This article was originally published by Vicki Batts at Natural News
New statistics from the National Institutes of Health show that more than 72,000 people died from drug overdoses during 2017. Of those, a staggering 49,060 people are said to have died as a result of opioid abuse. The opioid pain-reliever is one of Big Pharma’s most profitable cash-cows, and now, American citizens are paying the price — with their lives. Annual death tolls from opioids alone are now exceeding deaths from car accidents (40,100), fatal shootings (15,549), homicides (17,284) and even suicide (almost 45,000).
All told, about 200 people died an opioid-related death every day in 2017. Earlier estimates also confirmed that the number of people Big Pharma killed with opioids in a single year was higher than the number of causalities the U.S. incurred during the Vietnam and Iraq wars combined.
While all these lives (and the lives of their loved ones) are being torn apart, Big Pharma has been raking in billions. And the same industry that caused this massive epidemic of death now stands to profit by selling new, pharmaceutical “cures” for the problem they created.
Profits over people
As reports from 2015 show, just the sale of opioids alone equates to $9.6 billion for Big Pharma — and now, pharma companies are making a whole stack of drugs to treat the problems associated with their toxic pain relievers. Estimates from The Washington Post reveal that Big Pharma is making $1.4 billion on drugs to “treat” addiction, and another $1.3 billion on drugs to deal with overdoses. It’s estimated further that the industry makes between $1.9 billion and $4.8 billion on drugs to treat side effects of opioids. There is even a laxative on the market aimed at treating “opioid-induced constipation,” a condition that was actually made up by pharma companies.
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As sources note, opioids are a highly profitable product: In addition to being addictive, the side effects are mild enough to keep people hooked — but bothersome enough that they’ll seek out other prescriptions. Andrew Kolodny, executive director of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, says that this can make patients “worth” several thousands dollars each month to Big Pharma.
“Many patients wind up very sedated from opioids, and it’s not uncommon to give them amphetamines to make them more alert. But now they can’t sleep, so they get Ambien or Lunesta. The amphetamines also make them anxious, paranoid and sweaty, and that means even more drugs,” Kolodny told the Post.
An industry built on scandal
The pharmaceutical industry’s primary concern is emphatically not making sick people healthy. Over the years, the industry has made it abundantly clear that securing ever-increasing profits and creating more patients is the goal — and yet, Big Pharma’s grip on the practice of medicine seems stronger than ever.
As Mike Adams, founder of Natural News and creator of Brighteon.com, contends:
The purpose of the pharmaceutical industry’s entire existence is to extract the maximum amount of money from the U.S. economy by pretending to make sick people healthier through the widespread consumption of high-profit pharmaceutical medications. However, the profit model of the industry is almost entirely based on convincing healthy people they need lifelong medications to be healthy.
Adams explains further that much of the industry’s tactics rely on the marketing of diseases, in order to convince an unsuspecting public they need medications to be “healthy.” In the instance of opioid pain relievers, these drugs have been marketed for off-label purposes, such as long-term or chronic pain.
Multiple city- and state-level governments have taken legal action against the manufacturers of opioids for spreading misleading information, obscuring the risk of addiction, lying about the actual long-term efficacy of their products, and for buying the opinions of respected doctors. To say that the use of opioids in virtually any medical capacity is a sham would be putting it lightly.
And the lengths to which Big Pharma will go to maintain its prowess (and financial status) are getting even more extreme: Recently, a former pharma executive who had joined forces with the federal government to drive down drug prices was found bludgeoned to death — and his untimely demise was ruled a “suicide.”
See more coverage of Big Pharma’s drug scandals and more at DangerousMedicine.com.
Sources for this article include:
Don’t use them?
So what’s to be done? More “laws”? You can’t legislate morality. They haven’t legislated the profit or death out of alcohol or tobacco yet either.
Some say let them die… no treatment for you. Put all the addicts together in one place. No treatment unless you pay upfront. OK, put all the addicts together…all the alcoholics, gamblers, porn addicts, smokers, pillheads, internet junkies, compulsive overeaters, nymphomaniacs, etc, etc. Send them all to live together and the rest can live like Puritans. Even then the statists wouldn’t be satisfied. “There outta be a law” is what they say.
Fuck the DEA, fuck the cops, fuck the private prison industry. Make it all legal. Every inch the government lets go of I’ll take. That’s freedom. No one can tell you what to do with your own body. Even Dr. Paul admits this. It’s the very definition of personal sovereignty. Let these people do as they please as long as they don’t violate other’s rights. If they do then punish them. But not for putting something in their body of their own free will.
JRS,
” Let these people do as they please as long as they don’t violate other’s rights. If they do then punish them. But not for putting something in their body of their own free will.”
Well spoken!
Deaths from pharmaceutical drugs are even worse than this article describes. Left out are all the mass killings caused by Big Pharma’s mind-altering antidepressants and psycho drugs. Guns didn’t kill those people, Big Pharma cartels did.
