26/11/2012 – This is how pharmaceutical companies prefer money to health
What if it were the pharmaceutical companies that prevented the search for new treatments and hindered doctors and scientists in their work of prevention and experimentation of systems for early diagnosis? The Washington Post published a long investigation on Sunday which reveals, at least in part, the background of a famous drug for the treatment of diabetes, produced by the British giant GlaxoSmithKline, and withdrawn a few years later.
THE BEST DRUG – It all began in 2006 when, after a long experimentation, the vice president Lawson Macartney announces that, out of three drugs tested, Avadia was the best in the treatment of diabetes. It is a pity that, reading the report carefully, one discovers that the experimentation was financed by GlaxoSmithKline and that the aforementioned final report was drawn up by eleven people, all financed by the company, just like the seven academics who received substantial contributions for the their consultancy work. Furthermore, but this will only be discovered later, Avadia increases the risk of heart disease in patients treated with this drug which, within four years, has practically disappeared from the market.
DANGEROUS SIDE EFFECTS – Pharmaceutical companies, continues the Washington Post, are investing billions of dollars in testing new treatments. But their purpose is not just public health. Because those investments are part of a relentless pursuit of profits that have, in recent decades, interfered with medicine, often with lethal consequences. Avandia isn't the only case: controversies around drugs like the
