| Dangerous Drugs?
"U.S. Says Doctors Overcharge Patients for Anti-Cancer
Drugs"
From the New York Times on August 6, 2000 comes an article
reporting on the view of the Medicare program that docs who
administer chemo-therapy in their offices are taking a
healthy (pun intended) mark-up on the treatment.
The bottomline in the deal is that now that the federal
gubment better understands the mark-up docs are taking on
the drugs they plan as early as October 1 to reduce the
payment made to oncologist for office administered
chemotherapy.
The docs say they are using the mark-up to cover overhead,
the feds say they are gouging. The docs plan to just send
the patient to a hospital someplace if they can't get the
margins they are looking for... Marcus Welby where are you?
"High Tech Cures for Medical Errors"
The above is the title of an opinion piece appearing in the
Washington Post written by the former speaker of the house
the Honorable Newt Gingrich of Georgia.
On August 6, 2000, Newt waded in on the subject of medical
error recounting the numbers from Lucian Leape regarding
loaded planes crashing "Imagine that we had an airline crash
every day, taking the lives of more than 250 Americans. The
country would be outraged, the president would be demanding
action and Congress would be passing emergency legislation.
And yet a tragedy of similar proportions is occurring right
now in American hospitals."
Newt goes on to call on Congress and the president to drag
health care, kicking and screaming or going quietly, into
the new millennium with "modern management information
systems."
The solutions according to the former Speaker include the
conversion of the prescription process to an electronic
environment and the development of personal medical
information systems. He cites a group in Las Vegas that has
filled 50 million prescriptions without a single error and
the newly designed patient information system at the
Veteran's Administration Center in Palo Alto, California as
examples of best practices.
His bottomline: Within three years every prescription
written in the United States should be generated
electronically and cross referenced for appropriateness etc
with every patient file which has also been converted to an
electronic form.
*** Hospital Cutbacks In Nursing Staff Deadly To Patients
A study done by The Chicago Tribune reports that hospitals
across the country have quietly been eliminating their
highest paid, best trained and most experienced nurses. This
has led to numerous patient deaths directly due to
overworked and under trained nursing staffs.
The author says that since 1995 at least 1720 hospital
patients have been accidentally killed and 9584 others
injured by nurses who are committing errors due to staff
reductions and poor training. Because the process of
reporting medical errors is so inadequate, the above figures
likely only represent the tip of the iceberg.
In what is becoming a national trend among hospitals, even
those that are doing well financially, the more educated,
better trained registered nurses are being replaced with
lesser trained, lower salaried practical nurses and aides.
The reason? To increase or maintain profitability, even at
the sacrifice of patient safety.
According to the study, the American Hospital Association
(AHA) was warned by their president Dick Davidson in 1996
that the public was beginning to notice the "thinness" of
nurse staffing.
Davidson said at the time that "Patients suffered,
literally, because medications and vital, comforting
services were delayed, confused or forgotten."
In commentary, we find it appalling that hospitals are
cutting nursing staff as a way to increase profits. When
patient safety becomes secondary to the bottom line, serious
doubts arise about the intelligence and integrity of the
people making those decisions. There is no greater
responsibility in any health care system than the safety of
the patient.
Drug Errors In Children Draw Alarm
Medscape reported on July 2, 2000 that errors in medication
for children are creating a growing problem. The article
states that the problem is due to the lack of information on
the effects of many drugs on children. Most research is done
with drugs on adults, little information is then known on
the effects on children. The article states that improper
dosage is the most common error that causes problems. They
note that infants and children are not "little adults" and
should not be treated as such. The article lists several
facts demonstrating the "Big Problems". They are:
- medication errors, excluding adverse reactions, are
responsible for 14% of drug-related deaths
- 5% of US hospital drug orders contain errors
- 4 to 10% of US pharmacy-dispensed drugs involve some
form of error; 0.6 to 1.5% of these are considered
serious.
