Avandia diabetes drug placed under severe FDA restrictions in US as European regulators ban it outright

Thursday, September 23, 2010 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: Avandia, regulators, health news

(NaturalNews) The diabetes drug Avandia, shown to raise heart attack risk by 40 percent in a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, was banned today across many European countries in a coordinated global announcement. The FDA didn't quite ban the drug but placed it under severe restrictions that will all but guarantee the drug's sales in the United States drop to almost zero.

Specifically, the FDA's new restrictions require that doctors and patients first "try every other diabetes medication" before turning to Avandia as a last resort. And even then, they must acknowledge being made aware of the drug's serious risks.

The Avandia scam

Avandia has been the subject of seemingly endless accusations and criticisms from both alternative and conventional medicine practitioners. Just here on NaturalNews.com, we reported how the FDA's own scientists backing Avandia's so-called "safety" had financial ties to the drug manufacturer (https://www.naturalnews.com/029268_financial_...).

We exposed the Avandia fraud (https://www.naturalnews.com/029252_Avandia_fr...) and revealed how GSK hid evidence that Avandia was harming users (https://www.naturalnews.com/028233_GlaxoSmith...). We reported how California sued GlaxoSmithKline for false advertising over the drug (https://www.naturalnews.com/028918_false_adve...) and how even the FDA knew of Avandia's dangers years ago but did nothing (https://www.naturalnews.com/021864.html).

Notably, some of these stories were published as far back as 2007. The FDA, we now know, knew about the dangers of Avandia as early as 2003 but chose to ignore the drug's dangers in a bid to protect the profits of the drug industry.

Tens of thousands likely died

There's no telling exactly how many diabetes patients actually died from the FDA's lack of enforcement action on this drug, but realistic estimates based on Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Steven Nissen's work point to many tens of thousands of people dying needlessly from heart attacks.

Meanwhile, Avandia hasn't cured a single case of diabetes. That's because the drug doesn't really cure anything. It only suppresses symptoms of diabetes while ignoring the underlying causes of diabetes.

Today's decision by the FDA is seven years too late for all those likely tens of thousands of people who are dead. And even today, after all the evidence that has surfaced and all the shocking revelations about this drug, the FDA still can't bring itself to ban the drug because it's just too deeply in bed with Big Pharma.

European regulators have simply banned it. They don't want their people dying from a drug that exhibits a scientifically-validated and highly significant increase in heart attacks. But the FDA, it seems, is always willing to sacrifice a few thousand more lives for the benefit of Big Pharma profits. There's almost never a drug too dangerous for the FDA to keep on the market in one way or another.

The role of patients

Still, you can't blame the drug companies and the FDA for everything. Patients who died from Avandia side effects have a role in their own deaths, too.

The typical diabetes patient (but not everyone) is an overweight, sedentary dead foods eater who won't exercise, won't eat healthy foods and lives on high sugar, processed dead foods. (Most of the, by the way, drink diet soda laced with aspartame, too.) Astonishingly, many have been convinced by doctors and pharmaceutical advertising that they can counteract their atrocious lifestyle choices by popping a chemical pill.

Most of these patients foolishly believe that their health rests in the hands of their doctor and not their own actions. They believe they can keep eating junk foods and liquid sugars while somehow a magic little pill will warp the rules of the universe and exclude them from the laws of biological cause and effect.

In that way, these diabetes patients who rely on medications play an often overlooked role in their own disease. Sure, Big Pharma and the FDA are at fault for misleading people, but people can't put all the blame on pharma when they are the ones swallowing these lies, pretending they can keep pursuing a diabetes-causing lifestyle while somehow escaping the consequences of their actions.

People who were victimized by Avandia and GSK allowed themselves to become victims. No one forced them to swallow any pills. They did so willingly and often quite eagerly. They chose to take medications instead of eating right as others have done to reverse their diabetes. Drew Carey, for example, reversed his diabetes through changes in diet and exercise, not by taking chemical medications.

As adults, people have the responsibility to check the safety of what they swallow. One search of "Avandia safety" on Google at a public library would have turned up an enormous amount of information warning people not to take this drug, even as far back as 2006.

And frankly, any person who still trusts Big Pharma and the FDA today -- after all the scandals, scams and corruption that has been reported in the media -- is probably living in a fantasy land and needs a reality check.

To swallow anything made by a pharmaceutical company is to swallow one great big lie. And that lie may very well kill you.