Do We All Have Alzheimer’s? Drug Makers Might Want You to Think So

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From The Baltimore Sun: “This month, the Food and Drug Administration changed the label for the recently approved Alzheimer’s treatment aducanumab — sold under the brand name ‘Aduhelm’ — to specify that the controversial drug made by U.S. biotech company Biogen should be used only by patients with mild dementia or mild cognitive impairment. This should be no bar to widespread use, however, as recent efforts indicate that Biogen may be trying to persuade adults who occasionally misplace their keys that they not only have Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), but that MCI is an early form of Alzheimer’s disease.

It’s Time We Know,’ a purportedly educational website on MCI, was launched by Biogen and Japanese drugmaker Eisai, which co-promotes aducanumab, in early May, about a month before the drug was approved. This website states that 1 in 12 Americans aged 50 years and older have noticeable symptoms of MCI and that MCI is most commonly due to Alzheimer’s disease.

A review of medical literature suggests neither statement is true, and Biogen failed to provide any supporting information when we asked for it . . . Convincing perfectly normal people they should see a specialist, be tested for amyloid plaque and, if present, assume they have early Alzheimer’s is a great strategy for increasing Aduhelm prescriptions; the worried well outnumber the actual sick, and younger patients can potentially use the drug for decades. Luring people into testing for amyloid and then convincing them that MCI plus plaque equals early Alzheimer’s disease could lead to millions of prescriptions — and billions of dollars in profit — for an ineffective and expensive drug.”

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5 COMMENTS

  1. This type of pharmaceutical fraud based advertising – in connection with an understanding of the psychiatric industries’ systemic iatrogenesis – and an admission by a pediatrician, after I’d explained psychiatry’s systemic iatrogenesis to her, that she can’t stop prescribing the psych drugs to children because “it’s too profitable.” It really does leave one knowing it’s no longer wise advise to trust either big Pharma advertising (actual propaganda), nor any doctor.

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  2. Very clever, these pharma marketing people. I mean, evil, but clever! Except that the pattern, the m.o., the con, is becoming strikingly obvious from all of the repetition.
    Name the problem, get the media on board to convince everyone that they actually have the problem, advertise and get doctors (who, as it turns out, are ridiculously willing to participate) to write the script to treat the problem. ( It doesn’t fix the problem? It makes it worse? It causes brain bleeding? No worries we’ll deal with that later.)
    How many times have they gotten away with this so far?
    Prozac was great for people who were only mildly depressed and really aren’t you mildly depressed? Wouldn’t you like to feel better? Oxycontin is safe and effective to treat pain because don’t you know that having untreated physical pain leads to death and our drug is not addictive (but if you do happen to get addicted we’ll stigmatize you as a drug addict… But then we’ll have a drug for your addiction so no worries)?
    We also have a drug for tardive dyskinesia, that condition that we refuse to acknowledge until we had a drug for it but now that we do, you can take the drug that you really need, your important antipsychotic drug, and our new drug that helps with tardive dyskinesia but like it’s not going to go away or anything but you really need your antipsychotic so just take both and be grateful.
    The FDA is useless. They’re spending God knows how much money trying to get kratom banned internationally. Because it’s so dangerous. After years of combing through records they’ve actually managed to come up with 41 cases of people dying where it might have had something to do with kratom although the people also had fentanyl and a bunch of other crap in their system. But the message: kratom is dangerous and should be illegal. Everywhere. But the new Alzheimer’s drug, oh yeah we’re going to just rubber stamp that.
    Does the fact that this article is published in the Baltimore Sun mean that mainstream media is seeing through the ruse? Or only in regards to this Alzheimer’s drug, and all the other bullsh*t is a-okay. The decades of rubber stamping antidepressants antipsychotics mood stabilizers ADHD drugs (amphetamines. for children.) opiates benzos sedative hypnotics…they’re still cool with that?

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