EpiPens And Pharma Bros Are No Accident: How Government Colludes In Big Pharma’s Chicanery

EpiPens And Pharma Bros Are No Accident: How Government Colludes In Big Pharma’s Chicanery

By Kurtis Bright

The Free Market Isn't Really Free: How Big Government And Big Pharma Are in Bed Together

When controversies occur like the disgusting and absurd EpiPen price hike of 600 percent last year, the coverage follows a common pattern: we (led by the media) cycle quickly from horror, to outrage, to disgust, to shrugging our shoulders and moving on to the latest celebrity scandal in quick succession.

Somewhere in the mix, toward the end of the cycle, some corporate talking head or another on some finance program will utter some insightful nugget along the lines of, “Well, that’s capitalism for you. Nothing to be done.”

There’s nothing to see here folks. It’s just the invisible hand of the free market at work. Move along now.

The thing is, that isn’t really true. Things like this don’t happen in a vacuum; there are no accidents, not anymore. Events like these, as can be easily demonstrated, are the end product of years if not decades of meticulous planning, carefully nurtured relationships with elected leaders, and the shameless cultivating of regulators--who often hail from the ranks of the Big Pharma companies in the first place.

And let’s be very clear here: Big Pharma spends big bucks on lobbying not out of a starry-eyed love and admiration for our electoral system and the octogenarian rock stars peopled therein, but rather in order to get laws crafted just the way they want them to be. All together, pharmaceutical companies have spent nearly a billion dollars, about $880 million on lobbying congress over the last decade. That’s more than eight times what the gun lobby has spent over the same time frame.

And when it comes to one of the great health-related tragedies of our times, the opioid crisis, the lobby promoting the approval, sale and use of the drugs has spent 200 times more than have groups calling for stricter prescription guidelines for the drugs. Even seemingly common-sense efforts to slow the tidal wave of the opioid scourge--for instance a New Mexico bill that would have limited initial opioid prescriptions for pain to seven days--have been bitterly fought by companies like Purdue Pharma, makers of Oxycontin.

And consider the case of Mylan, the now-notorious company behind the EpiPen and its appalling price-hike: that company’s deep connections to government read like a how-to guide to crony capitalism. After purchasing another company that created the EpiPen design, Mylan refined it and patented it, swatting down a series of other companies who sought to create their own version via a series of FDA interventions.

The fact that the company’s CEO Heather Bresch is the daughter of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin didn’t hurt the company’s prospects one bit. Nor did it stand in the way of the company’s efforts to get laws passed that required EpiPens to be stocked in every school in the country. Conveniently, these supplies have to be replaced every year, and of course Mylan is the sole company licensed to make them, thus creating an unbelievable and constant revenue stream for the company.

Yet another way Big Pharma manages to tilt the playing field in its favor is through patents. By taking a successful drug and tweaking the formula slightly when its exclusive status is nearing an end, they are able to buy themselves another five to seven years as exclusive manufacturers, with no competition from generic versions available. And regulators--who are often on the boards of Big Pharma companies themselves, or who are former employees--are often the people responsible for granting these renewed patents. Thus another never-ending revenue stream is created.

So next time you hear someone say, “Oh it just how the free market works” in response to the latest Big Pharma scandal--and there will be another and another soon enough--perhaps take a moment to explain to them the difference between cronyism and capitalism. The free market isn’t really free.

At least in pharmaceuticals--everybody pays and the fat cats atop the Big Pharma pyramid get fatter along with their lapdogs in Congress and the regulatory agencies.

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Halo Foods: What Healthy-Sounding Buzz Words Actually Mean--And That They Don’t

Halo Foods: What Healthy-Sounding Buzz Words Actually Mean--And That They Don’t

By Kurtis Bright

Watching Out For Tricky Labels That Make Food Sound Healthy, And What They Really Mean

In these weird times when White House officials identify what has hitherto been known as “utter bullshit” by the much nicer but less descriptive moniker “alternative facts,” and when everyone has their own definition of the phrase “fake news” (generally this seems to mean "anything I disagree with") perhaps it is time to identify some ongoing cases of alternative facts when it comes to food labeling.

There are a number of terms manufacturers employ in order to create a health “halo effect” and fool unsuspecting--and let’s face it, naïve--consumers into thinking they are actually eating healthy.

