Who hates the drug industry now?

Washington Times ^ | Friday, October 19, 2001 | Michelle Malkin

[JohnHuang2]

Now that everyone on Capitol Hill is popping antibiotic Cipro pills like they were Altoid mints, it is worth reminding our prescription-clutching public servants that their precious drugs don't grow on government trees.

Somebody in the private sector invented these miracle products. Somebody invested in them. Somebody tested them, somebody manufactured them, and somebody jumped through years of regulatory hoops to get FDA approval for them.

[Sabertooth]

Never did hate the drug industry.

But there are more important concerns than antibiotics right now....

When do we ramp up production of the smallpox vaccine?

[HiTech RedNeck]

There are also some promising antivirals in the lab. I recall the one which was done not too long ago for the common flu -- called Tamiflu (aseltamvir), a compound which is not close to anything in nature, that was custom engineered for the flu virus. While they would be way too expensive for routine private purchase, for a civil biodefense program they would be just the ticket.

[Hemlock]

Thyme oil kills the anthrax bacillus. Why doesn't the drug industry manufacture a thyme oil pill? Answer: you can't patent thyme oil. And the drug industry equals the FDA. Free market my eye.

[Sabertooth]

Thanks for the info.

I'm all for antiviral reasearch, but meantime, we need smallpox vaccine yesterday.

[arielb]

They're not listening. They want to remove Bayer's patent on Cipro

[HiTech RedNeck]

We need a lot of viral vaccines. Smallpox is only one possibility, and third world terrorists with their back to the wall may pick something that is easy to get, such as flu or chicken pox.

[Dan Day]

Thyme oil kills the anthrax bacillus. Why doesn't the drug industry manufacture a thyme oil pill? Answer: you can't patent thyme oil. And the drug industry equals the FDA. Free market my eye.

Yeah, right. Go ahead and tell me that if your workplace gets dusted with Anthrax, you'll run to the health food store and take nothing but thyme oil to ward off disease...

To answer your question, why don't the drug companies manufacture a thyme oil pill? Because it doesn't work.

Here's another question -- you know why the health food nuts make wild claims for products like thyme oil? Because they don't have any actual medicines to sell.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Bayer offered to outsource Cipro production to other drugmakers, the smartest move under the circumstances IMHO. However Cipro is not the only anti anthrax agent, and on Ames, which is apparently what all the mail anthrax is, even amoxicillin works.

[Sabertooth]

Flu and chicken pox aren't nearly as lethal as smallpox, and we know from defectors out of both Russia and Iraq in the last 5 years, that Sadaam Hussein has a vast suppy of Variola major.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Duck! the tinfoil is going to come your way fast and furious. "But the utterly Satanic drug companies would make no money on thyme oil!"

I have a feeling that the thyme oil "cure" has never been demonstrated on animals, let alone people, but only in a test tube. Probably alcohol works there too, but nobody suggests getting drunk as a cure for anthrax.

[HiTech RedNeck]

That's a tough one; it may be true that Iraq has a boatload of smallpox, but how can we know for certain. Did the defectors actually work with the stuff or only hear about it? The Butcher of Baghdad is also a consummate blusterer, for both domestic and foreign consumption.

I wonder how debilitating, if not fatal, a mix of common communicable diseases would be, such as a cocktail of flu/cold/chickenpox/herpes viruses.

[xm177e2]

Who hates the drug industry now?

David Lane probably does. (he's one of them "HIV-doesn't-cause-AIDS" nutjobs)

[Hemlock]

To answer your question, why don't the drug companies manufacture a thyme oil pill? Because it doesn't work.

Check the ingredients on your bottle of Listerine, and then guess why thymol is there. Then take a guess where thymol comes from. The essential oil of thyme, even when diluted, kills anthrax and other bacteria. I didn't make that up. And Dr. Jean Valnet, a French researcher, made the anthrax discovery.

Here is a list of some pure compounds derived from plants which are used in medicine: steroids (95% from diosgenin), codeine, atropine, reserpine, preudoephedrine, ephedrine, hyoscyamine, digoxin, scopolamine, digitoxin, pilocarpine, quinidine.

Here's a list of botanicals or their extracts which account for over 1.5 billion prescriptions: belladonna, ipecac, opium, rauwolfia, casara, digitalis, cirtrus bioflavinoids, veratrum.

