The Evil Marketing Tricks Drug Companies Use to Fool You

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Dr. Mercola
February 15 2007

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The Evil Marketing Tricks Drug Companies Use to Fool You

From time to time, it's worthwhile to point out some of the devious schemes drug companies use to buy influence for their often harmful potions, like yesterday's announcement from UK drugmaker AstraZeneca about its pledge of $10 million to the American Cancer Society to provide one-on-one support for cancer patients.

Certainly, this grant isn't chump change to almost all of us, but it is to drug companies that shell out close to $15 billion annually just to market their toxic products to doctors and an additional $4 billion on patients.

Nevertheless, it's those large infusions of cash by drug companies that can take your discriminating eyes off the ball, sometimes when you really need to be paying closer attention. Believe me, you don't have to look very hard to find cases in which those evil marketing genuises use cash to blur the distance between fact and fiction.

Take, for example, the day before AstraZeneca's "big announcement," a new study found women with breast cancer live longer when they switch from tamoxifen to aromatase inhibitors, drugs that prey on the fear of women with a history of the disease in their families. No surprise, AstraZeneca makes one of those very same aromatase inhibitors, Arimidex (anastrozole).

Or, perhaps, you'll pass over a story about the 10,000 American patients now suing AstroZeneca based on the untold side effects -- among them the risks of diabetes and severe weight gains -- associated with its anti-psychotic drug Seroquel.

The path to reforming the current state of medicine is a long one indeed. Please don't be fooled by drug companies and their corporate giveaways that blind you from reality of their useless and often toxic products. If you're wondering how easy one can be deceived, I urge you to watch this mind-blowing video I posted here last month.

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Community Comments (16)

Posted On Feb 15, 2007

So basically the drug companies are using a new study for marketing purposes that only showed women with breast cancer lived longer when switching from one dangerous drug (tamoxifen) to another (aromatase inhibitors). Huh? What about compared to more natural methods that are showing way more promise in the research of destroying the cancer by supporting our body's own immune response? Oh, but we can't patent natural substances. Talk about the "fleecing of America!"

The story that isn't told is why they're studying this particular drug in the first place, or what the true results were. 1.) This study was done to try to find a profitably marketable excuse to prescribe aromatase inhibitors (and save AstraZeneca's a**), 2.) The patient's age and tumor size in the study were better predictor's of mortality than switching the drugs. Hmm... I wonder who funded the study.

Sadly enough, I have heard several horror stories from my professors while doing research in graduate school about being threatened if certain study results are not altered before being released. Of course it's also often difficult to get funded for larger studies if small trials turn out differently than funding agencies had hoped. On the upside, this is changing... albeit s l o w l y.

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JJReed

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proudCanadian

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Posted On Mar 03, 2007

Having been in the 'evil' pharmaceutical industry now for 7years. I have heard these comments and stories many times. Like most other news stories you only hear the negative points. We are, by nature, drawn to the negative stories and seem to fuel our fire with the reinforcement that the industry is purely evil. Come on---the pharmaceutical industry IS a business. How many of you know how much goes into life saving drugs before they get to market? And that is the ones that make it to market. Millions and BILLIONS are spent on promising molecules that never make it further than 1st, 2nd, or 3rd phase clinical trials. I am a part of a company that has been making ground breaking advances in Parkinson's Disease. Already launched in Europe it has been life changing for those who have had the opportunity to have access to this drug. They even forget they have Parkinson's Disease. So do those who already have diseases like Parkinson's, Type 2 Diabetes, CHD, cancer deserve any less care? They do deserve to have access to medications that could prolong and or add quality of their lives.
I agree whoelheartedly that we need to spend more on prevention and being proactive. I am also a fitness professional who advocates healthy lifestyles BUT and its a big BUT until people take responsibility and stop blaming everything around them for why and how they got to be the way they are then we will continue to have disease. Ask questions, demand answers and be consumer savvy. Its your life, your body, so shouldn't we stop blaming everyone else and take charge of ourselves?

