It’s being called the largest research fraud in medical history. Dr. Scott Reuben, a former member of Pfizer’s speakers’ bureau, has agreed to plead guilty to faking dozens of research studies that were published in medical journals. Now being reported across the mainstream media is the fact that Dr. Reuben accepted a $75,000 grant from Pfizer to study Celebrex in 2005. Continue reading ‘Pharma Researcher Pleads Guilty for Faked Reports’
Tag Archive for 'Corruption'
Dr. Andrew Wakefield has been a lightening rod for attacks by vaccine promoters ever since he published an article (Lancet, 1998) raising the possibility– though not claiming a finding of a causal link–between the onset of children’s chronic intestinal inflammation and pervasive developmental disorder following vaccination Continue reading ‘Another Doctor Charged with Pharma Heresy’
BREAKING NEWS - The drug industry pushes ineffective drugs and vaccines because they cannot profit from good nutrition or clean water - so says Nobel Laureate (2008) and HIV Discoverer Luc Montagnier, MD in this just-released video.
As I explained last Saturday, if the world learned today that HIV is no longer a threat, the financial and political beneficiaries of HIV and AIDS would no longer be needed and the CDC and NIAID have no rational reason to exist.
Since 1955, infectious disease has been statistically irrelevant (chart), so why does the Centers for Disease Control waste half of its $9.2 billion budget on HIV and immunizations?
House of Numbers shows audiences around the world that, without the hysterical fear of infectious disease, PharmaSluts on the government dole would have to find real jobs – which is why the documentary now poses an existential threat to these overpaid slugs.
At the start of the movie, Donald Francis MD claims that HIV “kills everything” and, at the documentary’s conclusionthe discoverer of HIV and Nobel Laureate Luc Montagnier MD concludes:
Montagnier: We can be exposed to HIV many times without being chronically infected… our immune system will get rid of the virus within a few weeks if you have a good immune system.Brent Leung: If you have a good immune system then your body can naturally get rid of HIV?
Montagnier: Yes.
Brent Leung: If you take a poor African who’s been infected and you build up her immune system is it also possible for them to also naturally get rid of it?
Montagnier: I would think so…
While the lamestream media slept through Montagnier’s simple CURE FOR AIDS, the usual suspects accused the filmmaker of tricking (sucker-punching) the world-acclaimed scientists who appeared in the film. In response, Leung posted this additional clip, which added:
Montagnier: I would think so… It’s important knowledge, which is completely neglected. People always think of drugs and vaccine.Brent Leung: There’s no money in nutrition, right?
Montagnier: There’s no profit, yes.
Still, this wasn’t enough for the pharmaceutical lawyers who ghostwrote Jeanne Bergman’s revised arguments. Although they acknowledge that the “discoverer of HIV” is “clearly not a denialist,” the lawyers that defend drugs like Benoxaprofen and Vioxx used Bergman’s rent-a-PhD to claim Leung “sucker-punched” Montagnier with “leading questions.”
To satisfy the PharmaSluts, Brent Leung has now released this never before seen exclusive video of his interview with Dr. Montagnier.
As you watch it, ask yourself these questions:
- Did the filmmaker fool him? Did Montagnier look “sucker-punched?
- Did Montagnier have a good command of the English language?
- Why does Montagnier smile at the end of the interview?
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Queen Gertrude
Hamlet Act 3, scene 2, 222–230
Hamlet Act 3, scene 2, 222–230
Over time, investigators learn how to identify common characteristics of criminal behavior. Whether the suspect is a lawyer, longshoreman or pharmaceutical company, the cues are often the same. Though some are as subtle as a heartbeat, one does not need a phlebotomist to hear them.
Despite the preventable deaths and injuries to thousands of trusting patients each year, billion-dollar drug companies routinely pay off prosecutors with profits bled from their victims. In 2009 alone, Eli Lilly and Pfizer paid billions to settle criminal charges and, despite the death and injuries, not a single executive went to jail.
Like common crack and heroin dealers, drug companies are friendlier to customers than to those who ask tough questions. If drugs like Sustiva and Nevirapine offered something more than a addiction and death, drug makers wouldn’t have to pay the activists at TAG, TAC and AIDSTruth to attack those who question their schemes with tactics taught by Marxist radicals.
Conceived in 1981 by shady scientists (who faced unemployment) and gay men (who refused to accept blame for their self-destructive behavior), AIDS was marketed as an existential threat to humanity. This 1983 report alleged that the number of AIDS victims was doubling every six months which, if accurate, would have claimed the lives of 100 billion people a decade ago.
Though my original investigation presents a synopsis of what has always been a political disease, no one has captured the high priests of HIV in flagrante as well as the documentary House of Numbers. In some ways, filmmaker Brent Leung has exposed them much the same way that Hamlet identified his father’s murderer.
Hamlet’s Play
As Shakespeare explained, Hamlet was suspicious. Weeks after the king’s sudden death, his mother (Queen Gertrude) married Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle. Hamlet suspects that Claudius murdered the king to marry his mother and ascend to the throne.
While suspecting is one thing, proving it is quite another. To expose the crime, Hamlet commissions a play to reenact the king’s death in hopes of pressuring Claudius to admit his crime. If Claudius and Gertrude are innocent, the play will have no effect. But if they are guilty, their responses will corroborate it.
