Dr. Block, “There are many steps in the process of bringing new drugs to the market yet every step from the research, the drug trials, and the drug approval down to the reps bringing the medicines to the doctors seems to have been compromised.
During the approval process the pharmaceutical companies present data to the FDA and they have special committees that are supposed to be unbiased.
The problem is that the FDA allows financial conflict of interest in their committee members. It is not supposed to occur but they provide wavers to this conflict of interest, say, even though you might be making money from this drug company, or you have an investment in this drug company, or they paid you to do research for them, we are going to let you sit on this committee and let you say ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ about this drug being approved.” 1, 2
1- (The FDA website states, “FDA advisory committee members can get waivers for conflict of interest. They can have stocks, other investments, primary employment, be a consultant, have grants or contracts, patent trademarks, royalties, be expert witnesses and teach, speak or write for a pharmaceutical company and get a waiver.”)
2- (Propublica reported, “400 advisors received $100,000 or more since 2009″)
Sandy Zimmerman, “What about the drug studies in the medical journals?”
Dr. Block, “Drug companies have written favorable articles about their own drugs and hired a doctor to be listed as the author but he neither wrote nor researched the article, just simply allowed the drug company to use his name and the article was submitted to a medical journal. The journal’s editor assumes this was a genuine article and that the doctor actually wrote it. Later hundreds or thousands of doctors across the United States read and believed the article.” 3, 4
3 (Project on Government Oversight: “Ghost writers write articles for drug companies and the drug companies pay a doctor to put their name on the article. They then get the article published in medical journals. The estimate is that half the articles in medical journals are submitted in this manner. The New England Journal of Medicine retracted an article when they found that the doctor whose name was on the article had nothing to do with it.”)
4 (Congressman Dr. Dave Weldon wrote a letter to the Centers for Disease Control stating his concern that the CDC had allowed someone who worked for a vaccine manufacturer to manipulate data about the safety of vaccines and later publish this manipulated data in the Journal of Pediatrics without acknowledging that he had a conflict of interest in working for the drug company.)
Dr. Block, “Studies have showed that some medical journals, even prominent ones, are less likely to publish certain articles if they make one of their advertisers look bad. We know that over 50% of the medical journal’s ads are for drugs.
Sandy Zimmerman, “Have you personally experienced this?”
Dr. Block, “There is even pressure when it gets into the doctor’s realm. We are required to attend so many hours of medical education each year and most of these educational meetings are given by doctors who are being paid by the pharmaceutical companies to speak for them. When I was asked to speak at a Medical Association meeting, a requirement was to find a pharmaceutical sponsor if I was going to speak.”
Sandy Zimmerman, “Does this only happen in the drug industry?”
Dr. Block, “The whole medical field is so influenced by the Pharma industry and is so controlled as is our politics. Drugs can be life saving, I do prescribe drugs but what is missing in medicine today,
unfortunately, is really looking for the underlining cause of problems and fixing that rather than just throwing drugs at symptoms. If your doctor can only spend seven minutes with you there is very little time for us to listen to your chief complaint and give you a prescription. The public may not be aware that is the way medicine is today.”
Dr. Mary Block, DO, wrote No More ADHD, No More Ritalin, No More Antibiotics, Just because You’re Depressed Doesn’t Mean You have Depression, The ABC’s of Raising Great Kids, Safe and Healthy Weight Loss. www.blockcenter.com [email protected] www.discovertheultimate.com