Big Pharma steals from Mother Nature

It may be hard for you to believe but 11 short years ago I was a poster child for Big Pharma.  As a traditional Internist I practiced the art of dispensing drugs and more drugs.  My fall from grace (not literally but figuratively) is well documented in my website story and the many emails I have written since then (some 7,800) but suffice it to say I could no longer buy into a system that produced as many drugs that had to be recalled in one year after being released. I could no longer fall for the statistical machinations used to make drugs look good and I could no longer countenance the FDA’s attempts to suppress its employees from releasing important information.

So whenever I see a “typical traditional medical stance” I always feel compelled to call them on it when it comes from Mother Nature, not big Pharma. You see, they still send me all those free journals and magazines that “real” doctors read.

One of these rags published back to back articles on psoriasis, a skin condition that leads to unsightly scaly skin plaques and has other consequences including arthritis and in some cases heart disease.

The first article was about drugs that reduce “TNF” also known as tumor necrosis factor alpha, a commonly used lab marker for inflammation.  Big Pharma has scored big with TNF inhibitors for psoriasis and autoimmune disorders.  They were excited to report a nearly 50% drop in the heart attack rate in one of their studies using these agents.  They neglected to mention that Mother Nature has her own anti-psoriatic TNF inhibitor know as fish oil, which reduces heart attack rates dramatically without the side effects of outrageous costs of these fancy and sometimes dangerous drugs.

Go figure.

The next article went on to lament serious heart disease acceleration by another class of anti-psoriasis drugs known as “biologic monoclonal antibody therapies”. Their names are nearly unpronounceable and end in “mab”.  These new wave star players showcasing the Pharmaceutical Industry’s technologic prowess and advanced thinking. They are astronomically expensive but of course insurance pays for them (uh, who pays for insurance?!)  Only trouble is they cause heart attacks.

OOPS!

To Big Pharma, at this point I say, “Do nothing, you’ll be just as productive.”  And take your fish oil!

Doc