The Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex: A Deadly Fairy Tale

Some excerpts:
Merck’s ... Gardasil vaccine for HPV, now being widely administered to pre-teens, was found to be linked
to ... Lou Gehrig’s disease;
$1.4  billion fine ... deceptive correspondence ... Eli Lilly gaming the system again
AstraZeneca was fined $160 million for scamming the Medicaid system in Kentucky after being fined $215 million for ripping off
Alabama;
Glaxo l... failing to warn doctors and pregnant women of the dangers of its antidepressant drug Paxil related to birth defects;
Pfizer scored a record- breaking fine of $2.3 billion for illegally marketing several drugs over the years

Merck is steeped in a well-documented record of criminality.

The pharmaceutical complex has also infiltrated the majority of American medical
schools and medical research departments.
Mylan Labs settled a case for $100 million.Mylan conspired with the main manufacturer of the
active, indispensible ingredient to have an exclusive agreement.
The FDA’s under-regulation and erroneous oversight encourages this type of corruption. 

demand legal accountability
+++

The Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex: A Deadly Fairy Tale 
 
Doug Henderson and Gary Null
Progressive Radio Network, October 20, 2009
PDF Version

It has been a particularly bad month for the pharmaceutical industrial complex in its
ongoing litigations in American courts. Among the main pharmaceutical headlines, Merck’s
Gardasil vaccine for HPV, now being widely administered to pre-teens, was found to be linked
to amyltrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease; following a $1.4
billion fine in promoting one of its blockbuster drugs Zyprexa off-label, deceptive
correspondence was uncovered by Eli Lilly gaming the system again by promoting another one
of its drugs, Cymbalta, off-label for fibromyalgia; AstraZeneca was fined $160 million for
scamming the Medicaid system in Kentucky after being fined $215 million for ripping off
Alabama; Glaxo lost a Pennsylvania trial for failing to warn doctors and pregnant women of the
dangers of its antidepressant drug Paxil related to birth defects; and Pfizer scored a record-
breaking fine of $2.3 billion for illegally marketing several drugs over the years: Bextra, Zyvox,
Geodon and Lyrica. These kinds of charges, among the many others, have become a habit for
drug makers for the past dozen years.

When we speak of the pharmaceutical industry complex, it does not refer solely to private
drug manufacturers. The complex, like a Matrix that holds captive the health of the nation in
medical slavery by its own design and manipulation, is a consortium, a spiders’ web woven with
financial attachments throughout the medical profession. In addition to the pharmaceutical and
medical device firms, this complex includes every government health agency—the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institutes of
Health (NIH), and or course the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—as well as
drug lobbying firms now employing a large number of former Congresspersons, insurance and
HMO companies, all of the leading professional medical associations such as the American
Medical Association (AMA) and the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the majority of
medical schools and their research departments who are heavily funded by drug money, many of
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the most prestigious medical journals, and ultimately all of this filtering downward to the
physicians who diagnose our illnesses and prescribe our medications and treatments. 

America is rightly regarded as having led much of the world in many qualitative
innovations in all fields. That reputation is duly deserved. However, there is a new dynamic at
work that is causing this reputation to be challenged. We are a nation that prides itself in our
humanity, our sense of fairness, but today there is a growing concern that we are now being
monikered as a country held hostage to a national security complex, which includes the largest
military complex in the world, an obscenely expensive healthcare system and self-serving
bureaucracies and private industries that serve their own financial ends. So it is not surprising
that after spending this year $2.6 trillion on healthcare, we have such little health to show for it.
There are second world countries where people live longer and healthier lives. And we have the
worst healthcare among developed nations. So what have we received for our $2.6 trillion.

