SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: The Hidden Crisis in Modern Medicine: A Call for Change

https://x.com/newstart_2024/status/1919014340541247517

Camus

@newstart_2024

The Hidden Crisis in Modern Medicine: A Call for Change Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a renowned cardiologist and outspoken advocate for medical transparency, has sounded the alarm on a deeply troubling crisis in modern medicine—one that claims countless lives and undermines the trust patients place in the healthcare system. Speaking with urgency and clarity, Dr. Malhotra reveals how the pharmaceutical industry’s influence has corrupted the integrity of medical practice, leaving millions of patients uninformed and at risk. His message is a wake-up call: the system is broken, and it’s time for the public to demand accountability. Dr. Malhotra highlights a staggering statistic: prescribed medications are the third leading cause of death globally, trailing only heart disease and cancer. This grim reality, which predates the COVID-19 pandemic, stems not from medical errors but from the side effects of drugs prescribed under a flawed system. Patients, he argues, are not receiving fully informed consent because the information they and their doctors rely on is tainted by bias and corruption. While doctors themselves are not to blame—they are conditioned by a system fed with manipulated data—the consequences are devastating. At the heart of this crisis lies the pharmaceutical industry’s stranglehold on regulatory bodies. Dr. Malhotra points to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the UK, which receives 86% of its funding from the drug industry, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), funded 50-65% by Big Pharma. These agencies, tasked with protecting the public, often fail to independently evaluate the data provided by the very companies they regulate. The result? Drugs are approved and marketed based on incomplete or manipulated evidence, leaving patients vulnerable to harm. Dr. Malhotra doesn’t mince words when describing the pharmaceutical industry’s behavior. As legal entities, he argues, these corporations exhibit psychopathic traits: a callous disregard for safety, an incapacity for guilt, and a pattern of lying and manipulation for profit. He cites the chilling case of Vioxx, a blockbuster painkiller marketed by Merck in the late 1990s. Touted as a safer alternative to ibuprofen, Vioxx was linked to heart attacks and strokes—risks Merck’s executives knew about but concealed. Internal emails uncovered during litigation, as revealed by Dr. John Abramson, a former Harvard physician, showed Merck’s chief scientist acknowledging the cardiovascular risks while callously predicting the drug’s financial success. The toll? An estimated 60,000 deaths in the U.S. alone. Merck was fined nearly $1 billion for fraud, yet no executives faced personal consequences, and the company continued business as usual. Even more shocking, when the FDA instructed Merck to add a black box warning to Vioxx’s packaging to alert the public of its risks, Merck ignored the directive. Instead, they ramped up marketing, purchasing reprints of a New England Journal of Medicine article—initially suggesting the drug’s safety—for nearly $1 million. These reprints were used as marketing tools to mislead doctors and patients, doubling down on the false narrative of safety. Dr. Malhotra calls this behavior “nothing short of psychopathic.” This is not an isolated incident. Over decades, pharmaceutical companies have paid billions in fines for hiding data on harms, manipulating research, and engaging in fraudulent practices. The cumulative impact? Millions of lives lost to preventable drug-related harms. Yet, most doctors remain unaware of the extent of this misconduct, relying on guidelines and studies influenced by the same industry. Patients, in turn, are left in the dark, trusting a system that prioritizes profit over safety. Dr. Malhotra emphasizes that change is possible—and urgently needed. He points to the efforts of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and Dr. Marty Makary, the new head of the FDA, who are working to reform the system. Their mission is to restore integrity to medical research and regulation, ensuring that patients receive transparent, evidence-based care. But they cannot do it alone. Dr. Malhotra calls on the public to raise awareness, refuse to stay silent, and demand accountability from regulators, institutions, and the pharmaceutical industry. The path forward requires a collective awakening. By exposing these injustices and supporting leaders who prioritize public health over corporate interests, we can rebuild a medical system that truly serves patients. Dr. Malhotra’s message is clear: the time for complacency is over.

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