As expected, Claudius is furious and plots numerous schemes that, in the end, expose the crime and leads to the demise of Claudius and his morally-confused queen.
Like Hamlet’s invention, House of Numbers exposes HIV causation and policy as something akin to Queen Gertrude’s illicit marriage.
Like Claudius, lab rats like Robert Gallo and John Moore are “shrewd and conniving in contrast to the other characters”:
Whereas most of the other important men… are preoccupied with ideas of justice, revenge, and moral balance, Claudius is bent upon maintaining his own power… Claudius is a corrupt politician whose main weapon is his ability to manipulate others through his skillful use of language. Claudius’s speech is compared to poison being poured in the ear—the method he used to murder
Hamlet’s father…
Like Queen Gertrude, gay activists like Richard Jefferys, Walt Senterfitt, RN, MPH, PhD, and Jeanne Bergman PhD are:
… defined by (their) desire for station and affection, as well as by (their) tendency to use men to fulfill (their) instinct for self-preservation — which, of course, makes (them) extremely dependent upon the men in (their) life…
After initial refusals, the soft-spoken film student convinced one of the lab rats to agree to an interview, which resulted in a procession of lab rats who couldn’t resist the opportunity of having their egos stroked on the big screen with other scientific frauds. Unfortunately for them, no one memorized their alibis and the interviews of the planet’s most incandescent AIDS scientists and researchers quickly devolved into a food fight of he-said-she-said conflicts that culminated in Jay Levy’s impassioned five minute argument with himself. If not for the part they continue to play in the preventable deaths of thousands of people like Joyce Hafford, the ensuing hijinks would have been comical.
Like Claudius, the lab rats were so enraged that they drafted and signed this letter weeks before the film was released. Their queens joined them and issued thousands of libelous emails and letters to pressure film festival managers to censor the film.
Despite the pressure, House of Numbers has won ten awards at festivals around the world despite a few predictably ghostwritten attacks in the lame-stream media. After rave reviews at London’s Raindance Film Festival, The Spectator (UK) published Neville Hodgkinson’s expose, while political editor Fraser Nelson asked about the legitimacy of questions related to the link between HIV and AIDS. The ensuing comments (171 now) not only captured the rational comments of skeptics, but also the rage of apoplectic lab rats and the queens who defend them.
In this comment, Cornell’s John Moore argues:
I’m one of the scientists (the legitimate ones) that Leung deceived into appearing in this shoddy film. He used Sasha Baron Cohen-style tactics to sit in our offices and disguise his true agenda…
Whether questions were asked by Cohen or Leung, what possible impact would their questions have on the truthfulness of Moore’s responses? Although Leung did not pose as Kazak or a hooker, he elicited Moore’s honest answers the same way that Hannah Giles exposed ACORN. While Moore might’ve been friendlier to a man in heels, he fails to explain how Leung’s straightforward questions deceived him. Moore continues:
- an “honest investigation”? Yeah, right….. Leung is an AIDS denialist, pure and unadulterated.
Using Rule 13 of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, Moore 1) Picks his target and attempts to 2) Freeze It, 3) Personalize It and 4) Polarize It.” Like Galileo, Leung is a heretic – a non-believer of Moore’s deadly theology. Moore continues:
And his multi-million dollar and its promotional budget was paid for by a few wealthy AIDS denialist backers that Leung consistently refuses to identify…
This from the militant bagman whose servile complicity with the makers of HIV drugs and tests has resulted in illness, death and millions of dollars in pharmaceutical grants to his employer. Moore wants them identified so that fellow lab rats like Daniel Kuritzkes MD, who coaches journalists in the fine art of character assassination, can apply Rule 13 to them as well. In one speech, Kuritzkes complained that denialists like Peter Duesberg “still work in universities” and urged that they be “denied access to students and reported to authorities whenever possible.” Said Kuritzkes, “If this happens in your neighborhood ask the university authorities why they allow this and then write about it.”
Moore continues:
The film itself is deliberately edited to make AIDS scientists look bad, and to create controversy where none lies.
Although Moore’s lab rats issued the same allegations weeks before the film debuted, none have offered a single example – terrified of the filmmaker’s repeated offer to post uncut interviews so that viewers can decide for themselves. Like their political complaints of Prof. Duesberg’s scientific report, the lab rats can only blog their contempt. After 20 years, Duesberg’s paper remains unanswered.
Moore’s whining continues:
And of course Leung’s friends are made to look wise and thoughtful, honest questioners of the truth, when the reality is very, very different.
Wiser and more thoughtful than Moore?
Like I say, it’s Sasha Baron Cohen in action…… But of course this film is no comedy intended to entertain; its effect will be to cause yet more people to become infected with HIV and die of AIDS.
Moore’s arguments fail. Despite the unsupported numbers produced by profiteers, HIV is hardly noticed in the US or Africa (chart). Compared to a century ago, infectious disease is statistically nonexistent. But if we consider that AIDS consumes three-quarters of all US medical research funding despite its statistical non-existence, we can understand why the lab rats and queens believe that the political disease that funds America’s gay movement is more important than fighting real diseases like diabetes and heart disease. (chart). Moore concludes:
There’s much material on the AIDS denialists, who they are and what they do, posted on the AIDS Truth website. Read it and weep that such crazy and evil people can still influence others to make poor choices with their lives. And pay particular attention to the pages on “The denialists who died of AIDS”.