Here are some other plant-derived compounds. Maybe you'll recognize a few: bulbocapnine, morphine, codeine, papaverine, colchicine, camphor, picrotoxin, strychnine, caffine, cocaine, d-tubocuraine, nicotine, lobeline, quinidine, sparteine, castor oil, quinine, emetine.

[Hemlock]

To answer your question, why don't the drug companies manufacture a thyme oil pill? Because it doesn't work.

Check the ingredients on your bottle of Listerine, and then guess why thymol is there. Then take a guess where thymol comes from. The essential oil of thyme, even when diluted, kills anthrax and other bacteria. I didn't make that up. And Dr. Jean Valnet, a French researcher, made the anthrax discovery.

Here is a list of some pure compounds derived from plants which are used in medicine: steroids (95% from diosgenin), codeine, atropine, reserpine, preudoephedrine, ephedrine, hyoscyamine, digoxin, scopolamine, digitoxin, pilocarpine, quinidine.

Here's a list of botanicals or their extracts which account for over 1.5 billion prescriptions: belladonna, ipecac, opium, rauwolfia, casara, digitalis, cirtrus bioflavinoids, veratrum.

Here are some other plant-derived compounds. Maybe you'll recognize a few: bulbocapnine, morphine, codeine, papaverine, colchicine, camphor, picrotoxin, strychnine, caffine, cocaine, d-tubocuraine, nicotine, lobeline, quinidine, sparteine, castor oil, quinine, emetine.

[FreeYourMind]

Good points, Candyman34. Yes, it's great that we have some Cipiro available to combat Anthrax, but that hardly makes up for years of price gouging, over-commercialization of questionable prescription drugs, and foot-dragging when it comes to drugs they don't anticipate making a fat profit on. The need to make routine trips to Mexico to buy reasonably priced versions of prescription drugs demonstrates pretty clearly that something here is wrong, and the author of the article should have pointed that out before saying all is well with our drug industry.

[Hemlock]

HealthCentral is no "quack" site; it features articles from Dr. Dean Edell, among others. Here's a story from the site concerning the antitussive properties of Thyme. If herbal medicine doesn't work, as you claim in your post, then how do you explain the testimony below. It is one of many.

Thyme Tea Works Wonders For Coughs?

March 06, 2000

Q: My husband recently had a spell of heavy, non-productive coughing and couldn't reach his doctor. Robitussin DM didn't do a thing. He went two nights with very little sleep and was miserable.

I made him some chicken soup for supper, and after he ate a bowl of it he stopped coughing. During the night he started up again. With more chicken soup, the coughing stopped immediately and he finished the night sleeping well.

I recalled what I'd put into the soup, and zeroed in on two herbs from my garden — three fresh sage leaves and some dried thyme. On the Internet I found that sage can calm a cough and thyme has been widely used as cough medicine (even for whooping cough).

I made him two cups of thyme tea before he went to bed the next evening and he slept the whole night through. I think our experience shows that thyme is a good remedy to keep around until the doctor calls back.

A: You are quite right that thyme has a history as a remedy for coughs due to colds and bronchitis. Thanks for sharing your story.

Now, why do you think doctors and pharmacists tell their patients to use Robitussin DM and other products instead of thyme or other antitussive herbs from their garden or grocery store? Money, perhaps?

[HiTech RedNeck]

OK, if you wash the anthrax with the thyme oil, it might kill it, like Listerine does germs on the surfaces of the mouth. That's a far cry from stopping anthrax which is in the lungs (are you gonna snort Listerine, LOL) or burrowed into living skin tissues. For that, antibiotics are needed.

And what does cough remedy have to do with this?

[Hemlock]

OK, if you wash the anthrax with the thyme oil, it might kill it, like Listerine does germs on the surfaces of the mouth. That's a far cry from stopping anthrax which is in the lungs (are you gonna snort Listerine, LOL) or burrowed into living skin tissues. For that, antibiotics are needed.

When atomized and inhaled, thyme oil is an effective antibiotic. Also, atomizing thyme oil would kill any anthrax spores within a room, and a poultice would kill a skin infection.

The cough example was to show that thyme is indeed medicinal. It was especially meant for DanDay.