- in France, 30% of pediatric calls to poison centers
involve infants; the most common concern is an error of
dose. Hospitalization is necessary in about 15% of cases.
Highlighting this problem is an article from
Reuters News dated May 15, 2000 which headlines the fact
that more children are being placed on a combination of
medications such as Ritalin and Prozac. In this article Dr.
Jerry Rushton of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor,
states, "I think the safety of these medications--in the
young child especially--is not known, and when you take them
in combination it is a whole new level of safety concern."
The alarming numbers in this article show that by 1998, 10%
of children aged 6 to 14 years were on Ritalin or
stimulants, as were 1% of preschoolers aged 1 to 5 years.
Chiropractic care has long suggested that a proper
functioning nervous system, free from interference creates a
healthier functioning child. Studies done such as the one at
Mississippi State University, published in the October 12,
1989 issue of the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological
Therapeutics, showed that a non-drug approach can help
children with hyperactivity. The researchers remarked,
"the majority of the children in this study did, in fact,
improve under specific chiropractic care."
Tuesday, June 27, 2000
Raising Kids To Be Drug Addicts? - From EagleForum.org
comes an article titled,
"Is Ritalin Raising Kids To Be Drug Addicts?"
The article states that "three
to four million U.S. schoolchildren are using the
controversial stimulant Ritalin" and that "its illicit use
is providing a powerful kick to college students, too."
According to the article, it was found that "one in five
college students on Ritalin are upping their doses or
otherwise misusing their prescriptions" with some
sharing their pills with friends.
The article states that some students "crush and snort
Ritalin as a substitute for cocaine" and points out that,
"methylphenidate [the key ingredient in Ritalin] is a
central nervous system stimulant and shares many of the
pharmacological effects of amphetamine, methamphetamine, and
cocaine" according to a 1995 Drug Enforcement Administration
report. According to the article, pediatric guidelines for
diagnosing ADHD are "non - scientific" and "subjective." The
article mentions that,
"many high school shootings have been linked to prescribed
mind-altering drugs." According to the article, "Oregon
high school killer
Kip Kinkel had been given
Ritalin and
Prozac, Columbine killer
Eric Harris had taken another
psychotropic drug, Georgia high school student
T.J. Solomon had been on
Ritalin prior to his alleged shooting spree, and
Oklahoma middle school student
Seth Trickey was on two drugs described to have
psychotic effects when he allegedly shot at four
students."
Although
Ritalin has not been approved by the FDA for use by children
under age six, the article states that "about one
percent of children aged 2 to 4 are using Ritalin or
Ritalin-like drugs, and that percentage is increasing
rapidly."
What effect are these drugs having on children's nervous
systems? Are they getting healthier by taking all these
drugs?
EagleForum.org:
Friday February 9 1:21 PM ET
MMR Vaccine Does Not Cause Autism, Study Finds
By Suzanne Rostler
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A vaccine that is routinely
given to millions of children each year does not cause
autism, researchers report.
Their study adds to a growing body of evidence
demonstrating that the measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine
does not underlie a surge in the number of children who have
been diagnosed with the disorder over the past 30 years.
According to the report in the February 17th issue of the
British Medical Journal, the rate of autism rose sevenfold
to 2.1 cases per 10,000 people per year in 1999, from 0.3
cases per 10,000 people per year in 1988 among children age
12 and younger in the UK. The rate of autism nearly
quadrupled among boys aged 2 to 5 years to 29 cases per
10,000 people per year in 1998, from 8 cases per 10,000
people per year in 1993, results show.
But the rate of autism would not have continued to rise if
MMR vaccine was a major cause, since the proportion of
infants who received the vaccine remained stable at around
97% of infant ``Our finding an increasing risk of
autism...while the MMR coverage was constant and nearly
complete is evidence against a causal link between the MMR
vaccine and the risk of autism,'' Dr. James A. Kaye
of the Boston University School of Medicine in Lexington,
Massachusetts, and the study's lead author, told Reuters
Health.