If we consider why HIV is so important to corrupt African regimes we will understand why HIV is so important to the Marxist South African propagandists at AIDSTruth.
As a career criminal investigator with nearly 30 years of experience, House of Numbers may be the most important documentary of the 21st century. Although I’m not a virologist, criminal behavior is less mysterious.
While Claudius, assorted lab rats and queens like Moore assume that ordinary people are too stupid to figure it out, the documentary and a review of the The Spectator comments will allow readers to decide for themselves.
In a story that further illustrates the disarray and confusion about the pharmaceutical industry, vaccinations and AIDS, a leading cancer researcher now blames Merck and the military for producing vaccines that spread AIDS and cause cancer. Since many nutritional, behavioral, environmental and pathogenic cofactors (including toxic vaccines) can cause an acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), this story corroborates HIV co-discoverer Luc Montagnier’s opinion that anyone can recover from HIV without AIDS drugs.
Dr. Michele Carbone, Director of the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, and full Professor and Chairman, Department of Pathology at the John A. Burns School of Medicine, openly acknowledged HIV/AIDS was spread by the hepatitis B vaccine produced by Merck & Co. during the early 1970s.
This is the first time since the initial transmissions took place in 1972-74, that a leading expert in the field of vaccine manufacturing and testing has openly admitted the Merck & Co. liability for AIDS.
The matter-of-fact disclosure came during discussions of polio vaccines contaminated with SV40, the fortieth simian (monkey) virus discovered that caused cancer in nearly every species infected by injection. Many authorities now admit much, possibly most, of the world’s cancers came from the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines, and hepatitis B vaccines, produced in monkeys and chimps.
“There is no question that the FDA is much more vigilant today than it was 40 years ago,” Dr. Carbone wrote. “I guess they learned the lesson from the SV40 mess.
Although his opinion about the dangers of HIV conflicts with Dr. Montagnier’s findings, Professor Carone wrote that many people, “received hepatitis vaccines contaminated with HIV.”
If those who received the vaccine already suffered from an immune system that was compromised by environmental, behavioral or pathological co-factors, chances are that iatrogenically-introduced vaccines will further compromise the immune systems of those who receive them.
This could also produce a multi-billion dollar motive for pharmaceutical manufacturers (and universities like Harvard that rely on pharmaceutical funding to keep their doors open) to “discover” innocuous or non-existent viruses to blame for thousands of preventable deaths each year.
The fact that Harvard University just lost $1.8 billion in reckless investments only adds to that motive.
Dr. Carbone further stated:
“I do believe – and hope – that the present vaccines are safe and clean, and this is partly based on my experience in testing polio vaccines prepared in the Western world after 1963, neither I nor anybody in the world can assure you that with 100% confidence.”Also engaged in the discussion was Rev. Roxanne Hampton, who sourced the legislative resolution urging passage of vaccination exemptions for religious persons in the State of Hawaii and elsewhere. Rev. Hampton raised the question of vaccine makers’ reliability, to which Dr. Carbone responded.
, a vaccine risk investigator and author of sixteen books including Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola–Nature, Accident or Intentional? was also invited to reply to the question of H1N1 safety testing.“Dr. Carbone’s testimony is very important,” Dr. Horowitz said, addressing the little-known fact that “1) HIV was spread via the earliest hepatitis B vaccines, and 2) Despite the most advanced intelligence in vaccine science, there is no certainty that benefits outweigh risks, since the full extent of H1N1 vaccine risks are not known.
“Without certainty, and the past history, it is my humble opinion,” Dr. Horowitz added, “you would have to be a complete fool to trust the people that promote getting vaccinated this flu season (or any flu season for that matter).”
Dr. Horowitz went on to address the problem of lacking confidence in the H1N1 vaccines by considering those who manufactured the fright and these viral vaccines. ”
Regarding #1, it is gross criminal negligence that Dr Carbone’s factual statement has never been adequately investigated or acknowledged by anyone with authority in the four groups that produced that horrible HIV-contaminated hepatitis B vaccine, manufactured using chimpanzees (not VERO cell cultures contaminated with SV40, as Baxter Corp. is doing for some of its H1N1 flu vaccines).”
Dr. Horowitz cited the FDA, CDC, NIAID, and Merck & Co. as responsible for the production of the hepatitis B vaccines that massive evidence suggests triggered AIDS.
“This evidences gross official criminal malfeasance at the highest levels of health science and the US Government,” Dr. Horowitz charged. He then went on to discuss the earlier pan-genocide as it relates to today’s H1N1 pandemic:
“At that time 1972-74, Dr. David Sencer was the CDC director who was very knowledgeable about this hep B vaccine investigation by NY University Medical Center researcher, Saul Krugman, et. al. His collaborators were at the New York City (NYC) Blood Bank, including Wolf Szmuness.
“Dr. Sencer was also the CDC director who authorized the Public Health Service to conduct the Tuskeegee Syphilis study.
