Nexus - 1106 - New Times Magazine-pages

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DEATH BY MEDICINE DEATH MEDICINE Alarming statistics on unnecessary medications, surgical procedures, X-ray scans and hospitalisations confirm that our modern health care system is in deep crisis. Part 2 of 3 nother aspect of scientific medicine that the public takes for granted is the testing of new drugs. In general, drugs are tested on individuals who are fairly healthy and are not taking other medications that can interfere with findings (unlike the class of people who take drugs because they are ill and need medication). But when these new drugs are declared "safe" and enter the drug prescription books, they are naturally going to be used by people who are on a variety of other medications and who also have a lot of other health problems. Then, a new phase of drug testing called "post-approval" comes into play, which is the documentation of side effects once drugs hit the market. In one very telling report, the US General Accounting Office "found that of the 198 drugs approved by the FDA between 1976 and 1985,... 102 (or 51.5%) had serious post- approval risks... [that included] heart failure, myocardial infarction, anaphylaxis, respira- tory depression and arrest, seizures, kidney and liver failure, severe blood disorders, birth defects and fetal toxicity, and blindness".” The NBC's investigative show Dateline [July 11, 2003] wondered if your doctor is moonlighting as a drug rep. After a year-long investigation, the program reported that because doctors can legally prescribe any drug to any patient for any condition, drug com- panies heavily promote "off-label" and frequently inappropriate and non-tested uses of these medications—in spite of the fact that these drugs are only approved for specific indications for which they have been tested. The leading causes of adverse drug reactions are antibiotics (17%), cardiovascular drugs (17%), chemotherapy drugs (15%), and analgesics and anti-inflammatory agents (15%).° Specific Drug latrogenesis: Antibiotics Dr Egger, in a recent editorial [Wisconsin Medical Journal, August 2002], wrote that after 50 years of increasing use of antibiotics, 30 million pounds of antibiotics are used in America per year.” Twenty-five million pounds of this total are used in animal hus- bandry. The vast majority of this amount, 23 million pounds, is used to try to prevent dis- ease and the stress of shipping and to promote growth. Only two million pounds of these antibiotics are given for specific animal infections. Dr Egger reminds us that low concen- trations of antibiotics are measurable in many of our foods, rivers and streams around the world. Much of this is seeping into bodies of water from animal farms. Dr Egger said that overuse of antibiotics results in food-borne infections resistant to antibiotics. Salmonella is found in 20% of ground meat, but constant exposure of cattle to antibiotics has made 84% of salmonella resistant to at least one anti-salmonella antibiotic. Diseased animal food accounts for 80% of salmonellosis in humans, or 1.4 million cases per year. The conventional approach to dealing with this epidemic is to irradiate food to try to kill all organisms, but keep using the antibiotics that cause the original problem. Approximately 20% of chickens are contaminated with Campylobacter jejuni, which causes 2.4 million human cases of illness annually. Fifty-four per cent of these organisms are resistant to at least one anti-campylobacter antimicrobial. A ban on growth-promoting antibiotics in Denmark began in 1999, which led to a decrease in use from 453,200 pounds to 195,800 pounds within a year. Another report from Scandinavia found that taking away antibiotic growth-promoters had no or minimal effect on food production costs. by Carolyn Dean, MD, ND Martin Feldman, MD Gary Null, PhD Debora Rasio, MD © 2004 Nutrition Institute of America, Inc. Website: http:/www.nutritioninstituteofamerica.org by Carolyn Dean, MD, ND Martin Feldman, MD Gary Null, PhD Debora Rasio, MD © 2004 Nutrition Institute of America, Inc. NEXUS = 31 DRUG IATROGENESIS: How Do We Know Drugs Are Safe? OCTOBER — NOVEMBER 2004 www.nexusmagazine.com