He said an increased awareness, a broader definition of
the disease and environmental factors that have not been
identified may be to blame for the increasing rate of
autism, a disorder that impairs language and normal social
development. While the study could reassure parents about
the safety of a vaccine that protects children against three
potentially fatal illnesses, the researchers stress that the
findings are not intended to provide recommendations.
``We hope that our...work will add important information to
the ongoing discussions about the safety of the MMR vaccin
(but we don't want to) make any specific recommendations
about its use, which we believe is better left to individual
doctors, , the UK Medicines Control Agency, and other
professional medical groups,'' Kaye said in the interview.
The study included 305 children age 12 and younger, who had
been diagnosed with autism between 1988 and 1999. A subgroup
of boys, who have a much higher rate of autism than girls,
was also analyzed.
The investigators also found that about 83% of autism cases
were boys and the peak age at which children were diagnosed
with autism was 3 to 4 years.
SOURCE: British Medical Journal 2001;322:0-2.
Monday, March 12, 2001,
12:00 a.m. Pacific
Doctor bill for nation is soaring
by Anjetta McQueen
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The nation's annual bill for health care has
risen to a record $1.2 trillion, with
prescription drugs accounting for nearly 10 percent of the
costs and expected to grab an even larger share of what
Americans pay to get or stay healthy,government
estimates show.
Overall health-care spending will more than double to
$2.6 trillion by 2010, in part because drug costs are
projected to rise on average 12.6 percent every year,
federal health economists said in an annual report being
published today.
Overall health-care spending includes such things as
hospital-construction costs, but close to 90 percent is
personal health-care spending: doctors' visits, hospitals
stays, medicines and other medical services. The
drug-spending boom - $99.6 billion in 1999, the latest year
for which figures were available - comes not only with an
aging population, but as more patients ask for newer,
high-priced drugs marketed to them on television and take
drug treatments at home for conditions that once landed them
in hospitals, the report said.
Those trends could slow with an economic slowdown, when some
employers and insurers could pass the growing costs onto
consumers accustomed to low co-payments and other fees, said
economists at the Health Care Financing Administration,
which runs Medicare.
"There are going to be trade-offs," said Katharine Levit,
economist on the spending report. "It puts increased
pressure on all of us - the government, employers, providers
- to somehow make choices in terms of how we spend our
money." Consumer advocates say that patients who need
prescription drugs will suffer in other ways if they do not
get increased access to lower-cost generic drugs, expansive
drug-coverage policies and lower premiums. "The personal
cost is very real and very dramatic," said Gail Shearer, who
handles health-cost issues for the Consumers Union,
publisher of Consumer Reports magazine. "Children won't be
getting the medicines they need to make them better. People
of every age group will be suffering or they will have to
neglect other basic needs." The government publishes the
health-care-spending forecasts in the journal Health
Affairs, projecting expenditures on health care by patients,
their insurance plans and government programs.
In 1999, prescription drugs accounted for 9.4 percent of
personal-health spending; by 2010, prescription drugs' share
will be 16 percent, outpacing other services
such as nursing homes and home-based health care, the report
said. Prescription drugs also cut into Americans'
out-of-pocket costs, expenses not offset by a private or
government insurer.
People spent $34.9 billion on drugs, compared with $12.6
billion for hospital care and $30.7 billion for doctor or
clinic visits, the report said. The estimates
have implications for the government as well.
The projected drug cost total for 2010 - $366 billion
- does not take into account what could be spent on
medicines if they were fully covered under the Medicare
program.
Adding prescription-drug benefits to Medicare is a leading
issue in Congress this year. President Bush and Senate
lawmakers have competing plans on the table.
Observers say the forecasts only prove that Congress cannot
leave Medicare participants - 39 million elderly and
disabled Americans - unable to pay for valuable medicines.