You might like the interview with Neuroscience Journalist Robert Whitaker at PeakProsperity.com.
He describes how a petition asking for study of the relation between SSRI use & firearms violence, was censored from the Obama White House petition website, once the petition got 50K signatures.
Obama served his Corrupt & Criminal Big Pharma / Big “Medicine” masters well.
Big pharma can’t do it alone and shouldn’t solely be blamed. Doctors have waaaaay too much authority, in that they’re prescribing these drugs in the first place. It is a joint, concerted effort. And if you think a junkie won’t violate your rights to get their fix, I’m movin to where you live. As harsh as it sounds, I say stop helping them. i don’t believe, not for one minute, all these heroin addicts are addicted to heroin because of pain killers from surgery or what not. To me, it’s all about twisting a narrative to create another victim class in order to get more FUNDING and possibly create a new minority and the ability to craft new laws pertaining to such. “Let them do as they please unless they violate others rights and if they do, punish them”. Gimme a break.
Add cholesterol poisons and the recent lowering the threshold for high blood pressure. Chemo also kills most healthy people and many people are misdiagnosed with cancer. Hospitals overcharge good insurance and experiment on the poor…
Freedom scares the crap out of the body politic and government takes great advantage of it.
Vaccines are mandated more and more…
Need to BAN the Drug Companies from advertising on TV and Radio, to help stop the Abuse of these drugs.
The Government banned hard liquor to be advertised on TV back in the 1970’s I believe.
FACT: about 85% of total advertising revenue for the big 3 Media giants comes from drug companies commercials and adds. Another 10% for political advertising and the other 5% other advertisers.
The Drug Companies have such a hold on Media, you wonder why there is an opioid problem in America. I quit watching the Boobtube TV 3.5 yrs ago. I may catch a Footbal game here and there or if I walk into a bar and a TV is playing. Why do you think they call it Programming? To program your mind and influence your habits.
And that stupid drug commercial about the blue little pill and the guy and gal then sit in separate bath tubs staring at the sunset. Forget that, hop in my tub baby, lets have some fun. Because I am ready now.
Big Secret: The Drug companies don’t want you to know this: Just smoke weed, it seems to cure most everything out there.
FALSE! Weed does have some medical uses, but not to the degree people want you to believe. The big push to make marijuana legal is only a covert action to make people more docile for control, weed is also addictive, another means of control. Wake up people. You’re going to need a clear head for what’s coming! I’ve never used weed or other illicit drugs, but have been married to, and have known people who have abused these drugs. I’ve worked in the medical field all my life and the least exposure you can have to any drugs of any kind, the better off you will be. The best thing you can do is stay away from drugs and eat organic non-GMO foods and exercise. There is definitely something to the saying “You are what you eat”.
By and large the people in the government are those who are responsible for creating all the addicts and addiction that is crippling our society.
“I will put ‘enmity’ (hate) between my seed and…”
This biblical text informs us that (((they))) hate us.
Isn’t ironic that (((they))) are always accusing our people of being “haters”.
Well, maybe they are right after all.
_
Methodone, Suboxone, and Subutex is making the opiate problem 10 times worse and the children they say have ADHD are put on professionally made Methamphetamine such as Ritalin or Adderall. Government dope is king killer. Not to mention all the other shit they give folks for depression and anxiety.
Everyone google in this site for even more scandals on Drug Co’s and their agenda, it is worse than most know: bigpharmanews.com
I’m not on any of the FDA’s approved poisons and have no intention of getting on any, no matter what happens. Even if I ever get diagnosed with something I’ll just take my chances with it. Life itself is a chance anyway.
Welcome to the club of the sane!
This is the age old problem of pain( be it physical or mental pain) and how people deal with it.
Street dealers and Big pharmas are no different when it comes to pain killing, they are all out for a buck.
My view is to get the Federal government out of the drug business, War on drug business, and leave it to the states to regulate what happens in their states.
If you are weak and abuse drugs, you will die. That is known as “Natural selection”. My opinion is that the war on drugs( legal or illegal) costs society far more than the loss of the investment we make in every person born into our world.
Rellik:
I agree that the federal government should be out of regulating drugs.
But drug addiction is not “natural” selection.
I have known people who were addicted because they were assured that the drug was not addictive. Weak? No. These people endured great suffering getting clean again.
I have seen people give drugs to children. Taking advantage of children is the norm for drug pushers.
_
“If you are not your own doctor, you are a fool” –
Hippocrates
“And likely dying from Big Pharma” – Me
I don’t take any of their drugs either. Trump said he would get the prices lowered, yeah right! They think they own the American people’s health while destroying it. Advanced medicine men with little liability for damage caused. Instead of calling the evil cartel big pharma it would reflect reality better calling them big death pushers, jack booted thugs who kill off actual doctors who stray into true healing methods. The scam of all scams. Might as well hold a gun to patients heads, give me all of your money or your dead soon.
