If nobody knows an Alzheimer survivor, one might look no further than big pharmaceutical, the FDA and it’s incestuous relationship with what some pretend is science.
Science for all its claims about working on the frontier of new knowledge and discovery or, and here’s a good one, being about discovering what doesn’t work, frequently suffers from a severe case of monomania. They often get stuck in the rut of a single idea as cause.
A recent Fortune article about Alzheimer's disease points out the Federal Drug Administration has not approved a new drug for the malady since 2003. Only five drugs currently exists and none provide more than temporary relief. All this despite 500 clinical trials exclusively focused on Alzheimer’s during that time.
Researchers during that time have been looking for what now is evident, all the wrong places, amyloid plaques. "By betting so heavily on the amyloid thesis, Big Pharma has slighted other approaches that might hold more promise," according to the Fortune piece.
The article goes on to point out last year alone many trials by some of big pharma’s biggest names were jettisoned to the statistical graveyard. And one of the biggest of the big, Pfizer, completely pulled out of the search.
How do you spell failure or, perhaps, it isn’t failure at all? Many have suspected for years big pharma is more about creating chronic conditions that require chronic treatment. Much the same can be suggested by big pharmaceuticals and their so-called randomized double blind scientific studies.
Way back in the 1970s President Nixon declared war on cancer. Given the gillions of dollars poured down that black hole, most of it to the same researchers and organizations with really only
middling positive results, one begins to get the idea. If you were a money manager managing all that money with the same piddling--to use a favorite bureaucratic term today, outcomes--you’d have been fired decades ago.
The scientific community will readily deny this. But the history of the industry tells otherwise.
Here are a few more quotes from the Fortune piece.
In the absence of a cure, the pool of Alzheimer's patients will soar: while 47 million people worldwide live with Alzheimer's today, 141 million may have the disease in 2050, according to the Alzheimer's Association. In the U.S. alone, the financial cost of caring for today's 5.7 million patients is a staggering annual $277 billion. By mid-century, Americans may spend $1.1 trillion annually on Alzheimer's, a crippling blow to a reeling health care system.
We cite this quote because as recently as earlier this month the FDA was busy as are all government and quasi-government agencies protecting us from ourselves and the so-called bad guys.
February 13, 2019
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took action this week to crack down on the sale and marketing of potentially ineffective and unsafe products, many of which are sold as dietary supplements.
The FDA posted 12 warning letters and five online advisory letters to U.S. and foreign companies that are illegally marketing more than 58 dietary supplements that claim to prevent, treat, or cure Alzheimer’s disease and other serious diseases and health conditions. Unlike approved pharmaceutical medications, these supplements have not been vetted by the FDA, and there’s no proof they work or if they’re even safe to take.
“Simply put, health fraud scams prey on vulnerable populations, waste money, and often delay proper medical care — and we will continue to take action to protect patients and caregivers from misleading, unproven products,” the FDA's commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, MD, said in a statement released on Monday.
There are several things here. Are supplements drugs? No. Are they foods? No. They are supplements to foods. So why are they coming under the suspicious, evil eye of the FDA? Note the phrase "potentially ineffective and unsafe products." Note too the emphasis on "not vetted" by the FDA. So here's a huge question for the FDA and you, Mr, Mrs and Miss Public:
How many FDA vetted "products" drugs has that agency sicked on the public that later proved ineffective and unsafe? Many of which many claim are still on the market. And, moreover, how many people died as a result of those FDA vetted products finding their way on the market? In the Midwest a major city with a soaring distasteful but long standing homicide rate, it's been written they simply gerrymander the numbers by attributing many of the deaths to non-homicidal causes.
Some label that tactic: Don't scare away the tourists and conventioneers. Could that be, like Wall Street, corporations and others, the nature of government agencies? The tone of the FDA letter you can see goes rapidly from potential to illegal. How's that for a scare tactic?
Only five treatments available, no new drugs since 2003, no cures, 500 studies,16 years later and the Commissioner of the FDA is writing letters of warning to supplement producers. Make no mistake about it, science is a lagging not a leading indicator. Stubborn science might be a more appropriate term to describe the health care research industry and those who control to whom and where the money flows. And that's an interesting priority the good commissioner has. After 16 years of abject failure to even dent the veil of Alzheimer's disease, we suspect by now the good Commissioner ought to have a decent understanding of what doesn't work.
Here's another quote from Fortune. "If there's any good news about Alzheimer's it might be this: After three decades of cure-less consensus, the scientific community may be finally ready to seriously consider alternative approaches." Let's hope the same can soon be said for the cancer research machine.
If there's a vulnerable population out there who needs protecting, Mr. Commissioner, it isn't the ones who have been buying supplements these past three decades. It's many of those who put their faith and, in numerous cases, their lives in those vetted FDA products that have maimed and even killed. .
https://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/fda-sends-warning-letters-several-supplements-claiming-treat-alzheimers-disease-other-serious-heal
There are several things here. Are supplements drugs? No. Are they foods? No. They are supplements to foods. So why are they coming under the suspicious, evil eye of the FDA? Note the phrase "potentially ineffective and unsafe products." Note too the emphasis on "not vetted" by the FDA. So here's a huge question for the FDA and you, Mr, Mrs and Miss Public:
How many FDA vetted "products" drugs has that agency sicked on the public that later proved ineffective and unsafe? Many of which many claim are still on the market. And, moreover, how many people died as a result of those FDA vetted products finding their way on the market? In the Midwest a major city with a soaring distasteful but long standing homicide rate, it's been written they simply gerrymander the numbers by attributing many of the deaths to non-homicidal causes.
Some label that tactic: Don't scare away the tourists and conventioneers. Could that be, like Wall Street, corporations and others, the nature of government agencies? The tone of the FDA letter you can see goes rapidly from potential to illegal. How's that for a scare tactic?
Only five treatments available, no new drugs since 2003, no cures, 500 studies,16 years later and the Commissioner of the FDA is writing letters of warning to supplement producers. Make no mistake about it, science is a lagging not a leading indicator. Stubborn science might be a more appropriate term to describe the health care research industry and those who control to whom and where the money flows. And that's an interesting priority the good commissioner has. After 16 years of abject failure to even dent the veil of Alzheimer's disease, we suspect by now the good Commissioner ought to have a decent understanding of what doesn't work.
Here's another quote from Fortune. "If there's any good news about Alzheimer's it might be this: After three decades of cure-less consensus, the scientific community may be finally ready to seriously consider alternative approaches." Let's hope the same can soon be said for the cancer research machine.
If there's a vulnerable population out there who needs protecting, Mr. Commissioner, it isn't the ones who have been buying supplements these past three decades. It's many of those who put their faith and, in numerous cases, their lives in those vetted FDA products that have maimed and even killed. .
https://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/fda-sends-warning-letters-several-supplements-claiming-treat-alzheimers-disease-other-serious-heal
http://fortune.com/longform/alzheimers-disease-cure-breakthrough/
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