Posts Tagged Merck

New Documentary “Bought” Exposes the Hidden Story Behind Vaccines, Pharma, and Food

via: Mercola.com
Dr. Mercola
November 9, 2014

BirthOfBigPharma“Your health is now brought to you by Wall Street. If you thought they hurt us with the banks, wait ’til you see what they are doing to our health care.” – Jeff Hays, “Bought”

The new documentary Bought dives deeply into the inner workings of the industries at the core of our food and healthcare system, exploring the truth about how vaccines and drugs are developed and rushed to market and the ongoing secrecy behind the genetic engineering of our food supply.

For a limited time proceeds from renting or purchasing this film will be donated to the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), a non-profit organization advocating for vaccine safety and informed consent protection in the public health system.

Filmmaker Jeff Hays believes, as I do, that you have a right to the truth so that you can make educated decisions about your health, food, and medicine. Unfortunately, the truth is not easy to come by today.

Like the banks, the food and drug industries have grown more powerful and less transparent over time, and profit has become the primary motive. Hays may be best known for his 2012 documentary “Doctored,” which exposes how the medical and drug industry conspire to control the health care system.

Hays’ new film peels back the layers to show how the drug, vaccine, and chemical technology industries have joined forces as one supervillain, with its “undisclosed location” smack-dab in the middle of the White House.

You can’t effectively address one industry without addressing them all, as they are now inextricably linked. Until enough people raise their voices, nothing is likely to change. According to Hays:1

“From opiates, to statins, to a blizzard of psychotropic medications that do far more harm than good, the film covers how our entire health care system, from education to practice has been Bought… three story lines converge on Wall Street, in a tale of corruption, greed and shocking lack of conscience.”

Federal Vaccine Court: Designed Specifically to Clean Up the Trail of Destruction Left by Vaccines

Vaccines are a $30 billion per year industry. Today, four dominate the world market (Pfizer, Merck, Sanofi Pasteur, and GlaxoSmithKline). Given the furor that erupts when anybody publicly questions vaccine safety, you would assume that the US government considers vaccines completely safe.

But in reality, that’s not the case as evidenced by the establishment of a Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) where vaccine injury claims are decided in a Federal Vaccine Court2 to compensate vaccine victims, but in reality protects the vaccine industry from lawsuits. The official line by federal health officials is that vaccines are safe and never cause autism.

However, the fact is that for many years, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Justice and the Federal Vaccine Court have been quietly settling cases of brain inflammation and permanent brain damage (encephalopathy) that included symptoms of autism.

These VICP awards have been made to cover treatments related to autism. The VCIP was established in 1986 when Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act,3 which protected vaccine manufacturers, pediatricians and other vaccine providers from nearly all civil liability for injuries and deaths caused by government recommended and mandated vaccines.

If vaccines are so safe, then why has the government set up a federal compensation program specifically to manage the damage they cause? In Bought, families who have won and lost in Vaccine Court share their heartbreaking stories.

These parent and health care professionals speaking out about their experiences are articulate, knowledgeable, and compelling witnesses to the damage that vaccines and one-size-fits-all vaccine policies have done. They are not part of some anti-vaccine campaign—in fact, the reason they were in Vaccine Court is because of what happened when they DID vaccinate their children!

Most Vaccine Reactions Are Never Connected to Vaccines

Proving causation is extremely difficult with vaccine injuries in part because there are huge gaps in vaccine safety science and, also, unless a vaccine reaction is immediate and obvious, parents may not connect their child’s deterioration in health to the shots the child was given.

When parents report their child’s regression into chronic poor health following vaccination to their child’s pediatrician, they are typically told the illness couldn’t possibly be related to the vaccine or vaccinations the child was given.

Sometimes reactions occur within hours or days of vaccination and are dramatic and life threatening and the child is taken to the emergency room and the vaccine reaction symptoms are recorded in the child’s medical record. Usually, only the most clear cut and identifiable vaccine reactions end up in Vaccine Court—the ones where the “dots” are easily connected.

Unfortunately, at that point the damage is done and the child may be left with lifelong chronic illness and disability. The vast majority of vaccine adverse reactions are never reported to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). Still, CDC’s VAERS database4 lists 8,000 different adverse vaccine reactions, from localized swelling and anaphylactic shock to autism, coma, and death.5

Because of the factors already discussed, the actual number of reactions is probably much higher than the database reports. As vaccine safety advocate Dawn Loughborough said in “Bought:”

“We used to have this idea we were protecting children from infectious diseases. And we created the National Vaccine program with children in mind, but somewhere in time protecting the program became more important than what’s happening to our children.”

Continue Reading At: NaturalSociety.com

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Collusion Between Pharmaceutical Industry and Government Deepens

via: Mercola
by: Dr. Mercola
August 2, 2012

There’s no shortage of stories detailing conflicts of interest—so many in fact that you may be getting sick and tired of hearing of them. However, this is a truly important issue that must be tackled, and one of the ways of doing that is by exposing it to the harsh light of day. As long as people remain unaware, or turn a blind eye, it will continue unabated.

The price we pay for not paying attention is the loss of health, as the information disseminated by grossly compromised health agencies is skewed in favor of various industries, with Big Pharma leading the pack as one of the most powerful political and governmental influences.

Here, I will review two important revolving-door cases, and while neither is recent news, many of you may still be unaware of them.

Former CDC Director Now President of Merck’s Vaccine Unit

In the summer of 2011, Merck president Julie Gerberding said in a news interview1 that she’s “very bullish on vaccines,” as she recounted the various ways she helps Merck sell its products. What she didn’t divulge was her motivation for leaving her job as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—an agency charged with overseeing vaccines and drug companies—and join Merck in the first place, back in January 2010.

If you don’t see the enormity of the influence her former high-level ties to the CDC can have, just consider the fact that Merck makes 14 of the 17 pediatric vaccines recommended by the CDC, and 9 of the 10 recommended for adults, and while vaccine safety advocates are trying to rein in the number of vaccines given to babies, safety concerns keep falling on deaf ears. The vaccine industry is booming, and it’s become quite clear that profit potential is the driving factor behind it.