Of course, there is sometimes truth in labeling, but in these times, it is more often a cruel sham. For example, the Senate bill known as the DARK Act by opponents (Denying Americans the Right to Know) that was hastily cobbled together as a fig leaf for big food manufacturers and agrichem businesses that think they should be able to sell the public foods that contain GMOs without telling us, despite the clear evidence that we don’t want them.

It is a bill that allows food manufacturers to “identify” GMO-containing foods by forcing consumers to scan a QR code, visit a website, or call a 1-800 number to find out what’s inside--all this runaround in order to avoid simply putting a label on the package identifying it as something that contains GMOs--again, because consumers don’t want them and the carcinogenic chemicals such crops contain, and to manufacturers, our lack of desire for their products should be no barrier to their ability to sell them.

So with an understanding of the depth of bullshit the food industry will sink to in order to sell us their shitty, unhealthy products that we don't want, here are a few other alternatively factual ways food manufacturers try to con health-conscious consumers.

• Natural - When I see this word I think of John Denver, playing guitar in a Colorado mountain meadow, sunshine streaming down on the golden grasses blowing gently in the wind. Maybe that’s a bit over the top, but at the very least most of us would probably assume that foods that have this word on their label would have some relation to foods that are, well, natural--that is to say, not synthesized in a lab. The sad truth is that the Food and Drug Administration is as culpable for allowing the level of bullshit that food manufacturers favor: the word “natural” has no formal definition for the FDA. So it can mean whatever manufacturers want it to mean. In other words, don’t stop reading when you hit the word natural. Be sure to read the fine print, keeping an eye out for things like high-fructose corn syrup and other added sugars, as well as chemical preservatives.
• Organic - Yet another term that on the face of it might appear to be pretty self-explanatory. However, big food equals big money, and manufacturers and their marketers are nothing if not wily creatures--and their pet politicians who make the rules for consumers are nothing if not greedy. So let’s start with the clear-cut: the USDA organic seal signifies that the food in question was produced without using synthetic pesticides, GMOs, petroleum or sewage sludge fertilizers. When it comes to dairy or meat products, it means that the animals in question were fed organic, vegetarian feed and had “access to the outdoors.” (This phrase is especially interesting: for example a tiny one-foot by one-foot doorway for tens of thousands of chickens leading to a three-foot square concrete pad located at one end of a massive factory farming facility qualifies under the USDA definition.)
  However as we’ve seen with other examples of truth-challenged claims, the devil is in the details. The USDA organic definition only applies to foods labeled “100% Organic.” So if a food label says merely “Organic,” it only needs to contain 95 percent organic ingredients. And “Made With Organic Ingredients” means only 70 percent needs to be organic. But hey, what’s five or 30 percent ingredients grown using glyphosate or human waste among friends, right? "Alternative organic,” that’s what.
• Local - Once again, we see a seemingly straightforward word that has no actual definition from the FDA. Indeed, adding to the deliberate confusion sown by food manufacturers with the aid of the FDA, a recent survey showed that 23 percent of respondents thought that local also meant “organic.” It does not, not even by the weak-ass USDA definition outlined above. Keep in mind too that mom and pop operations such as you might find at farmer’s markets employing a “local” label are often legally able to skirt nutrition facts labeling, so be sure to ask for ingredients when buying jam or pie is unlabeled.
• Gluten-free - Oh, the popular label du jour for faux-health-conscious hipsters in need of some attention. What with consumers mistakenly thinking that cutting out gluten alone will help them lose weight and get a ripped body just like their favorite TV or movie star, gluten-free nonsense probably still hasn’t peaked. One positive: the FDA actually has a definition for this. Products must have a limit of gluten that is less than 20 parts per million. However, this doesn’t meant that a gluten-free label indicates a bullshit-free label. They also may label a whole raft of foods as gluten-free even if they don’t and never have contained any type of wheat, rye, barley or crossbreeds of these grains. That’s why we see ridiculously absurd things like gluten-free tonic water and gluten-free shampoo. Aside from the less than one percent of people who actually suffer from Celiac disease, this label is expressly designed for people with too much money and too little sense.
• Grass-fed - Yet another deliberately obtuse label designed to obfuscate rather than enlighten. The “grass-fed” label is often taken to mean organic, though it does not. What it does mean is that the cattle whose meat is so labeled were fed only mother’s milk and forage. However, the cattle’s feed has no requirement to be organic, nor does it mean that the animal is free from antibiotics or hormones.

So good luck avoiding stepping in the fully organic bullshit that seems to be everywhere these days! Hope this helps.

