Thursday, August 4, 2022

Medical Journals are Funded by the Pharmaceutical Industry

The medical community has long used scientific research to guide individual care, industry protocols, and what is known within the medical community as best practice or standard of care. With differing opinions about best treatment options, the final say often comes down to what clinical research shows—with documentation in peer-reviewed medical journals being the gold standard. However, the entangled relationship between pharmaceutical companies and medical journals is growing and it is skewing results in favor of pharmaceutical product use.

86 Percent of Clinical Trials Funded by Big Pharma

John Abramson, MD has stated that medical students and doctors are being taught the importance of using results of clinical trials to practice evidence-based medicine, but they are not being that 86 percent of those clinical trials are being funded by Big Pharma. After the trials are completed, peer reviewers for journals only see summarized data without ever seeing the actual data from clinical trials themselves.1

Harvard ethics professor Marcia Angell, MD describes how pharmaceutical companies have a direct hand in the design, analysis, and publication of clinical trials and that academic physicians are nothing more than “hired hands” who carry out the trials as directed then sign their names to ghost-authored reports.2

In addition to pharmaceutical companies funding peer reviewed journal articles, according to the British Medical Journal (BMJ), 50.9 percent of medical journal editors are paid large sums by pharmaceutical companies. In 2014, the BMJ published findings that the average mean general payment to journal editors from pharmaceutical companies was $27,941.3

Journal Articles are Now ‘Marketing Machines’

In 2004, Richard Horton, FRCP FMedSci, editor of The Lancet medical journal, wrote, “Journal articles have devolved into information laundering operations for the pharmaceutical industry”4 and former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) Dr. Angell accused the pharmaceutical industry of becoming “primarily a marketing machine.”4

Dr. Angell stated:

The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical industry. I think it’s disgraceful.5

Dr. Abramson has stated that skewed studies paid for and performed by the pharmaceutical companies harm the public tremendously.

Largest Drug Recall in History Due to Lack of Data Integrity

“This is why we’re having the problems of recalls and drugs that don’t turn out to be as good as they say,” Dr. Abramson stated.1

Dr. Abramson, who authored the book Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine, played a large role in the investigation of the painkiller Vioxx, which led to the largest drug recall in history after only five years on the market. A Vioxx safety panel found that the risk of serious health problems and death among Vioxx patients was twice as high as in a group who took naproxen.6

Research published in the medical journal The Lancet estimated that 88,000 Americans had heart attacks after taking Vioxx and 38,000 of those resulted in death.

During trials against Vioxx manufacturing company Merck, it was revealed that researchers for Merck were aware of heart attacks before the study was published but the information was left out of...

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The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #1800

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Biden Appoints Problematic Islamist With Muslim Brotherhood Ties To Religious Freedom Commission

Under the Biden administration, Islamist affiliations are résumé builders and genocide denial is no big thing.

Serving as an imam of a mosque that was credibly accused of serving as a conduit for terror financing and as the leader of a national organization with roots in the Muslim Brotherhood should disqualify someone from serving on a commission charged with monitoring abuses of religious freedom. And downplaying the horrors of a well-documented genocide fueled by religious animosity should also be a deal breaker. But under the Biden administration, these types of Islamist affiliations are résumé builders and genocide denial is no big thing.

This was demonstrated last month when the White House appointed Mohamed Hag Magid, a prominent imam from Virginia, to serve on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) last month. Established by Congress in 1998, USCIRF is charged with monitoring violations of the right to religious freedom throughout the world and makes recommendations on how to respond to these violations to the president, the U.S. State Department, and to Congress. According to its website, the nine-member commission is “appointed by either the President or Congressional leaders of each political party, supported by a non-partisan professional staff.”

In its announcement of Magid’s appointment, the White House highlighted his status as Executive Imam of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center in Sterling, Virginia. In the early 2000s, the ADAMS center was named in a federal investigation as part of the SAAR network, an alleged terror finance organization funded by Saudi donors.

To further buttress Magid’s appointment, the White House invoked his tenure as president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) which was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1981. During his time as president, Magid gave an award to Dawud Walid, the executive director of CAIR-Michigan. Prior to receiving the ISNA reward, Walid declared, “Who are those who incurred the wrath of Allah? They are the Jews.” ISNA, by the way, was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Magid’s episode of genocide denial took place at a 2004 conference in Georgetown where he stated that reports about the mass-killings of Christians by the Islamist regime in Khartoum were “some kind of exaggeration,” and that “things escalated and people called it genocide.”

One of the groups that called what happened in Sudan “genocide” was USCIRF, the commission he now helps oversee. In 2001, USCIRF declared that religion was a major factor in Sudan’s civil war and that “the Sudanese government is committing genocidal atrocities against the civilian population in...

Moms for Liberty said PayPal unfroze the money in the group’s account following Gov. Ron DeSantis’ announcement last week that Florida would crack down on “woke” banking.

Moms for Liberty was founded in 2021 by parents and former school board members. Their mission focuses on defending parental rights with a massive grassroots network of parents across the country.

Moms for Liberty Co-Founder Tina Descovich said the organization had operated on PayPal for more than a year before running into the most recent problems.

Many of their donors would give monthly automatically through PayPal. However, Descovich said PayPal sent notifications that they froze the organization’s accounts during Governor DeSantis’s speech at Moms for Liberty National Summit July 15th.

“While he’s speaking, I started getting emails during that PayPal has stopped processing one by one all of our monthly donors,” Descovich said.

PayPal also froze the organization’s $4,500 and would not let them transfer the money out. PayPal told Descovich that they could not operate on the platform until the IRS approved the organization’s paperwork. However, Descovich said they PayPal had already accepted the paperwork they filed with the IRS, which is backlogged, in January of 2021.

“I emailed,” Descovich explained. “I tried calling again and get another person and they said sorry, there’s nothing you can do.”

PayPal suddenly released the funds after Governor DeSantis’ press conference announcing he wants legislation passed to prohibit transmitters like PayPal from discriminating against customers for their religious, political or social beliefs. Descovich had spoken about her PayPal experience at the press conference.

“I do think it helps. I have no other explanation why I have no messages from PayPal that they reversed anything. I have not sent them any more documents to change the status,” Descovich said. “So the only thing I have to point to is that they saw the governor’s press conference and decided to change their minds.”

The governor also wants the proposed legislation to apply to Wall Street banks and credit card companies.

“They’re using things like social credit scores to be able to marginalize people that they don’t like,” DeSantis said Thursday.
Gov. DeSantis Takes Stand Against ‘Woke’ Standards that are ‘Politicizing’ the Economy, Targeting Disfavored Industries

DeSantis’ announcement Thursday took a stand against banks and fund managers using the “woke” environmental, social and governance criteria (ESG). The ESG criteria is used by socially conscious investors to screen...