As the current healthcare debate continues to rage over in sundries—the $200 billion net
profit health insurance industry—the entire deliberation over disease prevention and treatment
has been overshadowed. And amidst this partisan and ideological anarchy, perpetuated by our
elected officials, the media, and fueled by the pharmaceutical complex, two other areas America
excels as a leader above all other developed nations is in being the premier breeding ground for
the pharmaceutical industrial complex’s greatest profits and, second, as the world’s exemplar in
medical fraud and corruption. The fairy tale of America’s health as being best served by drugs is
a creation of this complex, a lullaby that brings ill citizens repeatedly to their doctors and
hospitals for diagnosis and treatment, or simply to deny healthcare altogether to the uninsured.
The country is pacified by a blind belief that the drugs being prescribed to them have been
proven safe because our government health agencies have our physical health and well-being in
their best intentions.  This is a lie, an extraordinarily deadly lie. Iatrogenesis, medically induced
injury and death, is the number one cause of death in American medicine annually, since only a
small percentage of these deaths are actually reported. Each year more Americans die from
preventable deaths due to our medical system than all military causalities in the two world wars
combined. This is tantamount to medical genocide. One of the major causes of these deaths is the
overmedication of Americans in all ages. The constant need for profits has created an
environment that allows the pharmaceutical industrial complex to use their enormous financial
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and political clout to literally make normal life experiences into new diseases, such as social
anxiety disorder, in order to sell its drugs. The pharmaceutical industry has been given the
authority to pathologize life, with the drugging of our children, seniors, etc. For example, the
leading cause of AIDS deaths today is a result of liver failure. This is not a condition of HIV
infection, but a direct result of the anti-HIV drug AZT. Is it little wonder then that we are being
intimidated and frightened into believing that mandatory vaccination is being touted even though
the science of efficacy and safety, even the need, for these new swine flu vaccines is patently
unproven. It is perhaps one of the largest falsehoods ever perpetuated on humanity that dwarfs
the sleaze on Wall Street. 

If any one of us committed manslaughter, we would be behind bars instead of walking a
crimson carpet into the offices of our elected officials in the Congress and Senate or past the
gates guarded by the nation’s Cerberus, Rahm Emmanuel, to lobby the White House. Yet if we
are a pharmaceutical executive, or a lobbyist representing a drug company who has collected a
litany of charges including medical fraud, criminal salesmanship, gaming the insurance
industries, repeated lying to federal officials, and manipulation of data regarding life-threatening
adverse effects of drugs that have killed so many people, we can walk away with a fine, a surge
in the stock market after a settlement, a financial bonus, and the personal satisfaction in not
having to apologize so we can continue business as usual. This is the power the pharmaceutical
industrial complex possesses and its usurped right to distain every noble principle in the
Hippocratic Oath that every physician dedicates her or himself to live by, “That  I will exercise
my art solely for the cure of my patients, and will give no drug and perform no operation for a
criminal purpose.” 

Every American who is prescribed a drug by a physician has the belief that that pill has
undergone rigorous trials to scrutinize its safety. And when there are known potential adverse
effects, we blindly assume these are known to the attending physician. However, this is a myth
perpetuated not only by drug makers, but by our own federal health agencies.  A 2003
investigation published in The Independent in the UK reported that “under pressure from the
pharmaceutical industry, the FDA routinely conceals information it considers commercially
sensitive, leaving medical specialists unable to assess the true risks [of approved drugs].” One
case involved a very popular over-the-counter drug, the painkiller ibuprofen. The investigators’
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search uncovered concealed data showing that ibuprofen increased heart attack risks by 25
percent. Even Freedom of Information (FOI) filings to the FDA do not produce all the
information being requested. For example, a group of Swiss investigators filed an FOI to procure
trial data about the musculoskeletal pain drug Celecoxib and received back only 16 of the 27
trials conducted on it. A separate FOI concerning a similar drug, Valdecoxib, had pages and
paragraphs deleted because sections of the document were marked as “trade secrets.” An even
worse case involving a leaked report concerning internal memos and secret FDA reports
provided detailed evidence that the FDA approved 9 different antidepressants, representing a
total of 22 studies enrolling 4,250 children, while knowing full well that the risk of “suicide-
related events” was twice as high as children taking a placebo.  These are just several examples
among numerous others. 

The pharmaceutical industrial complex is perhaps the largest, most influential cartel in
the world. This becomes evident after considering the billions of dollars and other currencies
drug companies have been forced to pay for a wide variety of corruption charges. Our analysis of
724 legal settlements from a random sampling among the over one hundred thousand by
pharmaceutical corporations totally $87 billion is just a small indication about how pervasive Big
Pharma’s criminality since the vast majority of settlements are concluded outside of court and
remain confidential.

