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It's almost a done deal. We are about to see herbal preparations disappear, and the ability of herbalists to prescribe them will also be lost. Big Pharma has almost reached the finish line of its decades-long battle to wipe out all competition. As of 1 April 2011—less than eight months from now—virtually all medicinal herbs will become illegal in the European Union. The approach in the United States is a bit different, but it's having the same devastating effect. The people have become nothing more than sinks for whatever swill Big Pharma and Agribusiness choose to send our way, and...

Child’s Ordeal Shows Risks of Psychosis Drugs for Young OPELOUSAS, La. — At 18 months, Kyle Warren started taking a daily antipsychotic drug on the orders of a pediatrician trying to quell the boy’s severe temper tantrums. Thus began a troubled toddler’s journey from one doctor to another, from one diagnosis to another, involving even more drugs. Autism, bipolar disorder, hyperactivity, insomnia, oppositional defiant disorder. The boy’s daily pill regimen multiplied: the antipsychotic Risperdal, the antidepressant Prozac, two sleeping medicines and one for attention-deficit disorder. All by the time he was 3. He was sedated, drooling and overweight from the...

A psychotic friend of my sister's stated recently that Pharmaceutical Comapnies are "creating and spreading new artificial viruses and diseases... in an effort to increase their profits!" I asked her what kind of evidence she had to support this, and I've been so far met with silence (she's busy Googling & researching this). As she re-adjusts her "tin-foil hat", I wanted to ask my FR friends what they think about this issue and how you would respond to such a blatantly false statement?

From Tim Carney’s article in the Washington Examiner, Dems tap drug maker millions for PhRMA-friendly bill: Of all the single-industry lobbies in Washington, the largest is the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America. PhRMA spent $26.2 million on lobbying last year — that’s nearly three times as much as the insurance lobby, America’s Health Insurance Plans, which spent $8.9 million. If you include individual companies’ lobbying, pharmaceuticals blow away the competition, beating all other industries by 50 percent, according to data at the Center for Responsive Politics. Given this Big Pharma clout, it’s unsurprising that the bill Obama’s whipping for...

... Mr. Tauzin, 66, will retreat, to contemplate the apparent collapse of the grandest in a career of fearless deals — a pact to trade the drug industry’s political support for favorable terms under President Obama’s proposed health care overhaul. Mr. Tauzin is leaving his $2 million-a-year job as the top lobbyist for the drug industry amid complaints from drug makers that he bargained away their profits too cheaply, spent too much in his $150 million advertising campaign to sell the overhaul and miscalculated in his assessment that the passage of the legislation was all but inevitable. Other drug industry...

I was just watching Fox News and they had an ad telling how great ObamaCare is and the 2 donkey VA Senators are so wonderful for supporting it. I noticed the ad was sponsored by Pharma which as most freepers know made a deal with Zero paying for these ads. I hope is this passes, which I think it will given my pessimistic nature, some donkey politician comes back in a few years and slaps price controls, etc on the drug industry. They have a price for selling their souls. I can't but help think of the infamous quote by...

Facing last-minute liberal resistance in Congress, the drug industry is bracing for an increase in its share of the cost of the proposed health care overhaul beyond the $80 billion over 10 years that it had negotiated with the White House, industry lobbyists say. ... Now, after narrowly beating back some Senate proposals to extract far more and facing similar demands from House leaders, the drug makers acknowledge that they may have to renegotiate, several drug lobbyists said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the overhaul legislation is not yet final. ... Lobbyists for the health insurance industry, meanwhile,...

The health care debate began for real in June when ABC devoted an entire hour to Obamacare in a special edition of ABC's Prime time hosted anchor Charlie Gibson and (now incoming anchor) Diane Sawyer. Called "Questions for the President: Prescription for America" the special aired on June 24, 2009, from the East Room of the White House. Basically Obama was given solo airtime to pitch his health care agenda both in prime time and later that evening on Nightline. To make matters worse, Conservatives for Patients' Rights (CPR) a group that opposes Obamacare tried to air commercials giving the...

Guess who just discovered the Jim Geraghty Axiom? Dana Milbank of the Washington Post reports that Barack Obama reversed his get-tough-with-Big-Pharma routine when it came to actually, er, getting tough with Big Pharma. How did Obama’s allies on Capitol Hill feel about it? “Awkward”: On the campaign trail, Barack Obama vowed to take on the drug industry by allowing Americans to import cheaper prescription medicine. “We’ll tell the pharmaceutical companies ‘thanks, but no, thanks’ for the overpriced drugs — drugs that cost twice as much here as they do in Europe and Canada,” he said back then. On Tuesday, the...

