Socio-Economics History Blog

Socio-Economics & History Commentary

Zeitgeist: The Central Banksters’ Fiat Monetary Enslavement System

May 12, 2009 Posted by | Economics, EndTimes, GeoPolitics, History | , , | Comments Off

Merck’s ‘Hit List’ of Doctors

  • Big Pharma has grown too powerful and getting to be more corrupt. Medicine is no longer chiefly about curing people of diseases. But it is focus on profits. The Guardian UK reports :
      
    A fascinating court case in Australia has been playing out around some people who had heart attacks after taking the Merck drug ­Vioxx. This medication turned out to increase the risk of heart attacks in people taking it, although that finding was arguably buried in their research, and Merck has paid out more than £2bn to 44,000 people in America – however, they deny any fault.
      …
    The first fun thing to emerge in the Australian case is email documentation showing staff at Merck made a “hit list” of doctors who were critical of the company, or of the drug. This list contained words such as “neutralise”, “neutralised” and “discredit” next to the names of various doctors.
     
    “We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live,” said one email, from a Merck employee. Staff are also alleged to have used other tactics, such as trying to interfere with academic appointments, and dropping hints about how funding to institutions might dry up. Institutions might think about whether they wish to receive money from a company like that in future. Worse still, is the revelation that Merck paid the publisher Elsevier to produce a publication.
      ……
    This time Elsevier Australia went the whole hog, giving Merck an entire publication which resembled an academic journal, although in fact it only contained reprinted articles, or summaries, of other articles. In issue 2, for example, nine of the 29 articles concerned Vioxx, and a dozen of the remainder were about another Merck drug, Fosamax. All of these articles presented positive conclusions. Some were bizarre: such as a review article containing just two references.
     
    In a statement to The Scientist magazine, Elsevier at first said the company “does not today consider a compilation of reprinted articles a ‘journal’”. I would like to expand on this ­statement: It was a collection of academic journal articles, published by the academic journal publisher Elsevier, in an academic ­journal-shaped package. Perhaps if it wasn’t an academic journal they could have made this clearer in the title which, I should have mentioned, was named: The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine.
     
    Things have deteriorated since. It turns out that Elsevier put out six such journals, sponsored by industry. The Elsevier chief executive, Michael Hansen, has now admitted that they were made to look like journals, and lacked proper disclosure. “This was an unacceptable practice and we regret that it took place,” he said.     

end

May 12, 2009 Posted by | Medicine & Health | 1 Comment

CDC: Swine Flu Spreading Too Fast to Count

  • The good news is that this is a mild 3 day flu. The casualty rate of 1-2% isn’t alarming at all. Seasonal flu kills half a million people worldwide in a year. MSNBC reports :
      
    Swine flu is spreading so far and fast in the U.S. that state health officials may soon stop counting individual cases, a federal health official said Monday.
     
    The novel H1N1 virus accounted for 40 percent of flu viruses logged in the U.S. in the past week and helped propel an uptick in overall flu-like illnesses, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, a deputy director with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
     
    “I think the cases we’re confirming are the tip of the iceberg here,” Schuchat said in a press briefing Monday.
      
    The CDC has confirmed more than 2,000 cases in 43 states and Washington D.C., with 94 hospitalizations and three deaths. Another 700 cases are suspected. Although the flu is spreading quickly, it remains relatively mild in the U.S., say health officials.
     
    “They tell us for sure this virus is circulating throughout the United States and it’s likely to be in every state,” Schuchat said, adding: “It’s a time when we really need to guard against complacency as we move to a new normal.”
     
    The CDC has started tracking the novel virus using the surveillance system used for seasonal influenza, called FluView.

end

May 12, 2009 Posted by | Medicine & Health | | Comments Off

The Final Push for World Government

end

May 12, 2009 Posted by | Economics, EndTimes, GeoPolitics | , | Comments Off

   

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 502 other followers