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Disclaimer • Welcome • Why Alternatives? • Alternative Cancer Therapy Guides
Why Choose Alternative Treatments (5):
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Welcome to page five of Healing Cancer Naturally’s “Why Choose Alternative Cancer Treatment?” pages. This series assembles a powerful sequence of incisive, outspoken (and often shocking) statements by cancer specialists, researchers and thinkers on subjects surrounding conventional and alternative cancer treatment. Numerous articles by medical researchers, personal advice & reports by former or current cancer patients, essays on avoidable suffering, the question why even very ill and suffering people - in spite of mainstream therapy failing to help them - may ridicule, reject, and attack medical alternatives in cancer treatment, and an introduction to the superior painless alternative to mammograms for women desirous of having their breasts screened, thermography, complete the picture...
"As Doctors Write Prescriptions,
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The TRUE Cost of Your Prescription Drugs!
Material Costs of Medical Compounds
Investigative Research Reveals the True Costs of Drugs
by Sharon Davis and Mary Palmer, US Department of Commerce, Federal Budget Analysts in Washington, D.C., 7-3-4
Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a lot, since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a search of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA. As we have revealed in past issues of Life Extension, a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United State contain active ingredients made in other countries. In our independent investigation of how much profit drug companies really make, we obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some of the most popular drugs sold in America.
The chart below speaks for itself.
Celebrex 100 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $130.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.60
Percent markup: 21,712%
Claritin 10 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71
Percent markup: 30,306%
Keflex 250 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $157.39
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.88
Percent markup: 8,372%
Lipitor 20 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80
Percent markup: 4,696%
Norvasec 10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $188.29
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14
Percent markup: 134,493%
Paxil 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $7.60
Percent markup: 2,898%
Prevacid 30 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $44.77
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.01
Percent markup: 34,136%
Prilosec 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $360.97
Cost of general active ingredients $0.52
Percent markup: 69,417%
Prozac 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $247.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.11
Percent markup: 224,973%
Tenormin 50 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $104.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.13
Percent markup: 80,362%
Vasotec 10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $102.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.20
Percent markup: 51,185%
Xanax 1 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.024
Percent markup: 569,958%
Zestril 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) $89.89
Cost of general active ingredients $3.20
Percent markup: 2,809%
Zithromax 600 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $1,482.19
Cost of general active ingredients: $18.78
Percent markup: 7,892%
Zocor 40 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $350.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63
Percent markup: 4,059%
Zoloft 50 mg
Consumer price: $206.87
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75
Percent markup: 11,821%
Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought everyone I knew should know about this. Please read the following and pass it on. It pays to shop around. This helps to solve the mystery as to why they can afford to put a Walgreen's on every corner.
On Monday night, Steve Wilson, an investigative reporter for Channel 7 News in Detroit, did a story on generic drug price gouging by pharmacies. He found in his investigation, that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. Yes, that's not a typo ... three thousand percent! So often, we blame the drug companies for the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so. But in this case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies themselves. For example, if you had to buy a prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you might pay $100 for 100 pills. The pharmacist might tell you that if you get the generic equivalent, they would only cost $80, making you think you are "saving" $20. What the pharmacist is not telling you is that those 100 generic pills may have only cost him $10!
At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr. Wilson whether or not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to this practice, and he said that Costco, Sam's Club and other discount volume stores consistently charged little over their cost for the generic drugs. I went to the the discount store's website, where you can look up any drug, and get its online price. It says that the in-store prices are consistent with the online prices. I was appalled. Just to give you one example from my own experience, I had to use the drug, Comparing, which helps prevent nausea in chemo patients. I used the generic equivalent, which cost $54.99 for 60 pills at CVS. I checked the price at Costco, and I could have bought 100 pills for $19..89. For 145 of my pain pills, I paid $72.57. I could have got 150 at another discount store for $28.08. I would like to mention, that although these are a "membership" type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there, as it is a federally regulated substance. You just tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will let you in. (This is true, I went there this past Thursday and asked them.)
I am asking each of you to please help me by copying this letter, and passing it into your own email, and send it to everyone you know with an email address.
