Need Proof Of Pharmaceutical Company's Power?

[Canadian Karen]

If the pharmaceutical companies could make money with this, it would have been hailed as the discovery of the century already:

Open Original Shared Link

And an opinion column on how possibly the biggest find in human medical history is being completely ignored:

Open Original Shared Link

Any thoughts?

Karen

[2kids4me]

I dont get the feeling that it is being ignored, they have to go through rigorous trials and then deal with laws governing new drugs. Federal drug agencies (not a pharmaceutical company, but a gov't regulated agency that has to examine all data. They cant announce a cure - unless they have done all that first. To do so would be irresponsible.

I did hear it on the radio news earlier this week - that it was going the next step in trials.

From U of A site: Open Original Shared Link

At this point, the University of Alberta, the Alberta Cancer Board and Capital Health do not condone or advise the use of dichloroacetate (DCA) in human beings for the treatment of cancer since no human beings have gone through clinical trials using DCA to treat cancer. However, the University of Alberta and the Alberta Cancer Board are committed to performing clinical trials in the immediate future in consultation with regulatory agencies such as Health Canada. We believe that because DCA has been used on human beings in Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials of metabolic diseases, the cancer clinical trials timeline for our research will be much shorter than usual.

sandy

[gfp]

Karen,

Although the discovery wasn't so big as cancer the discovery of heliobacter pylori by Marshall in 1994, linked to its treatment with very cheap pre-existing drugs is an example of how a cure for a potentially fatal disease was actively repressed.

Although this was eventually settled once h. pylori was accepted the two main medical publishing houses were audited over this and their relationship with the drug companies.... indeed I remember reading an editorial statement in a scientific journal where they made admissions of sorts... that they had bowed to pressure from the drig companies.

Stories abound, it has actually been proposed that the drug companies had employees following Marshals family and harassing them and that the Australian government actually intervened... however this is either just rumour or well covered up ....

Of course glaxo-welcome now sponsor heliobacter research ... apologies were made etc. and its becoming increasingly difficult to find the facts and disassociate them from urban myth.

This is either very clever and proof of the power of the drug companies or 'nothing' must have been going on... take you pick ...

If you really want to look deeply then the Australian newspapers did print lots of this, the Australian federal govt did make a study on how many people died from complications during the period between 1994 and the research being accepted... its just well hidden however its probably still available if you can dig deep enough.

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist but I did read this stuff and its no longer on-line or easy to find....

[Canadian Karen]

I dont get the feeling that it is being ignored, they have to go through rigorous trials and then deal with laws governing new drugs. Federal drug agencies (not a pharmaceutical company, but a gov't regulated agency that has to examine all data. They cant announce a cure - unless they have done all that first. To do so would be irresponsible.

I did hear it on the radio news earlier this week - that it was going the next step in trials.

sandy

You may have heard it on the radio as you live in Alberta and it is local news to you, but we haven't heard anything out here in Ontario, or Iimagine the rest of the world.....

[Canadian Karen]

Wow Steve, that's very intriguing..... goes to show you that you never really know what's going on "below the surface"......

Reminds me of that movie "The Constant Gardener".......

[gfp]

Yep, the problem is its very easy to make a "tinfoil hat" case out of this.

I know what I read.... but finding it on the internet now is pretty damned hard!

I actually read about whole internal investigation by Elsevier Press ... that I can't find on the internet....

The problem is in order to make these things go away we the "conspiracy theory conspiracy theory" Yes, Im aware I typed that twice...

My theory goes like this....

Lots of conspiracy theories are floated into the general public view for no other reason than they are easy to prove wrong or simply ridiculous....

There is a whole load of "conspiracy theories" that are actually completely true and hidden right in front of us by hiding them in a forest of other "conspiracy theories" and the only way to work out which are true and which are deliberate and which are just fakes means lots of investigation... and of course anyone who has to do this level of investigation gets classed as a "fanatic" so its self defeating....

I just reposted the fruit sprayed by candida link.... I'm sure many people will simply laugh and dismiss it as a conspiracy theory along with most of their supermarket "fresh" produce being a year old...

