Richard Horton, the Editor-in-Chief of the Lancet, once observed:
The history of medicine is littered with wonderful early results which over a period of time turn out to be not so wonderful – or in fact even adverse… there are a whole string of recent examples where preliminary data led to a lot of excitement and caused changes in clinical practice and then eventually we realised they had done more harm than good. Why is it we never learn these lessons?
The pharmaceutical industry makes drugs for medical purposes. The industry campaigns hard for stronger patents throughout the world, though many economists are highly critical of patents in medicine. In some cases, patented drugs sell for thousands of times as much as they would cost if there were no patents. The industry illustrates some of the worst aspects of corporate power, corporate crimes, and ‘free lunches’ (or rents) that enrich executives and shareholders.
Social Costs, Private Profits
The early stages of drug research and development are often funded publicly, with universities and governments throughout the world paying much of the costs. Corporations often become involved only after early tests show promise. As one commentator pointed out:
The whole ecosystem in which innovation is housed – patents, copyright, finance, universities, research, knowledge transfer, ownership rules, regulation to ensure common standards – is co-created between the public and the private.
However, the companies that receive the patents keep the profits. Once they have a patent for a drug, companies can charge whatever will maximise their profits. In other words, whatever richer people can afford to pay. In an extreme case, a drug called Cerezyme cost over $200,000 for a year’s treatment, even though almost all of the development had been funded publicly. Healthcare systems in rich countries end up rationing drugs because of their cost.
Under these circumstances, allowing private companies to keep all of the profits from patented drugs, the development of which has been largely publicly funded, makes no sense. It is an example of how the economy is rigged to transfer immense wealth into the hands of executives and shareholders of big companies, whilst causing harm to others.
To make matters worse, it’s estimated that up to a third a of new drugs are no more effective than existing drugs. The Canadian government published a review of the 61 drugs patented in Canada in 2018. It concluded that only one was what is called a breakthrough, and 56 provided little or no improvement compared with existing medicines.
The U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) carried out a large study published in 2002 to see if existing drugs for high blood pressure worked. Some of the drugs were among the world’s biggest sellers, yet the study found that old-fashioned diuretics worked as well or better than anything else. The diuretics cost $37 per year. The other drugs tested cost $230-$715 dollars per year, yet doctors were mostly prescribing the more expensive drugs.
Huge amounts of money have been spent on diabetes drugs, such as Avandia, that turned out to be ineffective. When they were first introduced, they were initially promoted as life-saving. The flu drug, Tamiflu, had minimal value, but massive stockpiles were purchased against H1N1 influenza in 2009 due to misleading research data and corporate lobbying. The manufacturer, Roche, withheld data to mislead everyone. This should be considered a serious crime, but is not actually illegal.
Fraud and Deception are Widespread
If a drug is really effective, it requires no marketing. Proper scientific studies demonstrate the benefits, and doctors and healthcare networks all over the world will use it. However, because most drugs are not very effective, companies need to spend huge amounts ‘persuading’ doctors to prescribe them. This includes gifts, holidays and other inducements (a euphemism for bribes). Many doctors are happy to go along with this. In some countries there is also a great deal of more general advertising. In total, more is spent on marketing than on research. This marketing is ultimately paid for by the people who buy the drugs, making them much more expensive.
Many new drugs are copycat drugs. In other words, variations of existing drugs. Good examples are Cialis and Levitra, which are variations of Viagra. The companies have an oligopoly, so they can control prices. Huge sums are spent on marketing these copycat drugs, but if they did not exist, nobody would miss them.
All big pharmaceutical companies have been convicted of selling harmful, sometimes fatal drugs. The industry has been fined over $50 billion during the last twenty years. In 2012, the pharmaceutical company Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK) was fined £3 billion in the U.S. for mis-selling drugs; for fraud, bribery and overcharging; for paying lavish inducements to doctors; for covering up negative research evidence; and for making false claims about medicines. GSK has also been fined in India, South Africa and the UK. Although these figures sound large, they are not enough to deter the companies from continuing to commit these crimes. The sales of a single drug can be worth many times these amounts, so as far as the companies are concerned, crime pays. No individual is prosecuted for criminal offences. In 1997 some pharmaceutical companies were fined for operating a global price-fixing cartel. One author has gone so far as to say that the official definition of organised crime closely describes the activities of the drug companies.
