Survey Reveals 84% Feel Doctors in US Overly Influenced by Pharmaceutical Industry

By Gary Pepper, M.D.

A survey by metabolism.com reveals that a vast majority of the public believe doctors in the US are overly influenced in their decisions by the pharmaceutical industry.Â 500 visitors to the website participated in the survey.Â 419 (84%) answered yes to the question, â€œDo you feel that US doctorsâ€™ decisions are overly influenced by pharmaceutical industry money?â€ Â 56 (11%) were not sure, and only 20 (4%) voted no to this question.

Recent events in the medical community would support those who voted â€œyesâ€ to this question. Â A study from The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill just published in the authoritative, JAMA Oncology journal found, â€œNearly 9 out of 10 physicians and researchers who helped develop a leading set of cancer-care guidelines in the United States reported financial ties to the pharmaceutical and medical device industriesâ€Â https://pharmacy.unc.edu/study-finds-links-physicians-setting-cancer-care-guidelines-drug-industry/Â . The studyâ€™s lead author, Aaron Mitchell, M.D., went on to say, â€œThe prevalence of financial relationships was fairly high among physicians who authored these cancer treatment guidelines. Knowing this, it will be important to ask whether those relationships influence the recommendations that guideline authors make,â€

Another medical field in the spot light for an astoundingly high percentage of policy makers receiving money from pharmaceutical companies is that of diabetes treatment. Last year the key organization of diabetes specialists, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologist (AACE) published new guidelines for the treatment of diabetes. As reported in metabolism.com, of the 34 experts who are listed as having produced the AACE guidelines,Â all list receiving payment as speakers or consultantsÂ from pharmaceutical companies. Of the 5 co-chairmen for the guidelines, all list at least 5 pharmaceutical companies from which money was received and the principle chairman, 15 separate companies.

In this election year, it is important the public demand the candidates address the way the pharmaceutical industry has used its financial clout to gain control over the creation of treatment guidelines by the medical community.

For Donald Trump; https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact

For Hillary Clinton: https://www.hillaryclinton.com/forms/contact-us/

A suggested comment you can copy and paste into your message; Â Â Â I respectfully ask you to address the problem of pharmaceutical industry control of doctorsâ€™ decision making. Start by looking into the large sums of money being paid to top doctors by drug companies.

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Unmasking the Dark Side of the Ozempic Craze

By Gary M. Pepper, M.D. Ozempic, Rybelsus, Trulicity, Wegovy, Saxenda are the central players in the weight loss craze sweeping across the globe. Metabolisim.com has been monitoring this phenomenon from its beginnings in 2008 with its report “Lizard Spit Reduces Blood Sugar and Appetite”, regarding the first drug in this class, Byetta (exenatide). Caught In the middle of the current chaos are the medical experts who treat diabetes and have been prescribing these medications for more than a decade. Here is a brief commentary from one such board certified endocrinologist; “I started treating Type 2 diabetics with GLP-1 agonists more than 10 years ago. In some respects, these medications have revolutionized the treatment of diabetes by lowering blood sugar effectively and promoting weight loss at the same time, a unique combination of benefits. Not everyone benefits from these drugs to the same degree unfortunately, and I have seen lots of patients experience unacceptable side effects from them. Nothing though, has prepared me for what is happening now. Too often, I find myself confronting someone who expects me to prescribe one of these drugs just so they can lose weight. Sadly, one extreme example was someone who, despite battling a life threatening medical condition, was insistent on getting a prescription. At the same time my diabetic patients are scrambling to find a place to buy their medications if they can even afford it. It is disheartening, to say the least, and I dread the negative interactions with some of my patients I now face almost daily.”

Off- Label Use

The FDA is the U.S. government’s department tasked with evaluating and approving drugs for specific medical conditions. When a new medication is approved for treating a medical condition by the FDA the agency will, at the same time, set strict guidelines for exactly which patients may use the newly approved drug. When a medication is used “off-label” it means that these limitations are being overridden by the provider for a potential benefit which outweighs the drugs risks. It is a general misconception that off-label means illegal; it does not. This practice has been going on for ages and more than 20% of prescriptions in the United States are prescribed off-label. A common example is the use of beta-blockers (approved for heart problems) for the treatment of performance anxiety.

GLP-1 agonist drugs, as discussed recently by metabolism.com. were originally approved for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes in adults. In the past few years most of these same medications have gained unprecedented popularity for their “off-label” weight loss benefit. Of the 5 GLP-1 agents presently in U.S. pharmacies only Wegovy (semaglutide) and Saxenda (liraglutide) are FDA approved for treating obesity. Of these two, Wegovy is the newer and had been much more popular that its sister drug Saxenda, probably due to being dosed only once weekly compared to daily for Saxenda and less likely to cause side effects. Due to Wegovy’s soaring popularity, its manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, increased the price of Wegovy two times since its initial release.