One of the reasons for this is because vaccine patents do not expire like drugs do, so each vaccine adopted for widespread use has the potential to make enormous, continuous profits for decades to come. Vaccine makers also enjoy a high degree of immunity against lawsuits—and in the case of pandemic vaccines, absolute immunity—so the financial liability when something goes wrong is very low, compared to drugs.

Gerberding has a Long History of Disregard for Vaccine Safety

Joining a parade of other high-ranking government officials who pass through the revolving doors between government and Big Pharma, Gerberding left a trail of controversy behind her when she left the CDC. While a 2009 article by the Institute for Southern Studies lists a number of them2, I believe they left out the most important ones, namely her misinformation campaign about the pandemic swine flu vaccine, as well as her naive stance on vaccine safety issues in general.

The CDC disseminated extremely exaggerated data on the 2009 H1N1 “pandemic” and urged almost everyone in the U.S. to take the new, untested vaccines. When questions arose, they blocked CBS’s requests for samples of the swine flu cases and added obstacles to getting information. Despite the many dangers that have since been linked to the hastily developed vaccine—including the confirmed link to narcolepsy—the H1N1 vaccine is now part and parcel of the “regular” seasonal flu vaccine, although most people are completely unaware of this fact. And the CDC is now, for the first time ever, urging the seasonal flu vaccine on everyone in the country, from six months’ of age until death.

Even more disturbing, the CDC withheld data on miscarriages from the H1N1 vaccines under Gerberding’s lead, while insisting that pregnant women be put first in line to receive it. This was a dramatic reversal of its own recommendations. More than 3,500 post-vaccination miscarriages may have simply been ignored by the CDC.

One of Merck’s potentially most dangerous vaccines right now is Gardasil; a vaccine that so far has been linked to thousands of adverse events and at least 49 unexplained deaths. It’s a situation that the FDA and CDC have repeatedly denied, even as the adverse reports mount.

Gerberding’s 2004 report to Congress, ‘Prevention of Genital Human Papillomavirus Infection3 likely played a significant role in getting the controversial vaccine approved in the first place. Needless to say, the approval of this questionable vaccine guaranteed her future employer billions of dollars-worth of profits. Gerberding has also been a staunch defender of thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative used in many vaccines, and has consistently denied any links between vaccines and autism.

All in all, Gerberding has repeatedly demonstrated that safety is nowhere on her list of priorities or concerns when it comes to vaccines. It’s easy to see why Merck would want her to head up their vaccine unit. For the rest of us, however, her blatant disregard for provenvaccine safety is bad news indeed.

Continue Reading At: Mercola.com

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Action Alert – Institute of Medicine accepting public comment on proposed vaccine safety study

via: NaturalNews
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
By: Ethan A. Huff

[NaturalNews] The Institute of Medicine (IoM), an organization under the umbrella of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), is currently in the process of putting together an assessment on the health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children. And part of this process includes accepting public comments about the government’s recommended vaccination schedule, a provision that represents a key opportunity for the natural health community to collectively share with the IoM our thoughts and concerns about the safety of vaccines.

As many NaturalNews readers are well aware, there is still plenty of controversy over whether or not vaccines are safe and effective, despite what the government claims. And this debate spills over into other debates about the federal government’s official vaccination schedule, and whether or not it is appropriate for young children. The vaccine schedule is one particular area of concern that has received far less attention than it deserves, and one that the IoM seems ready to address as part of its new study.

In a commissioned paper titled “Study Designs for the Safety Evaluation of Different Childhood Immunization Schedules,” consultant Martin Kulldorff, Ph.D., provides suggestions to the IoM about various ways in which a comprehensive vaccine safety study could be constructed, particularly with the CDC’s vaccination schedule in mind. The paper addresses key issues of importance such as the timing of vaccinations, the quantity of vaccines given in a single day, the interaction of various vaccines with one another, the short and long-term effects of various vaccinations, and other intricacies that are often ignored when discussing vaccine safety.

“The core of this paper is a set of proposals for the type of study designs and methods that would be appropriate for the comparative evaluation of vaccine adverse events under different vaccine schedules,” says the paper. “When evaluating the safety of different vaccine schedules, it is … important to study the whole range of issues, from the timing of a single vaccine to summary metrics based on the timing of dozens of vaccines.”

You can read the full 41-page revised commissioned paper, which was published on July 12, 2012, here: http://www.iom.edu

Submit your comments about the Childhood Immunization Schedule before July 31

As the IoM considers how it will evaluate the safety of childhood vaccinations based on the recommendations outlined in this paper, the group will also be considering what you and I have to say about the matter. To facilitate this, the IoM has set up a public survey portal through which you can express your thoughts about vaccines, and highlight specific issues related to vaccines that are most concerning to you.

You can access the survey portal here: http://www.surveygizmo.com

This is a great opportunity for health-conscious individuals everywhere, including those who have experienced first-hand the devastating effects of vaccines, or who know a family member or friend who has, to share their concerns about vaccines with a group that is well-respected among many in America and around the world. But it is important that you submit your comments by July 31 to ensure that the IoM receives them and includes them as part of its assessment considerations.

Be sure to take some time to read the report, or at least browse key portions of it, so you are familiar with the issues addressed. If you are already well-versed about the vaccination schedule, or have your own thoughts about how it should be studied to properly identify links between vaccines and health damage, be sure to include those in your survey answers as well:
http://www.surveygizmo.com

It is important to note that your survey answers and comments, as well as all other personal information you enter as part of the survey, will be published in a Public Access File in accordance with the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).