I’m guessing that almost all of those overdose deaths were done by the patients with prescriptions by ignoring the instructions on how much to use and when, or by self created addicts who didn’t even have a legal prescription for them.
I find it hard to blame anyone other than the “victim” for their overdose, they deliberately decided to do it and “big pharma” had no control over it.
I’m getting tired of everything being blamed someone or something other than the one who did it. People make decisions, people get the consequences of them,
Straight from the horse’s mouth: Big Pharma is a SCAM!
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=179401
As someone who is on the front lines of this epidemic, the problem is not prescribed opioids the problem is heroin. The use of narcan has saved many more lives, if it was not for narcan the numbers of opioid deaths would be astronomically higher. There are some units in the city I work in that will run out of narcan on a really bad night. Big pharma may hook them but the deaths are mostly from heroin overdose.
Herbs and spices are medicine.
It didn’t take the FDA long to approve the first marijuana based prescription. It will not be long before magic mushrooms will be available by prescription. Big pharma is chomping at the bit to cash in on weed and psychedelics.
This is a biased article from a source that pushes an agenda, go check their website for ridiculous stories….
It’s not pharma companies killing people with the drugs, it is the people themselves misusing them. You can overdoes on paracetamol if you take enough. No doubt this website wants all drugs companies to be banned and everyone take saffron to cure cancer… one of their stories…
Check out life expectancy in the USA in 1918 v 2018. Major killer that year was flue, which can be better protected nowadays with flu jabs.
Forget all that though, keep drinking that herbal tea ….
I highly recommend reading “Anatomy of an Epidemic” by Robert Whitaker, pub. 2010. He examines the promotion, use and abuse of psychiatric drugs, and the ensuing decline of not only mental health, but general health and longevity. Excellent and timely.
The opioid epidemic advocates want to limit pain meds to those who have severe pain then give free needles to addicts so they can shoot up safely. Where is the concern about the illegal manufacture and use of Methadone and Heroin? Then there is the push to legalize Mariana a drug that is addicting and alters the mental ability of the user. That is why they call it “getting stoned”. Suicide is a national problem and those who are suicidal will use any means possible. Take the opioids away and they will find another way.
We must also think about other drugs rushed to market too fast for big bucks Invokana killed my wife as the side effects are grossly under stated in the publications on that drug. She was killed for the big bucks Take warning if you are on that drug it can easily kill you and your doctors accept the false assurances from the drug company that makes it. they will not recognize the problem until you are dead to prove it
Yeah, and the marijuana epidemic kills ZERO people every year.
Oh the stupidity !
Don’t take any pharmaceutical drugs at all. Go drink a lot of filtered water and eat good food daily, and go get some exercise. More than half the drugs out there do not work and do more damage than any good. A lot of damage happens to the liver that has to filter out all of those toxins. A lot of people out there diagnosed with Cancer do not even have any cancer at all. Always get multiple opinions from many sources. Colloidal silver kills cancer, take a tea spoon of Col,silver every day to kill pathogens.
Back in mid-evil times the rulers discovered the water stayed much purer in silver container than other containers made out of other metals.
Apple cider vinegar is my drug of choice. I live in the sticks so my well water is pure as can be. We by our beef from family so we know there are no hormones in it. At 59 I consider myself to be healthy. I stay as far away from pharmaceuticals as I can.
They keep pushing dangerous chemicals to the gullible public disguised as something good for us. Just pay attention to how these drugs are marketed through the idiot box. Everyone of those people in the big pharma adds are payed actors being payed to lie about how wonderful the new drug is…the commercials always depict a utopian theme and how the new drug just makes life so incredibly wonderful.
Depopulation is a big part if their new world order plan agenda 21/2030 sustainable development and or whatever they’re calling it this month.
Avoid what big pharma is selling at all costs and never trust any information from the government. It is all lies, propaganda, and bullshit.
Alcohol kills more people every year than all Opioids. This is a fact. Yet you can buy alcohol any where. From the CDC webpage. 2014 had 14,000 deaths from opioid overdose. In 2014 the population of the United States was 318.6 million people!! In 2014 88,000 people died from alcohol! From the years 1999 to 2016 so 17 years, 200,000 people died of opioid overdose. From the years 2006 to 2010 ONLY 4 YEARS, 2.5 million people died of alcohol!!
Sorry to say but the opioid deaths are nothing compared to alcohol. Those numbers are rediculous and to think you can buy alcohol at any grocery store.
Alcohol kills more people every year than any opioid drugs but we can get it any where.From the CDC webpage. 2014 had 14,000 deaths from opioid overdose. In 2014 the population of the United States was 318.6 million people!! In 2014 88,000 people died from alcohol! From the years 1999 to 2016 so 17 years, 200,000 people died of opioid overdose. From the years 2006 to 2010 ONLY 4 YEARS, 2.5 million people died of alcohol!!
Sorry to say but the opioid deaths are nothing compared to alcohol. Those numbers are rediculous and to think you can buy alcohol at any grocery store.