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Sean Uisce

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Posted On Mar 04, 2007

Preoccupation with 'research' can distract from the bigger picture. We research the effect of isolated x, y and z molecules on cancer. Then the effects of x/y combined. Then y/z. And then x/z. And then the effect of all three. And then research all THAT research to make sure it was above board... all the while ignoring the fact that nature never gives x, y and/or z without several thousand other substances alongside. This means that we'll NEVER, EVER get the research done to cover all the possible combinations and variables.

Now people spending their lives doing that kind of thing is fine and dandy. Other people using that research to create and sell synthetic versions of x, y and z is fine too. But (proudCanadian) to consider that process 'care' and worthy of my financial or energetic support is too much.

Because to my knowledge there is no single manufactured drug which does not have a negative side-effect. Add to that the fact that those who have apparently benefitted from taking a drug are then dependent on the supplier for control of their symptoms (as distinct from eliminating of the cause of the disease) and... well, it ain't pretty.

Given that a business is obligated by law to do what it must to ensure it's own survival (see The Corporation), it means that there is a degree of legal protection for the dreadful stuff pharma companies do and create. They are legal persons who do not suffer the same legal consequences as you or I when they do or make something that harms an individual. Legal persons who are intent upon controlling our ability to care for ourselves and stay out of their clutches (cf the intense lobbying behind the codex and growing efforts to have foods classified as medicines).

And I'm going to leave it at that before my blood pressure goes up too much...!

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NorineVPhotography

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Posted On Mar 07, 2007

I'm a six-year breast cancer survivor. I started out taking AstraZeneca's Tamoxifen. Yes they make that too. I was so sick the first year from the full dose and requested my ex-cancer doctor to reduce the drug or change it. She refused. I finally lowered the dose the next year and then again the third year.

Thanks to listening to my own body screaming that it was being poisoned by the drug, I ended up saving my life during post-chemo care. I have a new doctor now and he's terrific. He listens.

And I am now a diabetic with fatty liver disease no thanks to the Tamoxifen which destroys your liver while trying to "save" your life from cancer. However, I do not let this all stop me from pursuing my career as a sports photographer or as a woman athlete who, at 50 this year, plays baseball in Las Vegas with the men in the MSBL Vegas Valley Baseball League, 28+ age division.

Cancer can destroy the body but it cannot kill the heart. My own personal quote from January 17, 2001 when I had my double mastecomies.

I also take vitamin supplements because they work. I exercise and eat healthy foods as well. I plan on playing and coaching men's baseball until the cows come home sometime when I'm a lot older...

Doctors do a lot of good but even they are manipulated by the drug companies. So find a doctor who cares and do show him or her your support, your respect. They have a tough job of doing what's right and then being punished for it by the money-makers. But never give anyone on this planet your total blind loyality when it comes to your health or you will end up dead.

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Herbalist_203

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Posted On Mar 10, 2007

In response to ProudCanadian...

I did a research paper for my college medical ethics class on the ethical implications of direct-to-consumer advertising by drug companies. When rocks were uncovered, snakes kept crawling out. You, like most north Americans and many other westerners, believe exactly what the drug companies want you to believe. They do pay your salary!

Drug companies may spend billions on research, but that's a mere drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of billions in profits they make AT OUR EXPENSE. Their testing is flawed, short-term, and skewed to produce the results they want. They cover-up adverse effects of their drugs (can you say VIOXX?). They have the FDA in their pockets (they do pay to have those drugs approved) so they can speed their products to market without doing any longer-term studies that would surely cut into those billion-dollar profits. And their advertising practices here in the U.S. are deceptive and manipulative, which is putting it mildly.