Sources for this article include:

http://www.iom.edu/Activities/PublicHealth/ChildhoodImmunization.aspx

http://www.surveygizmo.com

Continue Reading At: NaturalNews.com

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Why Did the Wall Street Journal Bury the Merck Fraud Story?

via: Mercola
by: Dr. Mercola
July 23, 2012

It was big news when court documents were unsealed revealing a whistleblower lawsuit accusing drug giant Merck of fraud and lying about the true efficacy of its mumps vaccine. Just about every media, large and small, picked it up and the world was abuzz about the hundreds of millions of dollars the lawsuit claimed Merck had defrauded from the U.S. government.

The Wall Street Journal published the story in the form of a Dow Jones news release written by Jon Kamp on June  22, 2012, and links to the story began popping up on social media like Facebook.

Then, suddenly, the link to the story no longer worked, and if anyone clicked on the link in social media, it would show up “page not found.” Apparently the story had been pulled, and when search engines and Internet archives wouldn’t even show it, it looked as if it had never been published on the Journal’s site at all. It was erased nearly clean–except for a small stock-watcher’s website, 4Traders.com, which did a good job of erasing it from its main site but didn’t catch it in the cache.

The question is, why did the WSJ pull the story and try to erase as if it never existed when there were actual court documents for evidence?

Is it possible that an event that occurred on June 251—three days after the story broke—could have influenced the story being pulled? On that day, the Wall Street Journal’s “elite” network of CFOs from the world’s top corporations met at the WSJ2. Merck is on that executive council3.

My team attempted to connect with the WSJ on this issue, but as of this time, we have not yet received an answer as to why this article was pulled.

 

Merck Accused of Falsifying Efficacy Studies and Lying about Effectiveness of Mumps Vaccine

 

Merck has actually been slapped with two class-action lawsuits over their mumps vaccine (which is part of the trivalent measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine). The first, which was initially filed in 2010, was unsealed late last month.

Two former Merck virologists, Stephen Krahling and Joan Wlochowski, claim they witnessed first-hand the improper testing and falsification of data that was done to hide the fact that the vaccine has significantly declined in effectiveness4.

By artificially inflating the efficacy, Merck was able to maintain its monopoly over the mumps vaccine market—and that is the main point of contention of the second class-action lawsuit, filed by Chatom Primary Care5.

According to Courthouse News Service6:

“Merck has known for a decade that its mumps vaccine is “far less effective” than it tells the government, and it falsified test results and sold millions of doses of “questionable efficacy,” flooding and monopolizing the market… Chatom says in its antitrust complaint that Merck falsely claims its mumps vaccine is 95 percent effective. That claim “deterred and excluded competing manufacturers,” who would enter the risky and expensive vaccine market only if they believed they could craft a better product…

Merck is the only manufacturer licensed by the FDA to sell the mumps vaccine in United States, and if it could not show that the vaccine was 95 percent effective, it risked losing its lucrative monopoly…

That’s why Merck found it critically important to keep claiming such a high efficacy rate, the complaint states. And, Chatom claims, that’s why Merck went to great lengths, including “manipulating its test procedures and falsifying the test results,” to prop up the bogus figure, though it knew that the attenuated virus from which it created the vaccine had been altered over the years during the manufacturing process, and that the quality of the vaccine had degraded as a result.”

 

How Merck Faked and Manipulated Vaccine Trials to Achieve Desired Results

 

According to these two lawsuits, Merck began a sham testing program in the late 1990’s to hide the declining efficacy of the vaccine. The objective of the fraudulent trials was to “report efficacy of 95 percent or higher regardless of the vaccine’s true efficacy.”

According to Krahling and Wlochowski’s complaint, they were threatened with jail were they to alert the FDA to the fraud being committed. The sham testing program was initially referred to as “Protocol 007,” the Chatom anti-trust claim states. Suzanne Humphries recently wrote an excellent summary for GreenMedInfo.com7, explaining in layman’s terms how the tests were manipulated8.

Here’s a brief extract. For more, please refer to the original source article:

“For the new testing method, the children’s blood was tested for its ability to neutralize the virus using the vaccine strain virus, instead of the wild type strain that is much more infective, and the one that your children would most likely catch… But still it was not 95% effective. In order to make the blood pass the test, antibodies from rabbits was added. The addition of rabbit antibody increased the efficacy to 100%. But that was not the end, because the test has to be done on pre-vaccine blood and post-vaccine blood.

Just the addition of rabbit antibody made the pre-vaccine blood go from 10% positive to 80% positive and that was such an obvious sign of foul play that yet another manipulation had to be made.

The desired end result is to have very low pre-vaccine antibody and 95% or more post-vaccine efficacy as measured by antibody neutralization. So, yet one more change in procedure was made: The pre-vaccine tests were all redone… According to the Merck scientists, they did this by fabricating the “plaque” counts on the pre-vaccine blood samples, counting plaques that were not there. What this allowed was a mathematical dilution of the pre-vaccine positive blood counts.”

This is a perfect example of how medical research can be manipulated to achieve desired results, and why it may be wise to question vaccine makers’ study results. Clearly, there needs to be a truly independent review in the mix… As reported by the Courthouse News Service9:

“Chatom claims that the falsification of test results occurred” with the knowledge, authority and approval of Merck’s senior management.”

While I do not advocate indiscriminately abstaining from all vaccines, I strongly encourage you to exercise a major dose of due diligence as vaccines can cause serious reactions that can have devastating consequences. I believe in informed consent and the freedom to choose. There can be little doubt anymore that drug companies are in it for the profits, and virtually no price seems too high for them when it comes to protecting their profit-making.

Continue Reading At: Mercola.com

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Did Cervical Cancer Vaccine Kill a 3 Year-Old Boy?

via: ActivistPost
by: Cassandra Anderson
Wednesday, July 18, 2012

In June 2012 Chace Topperwein, an adorable 3 year-old boy from New Zealand, lost his battle with a rare and aggressive form of cancer. Chace was accidentally given Merck’s Gardasil HPV when he was 6 weeks old; a vaccine that is intended to prevent cervical cancer from genital wart infection. A nurse mistakenly used the wrong syringe filled with Gardasil when she had meant to give the baby a meningitis vaccine.

