Drugs companies 'inventing diseases to boost their profits' - World - Times Online

Drugs companies 'inventing diseases to boost their profits' - World - Times Online: "Drugs companies 'inventing diseases to boost their profits'
By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent



PHARMACEUTICAL companies are systematically creating diseases in order to sell more of their products, turning healthy people into patients and placing many at risk of harm, a special edition of a leading medical journal claims today.


The practice of �diseasemongering� by the drug industry is promoting non-existent illnesses or exaggerating minor ones for the sake of profits, according to a set of essays published by the open-access journal Public Library of Science Medicine.
The special issue, edited by David Henry, of Newcastle University in Australia, and Ray Moynihan, an Australian journalist, reports that conditions such as female sexual dysfunction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and �restless legs syndrome� have been promoted by companies hoping to sell more of their drugs.
Other minor problems that are a normal part of life, such as symptoms of the menopause, are also becoming increasingly �medicalised�, while risk factors such as high cholesterol levels or osteoporosis are being presented as diseases in their own right, according to the editors.
�Disease-mongering turns healthy people into "

Are you really sick ? Who do you believe?

A lot of this blogs has been focused on government non delivery issues and choices to be made. This article shows that you must also be vigilant of the private sector who are driven by profit.

Drugs companies 'inventing diseases to boost their profits'
By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent Times



PHARMACEUTICAL companies are systematically creating diseases in order to sell more of their products, turning healthy people into patients and placing many at risk of harm, a special edition of a leading medical journal claims today.



The practice of “diseasemongering” by the drug industry is promoting non-existent illnesses or exaggerating minor ones for the sake of profits, according to a set of essays published by the open-access journal Public Library of Science Medicine.

The special issue, edited by David Henry, of Newcastle University in Australia, and Ray Moynihan, an Australian journalist, reports that conditions such as female sexual dysfunction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and “restless legs syndrome” have been promoted by companies hoping to sell more of their drugs.

Other minor problems that are a normal part of life, such as symptoms of the menopause, are also becoming increasingly “medicalised”, while risk factors such as high cholesterol levels or osteoporosis are being presented as diseases in their own right, according to the editors.

“Disease-mongering turns healthy people into patients, wastes precious resources and causes iatrogenic (medically induced) harm,” they say. “Like the marketing strategies that drive it, disease-mongering poses a global challenge to those interested in public health, demanding in turn a global response.”

Macleans.ca | Top Stories | Health | The rise of private care in Canada

Macleans.ca | Top Stories | Health | The rise of private care in Canada: "The rise of private care in Canada
All the health services money can buy
ALEXANDRA SHIMO

>> The rise of private care in Canada
>> Quick studies: From personal doctors to better drugs
>> Medical services directory: What you can buy, where



Private medical providers are rapidly expanding their services across the country, but even the industry's own advocacy group lacks definitive numbers on the size and scope of the private health care sector. The new world of for-profit medical service has been crying out for a consumer guide to what's available, what it costs, who's offering it, and how to pay for it. Here it is: a Canadian first.
If all goes according to plan, this summer will see another watershed moment in the relentless march of private health care across the nation. The Copeman Healthcare Centre, which already operates a private clinic in Vancouver, is planning to open three more -- in Ottawa, Toronto and London, Ont. -- as part of its push to have centres open in every major Canadian city by next year. These are not facilities offering specialty surgeries, or red-carpet care for the jet-setting elite. Instead, they will let Canadians pay for quicker, better access to the central players in the health care system -- family doctors. For an initial annual fee of $3,500 per person (their children 22 years and younger are free), and $2,300 per annum for subsequent years, patients will be able to buy a health care package including unlimited visits with a family doctor, and counselling from a range of health professionals. Patients can phone up in the middle of the night and talk to a nurse, and if necessary, they'll be transferred to a doctor. In Ontario, Don"

enshrine a proactive commitment to safety" in the Canada Health Act.

One death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic," Soviet dictator Josef Stalin famously said. Despite the obvious falsehood of that dictum, it has a certain validity in the field of perception. Consider the 1994 death of Nicole Brown, which held a continent transfixed for more than half a year as her celebrity husband, O. J. Simpson, stood trial for murder.

Against that, a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal two years ago reported that up to 24,000 Canadians die every year due to medical errors made in hospitals and health clinics. Since that revelation, there's been scarcely a ripple of public discussion.