“As HIV-was out-breaking in NYC (and due to this same vaccine in Africa and Willowbrook State School for mentally retarded children on Staten Island, NY) Dr. Sencer was “demoted” to go from Atlanta, and transition from CDC director, to become the Health Department Director for the City of New York. This was done so that he could oversee the propaganda for damage control at the New York Blood Bank, created and controlled by the Rockefeller family (including Sen. Jay Rockefeller advancing the Senate Democratic Party’s health care reform plan).
“Dr. Sencer was successful in preventing safety testing of the contaminated blood.
This intended delay, according to medical historians and lawsuits, spread HIV/AIDS internationally along with the herpes type viruses, including Epstein Barr causally-linked to several cancers and immune dysfunctions.“Also at that time, as Willowbrook children were dying of the ‘abuse’ Geraldo Rivera was reporting, and Dr. Sencer was transitioning from CDC to the NYC Health Dept., in neighboring Fort Dix, New Jersey, a mysterious Swine flu outbreak occurred in military personnel, none of whom had any contact with pigs. That virus had been, according to experts, extinct for two decades.
“The 1976-1977 outbreak was most likely a military experiment, and precisely like the 2009 Mexican H1N1 outbreak in its media propaganda. The media promoted the 1976 Swine Flu campaign that was devastating in its side effects and adverse events including Guillain-Barre, that my mother died from, linked to this vaccination.
In 1977, the swine flu outbreak has been widely acknowledged by top officials, including Dr. Sencer himself, to have been “laboratory sourced.” Dr. Sencer wrote in a CDC publication, that this swine flu outbreak came from “a refrigerator.”
“In 1997, it was Dr. Sencer who led the team of virologists to Alaska, against international outrage and protests from leading scientists. He and his team, under top secret security, resurrected the 1918 Spanish flu virus and genetically reconstructed it. This was the virus said to have killed 50 million people worldwide. At that moment, it was a no-brainer for all these protesting scientists, that this virus would outbreak from containment in a high level security “refrigerator.”
“H1N1 currently circulating, carries genes from this virus! Since this virus had gone extinct, and only existed in military labs, it is safe to say its genes were recombined with avian H1N1 and swine H1N1 to give you this never-before-seen “reassortant”– the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.
“Now it was Reuter’s News Service, Thomas Glocer, Editor-in-Chief that broke world news in April regarding the Mexican outbreak. Thomas Glocer’s propaganda alleged H5N1 was possibly in this mix–a virus that kills 60% of humans infected. Thomas Glocer is a Director, on the Board of Directors, of Merck & Co. owner of CSL, Inc. the H1N1 Swine Flu vaccine maker that provided the world’s safety testing and assurances of vaccine safety for pregnant women, babies, and children.
“These safety tests were conducted in Australia at the Victoria Women’s Hospital directed by Elisabeth Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s mother. The children were tested at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute under the direction of Sarah Murdoch, Rupert’s daughter-in-law. FOX, Time Warner, and more are controlled by Murdoch. This GROSS CONFLICTING INTEREST would stun the world; yet it is not being reported at all in mainstream media despite my best efforts.
“The other day, Dr. Oz told America on ABC that everyone needs to get vaccinated. The financier behind ABC-Disney is Lloyd Blankfein. Thomas Glocer, Rupert Murdoch, and Lloyd Blankfein are David Rockefeller’s partners in Partnership for New York City, the world’s premier biotechnology trust, advancing “genetopharmaceuticals”–vaccines for everything. These are the people that dictate what people like Dr. David Sencer and Dr. Anthony Fauci (NIAID AIDS Czar, premier promoter of H1N1 Flu vaccines) say and do.
“By the way, Dr. Fauci joined Dr. Oz on ABC the other day as “the government’s leading flu vaccine expert.” Dr. Fauci, the co-patent holder, and royalty earner for IL-2, a vaccine adjuvant, did not disclose his conflicting interest, nor the amount of money he has been paid for IL-2’s use in vaccines. Nor did Dr. Oz who, in his book, urged readers to examine ingredients carefully prior to consuming products. The fact is, the ingredients of the H1N1 flu vaccines are not listed in the package inserts. One needs to go to their patents to find them.
“Suffice it to say, only mentally-manipulated fools think these vaccines are safe. Further only downright idiots would consent to getting vaccinated this flu season having the aforementioned intelligence.”
(more info HERE)
As if Nobel Laureates Walter Gilbert, Kary Mullis, Linus Pauling and 2600 other nominees, investigators and scientists weren’t enough, 2008 Nobel Laureate Luc Montagnier MD has broken ranks to expose HIV and AIDS as little more than a pharmaceutical marketing scam. As one of two alleged co-discovers of HIV, how clerics like John Moore and others defend themselves from Montagnier’s charges will be interesting to see.
Montagnier: We can be exposed to HIV many times without being chronically infected… our immune system will get rid of the virus within a few weeks if you have a good immune system.
Brent Leung: If you have a good immune system then your body can naturally get rid of HIV?
Montagnier: Yes.
Brent Leung: If you take a poor African who’s been infected and you build up her immune system is it also possible for them to also naturally get rid of it?
Montagnier: I would think so… It’s important knowledge, which is completely neglected. People always think of drugs and vaccine.
Brent Leung: There’s no money in nutrition, right?
