“For years, a trio of anemia drugs known as Epogen, Procrit and Aranesp ranked among the best-selling prescription drugs in the United States, generating more than $8 billion a year for two companies, Amgen and Johnson & Johnson. But a Washington Post investigation shows that the benefits of the drugs — including “life satisfaction and happiness,” according to the FDA-approved label — had to be retracted and that potentially lethal side effects, such as cancer and strokes, were overlooked. Millions of patients were subjected to dangerous doses that might have had little advantage.”
This is just a little hard to get my mind around. What it says, though not in so many words, is that the executives of Amgen and Johnson & Johnson are perfectly willing to kill people for profit (cancer and strokes.) How’s that for the “best health system in the world?”
This makes perfect corporate sense. You sell people a drug that is supposed to have benefits that is does not have for the patient. But, oh my, does it have benefits for your drug company. I mean who is going to sell those same patients drugs that may, or may not, reduce the effects of cancer and strokes? Neat huh?
Other than nicer clothes and deodorant there is no difference between the executives of Johnson & Johnson and Amgen and the heads of the Mexican drug cartels. They have a product to sell. If people have to die to maintain drug sales, well let them.
JOYFUL WORK 