The deaths, as well as tens of thousands of injuries, are caused by bungled surgeries, mis-diagnoses, drug reactions and other preventable causes, the study said.

Now, a new report commissioned by Health Canada proposes setting up an arm's-length agency, along the lines of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, to look into deaths and other incidents and seek ways to prevent future similar occurrences.

"It's pretty odd," says Dr. Sam Sheps, co-author of the study with Karen Cardiff. "They (hospitals) have whole departments of finance, but I don't see any big departments of safety."


After the CMAJ study was released, Health Canada created the Canadian Patient Safety Institute to come up with answers. The report calling for a national patient safety agency is a product of that endeavour.

What's urgently needed is a safety management culture in health care, Sheps and Cardiff said when their report came out last week.

Although they didn't address the question, physicians' fears of malpractice litigation could be one obstacle to setting up such an agency.

The report makes a compelling case. It points out that an average 60 people a year have died in airplane accidents in Canada every year since 2000, compared to as many as 24,000 from medical error. It appears that our priorities are determined more by our anxieties than by reality.
The report says the government should "enshrine a proactive commitment to safety" in the Canada Health Act.

Forever Healthy - Whai is the alternative

Forever Healthy - About us: "'Many people in search of wealth deplete their health and then in search of health deplete their wealth'. We feel that that health is wealth. Forever Healthy's commitment and passion is to bring forth awareness and help people prevent and overcome unnecessary suffering and to Live Forever Healthy!
Please Live Forever Healthy ! Wayne Gendel"

We are what we eat and drink

For example, the term "natural flavorings" can mean monosodium glutamate and/or propylene glycol.
Ascorbic Acid is made from sugar and acetone (nail polish remover!)

There are over 2,000 chemicals in skin care products and less than 100 have been approved for human use!

Hexane' is used in the processing of olive and other oils to get more yield, yet it is never listed on the label!

We believe that man-made, unnatural chemicals and synthetics cause imbalance which can eventually lead to illness. Synthetics are a stimulating energy, Natural is a life force! Synthetics are not in whole foods, they are NOT vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats or other nutrients and therefore not required by the body! Synthetics are harmful and that unfortunately includes 99% + of vitamin/mineral supplements on the market.

The result:
By the time most people in North America and most industrialized countries reach the age of 50, they will be on medication for the rest of their lives. One in 3 will get cancer, 55%+ are overweight and life expectancy is a low 75 years for men and 79 for women.

Other cultures live well into their 90's and beyond with little or no health problems!

Alberta backs off private medicare blueprint

DAWN WALTON AND BILL CURRY

From Friday's Globe and Mail

CALGARY and OTTAWA — Bowing to public pressure at home and opposition in Ottawa, Alberta has shelved its controversial health-care reforms that would have allowed doctors to collect paycheques in both the private and public systems and patients to buy private insurance.

An "aggressive" work-force policy to bring more health-care workers to Alberta cities and rural areas to alleviate waiting lists will be adopted rather than allowing patients to pay for certain services to speed access, the province announced yesterday.

"The most important thing is to build a stronger public health-care system where an Albertan's ability to pay will never influence the type of care or the design of care that they can receive," Health Minister Iris Evans told reporters in Calgary after an all day caucus meeting.

Both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and federal Health Minister Tony Clement had expressed concern in recent weeks that Alberta's proposed reforms, which Premier Ralph Klein had dubbed the Third Way, could violate the Canada Health Act -- something Ottawa could address by withholding transfer payments.

News from the workplace: Employed family caregivers at risk - Money - Browse All Money Articles.

Home care save the Taxpayer's 5 billion dollars with little or norecognition - QJ

News from the workplace: Employed family caregivers at risk - Money - Browse All Money Articles.: "Yet without the contribution of family caregivers, the public health care system would incur enormous additional costs, prompting the Romanow Commission on the Future of Health Care (2002) to acknowledge that the health care system simply could not function without the invaluable contribution of informal caregivers.
�In addition to the impact they make on the quality of a care recipient�s life, caregivers provide more than 2 billion hours of caregiving, saving the Canadian health care about $5 billion each year,� Dr. Judith Shamian, President & CEO, Von Canada, told Family Caregiver Newsmagazine.
Supporting the development of a robust home and community care program will further alleviate the pressure felt in institutional settings and help to reduce the wait times for medical care, says Shamian."

grow your own Natural heart By Pass

Dr. Norman J. Marcus, MD, explains a remarkable NEW way to...

