Fwd: Big Pharma Juggernaut Rolls To Victory

[Guest guest]

Big Pharma Juggernaut Rolls To Victory – Health Freedom Reels – Part 1

http://www.truthinwellness.com/articles/health_freedom_reels_pt1.php

 

Byron J. Richards, CCN, December 11, 2006

 

 

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Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson not only rolled over in their graves,

they had a stake driven through their coffins by the departing 109th Congress.

Big Pharma is now fully in charge of the FDA. Therapeutic nutrition is now

marked for elimination from the free market. How did this happen? What does it

all mean? Why did the House Democrats, at 3:06 A.M., while Americans slept,

stab our people in the back? It is an ominous sign of things to come.

 

As the lame duck session drew to a close, it became clear that the

Republican’s scorched-earth policy was intended to make it difficult for the

Democrats to get anything done next year. They are hoping to regain voter

confidence by making Democrats look even worse than the Republican’s near-total

ineptitude, which is not a very tall order.

 

However, the Republicans and Democrats were able to agree on several key

points regarding your health: health options for Americans should be curtailed

and the American public should be subjected to massive drug experimentation.

Thus, with little fanfare or reporting by the general media, the Destroy

Effective Supplements and Poison Americans with Biotech Drugs Innovation Act of

2006 (S.666 and HR.1832), was passed in the middle of the night, just as the

lame duck session came to a close.

 

Americans seem almost numb to the fact that Big Pharma kills several thousand

of us every week. Kudos to the 109th Congress, those numbers will now

dramatically rise.

 

Big Pharma Now Runs the FDA

 

Yes, the fox is now officially in charge of the henhouse. Over the objection

of a small handful of Senators Big Pharma couldn’t buy, Andrew von Eschenbach,

M.D, was confirmed to head the FDA. His clearly stated agenda is, and always

has been, speeding new and dangerous drugs onto the market with little testing

for safety or effectiveness. Von Eschenbach would like to turn every doctor’s

office in America into a large clinical trial run by an FDA supercomputer, he

would like a computer chip in your arm, and your DNA in his supercomputer – and

if you don’t comply you soon won’t get medical services (read Fight for Your

Health: Exposing the FDA’s Betrayal of America). The experiment, known as the

Critical Path Initiative, is now full steam ahead! Of course, when Americans

are injured and killed, von Eschenbach is pushing heavily to make sure no one

can sue for damages.

 

Andrew von Eschenbach is up to his eyeballs in Big Pharma connections. As

director of the National Cancer Institute he perverted billions of taxpayer

dollars away from solid science on desperately needed cancer research and into

the coffers of his biotech and pharmaceutical pals, collectively known as

C-Change. Now, he actually wants to turn part of the FDA into a drug company and

even has a name for it, the Reagan-Udahl Center for Biomedical Research. Big

Pharma co-sponsors, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Mike Enzi (R-MT), are

attempting to fund his new FDA drug company with taxpayer money, which could

easily be funneled through the National Cancer Institute, into the hands of his

C-Change friends, and then used to pay for FDA drug approvals (S.3807). In

other words, the American taxpayer will soon be slated to pay for the

development of all these new biotech drugs, and then pay exorbitant drug prices

for the “privilege” of being part of a human experiment.

 

As temporary head of the FDA, von Eschenbach proved he could adeptly cover for

drug companies, even when they blatantly lied to the FDA! Such was the case

with Trasylol, the Bayer heart bypass drug that needlessly kills and causes

permanent kidney damage, which, thanks to von Eschenbach, is still on the market

injuring Americans this holiday season.

 

Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) was hot and heavy on the von Eschenbach

protection agenda for Big Pharma and had placed a hold on his nomination over

von Eschenbach’s flagrant violations of law and the FDA’s cover-up of fraud

relating to the Ketek antibiotic. Von Eschenbach’s utter disdain of

Congressional oversight should be a major concern to all Americans. On December

7, 2006, this is what Grassley had to say:

 

People ought to be ashamed of saying Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach has done a

superb job in the position he is currently occupying [acting head of the

FDA].…That is an insult….In my interactions with the Department of Health and

Human Services and the FDA these last 8 months, I have seen a complete and utter

disrespect for congressional authority and hence the law.…In Cedar Rapids, IA, I

have a family that lost an 18-year-old because of a drug [Ketek] that was on the

market then and which is not on the market now….It seems to me that if you are

concerned about the safety of drugs, this information is important, and if you

are going to have it covered up in the FDA, you aren't protecting the

public.…This body [the Senate] should not walk hand in hand with the executive

branch and sit idly by as instances of abuse and fraud continue to endanger the

health and safety of American people.

 

Following these frank and chilling statements of fact, the opinions of Orrin

Hatch (R-UT) were put forth to quell the concerns just raised:

 

To me it is simply unconscionable that the Food and Drug Administration, one

of the best little agencies in Government, has gone leaderless for such a period

of time…I know Dr. von Eschenbach well. He is a man of integrity….I urge my

colleagues--no, I implore my colleagues--to do what is right and vote [for] this

nomination….it is what the American people deserve.

 

Such a character endorsement, coming from a man at the top of Big Pharma’s

payout list, is hardly an encouragement to anyone. What is it that constitutes

integrity in Hatch’s mind? And just what is it that the American people

deserve? These questions were answered for us by Grassley, in his follow-up

testimony:

 

A vote for this nominee would be an endorsement of the stonewalling, but, more

importantly, the disrespect for Congress he has shown by not cooperating with

congressional oversight.…Under Dr. Von Eschenbach, the FDA has not only avoided

transparency, it also has threatened those who are trying to desperately expose

the truth….