Chace was diagnosed with myeloid leukemia at age 2 and died just last month. His devastated parents suspected that the Gardasil vaccine was to blame for his illness.

Merck does not list leukemia as a possible side effect of the Gardasil vaccine. However, Merck has failed to test its vaccine for links to cancer.

Carcinogenicity

Carcinogenicity is the ability or tendency to produce cancer.Merck admits in their Prescribing Information for Gardasil that they perform zero tests for carcinogenicity.

In addition, Merck’s clinical studies were skewed because they compared Gardasil against an aluminum adjuvant additive, instead of a plain water and saline/salt placebo. Merck’s Prescribing Information (section 13) document shows that they ran 7 safety studies on the vaccine; 5 of those tests compared Gardasil results against an aluminum vaccine additive (Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxyphosphate Sulfate or AAHS) instead of a harmless saline placebo.

In other words, Gardasil was deemed “safe” when it was compared to an aluminum additive that is neuro-toxic. The true risks of the vaccine are unknown because both substances showed adverse reactions.

The remaining 2 studies included an impure saline solution with other additives as the placebo while the other one had no placebo control group.

Continue Reading At: ActivistPost.com

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Why Your Doctor’s Advice May Be Fatally Flawed

via: Mercola
by: Dr. Mercola
July 13, 2012

Curious about the prevalence and extent of scientific misconduct, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center for Pharmacoeconomic Research investigated the reasons why research studies were retracted, and from wherei.

The highest number of incidents of misconduct occurred in the drug literature, as compared to general biomedical literature. Nearly 75 percent of the retracted drug studies were attributed to scientific misconduct, which includes:

  • Data falsification or fabrication
  • Questionable veracity
  • Unethical author conduct
  • Plagiarism

This is a significant rise when compared to a 1998 review—cited in the featured NewsWise article—in which 37 percent of scientific retractions between 1966 and 1997 were due to scientific misconduct. Even more shocking: According to data from Thomson Reuters, the numbers of scientific retractions have climbed more than 15-fold since 2001ii!

The most unfortunate thing about this is that these are the types of studies many health care professionals rely on to make treatment recommendations. Large numbers of patients can be affected when false findings are published, as the average lag time between publication of the study and the issuing of a retraction is 39 months. And that’s if it’s ever caught at all.

Just How Scientific is “Science-Based Medicine” Really?

I am a big believer in the scientific method, provided it’s applied appropriately that is. And that’s the key issue here. In order to qualify in the first place, the research must be unbiased, unprejudiced and free from any significant conflicts of interest. Sadly, this is not the case with most of modern medicine—especially not when it comes to drug research, as evidenced by the featured findings.

It’s quite shocking that nearly three-quarters of all retracted drug studies are due to pure falsification of data. Especially when you consider that even well-researched drugs can still have significant side effects.

Just imagine the potential for tragedy when a drug is based largely on pure fantasy!

Vioxx is perhaps one of the better examples of what can happen when a drug is manufactured and sold under false pretenses. It killed more than 60,000 people in just a few years time, before it was removed from the market. In the case of Vioxx, there are lingering questions about the soundness of the research backing the drug in the first place. Back in 2008, Dr. Joseph S. Ross of New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine came across ghostwritten research studies for Vioxx while reviewing documents related to lawsuits filed against Merck.

According to an April 16, 2008 article on MedHeadlinesiii:

“In about 96 journal publications, Ross and his colleagues discovered internal Merck documents and e-mail messages pertaining to clinical study reports and review articles, some of which were developed by the company’s marketing department, not its scientific department. In others, there is little evidence that the authors recruited for the report made substantial contribution to the research itself. … Some of the authors listed in the Merck study reports of concern… question the true nature of ghostwriting. One neurologist originally listed as “External author?” and then listed as Dr. Leon J. Thal, of the University of California, San Diego in the final draft, died a year ago in an airplane crash.”

An editorial published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)iv that year by Drs. Psaty and Kronmal also questioned whether Merck might have deliberately manipulated dozens of academic documents published in the medical literature, in order to promote Vioxx under false pretenses.

Avandia is another potent example. This diabetes medication hit the market in 1999 and quickly became a blockbuster drug. By 2006 its annual revenue was $3.2 billion. A year later, a damning study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) linked Avandia to a 43 percent increased risk of heart attack and a 64 percent higher risk of cardiovascular death than patients treated with other methods.

Between 1999 and 2007, Avandia is estimated to have caused over 80,000 unnecessary heart attacksv, although the actual numbers of people harmed or killed by the drug is still largely unknown. The most recent analysis by the Cleveland Clinic in 2010vi, which used data from 56 clinical Avandia trials, calculated that for every 37 to 52 patients who take Avandia for five years, one additional heart attack can be expected as a result of the drug. As a result, the authors of this meta-analysis estimate the number of deaths caused by Avandia to be around 48,000, between 1999 and 2009.

This is a steep price, to say the least, for a disease that does not require drugs to begin with. Avandia is a poster child for the lethal paradigm of faux science as GlaxoSmithKline, the manufacturer of Avandia, hid damaging information about the drug for over 10 yearsvii, as it would adversely affect sales!

Again and again we are confronted with indisputable evidence that the drug paradigm is about money, not health, and certainly not dependable scientific inquiry.

Since that 2007 NEJM study, data from various trials, studies and meta-analyses have consistently confirmed the dangers of Avandia, and based on the evidence amassed over the past three years, the European Medicines Agency is now recommending the withdrawal of rosiglitazone-containing diabetic drugs due to the increased risk of ischaemic heart disease. NEJM also hit the nail on its head with the statement that,

“[T]he case of rosiglitazone underscores the need for a robust evidence base to demonstrate the safety of medicines administered long-term.”

Unfortunately, a committee of independent experts recommended that Avandia remain on the US market, despite its risks, and an FDA oversight board voted 8 to 7 to accept the advice.