The industry has a long history of exaggerating the benefits of its drugs, understating the downsides and hiding negative results. A recent study showed that in the real world, medicines tend to be four times more harmful than the manufacturers claim. Adverse effects hospitalise a quarter of a million people in the U.K. and 2 million in the U.S. each year. There were 55,000 deaths from the pain-relief drug Vioxx, but the data were withheld by the manufacturer, Merck. Large numbers of heart attacks, strokes and deaths were caused by the diabetes drug, Avandia. One expert commentator stated that:
Until more meaningful penalties and the prospect of jail time for company heads who are responsible for such activity become commonplace, companies will continue defrauding the Government and putting patients’ lives in danger.
Numerous studies have found that when corporations foot the bill, research is more likely to come up with results that support new drugs. In other words, there is now overwhelming evidence that drug companies manipulate the research. Companies test their own medicines, so testing is cleverly designed to emphasise benefits and understate harms. Negative trials have not always been published. They can get away with this because of inadequate regulation.
The pharmaceutical industry spends more than any other industry on lobbying the U.S. Government, spending $280 million in 2018. The purpose of this is to keep regulation of the industry favourable to its interests. The U.S. regulator is called the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It is underfunded, has shown little interest in safety and has no ongoing, long-term safety analysis. It also has serious conflicts of interest, with many staff connected to the industry. The former FDA chief went to work for the drug company, Pfizer. Many former members of the U.S. Congress have taken jobs as lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry.
Astonishingly, the regulatory situation in Britain is even worse. The U.K. regulator (MHRA) has not successfully prosecuted a single firm, and the fines total just £73,300. The regulator boasted in 2012 of having given 467 warnings and 151 cautions, but these have no effect. Laws and regulations are not enforced, and conflicts of interest exist throughout the whole drug approval system.
All of these factors have been at work during Covid. There is increasing concern that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has been captured by pharmaceutical interests. There is also evidence that university research has been manipulated by funders. The profit motive in the hands of companies with immense power seems to corrupt everything it touches. The injections that are labelled ‘vaccines’ are described by governments and manufacturers as ‘safe and effective’, yet the evidence shows that the claimed effectiveness has been hugely exaggerated, the short term harms have been greater than claimed and the long term harms remain unknown. Governments have paid huge amounts to private companies, such as Pfizer, for these experimental drugs, giving shareholders and executives a free lunch beyond their wildest dreams. They have indemnified the companies against liability for any harms from the drugs, diminishing their incentive to ensure they are safe.
Within the pharmaceutical system, the focus on corporate profit, rather than medical need, tends to push in the wrong direction, creating perverse incentives. In other words, profit-seeking companies will always try to claim that their medicines are more effective and less harmful than is actually the case, and they can earn more profits by committing bribery and fraud. The pharmaceutical industry is a glaring example of an industry that is ‘not fit for purpose’. It fails the populations of both rich and poor countries.
Possible Solutions?
I should stress that in discussing solutions I have no strong ideological bias towards markets or state. All successful economies have been combinations of the two. The main goal with the pharmaceutical system should be to eliminate financial motives to manipulate drug trials and minimise the expenditure on marketing. This might require an organisation that is not profit-orientated being responsible for the large-scale testing of possible medicines. This would have to be much more transparent than existing research carried out by private companies. Pharmaceuticals might be one area where the elimination of patents would benefit society, so there would be no overpriced medicines or windfall profits. (I’ll write an article about more general problems with patents in the future.) All successful drugs, developed mainly via public means, would be available to every country to make as cheaply as possible. Private companies could still participate in other aspects of the process, such as early research or manufacturing drugs.
There have been debates for generations about whether the system should be partly nationalised and these have resurfaced recently. Proponents suggest that this could provide the same medicines for a fraction of the cost. There would be no financial incentive to commit fraud or bribery, no copycat drugs, no expensive marketing, no lobbying, no legal battles over patents and no depriving poor countries of medicines. But would there be perverse political and bureaucratic incentives in their place, to appear successful and hide failure? Would public bodies do a better job of developing the drugs we need?
