Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 This shows that members of the jury not only found merck liable for the direct financial costs of one death, but they also saw Merck's actions as unethical, dishonest and punishable. This award is saying that merck should pay for being evil.
Now, of course, that's just one interpretation of the jury's decision. Merck's own lawyers would no doubt disagree, and a verdict appeal is already underway. But even merck can no longer deny that the free people of this land, when given a fair look at the evidence, will overwhelmingly vote to punish the company for its rather obvious wrongdoing. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 That's what merck is doing with this study: It's decided what data to choose after all the cards are on the table!
Now, I don't know what your definition of the Scientific Method is, but most people agree it goes something like this:
1. First, you define the goal of the study and declare what you're going to measure.
2. Next, you take your observations and measurements.
3. Then, you analyze the observations and measurements to reach a reasonable conclusion based on the data.
Merck apparently believes there should be a fourth step:
4. |
| Lch-4
Scientific fraud is routine in pharmaceutical medicine today
What's important in all this is not simply the fact that merck is apparently engaged in scientific fraud in this particular study, but rather the fact that merck thought selectively discarding data and redefining the goal of the study after the fact was an acceptable scientific practice!
This is an indication of just how completely drug companies have abandoned anything resembling the Scientific Method and are now just making up the science as they go along. |
| And guess what? merck gets to choose which point!
I sure would like to use this system the next time I got to Vegas. I'll just place my bet on the roulette wheel after the spinning stops! Or maybe I'll go to the poker table, have the dealer toss me ten cards, and then I'll decide which five cards I want to be in my hand! It sure would be nice to be able to cherry pick the results I want to "count" after the fact, wouldn't it?
That's what merck is doing with this study: It's decided what data to choose after all the cards are on the table! |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| This award is saying that merck should pay for being evil.
Now, of course, that's just one interpretation of the jury's decision. Merck's own lawyers would no doubt disagree, and a verdict appeal is already underway. But even merck can no longer deny that the free people of this land, when given a fair look at the evidence, will overwhelmingly vote to punish the company for its rather obvious wrongdoing. When you keep selling a deadly drug for years after your own research shows it to double the risk of heart attacks, that's something most people would consider evil, if not downright criminal. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 There needs to be justice for the potentially tens of thousands of people who were harmed or killed by the marketing of a drug that merck knew was dangerous. There needs to be justice that questions the corporate philosophy that profits must be generated at all costs, no matter who is harmed in the process. For too long in the pharmaceutical industry, there has been an emphasis on making money regardless of the consequences. It's the Enron mentality, but now we're playing with lives, not just retirement funds.
It has all gone on far too long and it goes far beyond just merck. |
| It's becoming clear now that some people at merck were aware of the dangers of this drug, and yet they continued to push the drug anyway. Vioxx was marketed as a safe drug and was ultimately taken by as many as 20 million Americans before finally being recalled.
I have called for a criminal investigation of merck and key FDA decision makers because these actions are, in my opinion, worse than white-collar crimes like those committed by Enron executives. These crimes by pharmaceutical companies and FDA regulators result in the death and injury of American citizens. |
| These e-mails showed that merck was apparently aware of the dangers of Vioxx several years ago and yet attempted to construct clinical studies to obscure those dangers in an effort to continue marketing these drugs to the general public.
It's becoming clear now that some people at merck were aware of the dangers of this drug, and yet they continued to push the drug anyway. Vioxx was marketed as a safe drug and was ultimately taken by as many as 20 million Americans before finally being recalled. |
| I have called for a criminal investigation of merck and key FDA decision makers because these actions are, in my opinion, worse than white-collar crimes like those committed by Enron executives. These crimes by pharmaceutical companies and FDA regulators result in the death and injury of American citizens. Hopefully the Justice Department will send a strong message with the criminal indictment of merck executives and FDA decision makers who were involved in what increasingly appears to be a conspiracy to conceal the negative side effects of Vioxx while the drug was heavily promoted and sold. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| Even Congress got in on the act, announcing an investigation of merck for its apparent attempt to commit scientific fraud with Vytorin study results.
