Merck Leads World’s Top Vaccine Makers, Novartis Out
The vaccine manufacturing industry has long been dominated by five companies. In alphabetical order, these include multi-national firms GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) of Brentford, England; Merck & Co. of Kenilworth, NJ.; Novartis AG of Basel, Switzerland; Pfizer, Inc. of New York City, NY; and Sanofi Pasteur SA of Lyon, France. In 2014, the value of the world market for…
Uprising Against HPV Vaccine Mandate Sweeps Rhode Island
Rhode Island health bureaucrats are facing an uprising among parents, lawmakers, and even some doctors after issuing a deeply controversial vaccine mandate last month. Unless it is reversed, the decree purports to require that all 7th grade students, generally about 11-years old, be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease (STD) prior to starting school in September.
How Plumbing (Not Vaccines) Eradicated Disease
Vaccines get all the glory, but most plumbers will tell you that it was water infrastructure—sewage systems and clean water—that eradicated disease. And they’re right. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Europeans despised all things Roman, including bathing. There was a widespread belief that getting wet caused illness. This contempt and fear of bathing persisted through the Dark Ages. Some Europeans defied local customs by bathing,
The Price of Medical Denialism
Every morning I wake up, and every evening right before I fall asleep, a thought enters my mind about all the children around the world who will receive or have received vaccines that day. The thought nags at me… until I finally get up or doze off. It’s a huge number of kids whose lives are being subjected to medical Russian roulette. According to the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System), maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA), “More than 10 million vaccines per year are given to children less than…
The 21st Century Cures Act On Its Way Through Congress
The 21st Century Cures Act is going through the U.S. Congress right now, and it will likely pass into law unless some opposition materializes (it passed through the House of Representatives with a vote 344 to 77 on July 10, 2015). The Act is a give-away to the pharmaceutical industry, removing many of the safety mechanisms in place that are supposed to keep the…
Marcia Angell, MD on the Credibility of Clinical Research
No one knows the total amount [of money] provided by drug companies to physicians, but I estimate from the annual reports of the top 9 U.S.-based drug companies that it comes to tens of billions of dollars a year in North America alone. By such means, the pharmaceutical industry has gained enormous control over how doctors evaluate and use its own products. Its extensive ties to physicians, particularly senior faculty at prestigious medical schools, affect the results of research…