Study tracks reasons behind high rate of illness near Northport

Physician William D. Leak was found to have performed unnecessary nerve tests and excessive invasive procedures, including injecting some patients with agents that destroy nerve tissue. But that didn’t stop Eli Lilly from using him as a promotional speaker and adviser.

Leak is part of the drug industry’s sales force of doctors who are paid to promote brand-name drugs to their peers. Drug companies claim they hire the most-respected doctors in their fields for this purpose.

But an investigation has uncovered hundreds of doctors on company payrolls who have been accused of professional misconduct or lacked credentials as researchers or specialists.

But as an analysis by ProPublica found, drug companies are not always hiring “experts” to act as spokespeople. Instead, they’re often hiring the bottom of the barrel, so to speak, including physicians who have some concerning pasts.

ProPublica has put together a comprehensive database that reveals just how much drug companies are paying doctors, and you can even search for your own doctor to find out if he or she is being paid by the industry.

They compiled data from seven drug companies, including nearly $258 million in physician payouts since 2009, and found some revealing data about the paid speakers and consultants.

Sanctions against more than 250 speakers

Some of the doctors had lost their licenses

More than 40 have received FDA warnings for research misconduct, lost hospital privileges or been convicted of crimes

The idea that drug companies are recruiting only top experts and consummate professionals to do their promotions is a myth. In some cases, there are reputable physicians on their payroll, but many of the most prestigious universities, including Harvard, are now banning their staff from receiving money from drug companies for speaking.

Instead, industry whistleblowers have alleged that drug companies choose their speakers, as ProPublica reported, “on their prescription potential rather than their true credentials.”

Sociologist Susan Chimonas, who researches doctor-pharma relationships, told ProPublica: “It’s sort of like American Idol … Nobody will have necessarily heard of you before — but after you’ve been around the country speaking 100 times a year, people will begin to know your name and think, ‘This guy is important.’ It creates an opinion leader who wasn’t necessarily an expert before.” So the physicians being paid to counsel your physician — who in turn may influence the drugs you end up taking — are not only biased in favor of the drug company that is paying them a substantial fee, they may be vastly underqualified as well.

They attack the market on multiple levels. For instance, many of the articles that appear in medical journals purportedly written by well-known academics are actually written by unacknowledged ghostwriters on Big Pharma payroll.

Drug companies also employ an army of reps who often give gifts to convince doctors to prescribe the medications that they represent. These drug reps usually have no medical or science education. What they do have, however, is training in tactics that are on par with some of the most potent brainwashing techniques used throughout the world.

Worse yet, drug companies have compiled hit lists of doctors to be “neutralized” or discredited because they were speaking out against certain drugs.

Pharmaceutical companies actually spend almost twice as much on marketing than research, and this is how they are able to keep their medications front and center in your physician’s, and possibly your, mind.

So please remember first and foremost that drug companies are nearly always trying to sell you something that there are better natural solutions for. And your physician, too, if he or she is intertwined in the conventional medical field, may be inappropriately advising you to take drugs when better options exist. Read more at articles.mercola.com

November 3, 2010 — An antibiotic currently indicated for hepatic encephalopathy and traveler’s diarrhea has shown promise in the treatment of Crohn’s disease (CD).

RETIC-03, a large phase 2 trial presented at the 18th Annual United European Gastroenterology Week in Barcelona, Spain, showed that rifaximin-EIR (extended intestinal release) was able to achieve clinical remission of Crohn’s sequelae in up to 62% of patients out to 12 weeks, according to study investigator, Herbert Lochs, MD, from the Medical University in Innsbruck, Austria.

Results showed that at 12 weeks, all active treatment groups achieved remission more often than placebo (P < .04), with the highest rate (62.2%) observed for the 800 mg regimen.

Commenting on his motivation for conducting RETIC-03, Dr. Lochs said that he was trying to move away from CD treatment methods that rely on suppression of the patient’s immune system. “It’s not something you ideally want to do — not in the long term.”

In the current hypothesis for the pathogenesis of CD, he explained, there is a change in the intestinal microbiota, whereby pathogenic bacteria disrupt the gut’s mucosa, which activates the immune system. Rather than inhibit the immune response, Dr. Lochs wants to attenuate the reasons for its activation.