Sharon L. Davis, Budget Analyst, U.S. Department of Commerce, Room 6839, Office Ph: 202-482-4458, Office Fax: 202-482-5480
Mary Palmer, Budget Analyst, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Office of Budget &
Finance, Voice: (202) 606-9295, Fax: (202) 606-5324
www.sonomavalleyvoice.com/articles.php?id=411
Notes by Healing Cancer Naturally:
While I do consider this article discussing the exorbitant markups applied to drugs worthwhile publishing and applaud Costco’s and other discount stores’ above-descibed initiative, I feel however that some measure of "wet-blanketing" is in order to somewhat dampen any possible enthusiasm generated by the idea of "getting your meds" more cheaply...
First of all, drug companies will object to the above reasoning that their prices are justified due to their need to recuperate the astronomical costs incurred both by drug development and official approval of a drug. (Incidentally, this exorbitant financial barrier is also what blocks many natural remedies from being approved by the FDA - herbal and similar remedy producers simply cannot lay out the moneys involved in getting a remedy approved.) Still, pharmaceutical companies count among the most profitable businesses on the planet, see On Cancer Business and On Drugs.
More importantly, Dr. Johanna Budwig's often successful natural cancer-healing diet & protocol strongly disapproves of most all drug/chemicals ingestion, and anecdotal evidence very clearly points to the fact that any drug intake dramatically interferes with its healing effects. Similarly, the proponents of the "Natural Hygiene" healing system have reiterated for decades, "To avoid in one’s quest for regaining or maintaining optimum health and energy levels are all things and modalities not provided by nature and/or naturally toxic. This includes all drugs, all toxic foods and herbs, and all curing practices since they invariably interfere with the body’s own healing and/or maintenance/cleaning work." (See Nature Heals for a thorough discussion of Natural Hygiene’s view of the self-healing power of the human body.)
Personally I would advise to thoroughly research any more natural options before taking any drugs at all (I can possibly see some benefit in the occasional use of antibiotics (but compare the article Fever as necessary healer (SARS) which shows that antibiotics can kill...).
On Drugs provides eye-opening details about the serious implications of the drug-taking habit most people in the Western world have been trained from birth to consider a normal part of "good health care", quote "Drug side effects are the fourth leading cause of death in the industrialized world. September 11, 2001, 2,600 innocent people died in this tragedy. The same number of people die from side effects of prescription drugs every ten days. (Quote based on the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), April 15, 1998 edition)"
Based on what I have come to learn about drugs and their policies of production and distribution*, chemical/pharmaceutical companies and their continual research for new and “better”/more efficient drugs appear less than the “benefactor of humanity tirelessly working to combat human scourges and ills” they are wont to be portrayed as. For more corroborating backgound information, read for instance the eye-opening book "Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler" by Antony C. Sutton available online.
* Besides drugs’ harmfulness and even deadliness to humans, their production also
involves the horribly cruel death of millions of animals in laboratories, where these drugs get "tested" and "retested" with complete disregard of the fact that this policy
involves sentient beings tortured to death with most questionable benefits to human health, while much more reliable alternatives such as tests on human cell cultures are mostly being ignored and suppressed. In fact, a
nimal experiments could justifiably be called “as useless and dangerous for humans as cruel to animals” (e.g. thalidomide was tested safe on rats while penicillin would have never been allowed
for human consumption had it initially been tested on guinea pigs or hamsters, since it kills those species!). For a good summary re ”Does animal testing help human medicine?”
Dr Irwin D Bross PhD writes, “There is no good factual evidence to show that the use of animals in cancer research has led to the prevention or cure of a single human cancer.”
There are vastly superior alternatives that do not involve cruelty to animals and give much more reliable results for humans such as the above-mentioned tests performed
on human cell cultures. These humane and solely reliable test methods just need to be implemented, and if a sufficiently large part of the public calls for them, they will
be applied - to everyone’s benefit! Please consider joining this call!
The subject of cancer research based upon animal models of human disease is in fact of such major importance that Healing Cancer Naturally
now devotes many pages to it. Learn about the detailed scientific arguments and the fundamental implications of the issue of animal experimentation and chemicals safety testing for everyone’s health,
recovery and safety, making it a possible matter of life or death for many, here.
