Keeping Francis Collins as director of the National Institutes for Health (NIH) would send exactly the wrong message. Action Alert!
Right now, the federal government subsidizes the pharmaceutical industry, then grants it legally enforced monopolies which allow it to charge insane prices on those subsidized drugs, then buys the drugs in huge quantities at those same inflated prices. No wonder the industry is so profitable and has so much money to lobby Congress and contribute to political campaigns!
Powerful GOP legislators seem to like these arrangements just fine. And they have now asked President-elect Trump to retain the Obama administration’s director of the National Institutes for Health (NIH)—who, based on his history, will keep the good times rolling for Big Pharma.
In a letter to the president-elect, outgoing House and Energy Commerce chair Fred Upton (R-MI), Senate health committee chair Lamar Alexander (R-TN), and the two chairs of the appropriations committees that oversee NIH—Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK)—urged Trump to keep Francis Collins as director of NIH.
Rep. Upton and Sen. Alexander were instrumental in passing the 21st Century Cures Act (which was signed into law last week). It is, in effect, another big gift to Big Pharma to subsidize the development of new drugs. As we discuss elsewhere in this week’s Pulse, one of the major functions of NIH is to funnel taxpayer dollars into drug research that is then handed over to pharmaceutical companies. Since the 1930s, NIH has invested $900 billion in the basic and applied research that formed both the pharmaceutical industry and the biotech industry; 75% of the most innovative drugs originated from NIH funding.
Under Collins, NIH launched an “unprecedented” partnership with ten pharmaceutical companies. One of the director’s main areas of focus at the agency has been “translational science”—essentially, turning theoretical research into profitable products for the drug industry. In a paper he wrote, Collins bemoans the “triple frustrations of long timelines, steep costs, and high failure rate” blocking more new drugs coming to market. To further assist Big Pharma, he started the National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS). Among NCATS’ priorities is “de-risking” drug development. In plain English, this means that taxpayer dollars are going into research that drug companies don’t want to pay for, because research is risky and often fails.
What else is NCATS using taxpayer money for? One of their most recent news releases concerns research into identifying what combination of drugs can treat antibiotic-resistant infections. As we’ve reported before, this defies logic: bacteria will become resistant to those drugs, and the cycle will continue. Natural remedies are not discussed, presumably because they can’t be patented and therefore lack profit potential for the drug industry.
Another initiative championed by Collins’s NCATS institute? Space medicine! This isn’t a joke. Apparently Collins thinks it’s a research priority to study “the effects of a microgravity environment on the human body.”
We don’t think Collins is a bad person. But he is caught up in—and now exemplifies—a thoroughly rotten system. We need a new and different director at NIH.
Action Alert! Urge the Trump transition team to appoint a new director of NIH. Please send your message immediately.
Other articles in this week’s Pulse of Natural Health:
Should Big Pharma Be on Your Holiday Gift List?
EPA Changes Its Tune on Fracking
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The problem is that the drugs-vaccines- radiation-surgery model is so entrenched into the system, and everything else so maligned and put down by carefully funded propaganda, that even most of the most intelligent researchers, physicians, and everyone else in the system, including most of the public, and all the lawyers in congress, really DO believe that drugs, vaccines, radiation, and surgery are the ONLY answers to health problems.
It is like in the days when people really did believe the earth was flat.
I usually agree with you, but many of the what you refer to as “drugs” in the 20th Century Cures Act are actually development of Anti-Sense technology, which is a form of gene therapy. i.e. your body is given a genetic therapy which repairs the gene, so the body can repair itself. To call that sort of development “Drugs” is a misnomer. Actually, a lot of big-pharma has been pitted against Genetic research. We are very close to finding a cure for ALS and Muscular Dystrophy. Keeping the person at NIH is a decent idea, because if he changes it, we could get someone much worse! I know, because I have participated in research studies at NIH, and I should mention, have never been given drugs. I suggest reading up on Anti-Sense technology, so you can understand how it is different than poisonous pharmaceuticals.
