Is that Prescription Drug Safe?

Your doctor wrote you a prescription.  He is supposed to know.  He is the expert.  But is that new drug really safe. Or, will you come up in a few years with cancer or heart disease or stroke or liver failure. Drug safety is a big issue.

Yes, we all will die.  But isn't the goal to live well as long as possible.  When I am 100 years old, I want to still be able to walk and drive and think clearly.  I want to see and hear the world around me.  I do not want to stare at a wall in some lovely nursing home even if the staff there is really good and caring.

Watch TV any evening and you will see dozens of commercials for new drugs.  Always with the message to ask your doctor about this drug.  The people in the ads are pictured as attractive, younger and healthy and active after taking any of these drugs.  Your mind thinks, yes I want that.  I could have that problem.  Let me go see my doctor and get that new wonder drug.

But is that Prescription Drug Safe for you or anyone?

Maybe you listen to the possible side effects which are always played down.  If there was really truth in advertising, you would hear in bold words, this is a new experimental drug which we anticipate will make our company millions of dollars and oh by the way, we haven't used it long enough to tell if it will destroy your liver or stress your heart to the point where you will have a heart attack or a stroke or maybe just settle into Alzheimer's.

The pharmaceutical industry funds $400 million of the $1.9 billion budget of the FDA.  That money has strings attached.  One of those strings is to restrict the sale of natural herbs.  No one can make big bucks from naturally occurring products. 

One of the strings is to ensure that the FDA releases drugs based on testing from the company.  That testing is always biased on the part of the manufacturer.  Some times it even comes to light that the testing is flawed or just plain untrue.  When you withhold information about the bad side that is a lie.

The FDA has lost all credibility.  They have stated that they will once again open a lab to do their own independent research to determine if the prescription drug is safe.  (When?) You still have strings.

Consider this information from www.hsibaltimore.com

A couple of years ago, the Life Extension Foundation listed the cost of the key ingredients of several best selling prescription drugs. Here's a quick breakdown of just a few:

• Prilosec consumer price: $360.97 for 100 20mg tabs. The active ingredient costs a little more than 50 cents per tab. The markup: more than 69,000 percent.
  
• Norvasc consumer price: $188.29 for 100 10mg tabs. The active ingredient costs 14 cents per tab. The markup: more than 134,000 percent.
  
• Prozac consumer price: $247.47 for 100 20mg tabs. The active ingredient costs 11 cents per tab. The markup: nearly 225,000 percent

Of course, there's quite a bit more to drug production than just active ingredients. But even after you consider the cost of research and development, manufacturing, marketing, packaging, legal fees, etc., you're left with an easy-to-understand equation: Consumers pay through the nose while major drug companies make billions in profits each year.

Doesn't leave much incentive for anyone to research a long-standing time-tested herbal product.  No one can patent Cat's Claw or Echinacea.  They can put together a combination of herbs and patent that product. But who is going to pay $300 for 100 capsules of a common herb no matter how pretty the package.

Yes, I have seen many ads for special combinations of herbs priced at $80 a bottle of 60 capsules.  The claim is that the multi herb formula is standardized and time released and works best in this combination.  Well sometimes that might be true.  However, if you look at the ingredients label, you may find that one herb is really higher than you should be taking.  And there may be one herb in there that you are allergic to.  There are only a few companies that I trust to buy combination herbal formulas.

Just because it is herbal does not mean there are no risks.  Herbs are strong.  Used in the wrong way they can be deadly.  That is a fact.  Using herbs while taking a doctor prescribed drug can really open a can of worms. Those herbs may negate the drug or increase the effects of the drug. 

Vitamin and mineral supplements are the same thing.  You can take too much of a specific vitamin and cause liver damage.

It is time for you to wake up.  Be responsible for your own health.  Ask questions and do the research.  Just exactly what are the side effects of that new drug.  Does your doctor have any case history on how effective that drug really is.  Why does your doctor believe that prescription drug safe? Not the manufacturer info but his personal experience.  Will your doctor consider herbal products instead.

Bottom line, you can't trust the manufacturer or the FDA.  Look at the history of smoking.  How many years before the government finally insisted that a warning label be put on cigarettes. Actually this is a prime example of how big business works.  You have a product, pipe tobacco and you want a bigger market.  So now you have cigars. But you still want a bigger market and more profits.  The time is right and women are looking for equality so lets make a cigarette because it will look daintier in a feminine hand.  Smokes faster than a cigar and will make lots and lots of money.  If it kills a few people so what.  The manufacturer did not hold a gun to their head to make them smoke.  And there are always new generations coming along.

It is a flawed society intent on making money not on the welfare of the people.  Oh yes, we must all have an income.  But when you put profit ahead of health --- you lose both.

Sharon

©2003-2007 Answers For Your Health

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Answers For Your Health is edited and published by Sharon Owen.  Plain language answers for your health concerns.  Live life the natural way.  For more information on herbs and natural health check out Answers For Your Health.com