There is something more sinister yet about Big pharma....

[happydreams]

Their use and abuse of the healthcare system for profit is legend, but there is something far more sinister yet. They have a vested interest in forging new markets (read: finding new diseases, war and other forms of health hazards)



This needs further investigation. One doctor Mathias Rath points to four elements of the pharameuceutical industry that make it a merchant of death.


1) The obvious demand for pharmaceuticals when there is war, disease outbreak etc. ,


(http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/)

The continued existence of diseases and their expansion is a precondition for further growth of this industry. Prevention and eradication of diseases <naturaleradication.html> undermines the economic basis of this business.






2)Unsolvable legal conflicts. <../facts/baycol.html> A wave of patient litigation against the deadly side effects of pharmaceutical drugs threatens to cripple this industry. An end to this litigation is not in sight, since drug side effects are the fourth leading cause of death in the industrialized world <../images/ff11.jpg> (Journal of the American Medical Association, April 15, 1998).
Side effects of pharmaceutical drugs kill more Americans every year than WWII and the Vietnam War combined <../images/mhnw/new/drugs.gif>.

3)Unsolvable ethical conflicts. <../facts/aidsbattle.html> The pharmaceutical industry faces an intrinsic conflict between maintaining profits from patent fees <wyhnhoib.html> and meeting the health needs of people <naturaleradication.html>. In the developing countries, the profitability of drugs has been a major factor contributing to the spread of AIDS <naturaleradication_aids.htm> and other epidemics.

4)Unsolvable scientific conflicts. <naturaleradication.html> Advances in vitamin research, cellular medicine and natural health <naturaleradication.html> allow the control of today’s most common diseases <naturaleradication2.html>. These safe, effective and affordable natural therapies focus on the prevention and eradication of diseases <naturaleradication2.html> - not only the alleviation of symptoms. This fact and the low profitability of these non-patentable natural approaches, threaten the economic base of the pharmaceutical investment business <wyhnhoib.html>.

[LeftishBrit]

1. Mathias Rath is either a nut or a monster

He is an HIV-denialist, who opposes antiviral treatments for AIDS. More generally, people like him seek to deny people their BASIC HUMAN RIGHT to access to modern medicine and palm them off with pseudo-'natural' snake oil. In this way they are the other side of the coin from the pharma companies who also deny many people access to modern medicine, through making them unaffordable. Different strategies, same effect.

[happydreams]

2. Pardon me if I ask for a teensie bit of facts to back up your

claims. Sources please.

Granted I don't know much about this guy as I indicate.

[LeftishBrit]

3. See this link

www.badscience.net/2009/04/matthias-rath-steal-this-chapter

And if you want to argue that Goldacre could be biased - here is a link to a news item, which quietly indicates some of the more shocking effects of Rath's views:

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=qw1119878286619B243