I will put some time into researching this. It seems that any medical technology is gobbled up by Big Pharma and allied corporations or it is vilified and pushed into oblivion. Medical care seems to be the nurturance of disease to keep an on-going, sick consumer, not much focus on cures or helping the body to heal as best it can.
WELL SAID AND OBSERVED
maybe people should make a lot fewer visits to the doctor and take a lot fewer meds-that would go a long way towards cutting medical costs. How about stop smoking, exercise,cut out the alcohol/drugs eat better, ,get down to a healthy weight. You will cut medical costs by 50% easily
Kind of judgemental.Although I have now begun doing the few things mentioned I haven’t already.I’m also an advocate for giving anyone in pain whatever they think they require,as it’s just cruel not to.Exercise was impossible for me for 12 years.Even a treadmill was so painful,afterward that I had to fold it up.
your right, and I spent 4 days in the hospital, (got hip replaced) and felt sick the whole time I was there, the food is of poor health quality, all processed and no nourishment value and not enought, I refused all the pain killers, not much any way, and as soon as i walked out the front door I felt better, I also picked up a respiratory problem and when I got home I took 2 aspirins and had a good lunch and now after a few wks, I’m back to good health.
1 year ago I would have wondered.Now I’m a believer.I see the current health care model as anything but.
Health care is a misnomer, Maybe drug or profit care, in the end it’s all about money.
80% of health problems is the food that people eat, and even that could be more if the food was natural and organic, if for no other reason you get less toxic pesticides and herbicides, and regardless what they say, they are more nutritious, now they are a bit more expensive, but in the end you can get by with less, and what is your health worth, if not now, later after your retired and should be having fun and not in ill health for the last 10 yrs of your life.
I could not agree with you more! Much of our health lies in own own hands. Good luck to you
Unfortunately that is not the case for a lot of people, who have no means of getting around and are stuck with having to eat what is available through the stores.there are more organic products becoming available each day, and some of them are not certified by credatable means, there is money to be made and a lot of shady companies are getting in on the ground floor, greed is a powerful tool, one of the ways around the organic fraud is that 80% needs to be organic, too qualify, so your organic apple may be covered with a chemical preservative that comes on a truck with hazard placards, I know I used to pick it up in Joliet IL. just west of chicago and deliver it to an apple orchard just south of Montreal Canada.
unfortunately-as my dad used to say-“it is not a perfect world”-but I do the best I can do , and hope for the best. Maybe, if more people become aware of the need for clean foods, things will change in a positive direction. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
You have to do what you can with what you have, but I started to leave suggestions in their boxes, and ask the people on the floor who stack the products when will they start getting organic products, and it seems to work, now there are store that carry about 100 or more product on a regular basis, Costco and PC stores are some.
Our politicians try to make it hard to find good food, that is they make it easy for farmers to corrupt our food. I have a niece who thought she was gluten intolerant but while in Italy she ate pizza with no problems. Now back in the states it’s back to no wheat again.
Chances are that the wheat that is used for the pasta is not GMO’d by Monsanto. it may be possible that those who are with gluten problems may stem from the weed killer Round Up used on just about every cash crop in the US and Canada.
At 62 and retired, I can say that I take zero prescription meds of any kind. I buy organic as far as possible but sometimes the quality isn’t up to standards due to slower sales so one must choose between poor old organic or fresh non-organic. Go for meat that is either organic or natural grass fed with no antibiotics. Remember that all those bad things end up inside of you causing who knows what problems. Study hard and learn all you can because no one else is going to take the time to help you see the light. I have lost many friends along the road of life and it tends to make you think about your health and how quickly it can turn South on you. Good Luck to all.
I’m already 68 and drive tri axle dump trucks with trailered equipment for a paving co. do the same work as those half my age and need a hip replaced,( Now in the works)and I don’t drink fluoridated water for the last 20 yrs, eat just about organic everything and get real milk, and over the last few yrs I’m getting stronger and healthier by the day even my hair which was just about all white has colour coming back, so I know the power of organic foods and well water, my wife also is in good health, and we don’t have to get pumped up on meds, even for the pain in my hip. PS only working seasonal, to pay for hydro bills, one thing that is not in my control is the ever increasing cost.