Montagnier: There’s no profit, yes.
While the documentary House of Numbers (HON) continues to shock audiences around the world, pharmaceutical marketers continue to incite the gay inquisition against the film and those who promote it. As described in previous reports, most of these crystal meth radicals are supported by the makers of HIV tests and drugs and predators like George Soros who exploit them.
In many ways, HIV has become the de facto religion of the radical gay movement that parades under the pretext of human rights – as if cross-dressing, gay sex and crystal meth somehow equate to the abolition of slavery.
The AIDS Church requires believers to evangelize Robert Gallo’s unproven assumptions about HIV (1, 2, 3, 4) and subject themselves to a baptism of HIV tests. Once confirmed, believers receive a sacramental cocktail of highly addictive psychotropic drugs and DNA inhibitors so that members can suffer and die for their church just like Jesus.
Thankfully, the vast majority of men and woman (gay and straight) know better than to subject themselves to the church’s social marketing schemes – which may be why the Academy of Education Development and pharmaceutical companies are now paying ex-celebrities like Blair Underwood and Magic Johnson to target their own vulnerable communities.
Montagnier and Gallo are only two of the highly paid clerics who make fools of themselves throughout the documentary. It would be comedic, except that these clerics are complicit in the deliberate and unnecessary sickness and death of millions around the world – drug-caused mortality that continues to be used to perpetuate a fake epidemic that the American Medical Association cannot substantiate.
Years from now, researchers and students will watch recordings of those clerics with the same fascination we now share for humanity’s other historical monsters. Our amazed progeny will ask themselves, “How could millions of people around the world fall for such a transparent lie?”
Coming to a film festival near you.
In another case of doctors selling out to the pharmaceutical industry, the Guardian reports that Dr Richard Eastell is being tried in front of a medical council for allowing his name to be put on a study of the osteoporosis drug Actonel.
Doctors have been agreeing to be named as authors on studies written by employees of the pharmaceutical industry, giving greater credibility to medical research, according to new evidence.
The Guardian has learned that one of Britain’s leading bone specialists is facing disciplinary action over accusations that he was involved in “ghost writing”.
The wider phenomenon has come to light through documents disclosed in the US courts which have revealed a culture in which doctors agree to “author” studies written by employees of drug firms. The doctors may have some input but do not have access to all the evidence from the drug trial on which the paper’s conclusions are based, the documents showed.
The General Medical Council will call Professor Richard Eastell in front of a fitness to practice committee. Eastell, a bone expert at Sheffield University, has admitted he allowed his name to go forward as first author of a study on an osteoporosis drug even though he did not have access to all the data on which the study’s conclusions were based. An employee of Proctor and Gamble, the US company making Actonel, was the only author who had all the figures.
Experts believe the practice is widespread in Britain. In another alleged example, a consultant cardiologist claims an expert listed as an author on a medical paper died before the research began. Peter Wilmshurst, a heart specialist at the Royal Shrewsbury hospital, is involved in a dispute over a study which he helped design, which involved the insertion of a device to close a hole in the heart.
He claims the manufacturers refused him access to data and he had concerns about the accuracy of the paper, so he refused to sign it off and is not listed as an author. One of those who is named, Wilmshurst said, is a true ghost author. Anthony Rickards, a cardiologist, was involved in preliminary discussions but died before the research was conducted.
The company which sponsored the research, the US firm NMT Medical, is suing Wilmshurst for remarks in a lecture that he made about outcomes in the trial, which were published on a medical journal website. A UK charity, HealthWatch, has launched a fund to support Wilmshurst, who was in 2003 a recipient of its award for challenging misconduct in academic medical research.
The US documents show that Wyeth, one of the biggest companies involved, employed a medical writing agency with the purpose of getting favourable studies about its HRT drug Prempro into prestigious medical journals.
The agency dreamed up ideas for papers about the benefits of the drugs and then wrote an outline and even a first draft before offering it to a doctor who might agree to have his name attached as the author. Although the doctor would see drafts and revisions, critics say that control of the content and message were in the agency’s hands. The memos and emails show that many busy academics signed their approval to the finished paper.
Many of the documents are records of planning meetings, where agency staff list articles that will be written, suggesting possible authors and targeting journals. Concern about ghostwriting caused the UK-based open-access journal PloS Medicine, part of the Public Library of Science, to intervene in a court case brought by women who claim they were harmed by the HRT drug. PloS Medicine, with the New York Times, argued that the public should know what was going on. A US judge agreed to place the documents in the public domain.
Ginny Barbour, editor in chief of PloS Medicine, said she was taken aback by the systematic approach of the agency. “I found these documents quite shocking,” she said. “They lay out in a very methodical and detailed way how publication was planned. “Other documents released through US court action show that GlaxoSmithKline employed a ghostwriting programme named Caspper in which doctors could take credit for medical journal articles written by the company’s consultants.
The project was aimed at boosting the US sales of an antidepressant called paroxetine, which goes by the brand name Paxil in the US and Seroxat in the UK.
Caspper stood for Case Study Publication for Peer Review. It enabled doctors with positive experiences of Paxil to get into medical journals. A busy doctor could sit back and let a medical writing agency paid by GSK do all their work, from the first draft to getting it accepted for publication by a journal.
