Gates Foundation and Big Pharma

[stumblnrose]

First off I am fallout from Big Pharma's game which is to steamroll medications onto the market and keep these meds on the market come hell or high water until enough people die and the court's finally force them to pay off the body count. I nearly died five years ago from an allergic reaction to a medication that contains a very vague warning label about its lethal side effects. The drug company is now spending millions to tie up the lawsuits in court and keep the drug on market with no upgrade in the warning label. The disease is killing thousands yet the government does not even require this disease to be listed as cause of death so there is no true toll of the damage yet.

I am looking for ways to call attention to Pharma's business practice from any angle I can dream up. I thought about the Gates Foundation because they are working with the 13 big Pharma corporations to wipe out diseases in the tropics using profits that come from the death toll of Americans taking dangerous medications that the drug companies keep on the market regardless of the death toll they cause here at home. So i am looking at this as an outsourcing of health care. The Gates Foundation wants to save lives using money that begins as profits from the death of untold Americans. I have tried to get in the door at the Foundation and they have refused to ever pass me on beyond the secretary who answers the phone, never responded to my emails or letters. Everyone kowtows to the Foundation in Seattle. I would like to speak to them about the irony of their health program which takes from Peter to pay Paul.

I am tempted to grab a sign and walk the foundation's street hoping that someone might speak to me. I am wondering if my logic is too skewed, believe me after you live in an induced coma for four months and deal with the hypocrisy of seeking justice against Pharma for the next 5 years, you are skewed, but hopefully at the proper angle. Just wanted to run this by folks who don't necessarily worship everything labeled good by the media and in the corporate mindset of charity.

[Suich]

1. Nice to see you around, stumblnrose!

I'm going to bookmark this and get back to you because its late and I need to go to bed.

Funny, I was just talking to my neighbor, Rob, about you a couple of days ago.

[eridani]

2. Can't hurt. Why not try? n/t

[stumblnrose]

3. Corporate Medical Shills at U of W

Two of the most prominent defense witnesses are retired professors at the University of Washington and former heads of department at Harborview Hospital. Dr. David Heimbach was the head of the burn unit that saved my life. It made me so sick to find out that he is a shill for the flame retardant industry and was exposed as such in an article in the Chicago Tribune where it was shown that some of the cases he cited in court were fabrications of his own imagination. The flame retardation industry hides behind a number of ersatz burn advocacy organizations whilst pimping its dubious products.

Dr. David Dunner was the head of outpatient psychiatry at Harborview and is a frequent witness for psychiatric pharmaceutical lawsuits on behalf of the drug industry. In 1995 he co-authored a paper stating that data showed that Paxil reduces suicidality in users. He ignored data that the manufacturer had hidden since 1989. Here's the skinny on this clown.

Despite being exposed as a corporate shill he still appears regularly for the defense in lawsuits related to psychiatric drugs - now the largest killer medication available to the American consumer. On the other hand, Dr David Healy, the author of "Let Them Eat Prozac", a UK citizen, has been essentially deemed incompetent to testify on behalf of drug victims in the United States and was also railroaded out of a senior position at the University of Toronto.

There are 3 Pharma lobbyists for each member of Congress. This is the only industry where 20 percent annual profits are considered the norm and more than half the financing of the FDA now comes from the drug industry. Judges are terrified of taking Pharma cases to trial knowing that a judgment against the industry would result in their practicing law in Lake Chelan for the rest of their life. This is deep doo-doo and Seattle has generated a lot of "research" doctors who play instrumental roles in maintaining the legacy of Big Pharma.

[DCKit]

4. Don't look to the Gates foundation for help.

The only reason the drug corps partnered with them is to increase market share and protect their patents overseas. Bill and Melinda provide the cover they need to look more humane while they drill poor people for their last penny over necessary medications.... or just allow them to die without.

Then again, you might luck out and they'll pick you as a PR charity. It can't hurt to try.

Sorry to sound like such a dick, but I have inside information.

[stumblnrose]

5. Don't Apologize

Your insight provides perfect insidious sense. However, I really want to go after the Gates Foundation if this is the case. They are more vulnerable than the drug companies. They are revered in this "liberal" town and I think anything bad said about them might cause pause for thought. Can't hurt to try.

[HiPointDem]

8. they also do drug trials on poor illiterate foreigners who are unlikely to complain if things

go south -- or even if they do complain, are unlikely to be listened to, and if listened to will be cheap to buy off.

including children.

fuckers.

Between 2007 and 2010, at least 1,730 people died in India while, or after, participating in such trials. Many of those people, often only eligible for the studies because they were ill, might have died anyway. Yet when there are complications, even those resulting in deaths, there is often a failure properly to investigate.

Among some of the incidents confirmed by aninvestigation carried out by The Independent in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, as well as in Delhi and London, were:

* The recruitment of hundreds of tribal girls without parental consent for an immunisation study sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on the nod of the warden of their government hostel. Several girls subsequently died. The study was halted by the federal authorities.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/without-consent-how-drugs-companies-exploit-indian-guinea-pigs-6261919.html

[stumblnrose]

6. My Dad the Old Fart

Former pinko of the 40s says he doesn't think anyone would care where the Gates Foundation gets their money and that if they can make lemonade from lemons that no one will even look at the lemons.

[stumblnrose]

7. Does anyone know anyone in the alternative press...

That would be interested in exposing a drug company cover up of a potentially lethal drug in the courts, a drug that is killing thousands while the drug company refuses to change its warning label by adding one sentence that would save countless lives?

[eridani]

9. Can't hurt to write to the Stranger and the Weekly

No inside tracks myself, unfortunately.