Discredited diabetes drug got help from government
 by David
Willman
Los Angeles Times
CHUCK KENNEDY / KNIGHT RIDDER
Dr. John Gueriguian was pulled off the Rezulin assignment
after he questioned the drug's safety.
WASHINGTON - Executives of the Warner-Lambert Co. brimmed
with confidence as they marched the now-discredited diabetes
pill Rezulin toward government approval in the mid-1990s.
And with good reason, according to newly obtained company
and government documents. As portrayed in the records,
officials of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provided
Warner-Lambert with inside information and favors at
critical moments throughout the development and marketing of
Rezulin. At least one Warner-Lambert senior manager believed
that if an FDA medical officer who had questioned the drug's
safety and effectiveness didn't please the company, he would
be "out." Soon enough, he was, prompting another executive
to report internally that a "hurdle" had been cleared for
Rezulin. The records also shed new light on the state of
knowledge within Warner-Lambert of Rezulin's potential
danger: Executives knew that patients who took the drug in
clinical studies had suffered life-threatening liver damage
- yet the company assured an FDA panel that the risk was
trivial.
The company's assurances helped win swift approval for
Rezulin four years ago from the FDA. The drug was withdrawn
in March of last year after being cited as the suspect in
391 deaths, including 63 that involved liver failure.
In the interim, Rezulin generated sales of $2.1 billion.
Internal memos and e-mails
The new documents, which have been kept from public view by
court orders or by the FDA, were obtained by the Los Angeles
Times. The internal memos and e-mails provide an intimate
view of how a company seeking a blockbuster drug
collaborated closely with the public-health agency
responsible for ensuring that medicines are proved safe and
effective. However, at the same time the FDA was being urged
by Congress and the White House to function less as an
adversary and more as a partner of the $100-billion-a-year
pharmaceutical industry. This transformation of the FDA came
after the agency's streamlined approvals of experimental
AIDS drugs. Pharmaceutical companies pushed for similarly
rapid consideration of new drugs for a wide range of
disorders, regardless of whether the products offered
life-saving benefits. And in Rezulin, the FDA was dealing
with a drug that had not been proved to save lives or to
reduce the serious complications of adult-onset diabetes.
'Comparable to placebo'
It was against this backdrop that Warner-Lambert's vice
president for diabetes research, Dr. Randall Whitcomb, told
an FDA advisory committee on Dec. 11, 1996, that occurrences
of liver injury among Rezulin patients were "comparable to
placebo" in the clinical studies. In fact, the incidence
among patients who took the drug was more than three times
greater than for those given placebo pills. Among those
patients who took Rezulin, 2.2 percent experienced liver
injury, compared to 0.6 percent for those who took the
placebo. In a recent sworn deposition for lawsuits brought
by plaintiffs from Texas, Missouri and West Virginia,
Whitcomb defended his earlier characterizations.
" `Comparable' is, is, you know, is an interesting word,"
Whitcomb testified. "Is 2.2 percent different than 0.6
percent? ... I think you could look at 2.2 and 0.6 and say
that those are similar numbers, you know, when you look at
this now. I mean, `similar' is a, is a very broad term. ...
I don't think that these numbers are, are all that
different."
But documents reveal that concern about liver toxicity
within Warner-Lambert was such that the company prepared a
label for the drug in 1996 recommending that patients
"should be monitored at 3 months then every 6 months." The
company abandoned the recommendation for liver monitoring
before seeking the FDA advisory committee's endorsement in
December 1996. Such a condition would have drastically
reduced Rezulin's sales potential, according to doctors who
point out that at least nine less-risky diabetes drugs were
available. Warner-Lambert did not publicly recommend liver
monitoring for Rezulin patients until late October 1997 -
and then only after the first reported liver-failure deaths
among those who were prescribed the drug.
