numerous, frequently prescribed drugs, most patients can be restored to a pre-drug state of mental clarity.

Older people are more susceptible to drug-induced delirium and dementia because the body’s ability to rid itself of drugs decreases with age, often because of normal age-related decrease in kidney and liver function. Also, older patients are often prescribed multiple drugs at the same time, resulting in complicated interactions and enhanced side effects. Some research also suggests older patients’ brains may be more sensitive to drugs’ effects on the central nervous system.

“Sadly, doctors don’t always recognize cognitive impairment as a side effect, so many patients needlessly suffer from this debilitating but reversible condition,” said Sidney Wolfe, M.D., director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group and acting Public Citizen president. “After beginning new drugs, doctors, patients and their families should watch for subtle changes in cognition and assume changes may be caused by drug therapy. People already suffering from some cognitive impairment are most susceptible.”

Delirium is a syndrome of changes in vision, hearing and thinking that usually starts abruptly and is commonly seen in the hospital setting or during an acute illness; symptoms typically improve when the cause is treated. Dementia, on the other hand, is a chronic alteration in thinking that progresses slowly. Alzheimer’s disease is dementia’s most common cause, but it also can be caused by strokes and other conditions.

WorstPills.org includes the full list of 136 implicated drugs. Some examples include: widely used antihistamines such as diphenhydramine (Benedryl); a drug widely used for treating urinary incontinence, tolteridine (Detrol); a nausea treatment drug, metoclopramide (Reglan); and drugs in the benzodiazepine category such as popular sleeping pills Ambien (zolpidem) and Lunesta (eszopiclone).

Worst Pills, Best Pills News is a monthly newsletter available in print and electronic formats through Public Citizen’s subscription Web site, WorstPills.org. The article about drug-induced dementia and delirium will be available free for the next seven days. The site has other searchable in formation about the uses, risks and side effects associated with prescription medications.

WorstPills.org is an unbiased analysis of information from a variety of sources, including well-regarded medical journals and unpublished data obtained from the Food and Drug Administration, that allows Public Citizen to sound the alarm about potentially dangerous drugs long before they are banned by the federal government and to recommend safer drugs. For example, Public Citizen warned consumers about the dangers of Vioxx, ephedra, Baycol and Propulsid years before they were pulled from the market.

A partial list of drugs is below. I chose Antihistamines because it is the time of year when people often turn to these products.

Antihistamines (these are OTC meds, and too numerous to list)

Azelastine (ASTELIN)*

Chlorpheniramine injection

Cyproheptadine (PERIACTIN)

Desloratadine (CLARINEX)*

Diphenhydramine injection

Hydroxyzine (ATARAX, HY-PAM, VISTARIL)

Olopatadine (PATANOL)

Many of the drugs on this extensive list are some of the most commonly prescribed for all age groups. They are extremely problematic for the elderly and small-statured persons.

Please make sure to ask your health care provider to tell you of the side effects of any drug prescribed. Double checking with your pharmacist is also worth your trouble.

NB: There are excellent natural remedies for most health concerns; Detrol is one that comes to mind because it is mentioned in this article. Please contact us for more information.