FDA is not protecting the Americans Health

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Infoporn: Proof That the FDA Isn’t Protecting Americans’ Health

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/infoporn-proof-fda-isnt-protecting-americans-health/

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duh

FDA, etc are captured (corrupted) govt functions protecting BigCorp profits.

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I guarantee that BigPharma is deeply involved in creating "risk calculators"

Widely used clinical calculators overrate heart attack risk
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20150216/Widely-used-clinical-calculators-overrate-heart-attack-risk.aspx

... which of course leads to over-prescribing drugs, eg statins for cholesterol, FOR EVERYONE, even kids.

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Data on Payments From Drugmakers to Doctors Is Marred by Error

As we tried to get accurate tallies of all payments associated with each drug and device, we encountered widespread problems with companies’ submissions. We also learned that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the Open Payments database, doesn’t double-check what companies submit.

While misspelling product names was an obvious, infrequent error, we encountered a variety of other problems. Companies, for instance, routinely recorded payments associated with a single drug under multiple names.

Another complication was that about 8.5 percent of the 4.3 million general payments companies reported to the government were not connected to specific products. More than 140 companies did not list products at all in their payment records. We were not able to say which products those payments related to in our analysis.

Other companies didn’t leave product fields blank but, in some cases, might as well have. Gilead Sciences listed the product associated with eight payments as “unrecognized” and connected two dozen more to “Gilead Corporate.” Novo Nordisk and its subsidiaries attributed 90 payments totaling $133,000 to a product called “Disease State,” a phrase that is physician talk for a medical condition like diabetes (http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/diabetes/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier), not a particular drug. We created a catchall category for such payments, listing them under “Other.”

We also learned that some companies listed products in the wrong category, or listed them as both drugs and devices in the same payment records.Luitpold Pharmaceuticals Inc. (http://projects.propublica.org/open-payments/?search=company&main=1545&compare=), a drug maker, did this in more than 8,000 payment records.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/23/upshot/data-on-payments-from-drugmakers-to-doctors-is-marred-by-error.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1

Obvious BigPharma and BigDevice obscure, fuckup reporting to obscure the actual corruption payments.

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FDA Knew Devices Spread Fatal "Superbug"

U.S. health regulators have known since at least 2009 that the medical devices at the center of the "superbug" outbreak at UCLA can transmit lethal infections but have not recommended any new safety requirements, a lapse that threatens patient safety, experts in hospital-acquired infections said.

The latest outbreak involving the reusable devices called duodenoscopes, which are inserted down the throat, may have exposed 179 patients at UCLA's Ronald Reagan Medical Center in Los Angeles and contributed to two deaths.

It is far from the first time medical investigators traced the sometimes-fatal spread of pathogens to the devices, which are manufactured by the medical units of Japanese companies Olympus Corp, Pentax and Fujifilm Holdings Corp . UCLA uses an Olympus model.

In 2013 and 2014, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration received a total of 75 reports of adverse events associated with the devices, resulting in harm to 135 patients, the agency said. Because healthcare providers do not always submit such reports, the FDA said, that is likely an underestimate.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fda-knew-devices-spread-fatal-superbug/?WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20150220

[RandomGuy]

Infoporn: Proof That the FDA Isn’t Protecting Americans’ Health

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/infoporn-proof-fda-isnt-protecting-americans-health/

Thanks. Good to see investigative journalism isn't dead.

I'm sure this will get sadly buried somewhere. Hope someone does something with it.