Whitcomb, 46, who was Warner-Lambert's chief medical
proponent of Rezulin from 1993-2000, is now a part-time
consultant to Pfizer, the parent company. Whitcomb did not
return a phone call placed to his home.
No monitoring 'necessary'
In recent sworn testimony, Whitcomb said he and others at
the company "did not believe monitoring was necessary at the
time the product was launched."
However, at least 12 Rezulin patients in the studies were
found to have potentially life-threatening liver toxicity,
the records show, dating as early as 1993. All of the
patients had markers of liver toxicity 10 to 30 times
greater than the "upper limit of normal." Records show that
before the drug was approved on Jan. 29, 1997, at least four
Rezulin patients in clinical studies were known by the
company or its consultants to have suffered jaundice, a
complication that carries a 10 percent fatality rate. No
instances of jaundice or other markers of life-threatening
liver toxicity occurred among the placebo patients. On June
29, 1995, Whitcomb informed company-paid physicians testing
Rezulin in the United States that a patient in Japan was
hospitalized with jaundice after taking the drug for three
months. "The Japanese investigator believed this hepatic
dysfunction is probably related to (Rezulin)," Whitcomb
wrote. But he concluded that in Warner-Lambert's opinion,
"causality is indeterminable." In December 1996, Whitcomb
assured the FDA's Endocrine and Metabolic Drugs Advisory
Committee that Warner-Lambert had gathered results from
clinical studies worldwide, yet he cited only one case of
jaundice occurring among Rezulin patients.
"We also have all of the safety data from 629 patients from
Europe," Whitcomb said. "And we have another 1,000 patients
from Japan. ... We have all of the safety data available
from that." It was not until March 26, 1998 - nearly six
months after the first liver-failure deaths - that Whitcomb
publicly acknowledged the severe liver-toxicity cases
observed in clinical studies. Whitcomb did so not in a
mass-mailed letter to physicians, but rather in a
seven-paragraph letter published by the New England Journal
of Medicine.
Two months later, a consultant hired by Warner-Lambert to
prepare an inventory of liver injury among patients who were
prescribed Rezulin complained that the company had
understated the number of deaths. The inventory was to be
submitted to the FDA by Warner-Lambert's Parke-Davis drug
unit.
'Something is truly amiss'
"We have serious concerns about the case files generated for
us by Parke-Davis," consultant Linda Miwa of the Degge Group
Ltd., of Arlington, Va., wrote on May 5, 1998, to a
Warner-Lambert vice president. " ... For example, the table
of events lists five deaths. By our assessment, there are 14
liver deaths alone. We feel something is truly amiss here."
The documents show that more mistrust followed the liver
failure and death, on May 17, 1998, of an East St. Louis,
Ill., high-school teacher who had taken Rezulin in a
diabetes-prevention study sponsored by Warner-Lambert and
the National Institutes of Health. While the death prompted
NIH officials to banish Rezulin from the ongoing study, an
FDA medical officer, Dr. Robert Misbin, told a colleague in
a July 22, 1998 e-mail: "Parke Davis is clearly unwilling to
inform physicians about the grossly elevated liver enzymes
which occured (sic) during the clinical trials. This is not
surprizing (sic) because they did not inform the Advisory
Committee either." Misbin had asked the company to
acknowledge the cases in a "Dear Dr." letter to physicians
nationwide.
A consultant to Warner-Lambert who helped conduct two of its
studies alleged one year ago in a letter to Sen. Edward M.
Kennedy, D-Mass., that the company "deliberately omitted
reports of liver toxicity and misrepresented serious adverse
events experienced by patients in their clinical studies."
One of the cases involved a patient who was hospitalized
with jaundice. The company denied the accusations, made by
Dr. Janet McGill, a St. Louis endocrinologist.
