New government data show drug and medical device makers paid a shocking $6.49 billion to doctors and hospitals in 2014.
It’s no secret that the pharmaceutical industry has an incestuous—and incredibly profitable—relationship with some of the doctors who prescribe their drugs to patients. But a new set of data compiled by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) shows the extent to which some doctors are in the pocket of Big Pharma.
The CMS data was made available through the publicly searchable Open Payments program. The program is meant to increase transparency by requiring drug and device manufacturers to report payments to doctors.
The $6.49 billion in payments included consulting fees and other costs—like travel to exotic locales, lodging in expensive hotels, and big food and beverage tabs. Pharmaceutical companies often offer continuing education courses to doctors in the form of talks and conferences that are little more than promotional opportunities for the latest products Big Pharma is trying to peddle. The CMS report mentions payments to doctors for a training seminar held in the Cayman Islands.
Companies argue that […]
Credit: Sustainablepulse.com
One of the world’s leading experts on cancer risk, Dr. Christopher Portier, told an international conference in London this week that he is certain that glyphosate, the weed killer most commonly used with genetically engineered crops or “GMOs,” can damage human DNA in ways that could lead to cancer.
“Glyphosate is definitely genotoxic,” said Portier, who was former director of the office of Risk Assessment Research at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a branch of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. “There is no doubt in my mind.” A genotoxic substance is one that can lead to mutations or other genetic changes in DNA that could cause cancer.
Portier’s strong statement comes on the heels of the March decision by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, to classify glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Portier was an invited specialist and one of the co-authors of the International Agency’s report, which concluded that there is strong evidence that glyphosate causes DNA damage in human cells.
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in […]
Credit: fairewinds.org
More than four years after the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi, many radioactive isotopes created inside the reactors as nuclear waste, including cesium, strontium, and plutonium, continue to bleed into the Pacific Ocean. Even though the Pacific Ocean contains more than 700 million cubic kilometers of water, low concentrations of radioactivity have already migrated across the Pacific to the Vancouver and Alaskan coasts as Fukushima Daiichi slowly contaminates the largest body of water on Earth.
The Pacific Ocean is 30,000 times larger than all the Great Lakes combined, and the once pristine watershed of the Great Lakes is now home to 30 nuclear power reactors. Eighteen of these nuclear reactors have the unique Canadian CANDU design and are located in Ontario Province at Bruce (8), Pickering (6) and Darlington (4), while 12 are US designs located at nine site locations in Michigan, New York State, Ohio, and Wisconsin. In addition, several temporary nuclear waste storage sites on Lake Huron near the Bruce site are in imminent danger of becoming permanent nuclear waste dumps that will be abandoned underground within one mile […]
