The simple fact that Avandia remains on the market is a testament to ongoing abysmal corruption at the FDA. The latest study is published in the British Medical Journal¹ and concludes, "Our findings suggest clinically important differences in the cardiovascular safety profiles of rosiglitazone [Avandia] and pioglitazone (Actos] in clinical practice. Given the accumulating evidence of harm with rosiglitazone treatment and the lack of a distinct clinical advantage for the drug over pioglitazone, it is reasonable to question whether ongoing use of rosiglitazone is justified."

The FDA doesn’t want to take Avandia off the market because their managers forced the approval of it without the black box warning that its safety scientists wanted to put on it. They would have mud on their face – they would rather elderly people die. Their perverse management directly caused numerous cases of heart failure in elderly Americans – once again helping to pull the plug on grandma. The drug has also been shown to induce bone loss.

We have come to expect Big Pharma to put sales ahead of safety, even when they know death and serious injury are likely. That behavior has been demonstrated time and again. What should we do when FDA management actively participates as a co-conspirator in the crime that injures elderly Americans? Unfortunately, there are many examples of this FDA management behavior (Vioxx, Ketek, Trasylol, Zyprexa, Baycol, ADHD meds, and the list goes on).

The fact of the matter is that the FDA has almost no clue of the actual safety profile of the great majority of the drugs that are on the market today – having failed to make drug companies perform the follow up safety testing that is required by law. The FDA freely admits it is incapable of protecting Americans from the dangers of drugs. Just this safety problem would take at least a decade to fix, if it were being actively worked on today. How can we have tort reform when commonly used drugs kill and seriously injure? How can we reduce health care costs when commonly used drugs rack up hundreds of billions in costs every year (fraud-based sales and the resulting injuries).

At the bottom of this problem is that no diabetes drug actually fixes diabetes. Diet and exercise do and they don’t cost very much. Drugs invariably make the problem worse by stuffing blood sugar into fat – a slow and costly progression of the disease that is highly lucrative for the medical profession and Big Pharma and not helpful to the patient beyond a band aid on their blood glucose level.

The inability of medication to produce an actual result of health improvement is a prime reason for elevating health care costs in this country. You don’t hear a lot about it, as doctor ineptitude is a prime player in the problem – and heaven forbid if the inept practice of medicine were ever discussed by the national media and shown to be as rampant and far reaching as it actually is.

It will take more than a decade to deprogram doctors from their Big Pharma cult training.