It is extremely difficult to comprehend why the United States principle federal health
agencies, particularly the FDA and National Institutes of Health (NIH), with the specific
mandate to provide oversight on all pre-approved drug applications and delegated with the task
to assure drugs are safe or at least specify clearly their known dangers, are so reprehensible and
inept. There is only one rational answer and that is the pharmaceutical industry is the FDA’s
largest client, and this relationship goes much deeper than the FDA functioning as an objective
regulator investigating pharmaceutical products before being released upon the American
population. It is not to far afield to suggest that as it stands now the US regulatory agencies are
an extension of corporate America. 

As serial offenders of product safety cover-ups for over a decade, drugs have injured and
killed millions. In the case Merck’s Vioxx,  this one drug has killed 44,000 people and injured
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120,000 others. Only in America could you kill 44,000 and not go to jail and get a raise. Should
we assume, therefore, that the pharmaceutical complex should be trusted without challenge? We
have also been asked to believe that the manufacturers were guided by a sense of public service.
But when examining the top ten drugs sold, the facts reveal otherwise. In one example,
manufacturers marked up a drug an astounding 500,000% over its equivalent generic version. 
Six other drugs were marked up 2000%. Pharmaceutical companies make profits higher than oil
companies.     

Big Pharma’s impact is felt almost everywhere. But nowhere is it felt more than in the
legal system. In a recently concluded, short-term study, we found 724 cases involving Big
Pharma in which either the case ended in a verdict against the pharmaceutical company or the
company settled. The number of cases is staggering, as are the dollar amounts. These cases cover
practically every type of civil and criminal case. From products that kill, harm and maim, to false
claims, to not paying taxes, to patent infringements, to bribery, to publishing false scientific
journals. Yet, in spite of the tens of thousands of lawsuits won against Big Pharma, it still
conducts business as usual. 

Eli Lilly flooded state Medicaid programs with Zyprexa: its superstar, antipsychotic drug.
In 2003, worldwide sales of Zyprexa grossed $4.28 billion, amounting to almost one third of
Lilly’s total sales. In the United States, during the same year, Zyprexa grossed $2.63 billion. A
whopping 70 percent of these sales were directly related to government agencies—principally
Medicaid.  Fast-forward six years to 2009, Eli Lilly pleaded guilty for having illegally marketed
Zyprexa for an unapproved use to treat dementia, and will pay $1.42 billion to settle civil suits
and end the criminal investigation. Lilly agreed to pay $800 million to settle civil suits. It will
pay $615 million to resolve the criminal probe, and plead guilty to a misdemeanor in violation of
the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for promoting Zyprexa as a dementia treatment.

 Did Lilly also know of the possibility that Zyprexa could cause diabetes, which was also
kept concealed under the protection of the FDA? They most certainly did, which makes their
behavior all the more reprehensible. In 2002, British and Japanese regulatory agencies issued a
warning that Zyprexa may cause diabetes. In addition, even after the FDA issued a similar
warning in 2003, Lilly did not pull Zyprexa from the market. This becomes all the more
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understandable after it is taken into consideration that Lilly is also the largest maker of diabetes
medications.

An article by Mike Adams, the Natural News editor, states that Merck employees had a
“hit list” of doctors they sought to “neutralize.” This allegation was confirmed when documents
that had been secret were revealed during a Vioxx court case. The Australian revealed that the
documents surfaced in the Federal Court in Melbourne and exposed the criminal intent
of Merck employees who admitted they were going to “stop funding to institutions” and
“interfere with academic appointments.”   One Merck employee testified (about the doctors on
the hit list), “We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live.” Merck
threatened or intimidated at least eight clinical investigators, testimony in court revealed. There
are other, similar stories in which Merck deals with dissent by attempting to destroy the lives
and careers of academics who don’t  review their drugs favorably.  

Merck is steeped in a well-documented record of criminality. Such actions include, but
are not limited to, intentionally hiding the liver-damaging effects of its cholesterol drug,
intentionally withholding the release of clinical data that revealed the failures of another
cholesterol drug; it has dumped vaccine waste and manufacturing chemicals into water supplies;
it opened up offshore banking accounts to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. taxes, and it
was caught in a huge scheme of scientific fraud when it was discovered that the company used
in-house writers to secretly write so-called “independent” studies that were published in peer-
reviewed medical journals.

Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which the U.S. Department of Justice and the
SEC enforce, it is illegal to bribe a foreign government official in order to obtain or retain
business. Apparently, Bristol-Myers and Schering Plough were unaware of this law. According
to the Associated Press, both drug makers were engaged in influencing government officials in
Germany and Poland respectively.  

