The Big Pharma Scandal: the Drugs Don't Work.

The biggest scandal the pharmaceutical drug companies are covering up is not the expense of their drugs, nor even their side effects. The worst scandal is that the drugs don't work - and Big Pharma knows it, says Ben Goldacre.

Reboxetine is a drug I have prescribed. Other drugs had done nothing for my patient, so we wanted to try something new. I'd read the trial data before I wrote the prescription, and found only well-designed, fair tests, with overwhelmingly positive results. Reboxetine was better than a placebo, and as good as any other antidepressant in head-to-head comparisons. It's approved for use by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (the MHRA), which governs all drugs in the UK. Millions of doses are prescribed every year, around the world. Reboxetine was clearly a safe and effective treatment. The patient and I discussed the evidence briefly, and agreed it was the right treatment to try next. I signed a prescription. Read more

Hammer Ready to Drop on Supplement Industry after Presidential Election

If you can't beat them, buy them up, seems to be Big Pharma's latest strategy against the dietary supplement industry.

• Major Food & Drug Companies Begin Buying Up Supplement Companies As Drug Patents Expire.
• New FDA Safety Requirements Do Bidding For Pharma Companies Who Want To Consolidate Industry, Eliminate Competition

After the Presidential election anticipate what amounts to terrorist attacks upon the dietary supplement industry as regulatory agencies and the news media do the bidding for big business in a predictable industry takeover now that vitamin pills are yielding greater profitability and unit sales growth than the American economy as a whole and drug patent expirations force pharmaceutical companies to search for replacements for their blockbuster drugs.

Proctor & Gamble and Pfizer, two food and drug giants, announced acquisition of two dietary supplement companies, making it clear the vitamin pill business is up for grabs now that it is growing faster than the rest of the economy. One source predicts the supplement industry will grow at the clip of 9% per year during 2011-15. For comparison, the entire US economy is in the doldrums with less than a 2% annual growth rate. This growth is attracting pariahs and predictable pressure from regulatory agencies to rid the industry of competition. Read more

Shy Children at Risk of Being Diagnosed with Mental Disorder

Children who are merely shy or sad are at risk of being diagnosed with mental disorders and given powerful drugs, experts warn.

Psychologists say that new guidelines being developed in America will lead more young people seeing their common problems regarded as illnesses that must be treated, rather than just being given support.

They fear that pupils who are quiet at school could be diagnosed with “social anxiety disorder” while those who become withdrawn after suffering a bereavement are classified as having a “depressive disorder”.

Children who just talk back to adults or lose their temper regularly could be diagnosed with “oppositional defiant disorder”.

As a result, those found to have these increasingly broad mental disorders could be prescribed powerful medication such as Prozac or Ritalin to control or alter their behaviour. Read more

Are You a Sheeple?

Are you a sheeple? Take the quiz and grade yourself, says Mike Adams.

Have you herd about the Sheeple Quiz? Although most NaturalNews readers will easily beat it, it's a fun quiz to find out how smart (or gullible) your friends really are. So let 'em take the Sheeple Quiz! And then you'll know whether they're independent thinkers or just zombie-minded sheeple like the rest of the flock.

Here's the quiz. Choose "A" or "B" as the answer for each question, then check your score below.

The Sheeple Quiz


#1) The purpose of the mainstream media is to:

A) Keep you informed.
B) Feed you misinformation while keeping you distracted from the real issues our world is facing. Read more