By the way, the FDA doesn't require medical studies to be non-fraudulent. The agency is happy to accept fraudulent studies from Big Pharma -- and it has done so for decades! |
| In June, 2002, merck and Shering-Plough began a cholesterol study called "ENHANCE" to test the effectiveness of their blockbuster drug Vytorin ($3 billion in sales so far). The trial concluded in 2006, and the final results are still not available. Why? Because the companies are sitting on the data, trying to figure out how to manipulate the results enough to make them look good!
The trial was attempting to measure the reduction of arterial plaque in the carotid arteries, and this reduction was measured by a high-tech ultrasound imaging technique called intravascular ultrasound. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| But even merck can no longer deny that the free people of this land, when given a fair look at the evidence, will overwhelmingly vote to punish the company for its rather obvious wrongdoing. When you keep selling a deadly drug for years after your own research shows it to double the risk of heart attacks, that's something most people would consider evil, if not downright criminal. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Now all of that deception is falling like a house of cards and it's going to cost merck and its investors potentially tens of billions of dollars in financial losses.
Some are now questioning whether merck can even survive this scandal. Certainly the reputation of the company has been permanently damaged, but the reputation of the FDA is also similarly scarred. The public is increasingly distrusting all pharmaceutical companies, because of the lies, distortions and criminal actions that are now being publicly revealed. |
| It leads to the rather startling conclusion that merck may be facing lawsuits not only from its customers, but also from its shareholders who have not only been financially harmed by an almost 40% drop in the stock price of the company, but also who were no doubt shocked to read in the Wall St. Journal that key merck executives were aware of the heart attack dangers of Vioxx four years ago. |
| REPPED: merck, already under fire for its Vioxx scandal and now undergoing criminal investigation by the Justice Department, is now also being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC). The SEC is wondering whether merck misled investors by failing to disclose facts concerning the harmful nature of its drug Vioxx, which was taken by 20 million Americans, and may now be partly responsible for the heart attacks or deaths of tens of thousands of people. |
| What we're seeing here, folks, is the unwinding of merck. This is a company that quite clearly covered up the negative information about its drug, that distorted its clinical trials, that worked in concert with the FDA to make sure that the public never learned the negative information about its drug so that it could keep on marketing and selling the drug to produce tremendous profits for its investors. Now all of that deception is falling like a house of cards and it's going to cost merck and its investors potentially tens of billions of dollars in financial losses. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Drug giant merck pioneered the commercial manufacture of morphine from opium and was a heavy pusher and marketer of cocaine. merck also patented MDMA (Ecstasy, the rave drug). After World War II, merck also began producing pesticides and food preservatives.
5. Ritalin is "speed" for children. A chemical amphetamine, Ritalin is made of controlled substances that would land you in prison if you sold them to a kid on the street, yet the drug is currently prescribed to millions of schoolchildren in the United States to treat a "brain chemistry condition" that was invented by the drug companies. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| The real story is not merely that merck is responsible for manufacturing a drug that has killed tens of thousands, but that the pharmaceutical industry itself is engaged in holocaust-class crimes against humanity that exploit human suffering for corporate profits.
Many of today's top pharmaceutical companies are, in fact, the corporate offspring of the very same pharma operations that owned and operated concentration camps in Nazi Germany. Back then, it was all done under the justification of political / military victory. Today, it is done under the justification of modern medicine. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| It has all gone on far too long and it goes far beyond just merck. There are literally dozens of pharmaceutical companies that are, right now, engaged in similar behavior. They are heavily promoting toxic drugs. They are burying negative evidence. They are distorting and exaggerating the benefits of these drugs. They are altering the results of clinical trials. They're ghostwriting scientific papers that are published in the names of other physicians. |
| Hopefully the Justice Department will send a strong message with the criminal indictment of merck executives and FDA decision makers who were involved in what increasingly appears to be a conspiracy to conceal the negative side effects of Vioxx while the drug was heavily promoted and sold.