It’s important to understand that our current medical system has been masterfully orchestrated by the drug companies to create a system that gives the perception of science when really it is a heavily manipulated process designed to manipulate and deceive you into using expensive and potentially toxic drugs that benefit the drug companies more than it benefits your health. Across the board, drugmakers do an excellent job of publicizing the findings they want you to know, while keeping very quiet about the rest.

It’s important to realize that all research is NOT published. And it should come as no surprise that drug studies funded by a pharmaceutical company that reaches a negative conclusion will rarely ever see the light of day… What this means is that even if you scour the medical literature to determine what the consensus is on any given medical topic, what you’ll find is an overwhelming preponderance of data in favor of the drug approach that in no way, shape or form reflects the reality of the scientific investigation that went into that specific drug.

How Drug Companies Manipulate Research Evidence to Fool You

The pharmaceutical industry as a whole has become the poster-child for fraud, deception, and manipulation of science for profit. Nearly 20 percent of the top 100 Corporate Criminals listed for the 1990s were in fact drug companies!

In an online series called Transparency and Medicine featured on the web site The Conversationviii, Jon Jureidini discusses how science-based medicine is clouded by marketing departments that control and distort information in the medical literature. Jureidini is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Adelaide (Australia), who got an inside look at this murky mess while examining drug company internal documents as an expert witness in a case against a pharmaceutical company. The voluminous amounts of documents he was given access to showed “serious misrepresentation” of both the effectiveness and safety of certain drugs, with published articles making the research appear positive, while negative secondary outcomes were deleted.

When you consider that this is the type of research data that then ends up being used to make treatment decisions for years to come by many expert review panels, is it any wonder the United States has the most expensive health care in the world, while STILL experiencing a decline in life expectancy and other health indexes? The whole idea that modern medicine is science-based has become laughable, as the evidence tells a whole different story…

Continue Reading At: Mercola.com 

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Merck Accused of Lying about Vaccine Effectiveness

via: Mercola
by: Dr. Mercola
July 10, 2012

Things aren’t going so well lately in the litigation department for Merck, which stands accused of lying according to not just one, but two class-action lawsuits.

In the first case, two former Merck virologists accuse their former employer of overstating the effectiveness of the mumps vaccine in Merck’s combination MMR shot, which may have cost the US government hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decadei.

Merck’s mumps vaccine was originally licensed 45 years ago. Since the 1970s, it’s been part of the trivalent measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, which is part of the recommended childhood vaccination schedule. The case, which was initially filed in 2010, was unsealed late last month. As reported by the Courthouse News Serviceii:

“… Stephen Krahling and Joan Wlochowski were Merck virologists who claim in their unsealed complaint that they “witnessed firsthand the improper testing and data falsification in which Merck engaged to artificially inflate the vaccine’s efficacy findings.”

… As the largest single purchaser of childhood vaccines (accounting for more than 50 percent of all vaccine purchases), the United States is by far the largest financial victim of Merck’s fraud,” according to the 2010 False Claims Act complaint.”

According to Nasdaq.comiii:

“Merck–which stressed that none of these allegations relate to the safety of its product–said the lawsuit is “completely without merit”, and that it plans to “vigorously defend itself.”

It’s quite interesting to note the chosen language in Merck’s rebuttal. It in no way addresses the issue of the vaccine’s effectiveness, which is the core issue of the lawsuit and the allegation by the two former Merck employees that the drug company purposefully used improper testing methods and falsified data to make the mumps vaccine appear highly effective when the opposite was true. Instead, Merck responds by saying that none of the lawsuit’s allegations relate to the safety of its products. Such evasive maneuvering certainly gives the appearance of an admission of guilt.

Second Lawsuit Filed

A mere week after the first case was unsealed, a federal antitrust class action lawsuit was filed by Chatom Primary Care. According to Courthouse News Serviceiv:

“Merck has known for a decade that its mumps vaccine is “far less effective” than it tells the government, and it falsified test results and sold millions of doses of “questionable efficacy,” flooding and monopolizing the market, a primary caregiver claims in a federal antitrust class action.

… Chatom says in its antitrust complaint that Merck falsely claims its mumps vaccine is 95 percent effective. That claim “deterred and excluded competing manufacturers,” who would enter the risky and expensive vaccine market only if they believed they could craft a better product…

Merck is the only manufacturer licensed by the FDA to sell the mumps vaccine in United States, and if it could not show that the vaccine was 95 percent effective, it risked losing its lucrative monopoly… That’s why Merck found it critically important to keep claiming such a high efficacy rate, the complaint states. And, Chatom claims, that’s why Merck went to great lengths, including “manipulating its test procedures and falsifying the test results,” to prop up the bogus figure, though it knew that the attenuated virus from which it created the vaccine had been altered over the years during the manufacturing process, and that the quality of the vaccine had degraded as a result.”

According to these two lawsuits, Merck began a sham testing program in the late 1990’s to hide the declining efficacy of the vaccine. The objective of the fraudulent trials was to “report efficacy of 95 percent or higher regardless of the vaccine’s true efficacy.” This program was initially referred to as “Protocol 007,” the Chatom claim states, and instead of testing the vaccine’s efficacy against a wild mumps virus, as is the norm, Merck used its own attenuated strain of the virus—the identical strain with which the children were being vaccinated!

That’s as brilliant as it is devious, and a perfect example of how medical research can be manipulated to achieve desired results. Suzanne Humphries recently wrote an excellent summary for GreenMedInfo.com, explaining in layman’s terms how the tests were manipulated (see Sources). The two virologists bringing the lawsuit against Merck claim they witnessed firsthand this deception and were asked to directly participate in it.

As reported by the Courthouse News Servicev:

“That “subverted” the purpose of the testing regime, “which was to measure the vaccine’s ability to provide protection against a disease-causing mumps virus that a child would actually face in real life. The end result of this deviation … was that Merck’s test overstated the vaccine’s effectiveness,” Chatom claims.

Merck also added animal antibodies to blood samples to achieve more favorable test results, though it knew that the human immune system would never produce such antibodies, and that the antibodies created a laboratory testing scenario that “did not in any way correspond to, correlate with, or represent real life … virus neutralization in vaccinated people,” according to the complaint.