"Grow" Your Own Natural Heart Bypass
Without Surgery!


If you or someone you love is considering heart surgery, you need to know about this breakthrough right NOW. It's a SAFE, nonsurgical way to grow your own bypass and dramatically improve circulation in every part of your body!

NEW YORK, NY: Thanks to a stunning new therapy, heart surgery may someday soon become extinct. The new therapy is called external counterpulsation (ECP) and it may be one of the greatest heart-healing breakthroughs of our time.

It's now FDA approved. And it's SO simple, yet so effective, it has the potential to save millions of lives in the years ahead. How does it work?

When you have ECP therapy, a doctor places inflatable pressure cuffs on your legs. These cuffs are gradually inflated and deflated -- to stimulate increased blood flow throughout your body. This increased blood flow "signals" your body to actually grow new blood vessels around blockages. These healthy new blood vessels then perform the same function as a surgical bypass -- but without the surgery!

Truth,fiction and reality

Medicare ads subliminal brainwashing
By TOM BRODBECK

The fantazty

Have you ever seen those TV commercials telling us how great Canada’s health-care system is, where teams of co-ordinated health-care providers work with patients to provide them with “the right care at the right time?”
They’re government commercials — Health Canada to be precise — paid for by taxpayers to tell us how lucky we are to have such a modern, cutting-edge health-care system.
Officially, it’s some kind of awareness campaign to educate us on the concept of “primary health care.”
But in reality, the commercials are meant to brainwash us through subliminal messaging, hoping to make us feel warm and fuzzy about Canada’s medicare system.
They show comforting images like a happy-looking woman clutching her baby while on the phone, presumably accessing some tele-health service or making a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the night. They tell us how the system provides the “right care at the right time” and claim there are integrated teams of health-care providers who are available when you need them.
It sounds like health-care Utopia. But it doesn’t resemble anything close to what we have in Canada.
“Governments across Canada are working to improve basic everyday health care for every Canadian,” the commercial says. “It’s called primary health care where a team of health-care providers works with you.”

A team of health-care providers? Where? I’d love to know where I can access this medical pit-stop, where I can walk in and have access to a team of nurses, doctors, specialists and other practitioners, all hovering around me, sharing their disciplinary talents to help make me well.
Where do I sign up?
“Information’s available to improve co-ordination services,” the ad says.
It is? Where do I get this information? I know we have tele-health services, if you can get a live body on the other end of the phone. But most Canadians can barely find a family doctor.
And then my favourite:
“You can access the right care at the right time,” the commercials crows.
Really? Tell that to the guy who’s half crippled waiting for hip surgery or the person with severe blockage in his arteries who’s told he has to wait a year for bypass surgery.
“And a focus on healthy living keeps you well rather than just treating you after you’re sick,” the commercial goes on. “These are the four pillars of primary health care.”
Sounds great. What country are they talking about? It certainly doesn’t describe Canada’s health-care system.
What we’ve got in Canada is this:
Your first line of defence in health care is a family doctor. If you’re lucky enough to find one, you call your doctor when you have a non-emergency problem. If you’re fortunate, your doctor can see you within a couple of days, maybe a week, maybe longer. If you have a problem requiring a specialist, the doctor refers you to a specialist.
For most people, once the family doctor refers you to a specialist, the doc usually washes his hands of your file. You’re on a wait list and when the specialist can see you, you get in. There’s no “team” of caregivers working with you to make sure you get the right care at the right time.
If you don’t have a family doctor, you go through the same exercise with a general practitioner at a walk-in clinic. There’s no team to help you there, either.
The only “team” out there is a team of caregivers that send you from one person to the next, without any co-ordination or integration.
Patients often don’t even know the status of their files when they’re on waiting lists for surgery or other procedures. If they’re lucky, they have a dedicated family doctor who goes to bat for them to some extent. But GPs, under our government-monopoly system, are not usually paid to spend time advocating for their patients. Most of them are paid strictly on a fee-for-service basis and they can only bill government when they see a patient.
If you have an emergency situation, you go to an ER and you wait. Depending on the severity of your condition — and it’s often hit and miss — you usually wait for hours. There’s not much of a team at this level, either. You have a triage nurse who gives you a number and an ER doc who sees you. You’re either admitted into hospital and another doc treats you on a different ward, or you’re sent home, often without any supports whatsoever. You may wait in the hallway for days.
That’s Canada’s government-monopoly health-care system in a nutshell. There are pockets of excellence here and there where there is better co-ordination and something resembling the “four pillars of primary health care.” But not much.
And to spend tens of millions of dollars running ads trying to brainwash us that we’ve got this cutting-edge system is insulting.
They should put the money into front-line health care instead.