 

This started back in January with Ketek and our getting involved in the

oversight. There was fraud in this Ketek study….In June, Dr. Von Eschenbach held

a meeting of FDA staff involving this drug I have been investigating,

questioning how it was handled--Ketek. FDA employees who were present say that

he used a lot of sports metaphors regarding being a “team player” and keeping

opinions “inside the locker room.” Basically, he said to not criticize the FDA

outside the locker room, “outside the locker room” being his words. Apparently

he stated that anyone who spoke outside the locker room might find themselves

“off the team”…

 

This nominee held this meeting in the midst of this ongoing congressional

investigation of this drug Ketek. He called the meeting after a number of

critical reports in the media about the FDA's handling of Ketek. A number of FDA

employees interviewed by the committee were offended by his comments, found them

highly questionable, inappropriate, and potentially threatening. I don't think

there was any “potential”' about it, they were meant to be threatening, and I

agree with the employees.

 

Leaders of an agency should not hold a meeting to suggest that dissenters will

be kicked off the team, particularly when the lives of American people are at

stake, when drugs are going to be put on the line and they might not be safe. I

can refer to the death of an 18-year-old in Cedar Rapids, IA. His is the type of

action that shows the true stripes of the nominee….The way the Food and Drug

Administration under this nominee has handled the investigation of Ketek shows

the agency would like to keep its business secret.

 

This gives us a very clear understanding of how Hatch defines a “man of

integrity.”

 

The Rise of the Hatch-et-man

 

In the gospel according to Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the R now stands for

regulation. It has been somewhat difficult for him taking large sums of money

from the supplement industry and Big Pharma at the same time; however, after 30

years of Senate politicking Hatch-et-man has talking out of both sides of his

mouth down to a science. And unfortunately for the supplement industry, he

takes the most money from Big Pharma. He has even been able to completely

forget that Republican core values center around less government regulation, not

more – especially when such regulation is totally unnecessary.

 

Under the false guise of consumer safety, Hatch-et-man was clearly the driving

force that ramrodded AER (Adverse Event Reporting) legislation for dietary

supplements, without any testimony or hearings, through the Senate and the

House. The net effect of the legislation will be to remove therapeutic

nutritional supplements from the market, health options millions of Americans

count on to remain well. This is a favor to Big Pharma, not the supplement

industry.

 

Of course, Democrats love the smell of any legislation smacking of increased

regulation of health care, thus they pounced on the bill, driving it through the

House with Democrats voting 134-4 to pass it. This is the first of many bills

the Democrats will endorse in the coming months to undermine the supplement

industry. Leading the charge against health freedom will be the Big Pharma

Democrat cartel. This group is composed of the vitamin-hating Senator Dick

Durbin (D-IL), along with Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA),

Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA), Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Senator Charles Schumer

(D-NY), Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), and Senator Hilary Clinton (D-NY). These

Big Pharma sponsors are sure to pile on in the coming months.

 

Now there are those out there who think Hatch-et-man is a friend of the

supplement industry, based on his long ago support of DSHEA. Well times have

change. Hatch-et-man wears a supplement industry suit and has a heart of Big

Pharma gold. His veins are icy cold, filled with a synthetic FDA-approved

blood.

 

Emboldened by his rise to power as a profit broker between Big Pharma, the

FDA, and the supplement industry, Hatch-et-man actually started to publicly

spill the beans. Maybe all the idiots in the supplement industry that either

supported the AER legislation or did little or nothing to stop it will start to

wake up.

 

In his December 6, 2006 Senate testimony he tells us that he has spoken to

Andrew von Eschenbach to ensure that the FDA will more vigorously pursue

supplement companies. His AER legislation was crafted with the help of over

twenty meetings with the supplement-despising FDA. He pays special thanks to

David Dorsey, a Senator Kennedy staffer, once a top FDA lawyer, who was

instrumental in drafting the bill, and his own Bruce Artim who has now, but not

surprisingly, moved on to a top position at Eli Lilly.

 

Yes, our wonderful Big Pharma-sponsored legislative system has now produced

draconian supplement-regulating legislation that could easily obliterate natural

therapeutic health options from planet earth, the true competition to Big Pharma

profits.

 

In Part 2 of this report I will explain how Hatch-et-man accomplished the sell

out of health options and health freedom for Americans, with special help from

traitors within the supplement industry itself.

 

 

 

© 2006 Truth in Wellness, LLC -

 

 

 

Byron J. Richards, Founder/Director of Wellness Resources, is a

Board-Certified Clinical Nutritionist and nationally-renowned health expert,

radio personality, educator, and author.

 

Richards encourages individuals to take charge of their health, stand up for

their health rights, and not blindly succumb to propaganda from the

vested-interests who profit from keeping Americans sick. Author of Mastering

Leptin and Fight for Your Health, Richards is now joining forces with health

freedom leaders in the U.S. and throughout the world. Visit his health blog for

up to date happenings. www.truthinwellness.com

 

As founder of Wellness Resources, Inc. of Minneapolis, MN (since 1985), he has

personally developed 75 unique nutraceutical-grade nutritional formulas.

www.wellnessresources.com

 

Charter Member of the International and American Associations of Clinical

Nutritionists (IAACN) (since 1991) Richards has presented hundreds of

educational classes to health professionals and individuals who want to take

charge of their health!

 

E-mail: byron

 

 

 

 

 

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