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Killing In The Name: How Agri-Business Makes Its Own Rules--And How Thousands Die As A Result

Killing In The Name: How Agri-Business Makes Its Own Rules--And How Thousands Die As A Result

By Kurtis Bright

Death By Big Agriculture

Following yet another salmonella outbreak in the U.S., and in the wake of the Centers for Disease Control’s weirdly heartbreaking warning that people need to stop kissing their chickens, it is high time we take another look at the way we do big agriculture in the U.S. versus how it is done elsewhere.

For one thing, according to CDC estimates, there are around 1.2 million reported illnesses from salmonella every year in the U.S.

Some 450 of those result in death. And of those cases, around 79,000 are caused by salmonella-infected eggs, which alone account for 30 deaths.

But if we take a look at the U.K., we find a very different story: there were almost no illnesses reported associated with salmonella, and zero deaths.

How is that possible? Even if you take into account the U.K.’s population differential with the U.S., statistically you would expect more than a handful of egg-related salmonella cases.

If it weren’t for one thing: in 1997, faced with its own salmonella crisis, the U.K. government ordered that egg farmers must begin inoculating their laying hens with a salmonella vaccine. That year there some 15,000 cases of salmonella related to eggs; by 2010 that number had dropped to around 500.

So, you ask, in a country as populous and wealthy as the U.S. which faces multiple annual salmonella outbreaks, why do we not adopt the U.K.’s model and vaccinate chickens against this potentially deadly disease?

Because big agri-business doesn’t want it that way, and they make the rules now.

Case in point: in 2010 when researchers at the Food and Drug Administration saw the results of the vaccination program in the U.K., they were of course encouraged and excited. The agency was on the verge of mandating a similar program in the U.S.

However, they ran into a massive roadblock: chicken farmers.

The thing is, chicken mega-farmers like Tyson just aren’t that into you. That is to say, they're not into spending money on saving people from contracting salmonella. They would rather pay lobbyists to get them out of such trifling annoyances like preventing disease and death caused by their products and practices.

And people die as a result. Hundreds, possibly thousands of people who could just as well be your neighbors and friends lost their lives between 2010 and today due to this lack of regulation and the FDA’s deference to big agriculture business interests.

All because big agri-business has such a tight grip on our elected “representatives” and the regulations they control. When Tyson and its ilk says jump, Congress and Federal agencies say “how high?”

The example of the chicken farmers and their salmonella-tainted products is just a drop in the bucket. Look at how Monsanto and Bayer and Syngenta have managed to blanket the entire nation and a great deal of the rest of the planet in a multi-billion-ton cloud of carcinogenic glyphosate for the past 20 years. Consider the number of lives and healthy bodies that have been sacrificed, all because big agri-business controls the rules and is constantly seeking to increase its profits uber alles.

So the next time someone wants to spout the tired old line about how “government regulation is always bad,” point out that when government isn’t regulating on behalf of the people, it will by regulate on behalf of big business--often with deadly results.

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Poisonous Fields Forever: Why You Should Always Buy Organic When It Comes To This Fruit

Poisonous Fields Forever: Why You Should Always Buy Organic When It Comes To This Fruit

By Kurtis Bright

Delicious But Deadly, This Fruit Is Almost Certainly Loaded With Deadly Chemicals

With each passing day it becomes ever more clear that the agencies purportedly regulating the food market are firmly in the pocket of Big Agriculture. Neither lawsuits, pleading, marches, nor any other kind of citizen action is going to make them pull their heads out of the toxic sand and actually do the job of protecting consumers from dangerous chemicals.

However, the flipside of this is that more and more people are coming to realize that we’re essentially all alone out there when it comes to making healthy decisions on the food we eat and provide for our families. You just cannot trust what they tell you anymore, it’s as simple as that.

And if you look at this the right way, there is a certain freedom in being on your own when it comes to making healthy food choices--more on that later.

One prominent case in point illustrating the utter failure of the regulators to regulate the poisons that go into our food comes in the form of one of Americans’ favorite fruits, the humble strawberry. Recently a loophole was pried open--following several intense rounds of lobbying by the Dow Chemical corporation--allowing California strawberry growers to double the amount of cancer-causing pesticide Telone they may legally spray on their fields.

You may think, so what? What difference can one more chemical make in a land that is already awash in them?

The thing about strawberries is, much like certain recently elected neo-politicians, they are notoriously thin-skinned.