The medical writing agency would prepare drafts using whatever material the doctor sent them and create figures and tables. These would go to the doctor for approval. “The author ensures accuracy of material, updates references, supplies missing information, etc,” says the leaflet. Eventually the doctor would complete a sign-off form and the agency would send the paper for publication.
Caspper came to light when internal GlaxoSmithKline documents were released in court action in the US brought by the legal firm Baum Hedlund on behalf of patients who claim they were harmed by Paxil. GSK says the programme was discontinued some years ago and that the names of medical writers were included on any published papers.
But Caspper shows there was no dividing line at the time between science and marketing - the leaflet states its purpose is to “strengthen the product positioning and overcome competitive issues”. Doctors and medical journals became part of a promotional campaign, aimed at selling more drugs.
The disciplinary move in the Eastell case comes after he admitted that a statement he signed declaring that all six authors had access to all the statistical data was wrong.
In a letter published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, which carried the original study, he stated: “In the original paper one of the authors, a statistician working for P & G, Ian Barton, had full access to all the data.” The authors had full access to all the analyses of the data that they requested, he said – but those analyses were carried out by the company.
The letter, published in 2007, also acknowledged flaws in the study. A later ndependent analysis of the data “identified some errors and poor practice”, he wrote. The study was designed to show the strengths of Actonel which was in fierce competition with a rival bone-strengthening drug called Fosamax, made by Merck.
Eastell’s paper concerned a study carried out on behalf of Proctor and Gamble, comparing the bone density of women prescribed Actonel with others who were not. Only the company knew which women were on the drug and which were taking something else.
Eastell’s colleague, Dr Aubrey Blumsohn, wanted the codes which would say which of the patients who suffered fractures had been on the drug. The company refused. Blumsohn took his concerns to Eastell, but in a conversation which Blumsohn says he taped, Eastell said he was concerned that persistent requests might damage the
relationship they had with the company. Eastell is said to have told him: “The only thing that we have to watch all the time is our relationship with P&G. Because … we have the big Sheffield Centre Grant [from P&G] which is a good source of income, we have got to really watch it.” .Tim Kendall, joint director of the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, says the problem is the close relationship between doctors and the industry. “Some doctors don’t seem to see the relationship … as problematic.”
A study of 4,000 physicians found that 96% received money from drug companies, and yet “the majority did not see it as a conflict of interest”, he said.
“I do think there needs to be a national debate in this country about the interpenetration of medicine and the pharmaceutical industry.”
Ghost writing was one manifestation of a bigger problem which he believed was the institutional bias of doctors who work closely with and for drug companies. “In mental health 85% of all published trials are funded by the drug industry,” he said. Allowing for the unsuccessful trials the industry does not publish, the figure is probably nearer 95%, he said.
Studies have shown that drug company-funded trials are five times more likely to come out with a positive result for the drug than independent trials.
The GMC is criticised by doctors like Wilmshurst and Blumsohn for failing to take a tougher line against doctors involved in dubious research practices.
Jane O’Brien, head of standards and ethics, said that their research guidance specified the importance of honesty in the attribution of authorship. “We would see that as an important issue. If somebody’s name is on something it gives research a credibility that it wouldn’t otherwise have. If somebody had not been involved, we would see that as misleading people as to the credibility of the research.”
She added that the GMC felt it important to play a role in ensuring good conduct in research. About a year ago, she said, they took soundings of bodies that regulate and support research, such as the Medical Research Council, asking whether the GMC should be involved. “The response was yes, because we are the people who can strike doctors off in the end.”
Eastell declined to discuss the hearing. “I do not wish to comment on the case. The proceedings have yet to commence,” he told the Guardian in an email. A spokesperson from the University of Sheffield, where Eastell is professor of bone metabolism, said they were aware of the investigation. “We will be informed by the GMC of any outcome and cannot comment further until we receive this.”
Until last year, I was a strong supporter of the pharmaceutical industry. When Merck was sued (Vioxx), I blamed the lawyers for filing frivolous lawsuits against drug makers who, I then believed, were the innovative champions in Humanity’s fight against disease.
I dismissed stories about “big pharma” as fast as I heard them. The notion that scientists would deliberately poison patients for profit, or that the US Government would fund medical doctors like Robert Gallo after he violated his Hippocratic Oath was preposterous. As much as I like Ralph Fiennes, I refused to see a movie as unbelievable as The Constant Gardener.
So when the physicians and nurses at Semmelweis Society International (SSI) asked me to investigate allegations that UC Professor Peter Duesberg had killed millions in Africa, I expected to complete my task within days. With almost thirty years of investigative experience, I figured that a few Google searches would resolve the questions, one way or the other.
Little did I know that the allegations issued by James Murtagh MD, Kevin Kuritzky, and Richard Jefferys would consume thousands of hours of my time or expose me to the ugly underbelly of the pharmaceutical industry and its chicken-ranch relationship with America’s most prestigious universities.
While the evidence I discovered now suggests that millions may have been poisoned and murdered, I’ve found that Dr. Duesberg more closely resembles Moshe the Beadle than his pharmaceutically-funded accusers – who now appear to have far more in common with Phillip Morris than Louis Pasteur.
