According to Dianne Murphy, M.D. -- the director of the FDA's Office of Pediatric Therapeutics ,
"Many therapies are developed
for adults and then used in children without having been studied in children.
Therefore, most marketed products that are mostly used in adults have not been
studied in children--even though they may be used by doctors to treat children."
Of the top five drugs prescribed to kids across the country, all but one are mind altering drug s i.e. antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-hypersensitives and ADHD medications. Sadly polypharmacy is not only on the rise in treating adults, but the practice is growing rapidly in dosing children.
Think about that.
Simultaneous doses of multiple mind altering drugs!
Didn't We D.A.R.E. to Keep Our Kids Off Drugs?
The FDA says these medications are not tested on children . They are manufactured for adults, yet prescribed to kids by family physicians and other specialists. Trusting parents assume they're safe and dutifully dose their kids according to their doctor's advice. They have no idea these medications have not been proven safe for them. In addition the "clinical studies" done on adults are bought, managed, and paid for by the drug companies themselves. One must recognize this glaring conflict of interest.
It Gets Worse
The government and PhRMA are not the only ones making a killing. Your doctor may be cashing in too. A new interactive database shows that during 2009--2010 alone seven drug companies paid $282 million to more than 17,000 doctors across the country and allows you to see where your state fall in the participation of what amounts to legal bribery.
Aside from the billions spent advertising to the public, pharmaceutical reps spend countless hours and even more money wooing your doctor so that he or she will prescribe their brand of drugs over the competitor's. In fact, they spend more on advertising then on the research and development of the drugs themselves.
Relationships matter and frequency sells therefore pharmaceutical reps are in constant contact with your physician. By offering "gifts", applied payments and other perks based on their investigations their goal is to influence. Many physicians have become pill pushers for big PhRMA simply because they have been sold. Others have because they've been hired.
Unbelievably drug companies have not had to report these expenditures. All of the compiled data is based on forced disclosures as part of settlements and lawsuits. The wining, dining, schmoozing, and high dollar "gifts" to physicians are par for the course and in 2006 PhRMA spent an estimated $16 Billion . That's an average of $10,000 per physician.
The " Physician Payments Sunshine Act " was part of the 2012 Health Care Reform Act , and required all drug companies to begin collecting data by January 1, 2012 and report physician payments by this year (2013). The data is not yet available, but one can only assume astronomical numbers. With the Act's murky guidelines, the ability to manipulate information is still firmly in PhRMA's hands. Will we get an honest disclosure?
Are not the FDA and our family physicians supposed to have our best interest at stake at all times? Maybe
they all need a reminder of their Hypocrites Hippocratic Oath .
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