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Suit alleges the pharmaceutical giants violated state consumer protection laws and federal and state antitrust laws by delaying availability of cheaper, generic versions through trickery or deception.

Florida and Massachusetts are among 26 other states that are joined in an antitrust lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies for allegedly blocking access to cheaper drugs, costing the states millions of dollars in .

The suit alleges that Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories and French drug companies Fournier Industrie et Sante and Laboratoires Fournier, S.A., violated state consumer protection laws and federal and state antitrust laws by delaying availability of cheaper, generic versions of TriCor, a cholesterol lowering drug that last year accounted for more than $1 billion of Abbott’s sales.

The states’ complaint seeks relief in the amount of three times the amount of overcharges paid by states and consumers for TriCor, plus costs and civil penalties.  The states are also seeking injunctive relief, prohibiting Abbott and Fournier from engaging in similar anticompetitive practices in the future.

The states allege in U.S. District Court in Wilmington that the companies continuously made minor changes in the formulation of TriCor to prevent cheaper generic versions from being marketed. The complaint seeks triple the amount of damages incurred by the states’ public health agencies and individual consumers.

Ed Silverman in his Pharmalot blog reports that Abbott spokeswoman Melissa Brotz told the Associated Press that the company’s actions were lawful, that Abbott hasn’t prevented the marketing of drugs similar to TriCor, and that there are eight other products already available. Neil Hirsch, a spokesman for Fournier’s parent Solvay, told the AP Fournier hasn’t engaged in any wrongdoing and intends to vigorously defend itself against the allegations.

But Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler said Abbott and Fournier obtained patents protecting TriCor from competition by deceiving the U.S. Patent Office with incomplete and misleading data. And Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum said Florida’s growing senior population faces ever increasing costs of prescription drugs, and the state “cannot permit drug companies to edge out competition and potentially less expensive generic alternatives.”

The states joining Massachusetts in the investigation and prosecution of this action against Abbott and Fournier are:  Florida, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia.

Big Pharma’s obsession with profits at any cost is threatening to destroy what was once the envy of the world—the United States medical system.

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A recent survey conducted on 466 faculty physicians at Chicago-area medical schools revealed that 45 percent prescribe placebos for their patients. In fact, just over half have prescribed placebos in the last year. I don’t know if the placebos were less expensive than the real drugs, but I do know taking placebos could save a lot of money spent on drug detox.

Do these placebos really help the patient? According to another study at the University of Michigan, they do: When prescribed painkillers that were actually placebos, for example, the production of endorphins increased in some patients and their pain was relieved naturally - without drugs.

In fact, if you closely read the clinical trials done on prescription drugs you’ll find that many performed only marginally better than placebos. For some reason, this is enough for the FDA to approve putting a drug on the market regardless of the fact that the drugs can produce dangerous side effects – including prescription drug addiction and dependency that could require a medical drug detox program and even drug rehab to overcome.

Perhaps the FDA guidelines on approval for drugs need to change. Shouldn’t a drug with significant risk also carry significant benefit? Guidelines like that would save untold amounts of money for the millions who need a drug detox program for prescription drugs – and thousands of people who have died from prescription drug-related circumstances would still be alive today.

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A recent survey in Michigan revealed some startling facts about prescription drug use in children and young adults: Of the 1,086 7th to 12th graders surveyed, 36% were prescribed drugs in the year prior. And we’re not talking about antibiotics for ear infections – we’re talking about anti-anxiety meds, sleeping pills, stimulants and painkillers. These drugs are dangerous: many of them are nothing more than legal heroin and cocaine. And they’re just as addictive and just as difficult to quit taking. In fact, many people will need a medical drug detox program to get off them.

Although the concern over prescription drugs centers largely around ‘abuse’ – taking them without a prescription or other than as directed – you can quite easily become dependent on or addicted to them despite your doctor having prescribed them and despite taking them exactly as directed. They’ll have the same effect, and might send you to drug detox.

But the most important question is this: how did 36% of kids in grades 7 through 12 get to the point where they need sleeping pills, sedatives, stimulants and painkillers? Can it possibly be true that these drugs are ‘medical necessary’?

I didn’t know anyone – nevermind one in three – who took these drugs when I was in school. And, frankly, they seemed to be generally more centered, more self-aware, more stable, more purposeful and better educated than many of the kids today.

Are drug companies fulfilling a demand, or creating one? I would venture to say the latter. Either way, there’s more drug detox needed now than ever for those who are addicted to, dependent on or abusing these drugs, and I just hope Michigan does something to keep the problem from getting worse.

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Here’s the latest in the increasingly long list of Big Pharma/FDA ‘blunders’, and one more reason you might want to check into medical drug detox.