If you have any thoughts on the best way to reform the pharmaceutical industry, let us know.
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Send Marco Silva camping to Greenland in winter, see if he thinks there is a climate emergency then.
Billionaires encouraging Hollywood to depress children and young people even more than they are already with doom laden messages about having no future.
Great idea.
As if Hollywood [eg. Disney] has not learned yet the lessons of go woke, go broke.
Will the heroes be the ones to save the world by getting everyone to live in caves with no heating or power?
The clock is ticking for the billionaires to frighten everyone but not in the way they want us to believe we should be.
If green targets like net zero continue to be relaxed and the climate catastrophes do not occur, will the scare tactics fail or will they continue to promote them?
The parasitical elite using propaganda to fear monger the sheep. Nothing much has changed since the Nazis and Communists except the great enemy is humankind in toto, which has deranged the weather. A more anti-reality, anti-science message is hard to find, until you run into the Rona and flying viruses of course.
We are surrounded by criminals, evil, demons and sheep. This propaganda will fail, because the reality of real weather and real climate will contradict the claims. When I grew up I was told the Ice age cometh and that New York would be under water by 1995. I am still waiting.
It is the power of guilt, isn’t it? Many of these foundations are for the children and grandchildren of billionaires. They didn’t make the money, feel they ought to “do good” with it. And perhaps a few of the original billionaires feel guilty, perhaps sub-consciously, as well. There is something in human nature that needs guilt in an evolutionary selection sense. It drives religions, which stick successful groups together, out-competing single questioners. If DS is to get anywhere against this mindset it needs to come up with something better.
No, it is the intoxicating power of control of the masses and enacting deranged ideologies like eugenics.
I agree.
The people pushing eco nuttery are certainly not motivated by guilt. Greed yes, control yes.
Good Energy, based in Chippenham, was a firm I used for a year or so a while back, but soon took my trade elsewhere. They were advertised in another journal I see from time to time, but with me being a Feed-in tariff customer, they had a habit of delaying payment by a few months on the one hand, and borrowing (in effect) on the other, with average monthly direct debits. Their trading system looked a bit amateurish, as well.
Not just “climate change” either, also immigration: NAABP (National Association for Advancement of Billionaire People) buys Gang of Eight, by Steve Sailer – The Unz Review
The climate is failing to heed their propaganda.
If there really was a crisis they wouldn’t have to bother promoting their messages.
Disney’s already been wrecked by woke. Now it looks like they want to destroy the rest of LaLaLand.
Oh goody.
Then this would be the perfect time for a self minded producer/director to make a film set in the not to distant future, say 20 years or so, where the antagonists are furious with the powers that where, and are blaming the powers that be, because trillions have been wasted on a non event! Even riots and civil wars are occurring because of the poverty and distopia caused! On top of this global temperatures are actually falling and more likely heading to a mini ice age so co2 production is encouraged to try and avoid a world cold spell!
I’d say a far more realistic outcome if a future had to be predicted!
Excellent film! I’ll go and watch it
You never know, I might even live long enough to witness it!
The billionaires will only get their way if they buy the studios and quickly become millionaires.
It has long been known that “Who pays the piper calls the tune”.——————- We often hear about “Big Oil”, and that “greedy fossil fuel companies” are in “climate denial” to protect their profits, and that they have an agenda. ——But what makes those people saying this think that there is no “Big Green” or that Renewable Energy companies do not have an agenda and seek to make profit? ——–Ofcourse they do. They do this by claiming the fossil fuel companies are destroying the planet and they will save it. To enable this the bought and paid for politicians and Green Energy subsidy junkies need to get this message across and the message appears everywhere, in News Programs, in Documentaries (by Attenborough etc)., from the weasel politicians pandering to United Nations Sustainable Development Politics, and also even in TV Ads, and drama and in film. —–Remember “The Day After Tomorrow” “Don’t Look Up” and hundreds of others. Propaganda is a powerful tool and that is why Politicians and those seeking to make money from the phony climate change scam use it.