Chatom claims that the falsification of test results occurred “with the knowledge, authority and approval of Merck’s senior management.”

Continue Reading At: Mercola.com

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Big Pharma criminality no longer a conspiracy theory: Bribery, fraud, price fixing now a matter of public record

via: NaturalNews
Monday, July 09, 2012
by Mike Adams

[NaturalNews] Those of us who have long been describing the pharmaceutical industry as a “criminal racket” over the last few years have been wholly vindicated by recent news. Drug and vaccine manufacturer Merck was caught red-handed by two of its own scientists faking vaccine efficacy data by spiking blood samples with animal antibodies. GlaxoSmithKline has just been fined a whopping $3 billion for bribing doctors, lying to the FDA, hiding clinical trial data and fraudulent marketing. Pfizer, meanwhile has been sued by the nation’s pharmacy retailers for what is alleged as an “overarching anticompetitive scheme” to keep generic cholesterol drugs off the market and thereby boost its own profits.

The picture that’s emerging is one of a criminal drug industry that has turned to mafia tactics in the absence of any real science that would prove their products to be safe or effective. The emergence of this extraordinary evidence of bribery, scientific fraud, lying to regulators and monopolistic practices that harm consumers is also making all those doctors and “skeptics” who defended Big Pharma and vaccines eat their words.

To defend Big Pharma today is to defend a cabal of criminal corporations that have proven they will do anything — absolutely anything — to keep their profits rolling in. It makes no difference who they have to bribe, what studies they have to falsify, or who has to be threatened into silence. They will stop at nothing to expand their profit base, even if it means harming (or killing) countless innocents.

Let’s take a look at recent revelations:

GlaxoSmithKline pleads guilty to bribery, fraud and other crimes

It what is now the largest criminal fraud settlement ever to come out of the pharmaceutical industry, GlaxoSmithKline has pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $1 billion in criminal fines and $2 billion in civil fines following a nine-year federal investigation into its activities.

According to U.S. federal investigators, GlaxoSmithKline (http://www.naturalnews.com/036416_GlaxoSmithKline_fraud_criminal_char…):

• Routinely bribed doctors with luxury vacations and paid speaking gigs
• Fabricated drug safety data and lied to the FDA
• Defrauded Medicare and Medicaid out of billions
• Deceived regulators about the effectiveness of its drugs
• Relied on its deceptive practices to earn billions of dollars selling potentially dangerous drugs to unsuspecting consumers and medical patients

And this is just the part they got caught doing. GSK doesn’t even deny any of this. The company simply paid the $3 billion fine, apologized to its customers, and continued conducting business as usual.

By the way, in addition to bribing physicians, GSK has plenty of money to spread around bribing celebrities and others who pimps its products. The company reportedly paid $275,000 to the celebrity doctor known as “Dr. Drew,” who promoted Glaxo’s mind-altering antidepressant drug Wellbutrin (http://naturalsociety.com/top-radio-doctor-paid-by-glaxosmithkline-to…).

As the Wall Street Journal reports:

In June 1999, popular radio personality Dr. Drew Pinsky used the airwaves to extol the virtues of GlaxoSmithKline PLC’s antidepressant Wellbutrin, telling listeners he prescribes it and other medications to depressed patients because it “may enhance or at least not suppress sexual arousal” as much as other antidepressants do. But one thing listeners didn’t know was that, two months before the program aired, Dr. Pinsky — who gained fame as “Dr. Drew” during years co-hosting a popular radio sex-advice show “Loveline” — received the second of two payments from Glaxo totaling $275,000 for “services for Wellbutrin.”
(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230393340457750503200685…)

Merck falsified vaccine data, spiked blood samples and more, say former employees

According to former Merck virologists Stephen Krahling and Joan Wlochowski, the company: (http://www.naturalnews.com/036328_Merck_mumps_vaccine_False_Claims_Ac…)

• “Falsified test data to fabricate a vaccine efficacy rate of 95 percent or higher.”

• Spiked the blood test with animal antibodies in order to artificially inflate the appearance of immune system antibodies.

• Pressured the two virologists to “participate in the fraud and subsequent cover-up.”

• Used the falsified trial results to swindle the U.S. government out of “hundreds of millions of dollars for a vaccine that does not provide adequate immunization.”

• Intimidated the scientists, threatening them with going to jail unless they stayed silent.

This is all documented in a 2010 False Claims Act which NaturalNews has acquired and posted here:
http://www.naturalnews.com/gallery/documents/Merck-False-Claims-Act.p…

Millions of children put at risk by Merck

In that document the two virologists say they, “witnessed firsthand the improper testing and data falsification in which Merck engaged to artificially inflate the vaccine’s efficacy findings.”

They also claim that because of the faked vaccine results, “the United States has over the last decade paid Merck hundreds of millions of dollars for a vaccine that does not provide adequate immunization… The United States is by far the largest financial victim of Merck’s fraud.”

They go on to point out that children are the real victims, however:

“But the ultimate victims here are the millions of children who every year are being injected with a mumps vaccine that is not providing them with an adequate level of protection. …The failure in Merck’s vaccine has allowed this disease to linger with significant outbreaks continuing to occur.”

Merck’s mumps viral strain is 45 years old!

According to the complaint, Merck has been using the same mumps strain — weakened from generations of being “passaged” — for the last 45 years! The complaint reads:

“For more than thirty years, Merck has had an exclusive license from the FDA to manufacture and sell a mumps vaccine in the U.S. The FDA first approved the vaccine in 1967. It was developed by Dr. Maurice Hilleman, at Merck’s West Point research facility, from the mumps virus that infected his five year-old daughter Jeryl Lynn. Merck continues to use this ‘Jeryl Lynn’ strain of the virus for its vaccine today.”