A team of scientists led by Erick Turner of the Oregon Health & Science University and the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center reviewed the published literature about antidepressants and compared it to the documents submitted by the manufacturers to the FDA for approval. And what do you know? Surprise, surprise: the information we’ve all been given, including our doctors, about the effectiveness of antidepressants isn’t true.

Turner found 33 unpublished antidepressant studies that had negative or, at least, not positive, results. The information in those studies was never made public.

What does this mean?

Antidepressants are not as effective as we were led to believe.

We’ve been lied to, again.

Our doctors have been lied to and are prescribing drugs for us that have not really been proven to help us.

We are putting our sanity and our physical health at risk – have you seen the side effects of these drugs! – for ‘results’ that may be non-existent.

Add to that the fact that many antidepressants have the side effect of suicidal thoughts and behavior – isn’t that going in the wrong direction? - and have even been implicated in numerous suicides and homicides, and we have another drug-related disaster on our hands.

The good news is that we now know the truth. And we can do a good medical drug detox program to get off them. Ask your doctor about it, and then give us a call.

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Dealers of illegal drugs are definitely a danger to American society, but are they public enemy number one? No, the most dangerous drug pushers are the drug companies. And, fortunately, more and more people are beginning to realize it as their friends and family member admit themselves to drug detox centers or, worse, ruin their lives or end up in the morgue.

About 10,000 people in the U.S. die from illegal drugs every year, but according to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 106,000 hospital patients die every year from drugs that were properly prescribed and administered.

An article in Newsweek said death from prescription drugs - taken exactly as they were prescribed by the doctor - is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. Only heart disease, cancer and stroke kill more people.

According to another recent article, the American Medical Association said that drug- related problems kill as many as 198,815 people every year, put 8.8 million in hospitals, and account for up to 28% of hospital admissions. That’s scary.

Another article in the Archives of Internal Medicine said that the number of “serious events” involving prescription drugs increased at four times the rate of the prescriptions being written.

Many prescription drugs – painkillers and tranquilizers are the big ones – have also found their way onto the street and are not only sending more and more people to drug detox and drug rehab, they’re killing more people than illegal drugs.

How can you avoid being one of the people in these statistics? Consult with a medical professional who would rather see you off drugs than on them - a good medical drug detox program counselor can probably help you find one – and see if you can safely get off the drugs you’re taking and find a safer solution to your problems.

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I’ve heard that in parts of China, doctors are only paid when their patients are healthy: the rationale being that their job is to keep us healthy and, if we’re not, they don’t deserve to get paid. I honestly don’t know if this is true or not, but the concept is appealing. Unfortunately, those demands made on U.S. medical professionals would send many of them straight to bankruptcy court. Our system seems to rely primarily on giving people drugs to relieve their symptoms – drugs which often cause other health problems and sometimes lead to addiction and dependency which, in turn, leads to the need for drug detox and maybe rehab.

Not too good.

What’s the basic difference between our U.S. health care system and those in many other parts of the world? We are primarily oriented towards treating illness, not preventing it. In that regard, we can do some pretty miraculous things. But, unfortunately, most of those miracles don’t happen until we’re closer to our death bed than we want to be.

How do you achieve ‘wellness’ rather than merely being free of an identifiable disease? One pivotal step may be getting off prescription drugs. Unless those drugs truly are life-sustaining, it’s always a good idea to find out if there is a drug-free alternative to what ails you. It may not be as easy as taking a pill – it might require exercise, healthy eating, and so on – but it will be safer. And you’ll have a much better chance of never really contracting a disease.

Personally, I’d like to be one of those 75 year olds out there running marathons. If you want to achieve that, don’t go the prescription drug route unless it’s vital. If you’re already taking them, contact a medical drug detox program to determine whether you need drug detox to get off them. If you’re not taking drugs and your doctor recommends one, ask him if there are any other solutions. And before you take no for an answer, get a second opinion.

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Drugs Kill. You’ve probably seen that on bumper stickers and T-shirts. And you’ve probably thought the same thing many other people think about guns – guns don’t kill people, people kill people. While it’s true that we have the option to take drugs or not – especially when we’re talking about street drugs – just as we have the option to pick up a gun, or not, the fact is that people prescribed drugs by their doctor are sometimes completely unaware that those drugs can kill them – or, more and more, that the drugs might motivate them to kill themselves. Which is just one more reason why you need to get people into drug detox so they can stop taking drugs that are unnecessary.

The latest drug to cause suicidal thoughts and tendencies is Zyprexa. Although it is supposed to be used to help those with the alleged mental conditions known as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, off-label prescriptions are not unusual. In fact, 15,000 elderly people in nursing homes die every year from Zyprexa and similar antipsychotic drugs. And they’re usually only being given the drug to calm them down so the nursing staff doesn’t have to bother with them.

But those deaths are in addition to those who commit suicide.