FDA worked with company
Documents reveal that throughout Rezulin's rise and fall,
senior FDA officials quietly collaborated with
Warner-Lambert. Those who provided behind-the-scenes help to
the company included Dr. Murray "Mac" Lumpkin, who now is
among those being considered for appointment as FDA
commissioner, and the chairman of the FDA advisory
committee, Dr. Henry Bone III of Detroit.
One of the company's earliest concerns was the role of Dr.
John Gueriguian, the FDA medical officer assigned in the
early 1990s to examine Rezulin and its chemical class of
drugs. Gueriguian, the newly obtained records show, voiced
concern to Warner-Lambert as early as January 1994 about
Rezulin's "potential toxicities."
The next year, Gueriguian challenged whether
Warner-Lambert's proposed design for studying Rezulin in a
forthcoming clinical trial would provide a legitimate
evaluation of the drug's usefulness. On Aug. 7, 1995, the
day before FDA officials were to meet internally to resolve
the matter, Gueriguian's boss, Dr. G. Alexander Fleming,
phoned a senior manager at Warner-Lambert, Mary E. Taylor.
According to Taylor's memorandum, "Dr. Fleming asked me to
call Dr. Gueriguian. ... He also offered that if our
discussion did not go well, he would ease Dr. Gueriguian
out." Taylor distributed this memo to six company
executives.
One of those executives had written in a company e-mail on
June 22, 1994, that he and Fleming had just discussed the
company's "interactions" with Gueriguian. According to the
e-mail, Fleming "implied that, while Dr. Gueriguian will
remain for now the (medical) reviewer," he would "likely" be
replaced. Fleming said last week he did not recall making a
"commitment" to Taylor that he would remove Gueriguian from
the review of Rezulin if she became displeased.
After Warner-Lambert complained in October 1996 that
Gueriguian used a vulgarity to describe Rezulin, the FDA
stripped him of any further role with the drug. By that
time, the veteran medical officer was recommending rejection
of the pill, warning in a written review of its potential to
harm the liver and the heart. He also questioned its
worthiness as a blood-sugar-lowering agent.
'Out of the picture'
The FDA's banishment of Gueriguian clearly pleased
Warner-Lambert's executive vice president for regulatory
affairs, Irwin Martin, who e-mailed colleagues on Oct. 16,
1996, saying, "We're over the JG hurdle." Martin wrote that
Fleming assured him, "John (Gueriguian) is `out of the
picture.' His review is complete. ... It will not go to the
advisory committee." Gueriguian was formally removed from
the review of Rezulin on Nov. 4, 1996.
On Dec. 2, 1996 - nine days before the FDA advisory
committee would meet to consider Rezulin's approval -
Fleming e-mailed Martin an encrypted copy of Gueriguian's
medical review. That same day, Fleming wrote in a separate
e-mail to colleagues that Lumpkin had told him Gueriguian's
review "is not FOIable." By this, Fleming suggested the
document would be withheld from public view because
consumers, the news media or others could not obtain it
under the Freedom of Information Act. The FDA staff withheld
the existence of Gueriguian's review from members of the
advisory committee. Lumpkin, at the time the No. 2 official
of the agency's drug-review center, did not return calls
last week.
On Dec. 9, 1996, two days before the advisory committee
meeting, Fleming e-mailed Martin: "The drug looks like it
ought to be on the market. Loosen up and put on a good
presentation. Call if you need help."
Senior agency officials remained helpful as the company
pushed to keep Rezulin on the U.S. market in the face of the
ever-mounting liver failures and deaths and the withdrawal
of the product from Britain. On June 6, 1998, just days
after the NIH banished Rezulin from its study, Martin wrote
in a company memo that he had discussed "the current Rezulin
issues" with Lumpkin while the two attended a drug-industry
trade group gathering. According to Martin's memo, a
subordinate of Lumpkin, Dr. James Bilstad, at that time was
considering a change in Rezulin's labeling that could have
dealt a crippling blow to the drug: a recommendation for
twice-a-month liver testing for all patients.