A complete medical farce

This information appears to show Merck’s mumps vaccine to be a complete medical farce. Those who blindly backed Merck’s vaccines — the science bloggers, “skeptics,” doctors, CDC and even the FDA — have been shown to be utter fools who have now destroyed their reputations by siding with an industry now known to be dominated by scientific fraud and unbounded criminality.

That’s the really hilarious part in all this: After decades of doctors, scientists and government authorities blindly and brainlessly repeating the mantra of “95% effectiveness,” it all turns out to be total quackery hogwash. Utterly fabricated. Quackety-quack quack. And all those hundreds of millions of Americans who lined up to be injected with MMR vaccines were all repeatedly and utterly conned into potentially harming themselves while receiving no medical benefit.

Intelligent, informed NaturalNews readers, home school parents, and “awakened” people who said “No!” to vaccines are now emerging as the victors in all this. By refusing to be injected with Merck’s vaccines, they avoided being assaulted with a fraudulent cocktail of adjuvant chemicals and all-but-useless mumps strains over four decades old. They protected their time, money and health. Those who refuse to be physically violated by vaccines are, once again, turning out to be the smartest people in society. No wonder they also tend to be healthier than the clueless fools who line up to get vaccinated every year.

Merck fraudulently misrepresented the efficacy of its vaccine and contributed to the spread of infectious disease, says lawsuit

The faked vaccine efficacy numbers aren’t the only troubles Merck is now facing. Shortly after the above False Claims Act was made public, Chatom Primary Care filed suit against Merck. That document is available from NaturalNews at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/gallery/documents/Chatom-Lawsuit-Merck-Mum…

It alleges that:

• [Merck engaged in] …a decade-long scheme to falsify and misrepresent the true efficacy of its vaccine.

• Merck fraudulently represented and continues to falsely represent in its labeling and elsewhere that its Mumps Vaccine has an efficacy rate of 95 percent of higher.

• Merck knows and has taken affirmative steps to conceal — by using improper testing techniques and falsifying test data — that its Mumps Vaccine is, and has been since at least 1999, far less than 95 percent effective.

• Merck designed a testing methodology that evaluated its vaccine against a less virulent strain of the mumps virus. After the results failed to yield Merck’s desired efficacy, Merck abandoned the methodology and concealed the study’s findings.

• Merck also engaged in “incorporating the use of animal antibodies to artificially inflate the results… destroying evidence of the falsified data and then lying to an FDA investigator… threatened a virologist in Merck’s vaccine division with jail if he reported the fraud to the FDA.”

• “Merck designed a testing methodology that evaluated its vaccine against a less virulent strain of the mumps virus. After the results failed to yield Merck’s desired efficacy, Merck abandoned the methodology and concealed the study’s findings. [Then] Merck designed even more scientifically flawed methodology, this time incorporating the use of animal antibodies to artificially inflate the results, but it too failed to achieve Merck’s fabricated efficacy rate. Confronted with two failed methodologies, Merck then falsified the test data to guarantee the results it desired. Having achieved the desired, albeit falsified, efficacy threshold, Merck submitted these fraudulent results to the FDA and European Medicines Agency.”

• “Merck took steps to cover up the tracks of its fraudulent testing by destroying evidence of the falsified data and then lying to an FDA investigator… Merck also attempted to buy the silence and cooperation of its staff by offering them financial incentives to follow the direction of Merck personnel overseeing the fraudulent testing process. Merck also threatened… Stephen Krahling, a virologist in Merck’s vaccine division from 1999 to 2001, with jail if he reported fraud to the FDA.”

• “Merck continued to conceal what it knew about the diminished efficacy of its Mumps Vaccine even after significant mumps outbreaks in 2006 and 2009.”

Continue Reading At: NaturalNews.com 

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Microsoft Buys Eugenics Technology From Merck, Becomes Drug Development Partner With Top Global Vaccine Manufacturer

via: NaturalNews
Thursday, February 02, 2012
By: Mike Adams

[NaturalNews] When you buy Microsoft products, you are now promoting the pharmaceutical industry and its global vaccine agenda. That’s the new reality in which we live, where the world’s largest software company is “in bed” with the world’s largest vaccine pusher.

How so? In 2009, Microsoft purchased a key piece of technology from the drug company Merck, the world’s largest maker of vaccines (which Bill Gates says can help “reduce the global population” by 10 to 15 percent). That technology, as you’ll see below, can conceivably be used to develop eugenics vaccines that target specific races and nationalities with infertility-inducing pharmaceuticals — something that is entirely consistent with Bill Gates’ openly-admitted goal of reducing world population through the use of vaccines (see link to video below).

This gene-targeting vaccine research technology purchased by Microsoft was developed by the company known as Rosetta Biosciences, formerly owned by Merck. Their software is described as a way to “figure out how genes interact with each other, analyze peptides and metabolites, and determine how they relate to gene expression.” (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoft/2009288622_rosetta020…)

An announcement on the Rosetta Biosoftware web site explains, “The deal allows Microsoft to incorporate genetic, genomic, metabolomic and proteomics data management software into the Microsoft Amalga Life Sciences platform for enhanced translational research capabilities.” (http://www.rosettabio.com/company/news/rosetta_microsoft)

This same announcement goes on to say that vaccine maker Merck will “provide strategic input to Microsoft” as a part of the deal. Merck’s strategy, of course, is to make money by pimping vaccines and pharmaceuticals, including the now-infamous Gardasil vaccine.

Rupert Vessey, the vice president of Merck Research Laboratories, openly admits this deal puts Microsoft in the role of being a drug developer. He says, “We look forward to collaborating with Microsoft to develop new bioinformatic solutions to enable and expedite drug discovery and development…”

This is a key statement to understand, because the term “bioinformatic” can only mean one thing. What stores information in biology? These is only one digital storage system in human biology, and that system is, of course, DNA. Therefore, the idea of developing “bioinformatic solutions” really means to develop “gene-targeting drugs and vaccines.”