After 12 years of trying to get the opioids I was Promised for my unresolved(because I took the opioid promise in lieu of surgery)back pain.I have found an enzyme medication that ELIMINATED my constant debilitating back pain(four melted lumbar vertebrae.).I can finally tell the BC health care and the college of P&S to go f themselves.I used to think all this natural stuff was pure bunk(for serious pain).Call me a believer,now.
Most “believers” or supporters of alternative/natural/integrative medicine are people like you who were helped by it significantly, who in many cases were failed by corporate medicine. One of the major differences is that corporate medicine’s goal is maintenance instead of cure because that provides much more profit.
Maintenance….is too conservative description though true. The process is Creating additional disorders and new complications and using more fraudulent science to pretend to treat. When really it is just more propaganda and manipulation. NOTHING to do with HEALTH or HEALING. Suppression of symptom while undermining the health. A insidious downward enslavement and bondage of our country. Lives robbed and hindered.
Can you tell me what that Enzyme medication is or where I can read about it? I have been in chronic pain for about 15 yrs. Been on many kinds of pain meds., nothing really gives me any relief, and to many side effects. I have taken every herb & supplement know to man so far & no results.
It’s called heal and soothe.From epigenetic labs.I think they ‘re online,only.They will send a free sample.It worked for me after a year of telling my SO that it was a waste of time.It worked for me almost right away.Within 12 hours.I did take triple the reccommended dose for the first few days.It was just a mistake by me.I now use the recommended dosage and am still virtually without pain.
Concerning what it says above: “Rep. Upton and Sen. Alexander were instrumental in passing the 21st Century Cures Act (which was signed into law last week). It is, in effect, another big gift to Big Pharma to subsidize the development of new drugs.”
Lyme disease is one of the diseases/conditions that is a part of that bill. Natural methods flat-out do not work for chronic Lyme disease. They may make a person think they’re working for awhile–and then BAM, it hauls back. This is true for most with chronic Lyme. Natural methods along with antibiotics can help a lot, depending on the natural methods. People with chronic Lyme dearly want to get better, to stop the horrific pain, to go back to work full time and be able to participate in raising their kids.
What we’ve been trying to get across for a whole lot of years is that chronic Lyme disease is a horror and antibiotics are what keep us alive and make most of us better. I see we have failed to get that message through to ANH. Big Pharma politics and profits keeps us disabled. Don’t you see?
That is incorrect, do some research. In fact, while there is no miracle cure for it either in corporate medicine or in the much maligned “alternative”/natural/integrative medicine alternative methods work better than traditional antibiotics based methods.
Read,read read.That’s the only way to learn about any of this.When you’re eyes are opened,it’s far easier to believe.I refused to even consider trying any more medications,natural or pharma,after 12 years of being lied to,ignored,run over and crushed by BC health care.Now they get the middle finger,with a big smile on my face.
Antibiotics used over lengthy periods or frequent repeated usage are so injurious to the health and truly dangerous. The decline is pretty steep as is the rapid onset of problems once stopping the antibiotics. Suffering of course always will weigh out which direction a person will take. The science is now exploding how undermined the immune system is from pathogens, and other toxins…..the pathogen(s) of Lyme and their waste products are not the only players. The label of Lyme disease is important but is also limiting. Look at Systems, cellular detoxification, nutrient supports, detoxification…regardless of the label. Trying to rid the body of chronic pathogens is best done by addressing the components of what is a functioning healthy system.
My father has lyme disease.
It went away after we discovered what was going on with the food industry back in 2004, after we all switched to a wholly organic diet.
As my parents lost their jobs and the economy crashed and we fell into dark times (and are still in them), their diet worsened since they could no longer afford healthy food. His lyme disease came back after being free of it for many years.
He’s been on narcotic painkillers ever since, unable to eat right due to lack of income, forever dealing with the issues of both the disease and the drug consumption.
America is still failing; I don’t see any end to it, and Trump will just make things even worse.
Fallow the money trail, it’s always about the money, why would big pharma come out with any cure, in the end there is no money. so having a friend in charge is a means of increasing profits and staying on top.