Believe me I have been to these huge hanger like warehouses and seen them.... (well Ive waited outside but my ex-wife has) ... and if you look at google for advertisements for companies that make the equipment to do this then its all available YET 90% of people will probably not believe me, even though the companies that make this equipment don't even hide it....

Common sense says fruit can't last a year without going off.... hence anyone posting that it not only can but is most of the fruit you get in a supermarket must be a conspiracy theory tinfoil hat person.

Yep, me saying the pharmacutical companies conspired to ridicule Marshal is like me saying "I saw Elvis yesterday and he claims to have been abducted by aliens from area 51"

enough already .... now I'm freaking myself out.

p.s. I have posted this before.... the fact you dismissed it (along with most everyone else) just shows how well these cover-ups work...

(Im not saying you didn't beleive me, I mean its very clever how you probably read me say about Marshal and h. pylori before and it never hit you how effective the cover-up is)

[Canadian Karen]

Dismiss you? LOL! No way. Not possible!

Steve, you have one of the most brilliant minds I have ever encountered in my lifetime. Why would you think I would dismiss you? Maybe I worded it weird (being middle of the night and going to the bathroom a guzillion times....... my mind is mushy, not crisp!)

I just think it very suspicious that this news it not plastered all over the world, CNN highlighting it, etc.... Really makes you wonder......

Karen

[jerseyangel]

Wow, this is all very interesting.

This is the first I've ever heard of it.

[Canadian Karen]

With both this story and the one that Steve has mentioned, it really makes we wonder to what lengths the pharmaceutical companies would go to the protect their billions of dollars they put into cancer research to come up with all these expensive drugs.....

In regards to conspiracy theories, another one that pops into my head is that I wonder how many vehicles invented that did not require oil/gasoline were bought up and destroyed by the oil companies......

[jerseyangel]

It just really hits home to me right now--I have a family member who is in the middle of chemo/radiation.

I guess it all comes down to money.

[darlindeb25]

It still stands to reason, pharmacutical companies do not want research done on diseases like celiac because they do not get revenue from it--no drugs, no money for them. No tinfoil hat conspircy there.

The only way to preserve fruits and vegatables is by freezing or canning them. I grew up on a farm, I know apples have a certain shelf life and thats it. The coating they put on them is to make them shiny and more pleasing to the eye, same with oranges, they inject them with color because we think they have to be orange. Fruits and vegatables are perishables. Green beans, peas, carrots, lettuce, cabbage, squash--they all have a certain shelf life and that can't be changed. Even if I had links, I would not believe them. There are things in this world that amaze me, things that shock me, things I do not want to believe anyone would do. It's a sad world when people have to mess with our minds.

[gfp]

With both this story and the one that Steve has mentioned, it really makes we wonder to what lengths the pharmaceutical companies would go to the protect their billions of dollars they put into cancer research to come up with all these expensive drugs.....

In regards to conspiracy theories, another one that pops into my head is that I wonder how many vehicles invented that did not require oil/gasoline were bought up and destroyed by the oil companies......

Excellent example....

Common sense says we would be using them by now if they worked..... however common sense misses one HUGE thing in this respect... the market for oil is not the issue for the oil companies, indeed we have more than enough market for oil long term...

The issue is that there are HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of $ invested in the infrastructure of filling up your car.

The infrastructure associated with making fuel gas, transporting it safely and retailing it to the consumer is immense.

Fuel gas is a hazardous substance, its carcinogenic designed to ignite explosively etc. so the infrastructure costs a lot...

You can't just sell it from containers, regulations for building a gas station are long, lengthy and expensive...

In order to convert to a more environmentally friendly fuel this whole infrastructure would need to be retired and a new infrastructure made... perhaps the simplest analogy is hydrogen powered cars.... who's waste product is water... but how to transport/store the hydrogen? The present oil transport mechanism would be useless....

Unless you can fill up your car when you need to its pretty much useless .... hence although the techology for hydrogen powered cars is available the oil companies don't need to actively do anything ... they just passively don't invest in the infrastructure.

If they don't do this then who can? To make hydrogen viable on the scale of just Canada would mean hundreds of thousands of service stations... its not much use to me having a hydrogen car to visit Northern Manitoba if I can't buy fuel on the way, heck finding enough gas stations might be hard once I cross into Yukon...