Medicare - a time to reinvent itself

The great debate on Medicare

Article By: Cynthia Ross Cravit

Private medical clinics are opening across Canada on an average of one per week, although they are technically prohibited under the Canada Health Act.
It is a situation many considered unthinkable before last June’s now famous Supreme Court of Canada decision. The court ruled that a Quebec provincial ban on private health insurance was unconstitutional when patients were suffering, or even dying, on waiting lists.
While the decision applied directly to Quebec, it has generated calls for private clinics and private insurance in provinces across the country, as governments hope to forestall similar court decisions.
In February, Lieutenant governor of British Columbia, Iona Campagnolo said in a Throne speech, “Does it really matter to patients where or how they obtain their surgical treatment if it is paid for with public funds?”
Campagnolo said the BC government’s vision for a new provincial health care system would resemble those in Western Europe, where governments pay for essential treatment delivered in both public and private hospitals. To this end, Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell recently toured Sweden, Norway, France and the United Kingdom to explore new approaches to improve BC’s health care system.
And Conservative Premier Ralph Klein of Alberta has recently promised legislation to permit doctors to work simultaneously in private and public institutions and to allow the building of new private hospitals.
Ordered by the Supreme Court to produce a plan for healthcare reform within a year, Liberal Quebec Premier Jean Charest has proposed that private insurance could cover knee and hip replacements and cataract eye surgery. In addition, public hospitals could subcontract to private clinics for such procedures if the hospitals were unable to deliver the services within six months.
Not surprisingly, these proposed changes to public health care, long considered politically sacrosanct and central to Canada’s national identity, have spurred vigorous public debate. While advocates of private clinics say they will shorten waiting lists at public hospitals, critics warn they will drain the public system of doctors and other health care workers. Canada already has a national doctor shortage, with 1.4 million people in Ontario alone without the services of a family doctor.
An Ontario Medical Association study said the province could have a 2,800-doctor shortage by 2010 if action isn't taken immediately.
Meanwhile, Dr. Brian Day, president and director of the private The Cambie Surgery Centre in Vancouver, employs 120 doctors to treat the growing numbers of patients that public hospitals send them because they are too busy to treat. Dr. Day, incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association, is opening a clinic in Toronto, and plans to expand into Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton.
According to Dr. Day, nearly 30 per cent of health care is already private if you count dentistry and drugs. For the direct delivery of medically necessary services, “I think it needs no more than five per cent or 10 per cent,” Day told Macleans magazine.
The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) has offered a checklist of ten principles to guide the emerging debate and discussion on proposed changes to the health care system, including:
Timely access: Canadians should have timely access to medically necessary care and recourse should the wait time be too long.
Equality: access to medical care should be based on need, not ability to pay.
Choice: patients should have choice of physician, and physicians should be able to choose their practice environment.
Comprehensiveness: a full spectrum of medically necessary care should be available.
Clinical autonomy: the autonomous decision-making within the patient-physician relationship must be protected.
Quality: public and private health care sectors must be held to the same high-quality standards and should be independently monitored.
Professional responsibility: the medical profession has a responsibility to promote the strongest possible health care system.
Transparency: decisions affecting the mix of public-private funding and delivery must be made through an open and transparent process.
Accountability: public and private health sectors should be held to the same high accountability standards, including clinical outcomes, full cost accounting and value-for money for the use of public funds
Efficiency: the public and private sectors should be structured to optimize the use of human and other resources.
To date, Canada is the only industrialized country that forbids privately financed purchases of core medical services. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not yet proposed sweeping changes to the health care system, although he has said he favors guaranteed waiting times for services. Health minister Tony Clement is reportedly looking for ways to reduce wait times, as well as to modernize equipment and increase the supply of doctors.
According to the Fraser Institute, a conservative think tank, the median wait time between a referral by a family doctor and an appointment with a specialist is now 8.3 weeks, compared to 3.7 weeks in 1993.
In a recent Ipsos Reid survey, 28 per cent of Canadians picked the establishment of patient wait time guarantees as their number one priority for the new Tory minority government.