Since the release of my preliminary report (PDF) in July 2008, filmmaker Brent Leung completed his documentary and investigative reporter Celia Farber, who was also targeted, has filed suit against her accusers in the New York Supreme Court.
My report established the two sides of the dispute:
- One side, (commonly referred to as truthers, goons, and troofers) is comprised of the beneficiaries of millions of dollars in pharmaceutical funding. Truthers insist that HIV attacks cells and causes AIDS.
- The other side, (called rethinkers, denialists, and skeptics) question whether anyone has ever proved that HIV attacks cells and causes AIDS. These individuals rely mostly on private donations and represent a tiny fraction of what truthers receive from the pharmaceutical industry.
After examining both sides, the evidence now indicates that:
- All HIV/AIDS research is based upon Dr. Gallo’s unproven assumption that HIV attacks cells and causes AIDS;
- The National Institutes of Health (NIH) spends $206,906 per AIDS death (compared to $13,365 per Diabetes death, $12,000 per prostate disease, $9,000 for Parkinson’s disease and $9,000 for Alzheimer’s disease), even though AIDS has never been a leading cause of death in the United States or Africa;
- Except for rare individuals like US Senator Charles Grassley and Rep. John Dingell, the US Congress, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) appear to share many of the same organizational flaws that the SEC, FBI, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Treasury exhibited before the 2008 financial.
New Evidence
Although the toxic effects of HIV treatments are well documented, I was still confused by HIV+ patients who reported that, after years of treatment, many became ill within two weeks of discontinuing their medication. If HIV didn’t kill cells or cause AIDS, why were patients getting sick when they interrupted their drug regimen?
Although patients like Karri Stokely attributed her four-month post-drug illness to “the shock of no longer being on toxic drugs,” I didn’t accept it. Toxins don’t ordinarily make someone sicker when stopped – addictive drugs do that. If someone takes regular doses of arsenic for six months, there is no evidence that their sudden abstinence would cause anything but a recovery. Conversely, addicts (and those who know them) understand the distress that comes with abstinence from coffee, tobacco, and harder drugs like alcohol, cannabis, opiates, meth or cocaine. The degree of withdrawal depends upon factors that include the addict’s health, dosage, resistance, the intoxicant, and how the drugs are metabolized.
But while post-HIV drug symptoms sounded suspiciously like addiction withdrawal, I found little more than a mild warning (404) of the “potential for additive central nervous system effects when SUSTIVA is used concomitantly with alcohol or psychoactive drugs.” Nothing alluded to intoxicating properties of the drug itself.
When I met Karri Stokely last week, she explained her medical history, her two-month recovery from a post-operative infection, and various tests that eventually led to her HIV+ diagnosis in June 1996 when she began her treatment. (more)
Karri reported that she was initially prescribed Combivir and Crixivan until 2001, when her doctor detected signs of liver damage and switched from Crixivan to Sustiva. After that, Karri took Combivir and Sustiva as prescribed until April 2007, when she discovered Dr. Duesberg’s questions about AIDS research. After studying the information on Rethinking AIDS and Virus Myth, she abruptly stopped her medication.
At first, Karri detected no adverse symptoms. During the second week, however, she noticed increasing symptoms of fatigue, exhaustion, depression, insomnia, body aches, and a significant loss of appetite. During the next month, she developed an extreme sensitivity to pain when touched, even when lying in bed or eating. Visits to the toilet and tub were difficult and, as the weeks passed, her weight dropped from her normal 135 to 114 (she’s 5-8). Karri also experienced night sweats and often noticed a thin green/yellow coating on her tongue. Most notably, her throat was sore and she possessed an almost continuous and unquenchable thirst.
“I felt as if my system was shutting down,” she said.
Karri’s decline continued from April through August 2007, when her symptoms began to subside. She returned to her clinic for another blood test in August and, when the lab results returned a week later, the nurse called Karri in a panic: “Your lab tests are way off! You didn’t stop taking your drugs, did you?”
The nurse became more alarmed when Karri admitted that she’d been off the drugs for four months.
Nurse Nancy asked, “Why would you do such a thing? Do you know what happened to your lab work?
“No.”
“Do you even want to know what your lab work says?”
“Yes.”
“Your T-Cell count dropped to 97 (from 200s) and viral load to 135,000! Are you coming in?”
A week later, Dr. Van Hook crossed his arms and scowled at Karri. “Why would you do this?”
Karri asked him, “Did you know there is another view of HIV, that it might not cause AIDS?”
“No,” said the doctor.
“Do you want to know?”
“No, Karri, I don’t want to know. You’ve done a very stupid thing and you will be dead very soon.”
Karri Stokely didn’t die and, during the next two years, her symptoms disappeared entirely.
After listening to Karri’s story and comparing notes with other reports, I noted similarities between Karri’s symptoms and known withdrawal syndromes, including those of antidepressants. I also found reports that HIV drugs were being crushed and smoked by addicts in Africa:
“When I asked them why they like doing it, they said it helps them relax and forget
about their problems,” said Ms Nhlapo.
about their problems,” said Ms Nhlapo.
“When you look at them, just a few seconds after taking it, they are in another world,” she added.
The children do not know where they are and they stop making sense.
