[Fwd: [lowdosenaltrexone] Fw: WHAT DOCTORS DON'T TELL YOU]

[Guest guest]

Interesting reading!!

* WHAT DOCTORS DON'T TELL YOU

*WHAT DOCTORS DON'T TELL YOU - E-NEWS BROADCAST No. 62 - 11 December 03*

**

*Please feel free to email this broadcast to any friends you feel would

appreciate receiving it.*

**

*THE DRUGS DON'T WORK: And for once it's not us saying it, it's Glaxo*

**

*In an extraordinary admission, a senior executive with UK drug giant

GlaxoKline (GSK) has 'confessed' that the vast majority of

prescription drugs don't work. *

**

*Dr Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GSK, has told a

conference that over 90 per cent of all drugs work for only between 30

per cent and 50 per cent of patients. *

**

*At the very bottom of the efficacy table are the cancer drugs, which

work on only 25 per cent of patients. These are closely followed by

Alzheimer's drugs that work on just 30 per cent of people. Drugs for

rheumatoid arthritis, migraine, incontinence, hepatitis C, and diabetes

work on only half the patients, at best. The most effective drugs are

the analgesics, which work for to 80 per cent of those who take them.*

**

*This frank admission is also a very shocking one, and for several

reasons. The pharmaceutical industry is about the most profitable in

the world, and its profits are generated by drugs that everyone has

implicitly believed would work (everyone apart from regular E-news

readers, that is). Worse, in this scramble for profits, around 105,000

Americans and 40,000 Britons die every year from an adverse reaction to

a drug, and many thousands more are permanently harmed from one. *

**

*Almost as astonishing has been the reaction from some of Roses's

industry colleagues. " What he is saying will surprise the public but

not his colleagues, " said one industry scientist. Surprised may be a

slight under-statement for the reaction of families who have lost a

member to a drug-and one that the manufacturer probably knew would not

work.*

**

*So it's no surprise to the drug companies. Is it a surprise, perhaps,

to the drug regulators? Did they know that they were part of a scam?

Or the government, maybe, that buys £7.2bn of drugs each year for the

National Health Service? Are they also aware that at least two-thirds

of that enormous expenditure is an utter waste?*

**

*How about the doctors? They are writing millions of prescriptions a

year. Did they notice that their patients just weren't getting any

better?*

**

*Some commentators have described Roses's admission as a Ratner-like

gaffe. For non-UK readers and those too young to remember, Gerald

Ratner ran the UK's largest jewelers - until the day he 'joked' that his

products were 'crap'. *

**

*But this was no Ratner moment. Roses knew full well what he was doing,

and he almost certainly had his statement cleared by the very top

executives at Glaxo. Roses has been described as a highly intelligent

man, and he's certainly too smart to commit corporate suicide.*

**

*Roses is staking a major claim for his own division, into which Glaxo

has poured billions of dollars of research money. Our guess is that

Glaxo has taken the lead in the market, and will soon be launching a new

approach to therapy, based on the patient's genetic make-up. *

**

*In this new treatment model, patients will first be tested to discover

the effectiveness of a drug, and if they are among the 20 per cent for

whom the drug will work.*

**

*By allowing Roses to blow the whistle, Glaxo is playing a very high-risk

game. Genetic profiling may be achievable, but it will cut drugs

production by up to 80 per cent, so eating into profits.*

**

*It may also not be a workable option, especially for an already

overstretched health service. *

**

*What then? We are just left with the information that most drugs don't

work. Which is pretty much where we at WDDTY came in.*

**