globeandmail.com : Health care

globeandmail.com : Health care: "Health care
Take a trip Down Under to learn about health care
ALAN CASSELS
Special to Globe and Mail Update
There's been a wee bit of controversy out here on the Left Coast after B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell and a group of government officials left for Europe to scope out how various countries deal with public-private issues in health-care delivery.
I don't know what all the fuss is about. I mean, if the government is genuinely looking elsewhere for better ways to manage health care, who can argue against a pilgrimage to other jurisdictions? Travel can broaden the mind, so we should be encouraging politicians and decision-makers of all stripes to travel even more if there is a likelihood they'll be able to reimport good ideas about making health care sustainable."

They maximized health-care spending by shopping around for the best prices. They negotiated lower prices on almost all drugs and tendered contracts on major drug purchases to the lowest bidder, in essence forcing drug companies to do what every other industry has to do to survive: compete. If the Canadian government wants to buy services or goods, it issues a Request for Proposals and then buys based on value and price. New Zealand does this for prescription drugs. What a concept.
The drug-plan costs in New Zealand over the past 12 years have risen about 4 per cent per year; ours grew by 12 per cent to 14 per cent per year.

winnipegsun.com - Editorial - CFS move disturbing

winnipegsun.com - Editorial - CFS move disturbing: "Though it wasn't intentional, provincial officials may have exposed some glaring deficiencies this week in how they monitor the children in their care.
Child and Family Services authorities announced this week that staff have been instructed to check on all 6,100 children under their care over the next 30 days to ensure they are receiving appropriate services.
The move comes in the wake of the tragic death of five-year-old Phoenix Sinclair, who was allegedly killed by her mother and her mother's boyfriend three months after her file was closed by CFS.
It's unknown how this little girl could have fallen through the cracks the way she did. Manitobans now want answers.
To that end, the province has announced two reviews to look into this tragedy -- one internal and one external. And hopefully they will get to the bottom of it to ensure it doesn't happen again.

In the meantime, CFS officials have told their staff to rush out and check on the 6,100 children still under their care to see if they're all right. The union representing social workers has called the deadline impossible to meet.
It's a development we find terribly troubling.
Because it begs the question: are CFS officials not checking on these children already, on a regular basis?
Why the need for this sudden system-wide checkup?
CFS officials also announced this week that they have instructed staff to review files that have been closed in recent months.
We understand why CFS would want to take a second look at those files. It's unlikely that once a file is closed -- if it was closed for good reasons -- the child in question would be monitored by the state any further.
It seems prudent to have a second look at those in light of the Phoenix Sinclair tragedy.
But to ord"

Outbreak - Anatomy of a potential killer

winnipegsun.com - Outbreak - Anatomy of a potential killer: "Flu viruses undergo mild changes every year, which creates a need for annual flu shots to combat each new strain.
About three times each century, a dramatic shift in an influenza strain occurs, creating a new version the human immune system has no antibodies or immune cells to fight.
Pandemic influenza begins when that new strain causes significant illness and spreads efficiently from human to human around the world.
Whether it's a deadly strain of H5N1 avian influenza or begins from a different Influenza A flu strain, a pandemic may still be years away.
The incubation period would be about one to three days. "

More Ministry of Health BS

Why can we not ust let people do there jobs without unhelpful interfernce from overpaid Ministry of Health zealots- QJ More forms -more checklists -more useless work by the government idiots

Osprey Media. - Brantford Expositor: "Long-term concerns?
The numbers may not tell the whole story

By Susan Gamble
Local News - Saturday, April 01, 2006 @ 01:00

What happened?

Two years ago, Brantford and Brant County�s long-term care homes were right in line with the rest of the province in their numbers of unmet standards and verified concerns.

But the Ministry of Health�s current Web site shows an odd change: while statistics for unmet standards have dropped across the province, they more than doubled in Brantford and Brant."