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Painkiller linked to 140,000 heart attacks in patients
by Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor, The Independent, London, 25 January 2005
A blockbuster drug launched five years ago as a revolutionary treatment for arthritis may have caused up to 140,000 heart attacks in US patients of whom 44 per cent died, scientists said yesterday, making it the world's worst drug disaster.
Vioxx, a new type of painkiller launched in 1999, was one of the most heavily promoted drugs in history, with sales in 80 countries and a global market of 80 million patients.
More than 400,000 patients were taking it in Britain, where it could have caused up to 1,000 heart attacks and deaths.
Last September, the manufacturer, Merck & Co, withdrew the drug from the market after evidence emerged linking it with heart problems.
Now, a study of 1.4 million people in California shows that those taking Vioxx had a one-third higher chance of having a heart attack than those taking other painkillers.
David Graham, of the US Food and Drug Administration, and colleagues concluded: "An estimated 88,000 to 140,000 excess cases of serious coronary heart disease probably occurred in the USA over the market life of rofecoxib [Vioxx]. The US national estimate of the case-fatality rate was 44 per cent, which suggests that many of the excess cases attributable to rofecoxib use were fatal." The results, published online by The Lancet, will be seized on by critics of the pharmaceutical industry as evidence of the failure of the drug regulatory system to protect the public. Dr Graham had earlier estimated that Vioxx may have caused up to 27,000 heart attacks but the new study caused him to upgrade the estimate by five times.
Doctors on both sides of the Atlantic have warned of a public health emergency over other painkillers in the same class, known as Cox-2 inhibitors, which could also pose a risk.
A report in The New England Journal of Medicine last October said studies since 1999 had repeatedly indicated a danger with Vioxx. Drug regulators made Merck include a warning in the drug package but never ordered a definitive trial.
Professor David Webb, of the clinical pharmacology unit at the University of Edinburgh, says in The Lancet: "It falls to the manufacturers, under the careful review of the regulatory authorities, to provide evidence that this class of drugs is safe."
Asked if this was the worst drugs disaster in history, Professor Webb said: "Quite possibly because these drugs were very widely used."
The previous worst disaster involved the drug Tambocor (flecainide) prescribed to patients with irregular heartbeats. It was estimated to have killed 50,000 patients in the Seventies and Eighties.
The European Drug Safety Agency is conducting an urgent safety review of all the Cox-2 inhibitors, which have a combined global sale
of $10bn (£6bn). Last month, the UK Medicines and Health Care Products Regulatory Agency advised all patients still taking Vioxx, estimated at 750,000, to review their treatment with their doctor.
©2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.
Compare On Drugs, On Chemotherapy and On Cancer Business.
American Cancer Society
Mission Statement and More.........
by Elliot Yudenfriend
Every year when I see the "Relay For Life" going on, I get on my soapbox about the American Cancer Society. It frustrates me greatly
that so many people who have no idea what the ACS is really about go out and do their best to raise money for an organization that is in fact about suppressing any real cures for cancer, and about
suppressing evidence about how to really prevent cancer, and about supporting the NCI and the AMA, so that those organizations, as well as the ACS, can go on amassing money and power. More
For Anyone Thinking of Having Mainstream Cancer Treatment-Or Anyone You Know Who Is Thinking of It...
by Elliot Yudenfriend, 5 July 2004
I thought th[e following] might be some convincing evidence NOT to have such treatment. It concerns what my mother is going through right now. More
Choosing an alternative cancer
treatment & healing protocol
by Elliot Yudenfriend who cured himself of lymphoma, considered incurable by mainstream medicine
[I]n deciding to use an alternative protocol, you ALREADY have taken a TREMENDOUSLY SIGNIFICANT STEP toward your healing without yet having started ANY protocol at all! :+)) Make no mistake---your WILL TO LIVE and YOUR DETERMINATION to TAKE AS MUCH CONTROL AS POSSIBLE OVER YOUR OWN HEALING has ALREADY STARTED YOU ON THE PATH TO HEALING. More
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