A deal between the White House and the pharmaceutical industry is holding up a bipartisan amendment to allow the importation of cheaper prescription drugs from abroad, according to a member of the Senate Democratic leadership. The Senate has been debating the amendment, sponsored by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), since Tuesday but has not held a vote, which is contributing to a stall in the floor action on healthcare reform. Dorgan’s measure, which would permit bulk exports of medicines from countries such as Canada, enjoys broad and bipartisan support and likely has the backing of more than 60 senators, which would...

This summer, just when the health-care debate grew sour, Big Pharma struck a sweet deal. Or so they thought. By agreeing to pony up $80 billion to support Obamacare, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, assumed that they dodged a bullet. Ladle the Democrats some cash now, they reckoned, and maybe they could avoid some big bills later.

In a major victory for the pharmaceutical industry, the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday shot down legislation to provide seniors full coverage through the controversial coverage gap in Medicare’s prescription drug benefit. The proposal, sponsored by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), would have closed Medicare’s so-called “doughnut hole,” which forces millions of seniors each year to pay full prescription costs after annual expenses have reached a certain threshold. The Congressional Budget Office estimated this week that the proposal would save the government $106 billion over 10 years — enough to close the gap in coverage under Part D with $50 billion...

As many as 84% of Americans blame the pharmaceutical industry for the country’s healthcare woes, a new survey has found. Results of The Harris Poll, held in August, show Americans blame many different parties for the problems of the current healthcare system in the USA, with pharma coming second in the blame game with 84% of adults pointing the finger at pharma. Even more than 50% believed the industry deserves a “great deal” of blame.

Here is a new Naked Emperor News video that plays audio from the Left-Wing "Air America" Radio Network actually exposing President Barack Obama's "back room" deal with Big Pharmaceutical companies to support his ObamaCare plan. The Left is furious with Obama. In this audio, they say Obama is a "charming liar." A caller also says what Obama is doing is "fascist" because of the merging of political power with corporate power to impose their will on the nation. The audio is intermingled with flashbacks of Obama condeming the Pharmaceutical companies and saying he would be transparent in his administration. Interestingly,...

Deputy Assistant Under-Minister of Truth Linda Douglass tried her best to dodge the questions from Wolf Blitzer regarding the 150 million dollars PhARMA is agreeing to pay for advertising to support ObamaCare socialism: BLITZER: Did PhRMA, in exchange, make a promise of $150 million to pay for advertising to help the president's plan go forward? DOUGLASS: What -- what you have, Wolf, is this deal that is $80 billion. And we are very pleased, obviously, that -- that the pharmaceutical industry agrees with us, that there's an urgent need for comprehensive health insurance reform that's going to protect Americans from...

You know the messiah is tumbling back to earth when HuffPo puts up a investigative post about the collusion between Obama and big Pharma: A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week. The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return. It says the White House agreed to...

Here's the link. In exchange, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) agreed to cut $80 billion in projected costs to taxpayers and senior citizens over ten years. Or, as the memo says: "Commitment of up to $80 billion.. The health care lobbyist said that what deal still exists is uncertain, as a result of House pressure. "Now the White House is backing away from it, as you know, because of pressure from the House, because the House was not a party to the deal," he said. "The Speaker put enormous pressure on the White House, [saying], 'We weren't a...

A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week. The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return. It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government's leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada -- and also agreed...

Pressed by industry lobbyists, White House officials on Wednesday assured drug makers that the administration stood by a behind-the-scenes deal to block any Congressional effort to extract cost savings from them beyond an agreed-upon $80 billion. Drug industry lobbyists reacted with alarm this week to a House health care overhaul measure that would allow the government to negotiate drug prices and demand additional rebates from drug manufacturers. In response, the industry successfully demanded that the White House explicitly acknowledge for the first time that it had committed to protect drug makers from bearing further costs in the overhaul. The Obama...

House Tri-Committee Bill Would Hurt Patients and Kill Jobs WASHINGTON, July 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Senior Vice President Ken Johnson released the following statement after the Energy and Commerce Committee mark-up of the House Tri-Committee bill: "PhRMA remains committed to working with the Administration and Congress to help enact comprehensive health care reform this year. Our policy agreement with the White House and the Senate Finance Committee, which provides $80 billion in meaningful cost-savings over 10 years, clearly demonstrates that commitment. We share the same goal of helping ensure that all Americans have access...