These gas stations would cost hundreds of thousands EACH.... and an infrastructure to supply them would need to be put in place but its not economically feasible in the short term until someone else makes the investment ... so everyone is waiting for someone else to bleed money into infrastructure that they can take advantage of....

Imagine Husky open 5 service stations on the Trans Canada highway... at a cost of a few million loonies.... these might be OK for a few people making limited Journeys.... but not even sufficient to make it province to province... but if another company then open one inbetween the Husky stations then benefit from the pre-existing structure... suddenly you can het to the next province but you only have one choice of service station for hydrogen, they can effectively charge a huge premium....

In the same way investment in rail could overcome this... Its somewhat noticeable that the main Rail link is the hardest... it basically challenges the geology of Canada to its max crossing numerous mountain ranges... at the same time a lot of Canda is pretty flat but what the point making a railline to/from nowhere. It has to join with an infrastructure.

Oil companies are very diverse, some are specifically oil and or gas... others view themselves as "energy companies" ... and really don't care what product they sell. Ive worked for both types.... and its not a case of good or bad... its simply a case of they are making huge profits off their investments in infrastructure and the only thing that will make them abandon it is legislation which they can afford to pay isn't passed.

A very simple piece of legislation could actually cover this... for instance no gasoline stations in National parks... or tax breaks on the construction of hydrogen service stations...

It actually works for the oil companies that this major point is overlooked... and instead the far more prevalent theory is they must have paid off alternative fuel research... perhaps they did but if they did they probably did so as a double blind red herring because it keeps attention away from what is actually stopping the viability of the new pre-existing technologies....

Why would you think I would dismiss you?

I didn't mean it in a rude way.... what I meant is what Penguin once posted on the same sunject which was along the lines of "I know this is true but I don't want to think about it"....

Conspiracy theories as a cover to real conspiracies work so well because we don't all have time to worry about this. We dismiss it as something we will process later....

I'll give you a perfect example of me doing the same thing..... for years I knew foods were full of additives, as a scientist I rationalised many of these additives were not "so harmful" and we are only eating a little anyway......I considered organic foods as "nice idea but for the hippies" (regardless of the fact I've been labelled a hippy most of my life anyway) ... not anything against hippies but something I wasn't willing to go with for the inconvenience and cost.... even though I realised all those pesticides and additives were not good for you... I figured, they can't be that bad....

Having gone gluten-free and being forced into reading each label 10x I suddenly realised how blind I had been... sure they use low amounts and sure they are not THAT bad.... but they are in everything.... the fact they are in low amounts is pretty irrelevant when you are eating them everyday in everything you eat!

The additives were always there on the labels, often disguised but still there.... the conspiracy isn't so much that they are used but that noone realises how much and those that do are regarded as extremists!

My signature translates as: Man (kind) will willingly beleive what (s)he wants to believe!

Someone posted about GM crops the other day.... again its mis-direction and linking of anti-GM people with extremists.... that keeps people ignorant of the dangers of GM food. It works!

[jerseyangel]

I'll give you a perfect example of me doing the same thing..... for years I knew foods were full of additives, as a scientist I rationalised many of these additives were not "so harmful" and we are only eating a little anyway......I considered organic foods as "nice idea but for the hippies" (regardless of the fact I've been labelled a hippy most of my life anyway) ... not anything against hippies but something I wasn't willing to go with for the inconvenience and cost.... even though I realised all those pesticides and additives were not good for you... I figured, they can't be that bad....

Having gone gluten-free and being forced into reading each label 10x I suddenly realised how blind I had been... sure they use low amounts and sure they are not THAT bad.... but they are in everything.... the fact they are in low amounts is pretty irrelevant when you are eating them everyday in everything you eat!

Except that I'm not a scientist , I did exactly the same thing. I *rationalized* that the amounts were inconsequential--for the reasons mentioned.

[Canadian Karen]

Actually, this reminds me of a dream I had the other night.....