Which is to say that strawberries literally have a very thin outer covering. What this means in terms of your health is that anything they are sprayed with is almost impossible to wash off. In fact, they actually absorb the chemicals with which they are treated, so no amount of washing can make a chemically-treated strawberry clean.

And here’s another fun fact, but one most of us already realize about strawberries: they are delicious. The consequence of this is that not only do humans love to spend time in strawberry fields nibbling on them, so do bugs of all kinds--not only Beatles.

(Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)

So strawberry producers who use conventional growing methods--which means heavy, multiple treatments with harsh and toxic chemicals--are among the worst for chemical contamination of their product.

And strawberry manufacturers not only douse their fields before planting--using gasses that were developed for chemical warfare but have since been banned from combat (pity the soldiers that eat strawberries; there’s no Geneva Convention protecting them against U.S. agriculture). They use up to 60 different kinds of pesticides on their crops.

One USDA study in 2014 found that 98 percent of all strawberries sampled came back with pesticide residues, and 40 percent of them had residues resulting from 10 or more pesticides. So keep in mind, if you buy non-organic strawberries, here’s what you are getting as a garnish:

• Carbendazim - This fungicide disrupts the male reproductive system and was found on 30 percent of the strawberry samples tested in the aforementioned USDA study. Banned in the E.U.
• Bifenthrin - 40 percent of the samples tested turned out to have traces of this chemical, which is identified in California as a possible carcinogen.
• Malathion - Most of us have probably heard of this neurotoxin and probable human carcinogen, which is used to kill mosquitoes. However it is especially dangerous to humans because when it breaks down into its core components it becomes malaoxon, an even more toxic chemical.

The real takeaway here should be an awareness that any and all of these chemicals are going to be on--and importantly, in--your strawberries. It doesn’t matter how well you scrub and soak and clean them: if you buy conventionally-grown strawberries they will have absorbed some or all of these deadly toxins.

The pain of paying through the nose for organic foods is real, especially in the deadly stagnant economy the neoliberal elites have seen fit to impose on us in order to the stock market and unemployment high and job security low, thus protecting their own fortunes. And in all honesty there are some foods you can take a chance on buying non-organic, thick-skinned fruit and veg like bananas, pineapples and avocados.

But non-organic strawberries--at least those grown in the U.S.--simply aren’t safe.

But don’t expect any agency to tell you that--in this age of misinformation serving money uber alles, we have no one to watch out for us except ourselves.

We are truly on our own.

But while this might sound like a rather doom-filled concept on the face of it, it doesn’t have to be disheartening.

There is something compellingly liberating, something that feels like a weight being taken off your chest about finally, once and for all understanding that there is no one looking out for you, at least not in the halls of government. When we finally realize we can no longer rely on our elites to defend our interests, and that we must fend for ourselves, we become truly free.
 
But just because the government has been fully assimilated by the businesses it is supposed to regulate doesn't mean you are alone. There are resources out there for finding out the truth about the unhealthy foods Big Ag is trying to foist off on us. There are communities of like-minded people to be found on the internet and in real life, places to commiserate, trade recipes and tips, and gain support. There are tons of resources on how to start your own organic garden.

But what we must realize is that we can no longer trust the food that corporations--with the assistance of complicit, compromised government regulators--want to sell us.

The moment you fully understand you are truly alone is the moment you become free.

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FDA To Redefine ‘Healthy’--Using Outdated Models

FDA To Redefine ‘Healthy’--Using Outdated Models

By Kurtis Bright

Agency Set To Make Controversial Move Using Outdated Data That Still Mistakenly Vilifies Fat and Cholesterol

Words have power, even in this idiot age of lies, half-truths, and obfuscations.

It could even be said that words are more important in such an age, as we are forced to sift the statements coming out of government and companies’ PR shops like shamen examining the entrails of chickens searching for hidden nuggets of truth encased within the mounds of BS.

Which makes it such a disappointment to hear about the Food and Drug Administration’s new effort at redefining the federal guidelines for the term “healthy.”

The agency is no stranger to controversy; the FDA’s often mysteriously arrived-at definitions came up last May when they updated the Nutrition Facts label. Again prior to that when the agency approved the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

FDA officials claim that they are working on a new definition of “healthy” because they are seeking to make the term compatible with “...the latest nutrition science.”

One assumes they mean their own nutrition science, which, for many dieticians and other health-oriented people is not a good start. For instance, the guidelines published in May were called hopelessly retrograde by many, in that they continued to criticize the intake of cholesterol despite the fact that numerous studies have debunked hoary fears linking cholesterol intake with heart disease.