In a report filed by FDA researcher David Graham on November 2nd, it was revealed that Vioxx may have contributed to almost 28,000 heart attacks and deaths over the past five years. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| REPPED: It's simultaneously a milestone for consumer advocacy and a major setback for Big Pharma: a Texas jury has found merck & Co. liable for the death of a Vioxx patient, and it has awarded the widow $253.4 million in damages. The 10-2 jury vote sends a powerful message to drug companies around the globe: if you continue to manufacture and sell products that kill people, you will eventually pay the price.
A whopping $229 million of that jury award was designated as punitive damages. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| Drug giant merck pioneered the commercial manufacture of morphine from opium and was a heavy pusher and marketer of cocaine. merck also patented MDMA (Ecstasy, the rave drug). After World War II, merck also began producing pesticides and food preservatives.
5. Ritalin is "speed" for children. A chemical amphetamine, Ritalin is made of controlled substances that would land you in prison if you sold them to a kid on the street, yet the drug is currently prescribed to millions of schoolchildren in the United States to treat a "brain chemistry condition" that was invented by the drug companies. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
See article keywords and concepts |
| Some are now questioning whether merck can even survive this scandal. Certainly the reputation of the company has been permanently damaged, but the reputation of the FDA is also similarly scarred. The public is increasingly distrusting all pharmaceutical companies, because of the lies, distortions and criminal actions that are now being publicly revealed. |
Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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 The merck Manual of Medical Information—Second Home Edition Online. "Gas and Chemical Exposure." http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec04/ch049/ch049j.html.
Mercola.com. "The Secret Dangers of Splenda (Sucralose), an Artificial Sweetener." http://www .mercola.eom/2000/dec/3/sucralose_dangers.htm.
Metcalfe, Ed. "Sweet Talking." Ecologist 30, No. 4 (June, 2000).
Mindell, Earl. Earl Mindell's Vitamin Bible for the 21st Century. New York: Warner Books, 1999. Misner, Scottie. "Sugar Substitutes: Are They Safe?" May 2001. http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/health/ azl229.pdf.
Mission Possible. |
Jack Challem
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 Merck Manual
The online edition of your physician's standard medical reference book. www.merck.com
Nutrient Data Laboratory Food Composition
Type in nearly any food or food product, and you instantly get its nutritional breakdown per cup or 100 grams. www.ars.usda.gov/
The Nutrition Reporter™
Dozens of articles on vitamins and minerals. www.nutritionreporter.com
The Official No More Bad Moods Web Site www.foodmoodsolution.com
Price-Pottenger Foundation
A Web site dedicated to two twentieth-century nutritional pioneers. www.price-pottenger. |
Joan Liebmann-Smith, Ph. D., and Jacqueline Nardi Egan
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 Merck Manual Home Edition Online www.merck.com/mmhe/index.html
Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America www.myasthenia.org
National Adrenal Diseases Foundation www.nadf.us
National Cancer Institute www.cancer.gov
National Eye Institute www.nei.nih.gov
National Graves' Disease Foundation www.ngdf.org
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute www.nhlbi.nih.gov
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke www.ninds.nih.gov
National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases www.niams.nih.gov
National Institute on Aging www.nia.nih. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 How many people were harmed or killed in those four years during which merck and the FDA hid the truth about Vioxx? And how many other drugs are just as dangerous and yet heavily promoted? According to the American Medical Association, prescription drugs kill -- yes, kill -- 100,000 Americans each year. Another document, Death by Medicine authored in part by Dr. Gary Null, shows as many as 750,000 people being killed each year by medications and surgical procedures combined. Clearly, these deaths dwarf the fatalities caused by terrorists, wars, and all national crime statistics combined. |
| In November, 2000, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article written by academics who were literally paid by merck. This article heralded the "benefits" of Vioxx in reducing stomach problems and -- get this -- reducing heart attack rates. The article, of course, left out all the negative information about Vioxx, including what was obvious even in 2000: that Vioxx increased the risk of heart attacks, strokes and blood clots, even in healthy people.
The FDA: asleep at the wheel
For its part, the FDA does nothing to protect consumers. |
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