Under the radar: prestigious mainstream editor torpedoed the FDA

Jon Rappoport
Activist Post

Seven years ago, Marcia Angell, who, for two decades, edited one of the most famous medical journals in the world, the New England Journal of Medicine, wrote a piece for the Boston Globe.

It was titled, “Talking Back to the FDA” (February 26, 2007).

In his book, Medication Madness, Dr. Peter Breggin quotes Angell’s article:

The FDA also refuses to release unfavorable research results in its possession without the sponsoring company’s permission…It’s no wonder that serious safety concerns about drugs such as Vioxx, Paxil, and Zyprexa have emerged very late in the day—years after they were in widespread use.

Serious safety concerns? Heart attacks, strokes, suicide and homicide, etc.

What’s this ongoing bureaucratic insanity Marcia Angell is referring to?

The drug companies do the human studies on new drugs before they are submitted to the FDA, who then decides whether to approve the drugs for public consumption.

The FDA examines these studies. But here is the catch. A drug company might submit four studies on a new drug to the FDA. The FDA might choose to render a favorable decision based on two studies.

Now, somebody like Angell, while she was editing the New England Journal, would approach the FDA and say, “We want to see all the study-data you have on this new drug. Not just the most positive findings.”

And the FDA would refuse. Why? Because these studies are “property” of the drug companies, and those companies don’t want the studies to see the light of day.

Those are the human clinical trials that reveal heart attacks, strokes, and deaths are quite real results for people taking the drug.

The FDA, tasked with protecting the public, says no. “No, you can’t see the data.”

Angell’s column in the Boston Globe was a blockbuster. It should have provoked action from the Department of Justice. After all, people having strokes and dying…and the drug companies and the FDA concealing this…if that isn’t a crime, what is?

But no. Angell’s revelation goes nowhere. It’s published and it sinks like a stone.

And people think, “Well, I guess there really isn’t a problem. If it were serious, the government would have done something about it.”

Wrong. The government isn’t in the business of sending pharmaceutical executives and FDA bureaucrats to jail. A drug company might have to pay a hefty fine and promise to behave, but the profits from the killer drug are already in the bank. Pay a fine of $2 billion? Chump change, when the drug already made $20 billion in sales.

So, as Angell reveals, we have a hidden definition of pharmaceutical science: “Conceal the dangers, get the drug on the market, ignore the human destruction, and at worst pay a fine.”

The FDA hiding and burying the truth about medical drugs? This helps explain how, in the US, every year, 106,000 people die as a direct result of ingesting FDA-approved medicines.

Yes, 106,000. See “Is US health really the best in the world?”, Dr. Barbara Starfield, Journal of the American Medical Association, July 26, 2000. Her statistics were a conservative estimate.

In one of the last interviews (2009) she did before she died, Dr. Starfield told me as much. She remarked that later studies reported higher death rates from the effects of the American medical system.

This is the FDA at work. This is the federal agency whose wet dream is limiting people’s access to nutritional supplements, which cause virtually no deaths.

Jon Rappoport is the author of two explosive collections, The Matrix Revealed and Exit From the Matrix, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com