 Earlier this year, an article in the Boston Business Journal reported that a former drug
company sales executive pleaded guilty in Boston federal court to telling the roughly 100
representatives she supervised that they should promote a pain drug for uses she knew had been
rejected by the FDA. Bextra was the drug she pleaded guilty to inappropriately selling. Pfizer has
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since pulled it from the market. According to a press release from U.S. Attorney Michael
Sullivan's office, “Holloway was aware of the FDA's safety concerns, but...she nonetheless had
her sales staff of approximately 100 employees sells Bextra for precisely the uses that the FDA
refused to approve.” 

 The pharmaceutical complex has also infiltrated the majority of American medical
schools and medical research departments. A recent survey in the Journal of the American
Medical Association discovered that 60% of academic department chairs have personal ties to
industry (as consultants, board members, or paid speakers), while 66% of the academic
departments had institutional ties to industry. Researchers who receive funding from drug and
medical-device manufacturers are up to 3.5 times as likely to state their study drug or medical
device works than are researchers without such funding. 

In America, one can hardly turn on the television or pick up a newspaper without reading
about the hot button issue of health care reform. Why such emotion?  Why are, seemingly,
rational people so intransigent and unwilling to budge from their positions? Could lobbyists have
anything to do with this? According to OpenSecrets.org, there are 3093 lobbyists in the health
field and Big Pharma now spends approximately $1.2 million daily to persuade Congress to act
according to their script. An investigation conducted by Medical Verdicts & Law Weekly found
that 30 key lawmakers are involved in health legislation totaling $11 million in health
investments.  Three of every four major health firms have at least one lobbyist who worked for a
congressman. Startlingly, nine lobbyists employed by Big Pharma are former congressional
staffers who are still well-connected to Capitol Hill. The conflicts of interest are everywhere.
Judd Gregg (R-NH), the Obama nominee for Commerce Secretary, who withdrew because of
opposition to the Administration's agenda, is a senior member of the Health Committee. He
revealed that he has $254,000-$560,000 in health stocks." 

In 2000, Mylan Labs settled a case for $100 million. What the numbers don’t tell you is
the story behind the numbers. In 1998, Mylan raised the wholesale price of clorazepate, a generic
tranquilizer, to $377.00 (for 500 tablets) from $11.36 in one year. This represents a 3000%
increase on a generic drug. 
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It was subsequently revealed that Mylan conspired with the main manufacturer of the
active, indispensible ingredient to have an exclusive agreement. The agreement prevented any
other manufacturers from producing the drug, for without the active ingredient, the drug could
not be made. Mylan’s deception was uncovered and it had to pay $100 million to settle an FTC
antitrust case. But Mylan represents only an infinitesimal percentage of such examples. In all
likelihood, the vast majority of similar cases remain undetected.  The FDA’s under-regulation
and erroneous oversight encourages this type of corruption. 

Another case included in our study states, “TAP [Taketa-Abbott Pharmaceutical]
Pharmaceutical Products Inc. -- $875,000,000 under the False Claims Act.” TAP agreed to pay
$875 million to resolve criminal charges and civil liabilities in connection with its fraudulent
drug pricing and marketing conduct regarding the drug Lupron, according to a press release from
the Department of Justice. Lupron is used by male cancer patients to suppress the production of
testosterone. Another drug worked as well, so to make Lupron the drug of choice for this
condition, TAP played dirty by giving kickbacks to physicians prescribing the drug, thus
ensuring its ridiculously high price would be maintained. Even though criminal indictments were
filed against TAP Pharmaceutical officials, Lupron’s price remains overly inflated. 

Ever wonder why Big Pharma would engage in all manner of illegal activity? In light of
the steady stream of articles detailing how the elderly are oftentimes forced to choose between
purchasing their medication and buying food, a good place to begin is to examine what it costs to
make a drug and what Big Pharma sells it for. Life Extension magazine conducted an original
investigative report in which it compared the actual price of a popular drug and how much the
generic version of its active ingredients costs. Examine these figures:

