Something Important I Want To Say

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I hope you will read my lengthy RANT. I just found out something that I didn’t know, but I’m not really surprised about it. President T. Roosevelt was mostly responsible for getting Congress to pass the Food and Drug Act of 1906, in an EFFORT to regulate the pharmaceutical industry. Here’s what I didn’t know. According to some information I found recently, “the Food and Drug Administration expects $400 million from the drug industry to finance the approval process of brand-name drugs next year.” According to the AARP Bulletin of July-August 2007 Also, according to this same bulletin, “the drug and health products industry has directed $93 million to congressional and presidential candidates since the year 2000.” This information was from 2007, so who knows how much more money has been sent in that direction since then. Also, the article pointed out that there “are 1,100 lawyers and arm-twisters who have spent over $1billion dollars since 1998, more than any other industry, to influence public officials and shape drug legislation.” Now you know one of the reasons, why drug prices are so high and why every day on television, you hear about dozens of new drugs being introduced, with words such as “ask your doctor” if this drug would be good for you, while at the same time, giving a long list of known side effects, including DEATH. Yes, sometimes, these same drugs, newly introduced, are found to be causing all sorts of problems and the ad says, “you may be entitled to a substantial” amount of money if you took this drug and suffered bad side effects OR if your loved one DIED from taking this drug. The article DID say that “this is not to suggest that the senators were bought off by campaign contributions. That’s illegal, and it’s not how the system works. But, campaign contributors DO provide special interests greater access to lawmakers.” What do you think? Do you think that all these drugs that have been approved by the FDA are SAFE? Do you have any idea how many billions of dollars these pharmaceutical companies make every year even after paying thousands, probably even MILLIONS of dollars for advertising. I don't know about you, but I am SICK of these ads. I MUTE them immediately and get angrier by the minute, especially when they say, "with diet and exercise, this drug MIGHT help you." Who are they kidding? Diet and exercise is what will bring good results, WITHOUT taking a harmful drug. But most people don't want to change their diet and they think that by taking the drug, their health will improve, but the side effects can be deadly. The pharmaceutical industry, in my humble opinion, is not trying to find a CURE for the many ailments that people suffer. They are merely coming up with one drug after another that MAYBE treats the symptoms, but the side effects are worse than the disease, in many cases. Have you heard the ad promoted by a famous golfer that says that this particular drug has “LESS MAJOR BLEEDING” ? I don’t even know what that means. Is the ONLY choice between one drug that causes MORE major bleeding or another drug which causes LESS major bleeding? MAJOR bleeding of any kind doesn’t sound like anything I would want to risk. How about you? I appreciate AARP pointing these things out to the general public, don’t you?