The 2015 update suggested that, although the 300 mg per day suggested limit of cholesterol was lifted--the equivalent of about two eggs--people should still be careful with cholesterol.

Many observers see this as a rather chickenshit move, simply a continuation of a long-debunked and outdated belief that cholesterol causes heart disease. Mountains of research shows that LDL cholesterol is in fact vital to a healthy, functioning body, and we have known for some time that the 1950s-era link between cholesterol and heart disease was spurious.

And while there is no smoking gun, many observers think that the billion dollar a year statin drug industry’s influence may have had some sway in the decision--after all if Americans stop believing that cholesterol causes heart disease, why would keep taking expensive--and dangerous--statins?

Another area of controversy was that of fat, which has also been linked--again, many think erroneously--to heart disease. Last May’s updated recommendations famously claimed that something with reduced fat yet which still contained tons of added sugar was more healthy than its opposite number: the ludicrous extension of the FDA’s logic was that Pop-Tarts would be considered more healthy than an avocado.

So a grain of salt is recommended when trying to digest any new FDA recommendations, as they are likely tainted with corporate and lobbyist money and influence. At best they are behind the times, at worst they are inept and corrupt and should not be trusted without outside verification.

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It's The Sugar, Stupid: Some High Fat Foods That Are Actually Good For You

It's The Sugar, Stupid: Some High-Fat Foods That Are Actually Good For You

By Kurtis Bright

A Poorly Researched and Biased Study From Fifty Years Ago Continues to Sway the Debate Over Fat Versus Sugar

Almost 50 years ago, the sugar industry managed to forever tar fat with the overbroad brush of “bad for you” in a remarkable coup, powered by one industry-funded study. The authors, relying on dubious data from which they drew doubtful conclusions, were able to pin all manner of health threats on one of the main components of a healthy diet--while conveniently giving sugar a pass.

But as is becoming more apparent every day, we have much more to worry about with sugars, despite the effects of the lies of a corrupt industry paying off corrupt scientists continuing to linger today. 

But it's time we welcome back healthy fats from their long exile. To that end, here are a few foods that are high in fat but which are also very good for you. 

• Avocados - Although these ugly green guys contain an absurd amount of fat, they are still quite good for you. This apparent contradiction was too much for the geniuses behind recent changes in the U.S. FDA dietary guidelines to grasp: following the guidelines would put a Pop Tart in a healthier category than an avocado due mainly to the fat content of the fruit. Never mind the sugar in Pop Tarts. At any rate, avocados are nearly 77 percent fat by calories, higher in fat even than most animal-based foods. But it is largely a monounsaturated fat called oleic acid, the same fatty acid found in olive oil, which comes with great health effects. They also contain a high level of potassium, and one study showed that despite the fat content, people who ate avocados tend to weigh less and have less belly fat than those who eschew them.
• Cheese - Similarly, cheese is indeed high in fat, but largely the kind of fatty acids associated with reducing your risk of contracting type 2 diabetes. It also a great source of protein which comes with a relatively low caloric trade-off. Plus it is a great source of vitamin B12, calcium, phosphorus and other nutrients. Just because it contains fat don't shy away from cheese.
• Dark chocolate - This underappreciated dessert has nearly 65 percent of its calories coming from fat, but that's not all. It also contains 11 percent fiber, and over 50 percent of the U.S. RDA for iron, magnesium, copper and manganese. Dark chocolate also contains tons of antioxidants, even more than blueberries, and studies have shown that people who regularly eat dark chocolate can end up with a lower blood pressure and healthier LDL cholesterol count.
• Eggs - It’s high time we put aside another myth dating from the 1950s and 1960s, back when eggs were considered a bad guy, a beshelled demon eager to clog your arteries and send your cholesterol skyrocketing. More recent studies show that the cholesterol in eggs generally doesn’t have an effect on the cholesterol in the blood, at least not in most people. And despite being high in fat, eggs nonetheless have demonstrated that they are potent weight loss allies. They contain tons of protein at a relatively low calorie count, allowing you to use them to replace high glycemic refined grains and consume fewer calories while still feeling full.

Overall, it’s high time the U.S. FDA step up and make it crystal clear that sugars are much bigger culprits in the poor health of so many Americans that fat ever could be. Educate yourself on good fats versus bad fats, and eat a generous amount of the former while limiting yourself to a sensible amount of the latter.

And for God’s sake, cut down on refined sugars!

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