Publicly, the company and the FDA were still assuring
doctors that the risk of liver failure was very rare and
could be managed with once-a-month monitoring for the first
half-year of use. Martin wrote that he and Lumpkin
"discussed alternatives" to the imposition of twice-monthly
monitoring.
Discussion of Rezulin shelved
"He (Lumpkin) also agreed that we need to evaluate these
(liver-failure) cases, and not simply act because NIH did."
The FDA abandoned the idea of recommending twice-monthly
monitoring and continued to assure doctors that Rezulin
could be used safely. In the same memo, Martin said that he
expressed "concern" to Lumpkin about the FDA's Misbin. The
previous month Misbin was instructed by his bosses to cancel
his commitment to discuss Rezulin and its liver toxicity at
a public conference in the Washington area.
"I thanked Mac for his help on the last issue with Misbin
wanting to speak publicly about Rezulin hepatotox," Martin
wrote, adding in a subsequent e-mail that Misbin's
appearance was "canceled by Mac."
Lumpkin also encouraged Warner-Lambert to forcefully
highlight anecdotes of happy Rezulin patients, Martin wrote
in his June 6, 1998, e-mail. "Mac suggested those stories
need to come out."
Pfizer, in a financial statement last fall to the Securities
and Exchange Commission, said that as of mid-October it was
defending against 383 Rezulin-related lawsuits filed in
state and federal courts. In addition to the civil suits,
prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Greenbelt,
Md., began questioning FDA officials last year about
circumstances surrounding the approval of Rezulin.
Copyright © 2001 The Seattle Times Company
January 18, 2000
MORE THAN HALF OF AMERICANS AT RISK OF DRUG INTERACTIONS
The Alternative Medicine Newsletter tells us about a
disturbing survey reported by the American Society of
Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) which found that more
than half of all Americans are at risk of possible drug
interactions.
- The survey found that of 1000 American questioned,
-
*46% take at least one prescription medicine every
day.
*25% take multiple prescription medicines daily.
*56% had taken 2 over-the-counter medications or
supplements in the week before they were surveyed.
*39% surveyed tell their doctor or nurse about their
drug use
*8% failed to tell them at all
Mick Hunt, president of the ASHP says that
"as you take more medications [the] opportunity for drug
interactions grows."E."healthcare providers need to do a
little bit better job at pulling that information out," but
ultimately the pharmacist is better qualified at helping
patients be better informed on the dangers of the drugs they
are taking and how they interact.
Commentary: Seems to us the safest approach may be to rely
less on dangerous drugs and more on a properly functioning
body, maintained through Chiropractic Wellness CareE.Dr.
Acosta
February 14, 2001
FLUORIDE INDUCED AILMENTS WIDESPREAD
Alternative Medicine Newsletter:
Millions of people throughout India, China and parts of
Africa currently suffer from various forms of fluoride
toxicity and that millions of Americans may be suffering
from it as well. Fluoride has been added to the nation's
water supply for years as a tooth decay preventative and has
been touted by some as being safe. Not so, says Paul Connett,
PhD of the Fluoride Action Network (FAN). Millions of people
around the world are suffering from a form of fluoride
poisoning known as skeletal fluorosis. The symptoms of
skeletal fluorosis very closely mimic the symptoms of
arthritis and include chronic joint pain, muscle wasting,
calcification of spinal structures and bone deformities.
According to the Journal of the American Chemical Society,
"the first two clinical phases [of skeletal fluorosis]
could be easily misdiagnosed" as arthritis. The journal
also goes on to report that "virtually no research" has been
done to determine how much misdiagnosis occursEEr. Connett
goes on to say that Americans are exposed to high levels of
fluoride through fluoridated water, dental products and
pesticide residues. He warns that continued exposure to
fluoride may well be a contributing factor to the greatly
increased levels of arthritis in the U.S., particularly in
the elderly.
More information on this story can be found at
www.fluoridealert.org
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