WHAT DRUGS REALLY COST
BRAND NAME CONSUMER
PRICE 
(For 100
tabs/caps)
COST OF
GENERIC
ACTIVE
INGREDIENT
(For 100
tabs/caps) 
PERCENT MARKUP
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Celebrex 100 mg $130.27 $0.60 21,712%
Claritin 10 mg $215.17 $0.71 30,306%
Keflex 250 mg $157.39 $1.88 8,372%
Lipitor 20 mg $272.37 $5.80 4,696%
Norvasc 10 mg $188.29 $0.14 134,493%
Paxil 20 mg $220.27 $7.60 2,898%
Prevacid 30 mg $344.77 $1.01 34,136%
Prilosec 20 mg $360.97 $0.52 69,417%
Prozac 20 mg $247.47 $0.11 224,973%
Tenormin 50 mg $104.47 $0.13 80,362%
Vasotec 10 mg $102.37 $0.20 51,185%
Xanax 1mg $136.79 $0.024 569,958%
Zestril 20 mg $89.89 $3.20 2,809%
Zithromax 600mg $1,482.19 $18.78 7,892%
Zocor 40mg $350.27 $8.63 4,059%
Zoloft 50mg $206.87 $1.75 11,821%   
 
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In order to understand how we can spend 2.6 trillion this year on healthcare, but not
reduce the incidence of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, mental conditions, arthritis, etc.,
we must realize this is a game. With each piece of the puzzle, feeding into a single picture of a
massively corrupt, unethical, and frequently illegal system controlled by relatively few
corporations within the pharmaceutical complex and the health insurance industry, are the ring
leaders. They in turn influence thousands of lobbyists, paid-off scientists and academicians, and
policymakers, especially those who rule on important health oversight committees. Health
officials and legislators in turn solicit expert witnesses, preselected by the cartels, to position
their drug agendas in the most favorable manner. The pharmaceutical cartel also has direct
connections with its supporting scientific advisory boards and key foundations. These
foundations, supported by policy think tanks who supply the so-called independent experts, then
lobby the upper echelon within the FDA, NIH, CDC, NIMH, HHS. Ideally they hire former
health commissioners and legislators previously players in the game to assist those same federal
agencies to see their drugs guided through the regulatory process. Public relations and
advertizing firms are contracted to give the public impression that these drugs are effective and
safe for the sole reason they have received official licensing. In addition, the cartel creates front
organizations with consumer-friendly titles whose representatives appear at national conferences
and seminars beholden to special drug interests. Finally, the drug corporations set money aside to
be paid out in settlements. With the exception of class action suits, the majority of cases for
injury and death are accompanied by confidentiality clauses to prevent public disclosure of data
the companies wish to remain secret. 

This is how the medical system is rigged and it is why we can watch 60 Minutes or read
the New York Times serving as pharmaceutical shills to encourage vaccination, yet refusing to
air or print the dissenting voices who have the scientific evidence to show it is a massive fraud.
Therefore, the public is misled every step of the way.  Victims of injury, such as the tens of
thousands of children, now at 1 in 91 children, with autism spectrum disorder, are forced to fend
for themselves. Parents know far better than the FDA and CDC, when their perfectly normal
child after a vaccination or a series of vaccines shortly thereafter is lost, withdrawn into the dark
corners of autism. And yet the pediatrician and psychologist will say the child must have had a
genetic defect. The CDC, FDA and NIH, with an orchestrated voice, say it is not the vaccine.
Everyone within the pharmaceutical industrial complex denies the truth.  Only now, during the
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healthcare debate, are we seeing clearly the rampant politics of the pharmaceutical and insurance
industries. The veils are finally being removed. If it were not for the healthcare debacle, we
might still not know how the game is rigged and why our politicians and health officials will not
tolerate any real reform and accountability at any level. 

If we want to clean up American medicine, the corporate shield must be removed and
politicians, health officials and pharmaceutical executives must be held accountable. If they are
threatened with jail time for manslaughter by pushing dangerous drugs, then we will see less life-
threatening drugs go to market. 

We are in a perfect storm without a life raft. We much take back our freedoms of choice
and demand legal accountability or nothing will change. 

Doug Henderson, JD is a legal mediator specializing in civil rights and Director of Gary
Null and Associates in New York City. Dr. Gary Null is the host of the nation’s longest
running public radio program on nutrition and natural health and a multi-award-winning
director of progressive documentary films, including Vaccine Nation and Autism:
Made in the USA. Dr. Null is also the plaintiff on a law suit against the FDA to prevent
the launch of the swine flu vaccine until safety studies have been thoroughly conducted.

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