Increased risk of suicide has long been acknowledged as a side effect of SSRI antidepressants - Lexapro, Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil, for example - in people aged 18 – 24. But there seems to be no age limit on Xyprexa. And the lawsuits are starting to pile up.

One of these days, I hope we will have a sane, non-drug-dependent society. But, for now, help yourself and those you care about – get them into a medical drug detox program to get them off prescription drugs. Including Zyprexa.

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Are you confused about prescription drugs? If so, it’s not surprising. The word is getting out that they are dangerous. There’s even a commercial on television about it – a man sitting on a bench says that he doesn’t like living in pain, but he’s afraid he’ll get addicted to painkillers. A kindly man then replies that the drug he’s pushing isn’t addictive, so it’s not a problem. How can you tell if a drug is dangerous or not? How can you tell if you’re likely to need drug detox or rehab to get off them? One thing for sure, you can’t listen to the drug companies.

Actually, that’s not entirely fair, you can listen to some of what the drug companies tell you - there is some truth in their information about side effects.

However, until recently, even the side effects were downplayed: Drug companies used to choose which clinical trials they would disclose to the public, and even to the FDA when they requested approval. Obviously, they chose trials that presented the drug in the most favorable light. Fortunately, a new law now requires the side effects be disclosed. And those side effects should be enough to make deciding whether or not to take the drug a no-brainer.

The list of OxyContin side effects, for example, is very long – there’s at least 80 of them – and they cover such diverse reactions as anorexia, nervousness, abnormal dreams, thought abnormalities chest pain, amnesia, depression, migraines, . anaphylactic or anaphylactoid reactions – which basically amount to, among other things, a sudden drop in blood pressure accompanied by difficulty breathing and, if not treated, death – and withdrawal symptoms ‘with or without seizures’. That’s where the medical drug detox comes in.

If the side effects are that bad even after the drug company has done everything possible to make the drug look good, you can imagine how bad it really is.

The long and short of it – don’t take prescription drugs unless you have a life-threatening situation. And if you’re already taking them, get into a medical drug detox program that will help you get off the drugs before the drugs themselves threaten your life.

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Are you in your ‘60s or ‘70s and having a problem with prescription drug addiction or abuse? A recent pilot project conducted in Sarasota, Pinellas, Broward and Orange counties, Florida, found that 23% of the 3,497 people screened needed some form of treatment for prescription drugs. Although some of the people referred only required a little education on things like combining prescription drugs with alcohol, I’m sure some of those people actually need drug detox to get them safely off the drugs they’re taking. And they might even need drug rehab to help them overcome addiction.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), about 17 percent of adults over the age of 60 (that’s about 2.5 million people) have substance abuse problems. Some have problems with alcohol, some with prescription painkillers, but since seniors often drink or take drugs alone – it’s not a social event as it is for some young people - no one even knows they have a problem. Consequently, they don’t get into drug detox or rehab so the problem can be addressed.

Fortunately, the Florida pilot project is going to be extended to 18 Florida counties overall so seniors in other parts of the state will have more help available to them. Lee County’s treatment program, for example, will receive a grant to help find seniors who are abusing alcohol or drugs and get them the help they need.

If you or someone you know needs help with alcohol or drug abuse, contact Novus Medical Detox to find out about drug detox in Florida. Although many people use drugs and alcohol to help them cope with life’s problems, they really just make the situation worse. Get help now through a medical drug detox program.

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If you are one of the millions of people in the U.S. who have considered putting your children on antidepressants, there’s something you have to see before you make a decision: youtube’s compilation of video clips on the relationship between suicides, homicides, and antidepressants. If you know of anyone taking these drugs, I would get them into a medical drug detox center as soon as possible so they can get off them safely.

While the warnings put out by drug companies say that suicide and homicide are risks largely for children and adolescents, at least one website, ironically called healthyplace.com, points out that “individuals mature at different rates. Young adults are more likely to commit suicide than older adults, so a young adult should be particularly closely monitored if he or she takes an SSRI antidepressant.”

Closely monitored? I’ll say. Unless they’re watched 24 hours a day you could be in the next youtube video talking about your son saying “I don’t like the way this drug makes me feel” four days before he kills himself. What happens if your kid is off to college or no longer living at home when he feels that way? Are you even going to hear him say that? Not likely.

And what is the significance of people maturing at different rates? How mature do you have to be to take these drugs? Mature enough to resist the urge to kill yourself? Lots of adults have killed themselves. Weren’t they ‘mature’?

The only safe thing to do is get people off these drugs through medical drug detox – no matter how old they are, and no matter where they live. Unfortunately, getting off antidepressants can be just as dangerous as taking them. In fact, some people kill themselves when they try to stop taking them - which is one reason why you need to get off them through medically supervised drug detox.

Do everything you can to stop people from taking these drugs, and get off them yourself, but do it through medical drug detox program so they, or you, are guaranteed safe passage.

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