I do agree that a very few select drugs can be life-saving, but most aren't doing patients any favors by covering up symptoms and not treating the root cause of their problems. Until the drug companies become non-profits, I will never buy into the idea that their motives are altruistic and pure. For details, read the article at http://www.herbalconsultant.com/Ethics_Drug_Advertising.pdf.

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Miss Health Chick

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Posted On Apr 05, 2008

This is to proudCanadian: These articles aren't saying all in the pharmaceutical industry are bad people, but too many are being swept in the pro-drug rhetoric that as infected the mindset of too many in North America and around the world. Of course the pharmaceutical industry is a business and money must be made, but so many drugs, even if they show promise as a treatment also have harmful side effects. There really are several natural remedies out there with minimal side effects as long as they are (along with pharm drugs), taken wisely. You as a researcher may not have evil intent but there are those who are higher up who don't really care about human health and are more for the money. Not to blame good people like you, but those who have little regard in your industry or any other industry for human life do need to be held accountable for the large number of human lives who are damaged due to side effects from these drugs.

To sean: You are right about the side effects from the drugs. If drugs really helped more often without them, then there would be no reason for complaint and no reason for articles like this! Right on!

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Posted On Feb 16, 2007

As a cancer survivor myself (breast and thyroid), I am not one bit surprised. My opinion is that 10 million dollars is just a good advertising ploy. It makes the drug company look so benevolent and of course the ACS will promote Astra-Zeneca's products. I'm sorry, but I don't buy into that crap. I make a point NOT to do the walk for breast cancer because I believe a cure already exists with alternative, natural methods. Of course now that Astra-Zeneca has padded the ACS's pockets, the research that ACS does in the name of "finding a cure" will be altered to suit Astra-Zeneca. I refuse to walk to raise more money so that the drug companies can come up with more poisons, and then have the results of research altered so that they can lie to the American public.

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Rosebud713

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etbsndc

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Posted On Mar 03, 2007

I agree wholeheartedly with RoseannL713: I never have and never will participate in those walks for "the cure". What nonsense. The only cure that results is the increase in drug companies' obscene profits at the expense of human beings who may never question their roles as guinea pigs and cash cows. I resent very much that my taxes are used to make these unscrupulous drug creators rich beyond belief.

When I graduate from Chiropractic college in a year or so, I will owe way more than 100K. While I am paying on my loans, I will still be forced to pay for these colossal leeches so that they can continue to poison and maim the citizens of the world.

I guess all we can do is to continue to speak out and support things that are true and right.

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Posted On Feb 15, 2007

Dr. Mercola is absolutely correct on the EASE of finding 'bait and switch' marketing ploys in Big Pharma.

Just last night, over the wire services, was a supposed 'independent' study in some RAG of an official sounding periodical, I've never heard of (reading real ones daily for my job), saying that the uptake for influenza vaccines is better via nasal inhalers (the percentage difference was marginal, in whatever non randomized study and population group, but this was that was not specified) than injections.

I encourage everyone again to read, if you already have not, and recommend it to your friends, Dr. Mercola's 'The Great Bird Flu Hoax', which elaborates further on the daily tactics Big Pharma is using globally to push their drugs (many harmful) for profit...

Well, as the global layoffs continue in the pharmaceutical industry, at least the sales and marketing types will find some comfort that they have the skill sets for used car sales.

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Russ Bianchi

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Posted On Feb 15, 2007

Unfortunetly this is the case for most fund raising groups that are attempting to cure any disease. The drug companies give them a lot of money for "good work" projects. But it always makes one wonder what is going on behind closed doors.

mmc88121

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mmc88121

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Posted On Mar 03, 2007

I, like many in the alternative health community, don't support the traditional non-profits that raise billions of dollars to "fight" cancer by getting into bed with drug companies. I do, however, support the American Institute for Cancer Research (www.aicr.org) which is a non-profit org that studies how cancer can be PREVENTED through diet, exercise, and lifestyle changes. That seems much more worthwhile to me.

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Herbalist_203

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