Vioxx – Infinite Unknown

Former Merck Employee Targeted for Harassment, Intimidation After Speaking out Against Forced Vaccinations

August 4, 2015 by Infinite

– Former Merck Employee Targeted for Harassment, Intimidation After Speaking out Against Forced Vaccinations (Activist Post, Aug 3, 2015):

Once upon a time, Brandy Vaughan worked as a sales rep for Merck & Co. selling a deadly drug called Vioxx which hurt and killed a lot of people. Brandy found out that her employer did this with prior knowledge that this drug was dangerous. She quit, and began to question the entire healthcare system, including the vaccinations that pediatricians later attempted to push on her infant son.

Now Brandy speaks out against vaccinations like the ones peddled by Pharma giant Merck. She has been a loud opponent in the fight against forced vaccination bills like S.B. 277, speaking at multiple protests and rallies against this blatant medical tyranny.

A video was sent to us, made by YouTuber Andrew Liebich, detailing the kind of intimidation and harassment that Brandy has been suffering as of late. This isn’t your average case of harassment….

Dr. Gary Null Speaking Out at the NYS Assembly Hearing on Vaccinations, Fraud, Junk Science, Crimes Against Humanity and Profit

October 28, 2009 by Infinite

Must-see! (ALL of them.)

“There is no evidence that any influenza vaccine thus far developed is effective in preventing or mitigating any attack of influenza. The producers of these vaccines know that they are worthless, but they go on selling them, anyway.”
– Dr. J. Anthony Morris (Former Chief Vaccine Control Officer at the FDA)

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Added: October 19, 2009

Merck made a “hit list” of doctors who were critical of the company, or of the drug

May 11, 2009 by Infinite

“We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live,” said one email, from a Merck employee.

The danger of drugs … and data

A fascinating court case in Australia has been playing out around some people who had heart attacks after taking the Merck drug Vioxx. This medication turned out to increase the risk of heart attacks in people taking it, although that finding was arguably buried in their research, and Merck has paid out more than £2bn to 44,000 people in America – however, they deny any fault.

British users of the drug have had their application for legal aid rejected, incidentally: the health minister, Ivan Lewis, promised to help them, but documents obtained by the Guardian last week showed that within hours Merck launched an expensive lobbying effort that convinced the minister to back off.

This is a shame, because court cases can be tremendously revealing.

The first fun thing to emerge in the Australian case is email documentation showing staff at Merck made a “hit list” of doctors who were critical of the company, or of the drug. This list contained words such as “neutralise”, “neutralised” and “discredit” next to the names of various doctors.

“We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live,” said one email, from a Merck employee. Staff are also alleged to have used other tactics, such as trying to interfere with academic appointments, and dropping hints about how funding to institutions might dry up. Institutions might think about whether they wish to receive money from a company like that in future. Worse still, is the revelation that Merck paid the publisher Elsevier to produce a publication.

Kiddie Prozac Docs Took Millions From Drug Makers

June 17, 2008June 11, 2008 by Infinite

Related articles:
– Antidepressant drugs don’t work – official study

– Tranquillisers putting children’s lives at risk

– Vaccines and Medical Experiments on Children, Minorities, Woman and Inmates (1845 – 2007)

– The REAL brain drain: Modern technology is changing the way our brains work, says neuroscientist

– America’s Medicated Army

Three prominent advocates of antidepressant use by children received millions of dollars from antidepressant manufacturers, casting into question the integrity of their already-controversial research.

The New York Times reported Saturday that Harvard University psychiatrists Joseph Biederman and Timothy Wilens received $1.6 million each from drug companies between 2000 and 2007. Thomas Spencer, another Harvard psychiatrist, received $1 million.

The payments were uncovered by Congressional investigators searching for conflict-of-interest violations. Federal law requires researchers who receive National Institutes of Health funding to report annual outside earnings above $10,000 to their universities. Biederman, Wilens and Spencer all took NIH money, but never reported the full extent of their drug company income.

That the researchers’ results were influenced by the payments isn’t clear, but the situation is ugly. Biederman has a very high profile; as the Times describes, he

is one of the most influential researchers in child psychiatry and is widely admired for focusing the field’s attention on its most troubled young patients. Although many of his studies are small and often financed by drug makers, his work helped to fuel a controversial 40-fold increase from 1994 to 2003 in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder … and a rapid rise in the use of antipsychotic medicines in children.

Childhood antidepressant use is hotly debated by scientists: it’s not clear whether they work as well in kids as in adults, and the drugs may have profound effects on still-developing brains.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), leader of the Congressional investigation, has pushed for a national registry of commercial payments to researchers.

Image: Refracted Moments

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Merck Wrote Drug Studies for Doctors

April 17, 2008 by Infinite

The drug maker Merck drafted dozens of research studies for a best-selling drug, then lined up prestigious doctors to put their names on the reports before publication, according to an article to be published Wednesday in a leading medical journal.

The article, based on documents unearthed in lawsuits over the pain drug Vioxx, provides a rare, detailed look in the industry practice of ghostwriting medical research studies that are then published in academic journals.

The article cited one draft of a Vioxx research study that was still in want of a big-name researcher, identifying the lead writer only as “External author?”

Vioxx was a best-selling drug before Merck took it off the market in 2004 over evidence linking it to heart attacks. Last fall, the company agreed to a $4.85 billion settlement to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits filed by former Vioxx patients or their families.

The lead author of Wednesday’s article, Dr. Joseph S. Ross of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said a close look at the Merck documents raised broad questions about the validity of much of the drug industry’s published research, because the ghostwriting practice appears to be widespread.

“It almost calls into question all legitimate research that’s been conducted by the pharmaceutical industry with the academic physician,” said Dr. Ross, whose article, written with colleagues, was published Wednesday in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. and posted Tuesday on the journal’s Web site.

Drug Makers Near Old Goal: A Legal Shield

April 9, 2008April 9, 2008 by Infinite

For years, Johnson & Johnson obscured evidence that its popular Ortho Evra birth control patch delivered much more estrogen than standard birth control pills, potentially increasing the risk of blood clots and strokes, according to internal company documents.

But because the Food and Drug Administration approved the patch, the company is arguing in court that it cannot be sued by women who claim that they were injured by the product — even though its old label inaccurately described the amount of estrogen it released.

This legal argument is called pre-emption. After decades of being dismissed by courts, the tactic now appears to be on the verge of success, lawyers for plaintiffs and drug companies say.

The Bush administration has argued strongly in favor of the doctrine, which holds that the F.D.A. is the only agency with enough expertise to regulate drug makers and that its decisions should not be second-guessed by courts. The Supreme Court is to rule on a case next term that could make pre-emption a legal standard for drug cases. The court already ruled in February that many suits against the makers of medical devices like pacemakers are pre-empted.

More than 3,000 women and their families have sued Johnson & Johnson, asserting that users of the Ortho Evra patch suffered heart attacks, strokes and, in 40 cases, death. From 2002 to 2006, the food and drug agency received reports of at least 50 deaths associated with the drug.