Just in case you thought it was just me…

…when I suggested that the Department of Health KNEW THEY WERE LYING when they made all those claims for the supposed ‘effectiveness’ of nicotine replacement poisoning:

http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2010/03/17/patrick-basham-the-doh-is-wrong-about-cessation/

Now: the plot thickens, as we hear rumours that the ELECTRONIC CIGARETTE is very likely to be BANNED in the U.K. towards the end of June – the only competition for nicotine replacement products made by drug companies. Then this message has come in from across the pond:

 Subject: J & J merger with Pfizer Consumer Health gives J & J a monopoly in the pharmaceutical nicotine marketplace

What precautions have been taken by the EU to prevent this monopolistic business practice?  
Additionally, since Johnson & Johnson’s (J & J) partner Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has been funding groups ($446+ million) like the American Lung Assoc., CTFK, ASH, etc. to lobby in favor of smoking bans around the world, they are unfairly manipulating the marketplace in order to increase sales to their monopoly stranglehold, pharmaceutical nicotine, commonly referred to as rent seeking legislation.
So all you Lab Rats over on the Bad Science blog, all you Ben Goldacre + Edzard Ersnt groupies who scoff at any mention of Big Pharma being up to no good, conspiracies involving government departments and evil global interests using misinformation disguised as ‘science’ to manipulate smokers’ choices simply to sell them a useless poison posing as a medication…
…wake up and smell the corruption.
Of course, there is a way around all of this. Find a good hypnotherapist and ditch the lot.  And before anyone suggests that’s just ME trying to make money out of smokers, here’s the difference: the vast majority of my smoking clients will be saving £1,800 every year they live after that, which will be likely to be a lot more years than if they listen to those liars at the Department of Stealth.

safer alternative

Stopping clinical trials early

I see the drug companies are coming under fire again, this time for stopping clinical trials of anti-cancer drugs early, because of encouraging signs of benefits.  They have  the bare-faced audacity to claim that their motivation is to get approval as fast as possible – based on short-term effects only – in order to get the drugs to patients without delay.  Even if that were their true motive, it is no excuse for haste in the process of studying real outcomes, which is simply unscientific to the point of being reckless.

But we know, don’t we, that this is not their real motivation. This is an established strategy, they did the same thing with NRT, which was originally passed on the basis of its performance at six weeks!  The fact is, anything that looks like some sort of success is being passed off as the real outcome, in a way that shows a contemptuous disregard for the whole business of approval.  The medical approval bodies are approving drugs on the thinnest of evidence of efficacy, and inadequate evidence of safety. It is dangerous.

The whole system needs to be scrapped, and replaced with an independent academic system that performs real medical trials that take into account all findings, long term results and side-effects, before any medication can be passed as safe and effective.  The current system is corrupt, disreputable and a danger to the public.

the book