I dreamt I invested heavily in "Beyond Petroleum" (I am sure it was on my mind after watching a commercial about their alternative fuels, because it mentioned wheat.....). I had a hunch that the world was very soon going to wake up and realize how toxic gluten/wheat was and instead of the wheat going to waste, it was turned into fuel instead, keeping the farmers in business, and saving the environment...... I dreamt it made me rich! LOL! Kind of like someone having a hunch in the early 80's to invest in Microsoft!

Ah well, it was a nice dream.......

[Canadian Karen]

Here is a link to what Beyond Petroleum was talking about in their commercial:

Open Original Shared Link

[jerseyangel]

I think using "food crops such as wheat for fuel" is a great idea! (Beats the heck out of eating it ) It looks like they're looking to develop ways to expand on what is already being done.

I agree--I'd love to be in on the ground floor of this technology!

[gfp]

Ah well, it was a nice dream.......

Not so cool I bet as my finding the Sumatran tiger ... (yep even in My dream I rationalised it was just a Sumartan tiger not a freakin huge Bengal or Siberian) and hence even when fully grown (poor thing was only a 300lb toddler in my dream) it could still sleep on the bed....

Funny thing I never considered that even a full grown Sumatran is still bigger than a full grown Lion and twice as dangerous.

This came after reading an article that its a new cool celeb thing to keep big cat's as pets....

Something I think borders on the insane... even if you have no respect for the animals rights it must occur to someone that keeping an animal that can bring down and kill a full grown bull elephant like a Bengal tiger is pretty much as stupid as it gets and that if said animal escapes (well lets not even think).... I'm not going to be the one stopping it eat someones puppy...

Ive seen the damage my 15lb cat did do a 120lb dog in about 1/10th of a second... enough said I think....

Ah well, it was a nice dream....... rolleyes.gif

LOL as was mine ....

[Canadian Karen]

I remember writing an essay in high school about what could improve the earth.

In my essay, there was a breakthrough discovery on how to blast garbage up into outer space and it magically turned into something that covered up the whole in the ozone layer!

We can always dream, right?

[gfp]

I think using "food crops such as wheat for fuel" is a great idea! (Beats the heck out of eating it ) It looks like they're looking to develop ways to expand on what is already being done.

I agree--I'd love to be in on the ground floor of this technology!

Its cool but its still somewhat bizarre ... and in many way's reminds me of Karens post on alternative fuels in general...

Farmers can grow other stuff.... it might not be as profitable etc. but they can if they want... however the infrastructure behind the wheat product and wheat byproduct industries is like the gas station infrastructure....

Huge silo's dedicated to storing the stuff safely (flour dust is actually a very effective incendiary explosive) which is why traditionally flour mills were built outside of major conurbations.

[Jestgar]

Small political input.

Pharmaceutical companies don't research non-profitable diseases, but basic scientists at universities do. Unfortunately the current government has cut the NIH budget AGAIN and so in the building where I work these are the programs that are close to, or have shut down in the last 6 months:

Geriatric research

mycoplasma infections research

HIV research

Consider this when you cast your vote.

[mommida]

In regards to conspiracy theories, another one that pops into my head is that I wonder how many vehicles invented that did not require oil/gasoline were bought up and destroyed by the oil companies......

Car collector's (Jay Leno) still have some of the electric cars from the 1900's. We have had the technology for a long time not to be dependant on fossil fuels. How abondaning the oil companies would have disrupted the economy, and the decision was made many times not to change.

L.

[gfp]

Car collector's (Jay Leno) still have some of the electric cars from the 1900's. We have had the technology for a long time not to be dependant on fossil fuels. How abondaning the oil companies would have disrupted the economy, and the decision was made many times not to change.

L.

Good point, although the 1900's technology didn't allow you to get very far ... interestingly when I was young in the UK the milk was delvered in recyclable glass bottles on electric carts.... the size of the round being the length of the charge they took...

Today everyone jumps in a car to drive to a supermarket to get plastic bottles ????

When you think a disruption of the economy would only happen if it has to be done quickly... in reality the building of a new multi-billion dollar infrastructure would be quite stimulating for the economy...

[mommida]

I do think it would be stimulating for the economy for the switch to happen. The advancements in solar batteries would be a consideration too. (How many homes had electricity in the 1900's?)