This is fully consistent with Bill Gates’ admitted agenda of reducing world population with the help of drug company technologies. At a TED conference, he announced in front of a live audience: “…if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower [global population] by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.” (http://www.naturalnews.com/029911_vaccines_Bill_Gates.html)

See the video yourself at:
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=A155D113455FAC882A3290536575C723

All this comes on the heels of other recent news that Bill Gates is funding sperm-destroying technology to cause widespread male infertility (http://www.naturalnews.com/034834_Bill_Gates_sperm_infertility.html). His foundation has also funded genetically modified mosquitoes and other mad science experiments (http://www.naturalnews.com/030940_Bill_Gates_Foundation_genetics.html).

Microsoft the new leader in eugenics technology?

What’s clear from all this is that Bill Gates is pursuing an agenda of human depopulation. This is a similar agenda of those who pursue eugenics efforts around the globe, including Adolf Hitler and a long list of former FDA Commissioners in the United States. One of the most common ambitions of those in the highest positions of power, it seems, is to cull the human population and eliminate “the little people,” leaving only a “master race” of supreme beings.

Even major universities around the globe are now teaching students that human beings are evil for merely being alive and exhaling carbon dioxide, and that killing off humans is “green” for the planet.

In order to kill off large swaths of human beings, the most efficient mechanism to use is a self-replicating, gene-targeted bioweapon. Microsoft’s Amalga Life Sciences technology, purchased from vaccine developer March, theoretically provides a viable platform to develop precisely such bioweapons. It is interesting that no announcements from the company appear to have been made since being acquired by Microsoft in 2009, indicating that their work is now being conducted in total secrecy, behind closed doors.

U.S. government admits developing weaponized, deadly flu strains

Recent headlines reveal that the United States government has also secretly funded bioweapons research that resulted in the development of super-deadly flu strains that could wipe out far more than just 15 percent of the human population. As revealed in recent news headlines:

“Scientists agreed Friday to a 60-day moratorium on research into a modified avian flu virus that has been demonstrated to be more transmissible among mammals. Although the investigators believe their research has a public health benefit, they acknowledge the fear of some governments and others that the genetically altered virus could escape from labs and infect people.” (http://www.philly.com/philly/health/news/HealthDay660965_20120120_Res…)

That may be precisely the point, it turns out. There is no better way to promote the vaccine profits of the pharmaceutical industry than to actually release an engineered bioweapon virus into the wild. And there is no faster way to reduce the world population than to engineer either a vaccine or a weaponized flu virus that burns through the human population, targeting those of an “undesirable” genetic profile who need to be “cleansed” from the human gene pool.

This about this the next time you think about purchasing Microsoft Office, Windows or some other Microsoft product. By doing so, you are funding what could very well be a global eugenics agenda with the ultimate goal of wiping out a significant proportion of the human race.

Source: NaturalNews.com

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NC Museum of Natural Sciences holds ‘Biotechnology Day’ for children with presentations by Monsanto

via: NaturalNews
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
By: Ethan A. Huff

[NaturalNews] The largest and most comprehensive natural history museum in the Southeast, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (NCMNS) is one of the premier educational destinations for both young and old alike to learn about the natural world in a fun, interactive environment. But this beacon of cultural enlightenment has apparently been infiltrated by Monsanto and numerous other corporate interests, all of which were allowed to give presentations at the museum’s recent “Biotechnology Day.”

According to the NCMNS website, the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) partnered with Kelly Services, a local staffing agency, to hold the first ever Biotechnology Day at the museum, which was tag-lined with the somewhat menacing phrase “Biotechnology in Your Daily Life!” The stated goal of the event was to “demystify biotechnology” and enlighten the public as to how it affects their everyday lives.

“Organizations (companies, educational institutions, non-profits) from around the state will be participating with hands-on demonstrations, experiments and crafts,” says the event’s description. Included among these presenters were representatives from both the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, which were essentially given an open pulpit from which to indoctrinate the minds of young children into the dogma of drugs and GMOs (genetically-modified organisms).

Monsanto, BASF, and Pfizer all gave presentations at Biotechnology Day

The very first presentation given during Biotechnology Day was titled “A Drug Comes to Market,” and was given by a senior learning technologist from clinical trial giant PPD. Other presentations included “Better Crops for a Better Future,” which was given by a representative of biotechnology giant BASF, as well as another given by the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Campbell University titled “Are You Taking Biotech Medicines?”

There was also a workshop on vaccines given by the CEO of a vaccine company known as Arbovax Inc, as well as a number of exhibits promoting GMOs and the use of emerging biotechnologies for creating “a better life.” Monsanto, the king of the biotechnology castle, even had a deceptive exhibit titled “Applications of Biotechnology to Enhance Crop Productivity.”

A mid-day session included a presentation from a Pfizer engineer who explained to children a little bit more about how proteins are extracted and “purified” for use in biotechnological applications. And the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center (BTEC) held a hands-on exhibit where children were taught how to manufacture biotechnology materials using grape soda.

Children roped into supporting drugs and GMOs with fun experiments, arts and crafts, and hands-on experiences

North Carolina’s “Triangle” area, which encompasses the Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill areas in the central part of the state, is dominated by some of the world’s largest biotechnology and drug companies. GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, PPD, BASF, Pfizer, Biogen Idec, Bayer CropScience, and Monsanto all call the Triangle home. And these companies hold significant influence over statewide politics, institutions of higher learning, and health care systems.

With this in mind, it is no surprise that these companies were able to exploit a local museum to brainwash children into supporting the agendas of the drug and GMO industries. And the worst part is that these corporate vultures used arts and crafts, colorful displays, fun experiments, and various other hands-on experiences that children love to do.

Be sure to check out the disturbing lineup of events at NCMNS’ inaugural Biotechnology Day yourself: http://naturalsciences.org/programs-events/biotechnology-day

You can contact NCMNS to share your thoughts about Biotechnology Day at: http://naturalsciences.org/contact-us

Sources for this article include:

http://naturalsciences.org/programs-events/biotechnology-day

http://naturalsciences.org/contact-us

http://www.naturalnews.com/biotechnology.html

Source: NaturalNews.com

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