Prescription for Disaster: the Dirty Dozen FDA Approved Pharmaceutical Drugs

Prescription for Disaster The Dirty Dozen FDA-Approved
Pharmaceutical Drugs

By Gary Null, PhD and Jeremy Stillman
October 31, 2011 Progressive Radio Network

The Food and Drug Administration is mandated with the responsibility to ensure that our foods and medications are safe and effective. Hence, when a physician, primary health care provider or pharmacist provides a consumer with these medications, there is a fundamental belief that these work and will do minimal harm. Then we meet reality. The FDA has not only allowed extraordinarily inefficient, extremely toxic drugs onto the market, but then has ran interference on behalf of pharmaceutical companies and other special interests to protect their profits instead of immediately withdrawing their drugs from the market.

The consequence of eating at a restaurant you don’t like is that you won’t go back again. The consequence of taking a toxic drug is injury or death. The FDA has a long history of allowing deadly drugs to be promoted and marketed. The FDA has not sought prosecution when prima facie evidence proves that the manufacturers and their scientists, boards of directors and marketers knew all along that these drugs did not work as claimed or had dangerous side effects that they withheld from the FDA . These companies have engaged in overtly criminal activities and instead of ending up in prison or bankrupt, no one is held accountable. Bonuses are given and the value of their corporate holdings goes up- it’s all part of the cost of doing business today.
This article is to show you clear and exact examples of lethal and harmful drugs that should never have been marketed – some of which are still available to consumers. They are drugs that an honest and diligent FDA would never have allowed to be released on the market. Cumulatively, tens of thousands of Americans have died and hundreds of thousands more have been injured. And the standard penalty meted out for such criminality? Pay a fine. Smile. You got out of jail free.

Fen-Phen (fenfluramine/dexfenfluramine/phentermine)

The fen-phen diet drug cocktail was popularized in the mid 1990s as Americans rushed to take pills that were heralded by Time Magazine as a “new miracle drug”. The new pill was known as Redux and was a slightly modified version of Pondimim, a diet drug that had been on the market since 1974. Both Redux and Pondimim were to be used in combination with the phentermine, an amphetamine-like stimulant. The drug was manufactured by American Home Products which changed its name to Wyeth-Ayerst in 2002, and was later taken over by Pfizer in 2009. The active ingredient in these diet pills were fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine – drugs that falls into the class of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRI). These drugs increase levels of serotonin released in the body – a process that the drug’s maker claimed would induce feelings of satiety and promote weight loss. In 1996 alone, over 18 million prescriptions for Redux were handed out by physicians.

In the summer of 1997, an article appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine by researchers at the Mayo Clinic which linked fen-phen with primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH), a debilitating and incurable heart valve condition that is often fatal. The report profiled a 29 year old woman who died from PPH just 23 days after taking fen-phen. In response to this paper and dozens of reports to the FDA connecting fen-phen with serious cardiovascular problems, both Redux and Pondimim were recalled on Setpember 15, 1997. American Home Products had profited over $200 million dollars in the short time that Redux and Pondimum were on the market.

[1]Cohen, Kate. “The Fda – Fen Phen Nation | Dangerous Prescription | FRONTLINE | PBS.” PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/prescription/hazard/fenphen.html (accessed October 21, 2011).

[1]Ibid

[1]”Interviews – Leo Lutwak, M.d. | Dangerous Prescription | FRONTLINE | PBS.” PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/prescription/interviews/lutwak.html (accessed October 21, 2011).

[1]I Cohen, Kate. “The Fda – Fen Phen Nation | Dangerous Prescription | FRONTLINE | PBS.” PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/prescription/hazard/fenphen.html (accessed October 21, 2011).

[1]Brody, Jane E.. “Archive: Personal Health: Obesity drugs: Weighing the risks to health against the small victories..” The New York Times . http://www.nytimes.com/specials/women/warchive/970903_1241.html (accessed October 21, 2011).

[1]Cohen, Kate. “The Fda – Fen Phen Nation | Dangerous Prescription | FRONTLINE | PBS.” PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/prescription/hazard/fenphen.html (accessed October 21, 2011).