Maybe we can all try out luck at becoming the next big Hollywood screenwriter? I wonder what world cinema-going audiences will make of the premise of my new James Bond film, ‘The Man with the Diesel Van’.
Hilarious. ——–Yet not really far from reality.
The irony is that Bond would now be working FOR Klaus Stavro bloschwab, and is cat!
Someone down here said it’s because they feel guilty. They don’t feel guilty, the absurd concept of ‘climate philanthropy’ is a bourgeoise fashion accessory and a scam that happens to make them a huge amount of money.
These days when you’re a fully established member of the Predator Class aristocracy, the amount you scream you care about something is inversely proportionate to the amount you actually do.
The propaganda is done even at the local newspaper level as well. My local paper has virtually turned into a Party Political Broadcast for the Green Party. Every week there are articles of absurdity like not buying a lawnmower and instead borrowing one to save the planet. No concern for the lawnmower shop or manufacturer ofcourse. But this week really took the biscuit when they suggested that pot holes are caused by extreme weather die to climate change. On the issue of climate change you can make any statement whatsoever and you require not a shred of evidence. But by saying everything that occurs is due to climate change relieves everyone of their responsibility because nothing is ever their fault and is all the fault of climate change, and it is allegedly humans that caused the climate change so pot holes are all our own fault. It isn’t the councils lack of spending on roads or their inefficiency . It is entirely due to us who cause the climate change. ———It was us what did it guv.
And don’t forget the good old “scientists say” fall back for any climate catastrophe news!
“Scientists say”? ———–Mostly all funded by government. —-Yet if you are a scientist not funded by government who has a slightly different view or who might think there really isn’t a “climate crisis” then you will be ignored, ostracised or classed as a fossil fuel apologist.
Who agrees with me that, whether you agree or not with what he says, Chris Morrison is one of the liveliest, most eloquent and most entertaining journalists working in England today?
I usually like reading his articles, although he’s sometimes a bit repetitive, eg, the Net Zero command and control economy phrase.
This reminds me of a poster in Caversham Waitrose. It depicts a cabbage and reads (from memory)
Less is more!
By only buying what we need, we can all make a big difference to CLIMATE CHANGE.
I’m pretty sure the sole reason why it’s on the wall is to have an excuse to put CLIMATE CHANGE there so that people don’t accidentally forget that climate change is real and one cannot escape it.
“Don’t Look Up” starring that huge climate activist DiCaprio was a classic example of stuffing climate apocalypse stuff down throats. It compared the non belief in the “climate crisis” to politicians and media not taking an Asteroid on a collision course with Earth seriously. —In other words a hurtling Asteroid that will hit earth in a few months is just the very same thing as the evidence free pretend to save the planet junk science used as the excuse to transform the global economy away from Capitalism.. ——Absurd but no doubt effective.
I just saw Eammon Holmes and Isabel Webster on GB news this Wednesday morning let climate Activist Jim Dale rant on about Climate this and climate that as if it were the only issue of any importance in the world. The discussion was about Farming versus the Climate. ——-Mr Dale insisted that the “World is on Fire” This is unadulterated JUNK yet Eammon and Isabel sit there incapable of asking the most obvious question like “Where is your evidence that the world is on fire”?—“Where is your evidence that storms floods droughts and wild fires are all getting more frequent and more extreme”? —-Because none of that is occurring, and Eammon and Isabel don’t even know that so Jim Dale gets a free ride. He is like hammer that sees everything as a nail. ——–His message to farmers and to everyone else is that no matter what problems you may have my imaginary Climate Change comes FIRST
Question for Jim Dale: Do you think China’s membership of the WTO should be rescinded in view of its published plans to build 42 new 2 GW coal-fired power stations in the next 5 years?
Most of the films made these days have been rendered almost unwatchable because of woke political correctness. Sounds like it’s all set to get even worse. Fortunately once you’ve seen through it they’re good for a laugh!
GeoengineeringWatch.com
manmade weather will be the end of us all.