The young users that Ms Nhlapo spoke to get access to these drugs from HIV patients or healthcare workers.
They know when the individual patients go to collect the drugs and buy them, or if they do not have any money, they steal them.
“When I was doing the story, many HIV patients were complaining that they don’t get the drugs and that queues are long and it was taking a long time to access them,” said Ms Nhlapo.
ABC News reported the drug as Efavirenz, also known as Sustiva – one of the two drugs Karri had taken for six years. I knew how better known addictive drugs worked and quickly dismissed the idea that an anti-bacterial drug could be addictive – until I stumbled upon Iproniazid.
While being studied as a possible treatment for tuberculosis in 1952, this antibacterial agent was discovered to have psychoactive properties. “Terminally ill patients who were given this drug became cheerful, more optimistic, and more physically active.” Iproniazid and similar compounds slowed the breakdown of norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine “via inhibition of the mitochondrial enzyme monoamine oxidase.” These neurochemicals affect the same receptors as cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, cannabis, and other more commonly known addictive drugs. These antibacterial agents have since become known as monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), which are now used as antidepressants (SSRIs) under the names of Prozac, Paxil, Lexapro, Zoloft, and Effexor. Iproniazid withdrawal symptoms were similar to those Karri described.
The research, production, and distribution of this class of drugs is not without controversy. Japanese researchers recently reported antidepressant (SSRI) users “who developed increased feelings of hostility or anxiety, and have even committed sudden acts of violence against others.” (Other SSRI stories indexed here.) Texas psychiatrist Karen Wagner MD was recently exposed for failing to disclose a $160,000 payment from GlaxoSmithKline while understating the dangers of Paxil for children.
Many of these known SSRI withdrawal reactions are consistent with Karri’s post-Sustiva experience.
As for Nurse Nancy’s report of Karri’s erratic T-Cell counts and viral loads, numerous clinical studies show a direct connection between the stress of withdrawal (cocaine and heroin) and decreases in immune function for up to two years. Those reports show a direct correlation between addiction, withdrawal, and the human immune system (white blood cells, T-cells, and viral loads) regardless of whether HIV is present or not. But because AIDS experts and testing rely on T-cells and viral loads to establish HIV infection, it’s hard to understand how the experts know the difference between HIV infections and physiological changes due to illicit drug use. This would also explain why active and former drug addicts are frequently identified as HIV carriers.
The revelation that Sustiva is not reported to be an extremely addictive psychotropic drug is disturbing. After speaking with patients like Karri who interrupted their prescriptions, it now appears that abstinence from so-called “ARVs” like Sustiva results not in an increased risk of AIDS but, instead, precipitates the onset of a painful and violent withdrawal syndrome not dissimilar to withdrawal from cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, and alcohol. Unfortunately for patients like Karri, AIDS clinicians typically mischaracterize the withdrawal syndrome as a manifestation of AIDS that will soon kill them. Unless given further information, care, and nurturing, most patients are physically and emotionally unprepared to contradict their white-coated physicians. Once the drug is re-administered, however, the “AIDS symptoms” disappear in ways not unlike junkies who inject a long-awaited dose of heroin.
Conclusion
It is not known how many AIDS medications are addictive or why; nor have I established whether the pharmaceutical industry unintentionally or deliberately marketed addictive drugs for the purpose of misleading otherwise uninfected individuals. But if a retired cop can identify Sustiva’s addictive properties, it’s hard to understand how the GlaxoSmithKline’s PhDs could have missed so much evidence.
Intentional or not, by marketing this class of drugs (MAOIs and SSRIs) as “AIDS medications,” the pharmaceutical industry has built into its HIV cocktails a mechanism that punishes HIV patients when they interrupt their drug use.
Karri’s cocktail contained two drugs – a deadly poison (AZT) that kills and a highly addictive drug that makes patients feel cheerful, more optimistic, and more physically active.
At $419/mo, a patient (or taxpayers) would pay $5,028 a year for Sustiva alone. Multiplied by the alleged HIV+ US population of 1,185,000, receipts could total $6 billion/year. Multiplied by the estimated global HIV+ population, GlaxoSmithKline could generate $100 billion in sales and tax deductions annually.
Despite these facts, no one can seriously believe that a pharmaceutical company would deliberately poison and addict millions of homosexuals, drug users, and illiterate Africans for $100 billion dollars a year. No, that’s out of the question. Of course they wouldn’t.
But if the pharmaceutical industry knows that Sustiva and/or other HIV drugs are addictive, it would also explain the hysterical attacks by so-called AIDS researchers who, instead of delivering proof that HIV attacks cells and causes AIDS, attack individuals like Karri Stokely who have the temerity to ignore the results of HIV tests that prove nothing.
While the Harrison Act of 1914 prohibits the distribution of addictive drugs to perpetuate addiction, the evidence suggests that GlaxoSmithKline has circumvented the spirit of this law by delivering intoxicants, other than opiates and coca, to millions by classifying them as HIV treatments.
Karri Stokely is one of many former HIV patients who have kicked the habit and now live a happy, healthy and drug-free life. I look forward to the day when politicians jump start the agencies that are supposed to be looking out for the most vulnerable in the US, Europe, and Africa.
Smoking the pills has a hallucinogenic and relaxing effect.