The choice of rifaximin was based on case reports of its potential utility in CD, and the fact that it is specific to the gut. “The formulation stays in the lumen; there’s no systemic effect that might lead to overall antibiotic resistance,” said Dr. Lochs. In theory, this should lead to fewer adverse events than other antibiotics, he added.

“The data for antibiotics [in CD] are out there, and the science makes sense,” said Sunanda Kane, MD, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and chair of the Patient Education Committee of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. “The problem up to now has been that no company has wanted to fund a large enough trial with the appropriate antibiotic.”

Dr. Kane said that there is perhaps a different sort of motivation for such a study in the European Union, pointing out that the biologics commonly used in CD are very expensive and often not covered; in some countries, they are not even approved.

“What they are trying to do is to find an alternative to biologics that may be safer and work just as well,” she observed.

Dr. Kane finds the choice of rifaximin in this study to be both prudent and just a bit ironic. “There are case studies that show efficacy, and the fact that it’s so [gastrointestinal]-specific, so targeted, is great, but rifaximin is not a cheap antibiotic.” Still, she admitted, the price is nowhere near that of a biologic, nor does it carry the same potential for serious adverse effects. Read more at www.medscape.com

What is Water Therapy & how to do it?

Early morning, after you get up from bed, (without even brushing your teeth) drink 1.50 liters of water i.e. 5 to 6 glasses. You may wash your face thereafter. This is called water therapy.

Here it is very essential to note that nothing else, neither drinks nor solid food of any sort should be taken within 1 hour before and after drinking these 1.5 liters of water. It is also to be strictly observed that no alcoholic drinks shall be taken the previous night.

If required, boiled and filtered water may be used for this purpose. Is it possible to drink 1.50 liters of water at one time? To begin with, one may find it difficult to drink 1.50 liters of water at one time, but one will get used to it gradually.

Initially, while practicing you may drink four glasses first and then the balance two glasses after a gap of 2 minutes. Initially you may find the necessity to urinate 2-3 times within an hour, but it will become normal after quite some time.

Benefits of Water Therapy

Relief from stress, weight loss, glowing skin, feeling fresh and energetic throughout the day and good digestion are some of the major benefits of water therapy. Have a look at some of the comments below made by people after trying water therapy.

1. Ever since I started this water therapy, I have noticed a glow on my skin, my eyes sparkle, and I feel so clean and so beautiful. I noticed that I always have a bowel movement after my water therapy and my constipation is gone.

2. Water therapy is just amazing! Though I have to urinate a lot of times in an hour but it makes sense. It makes me feel so good. Thanks to this water therapy. Thank GOD for giving us the water to drink.

3. Water therapy is really wonderfully beneficial. So much that people who have not practiced this can’t even imagine. It makes your body thoroughly clean and pure from inside and outside. I recommend that everybody should start practicing water therapy to keep tremendously fit and disease free. Read more at brightlight4.amplify.com

I have Crohn’s disease.

WANTED: Crohn’s End

documentary about people with Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis who use alternatives when nothing else is working. They have listened to their gut and took a proactive approach to ending their disease.

- Document stories of triumph over the disease. - Create more awareness for safer, cheaper, more effective alternative treatments. - Change how Crohn’s and Colitis are treated by conventional healthcare so we have more cases of triumph than suffering. - Spark a national movement emphasizing patient’s right to be made aware of and to choose from all available treatments.

Some of these alternatives are controversial and even illegal. For people to receive Helminthic Therapy, they must travel outside of the US because the FDA has not approved them for use and banned the sale of them. Colloidal Silver has the reputation of easily turning people blue, despite this risk being lower than getting into a car accident. THC Oil, which naturally comes from the Marijuana plant is illegal in the US and Canada. Raw milk, another alternative many with Crohn’s have found essential to their health is difficult to get in the US and banned in all of the Canada.

We’ve got a growing fan base on Twitter and Facebook. We seek to continue to grow this community so we can spread awareness about these diseases, alternative treatments and the documentary.

The more we raise together, the better this film will become and ultimately, the more likely people will overcome their Crohn’s disease or Ulcerative Colitis. Not only would your support mean a great deal to me, but it would mean the world to millions of others with these two diseases.

Reid Bryant Kimball Read more at www.kickstarter.com