LE CHAMPIX NE SERA PLUS REMBOURSÉ EN FRANCE !

Nous apprenons par Canoë.ca que les instances de santé françaises ont  ‘’mis leurs culottes’’ et ont annoncé qu’ils ne rembourseront plus le médicament pour le sevrage du tabagisme, le Champix.  Nous aurons préféré de lire qu’ils interdisaient sa vente totalement en raison de tous ses effets secondaires y compris le suicide, mais c’est quand même un pas dans la bonne direction qui, nous espérons, découragera les fumeurs d’y avoir recours.  Rappelons à nos lecteurs que le Dr. Michael Siegel, anti-tabagiste notoire, a déjà demandé à ce que ce médicament soit retiré du marché.   

Le mécontentement des anti-tabagistes  ne nous surprend aucunement étant donné que plusieurs entre eux entretiennent des relations incestueuses avec l’industrie pharmaceutique.  Il y en a même une anti-tabagiste britannique qui a déjà exprimé qu’il importait peu que ce médicament soit dangereux car 50% des fumeurs vont mourir des méfaits de leur tabagisme de toutes façons !  (“We are talking about a fairly unhealthy section of the population anyway . . . one in two will die because of smoking.)

Bravo à la France !  Il reste à espérer que le Canada suive.  

Célébrons la journée internationale sans tabac en motivant ceux qui désirent d’arrêter, de le faire sans médication.  Des millions l’ont fait à travers le monde avant que l’industrie pharmaceutique les prenne en otage en leur inculquant la notion qu’ils sont trop dépendants pour y arriver sans la pharmacothérapie.  

Le Champix ne sera plus remboursé, les tabacologues fâchés

Lire aussi :  Champix®, le jeu en vaut-il la chandelle ?

ONTARIO LUNG ASSOCIATION - CHARITY ORGANIZATION OR BIG PHARMA FRONT GROUP?



Pharma inhaler ressembling a tampon

Nicotine replacement therapy has been ever increasingly marketed aggressively since the early 90’s. Over the years, the pharmaceutical industry has been attempting to make it ever more attractive to consumers by sugar coating it and enhancing its flavor with fruit and mint essences – while at the same time they mudsling the tobacco industry for marketing attractive and kiddy friendly smokeless tobacco products.  Many nicotine replacement products such as lozenges, patches and even inhalers - poorly mimicking the act of smoking with devices ressembling tampons - are continuously peddled to the public directly by the pharmaceutical industry, pharmacists and anti-tobacco advocates. They have even succeeded to convince governments in various countries (including the province of Quebec) and private insurance companies to reimburse the cost of using nicotine replacement therapy which costs pennies to manufacture but is indecently marked up when it reaches the consumer. Pr. Robert Molimard had this to say on the cost of nicotine: ‘’ Nicotine presently costs, if you buy it at Fluka -- that is an international chemical product company -- 440 euros per liter. An average cigarette will deliver to you about 0,8 mg of nicotine -- since there are 1 million of 1mg in one liter – it would mean 1 200 000 cigarettes. In other words with one euro -- and you can calculate it yourself -- you would buy 143 packs of cigarettes. http://cagecanada.homestead.com/CorporateShenanigans.html

One can rightfully think that it’s all worth it if it really helps people stop smoking for good . Unfortunately this can’t be further from the truth. Reputable studies have shown that nicotine replacement therapy has very poor (as little as 1,6%) long term success rates. Such poor succes rates would not have only never been acceptable for any other type of medication but public or private insurance plans would have categorically refused covering its costs.

Yet nicotine replacement therapy gets a free, no questions asked, pass. Why? Part of the reason may reside in the fact that when it comes to the tobacco issue, Big Pharma tends to do its  lobbying and bidding through the sponsoring of associations that politicians, insurance companies and much of the public blindly trust, or at least pretend to. Who would dare question the authoritarian opinion and advice of long established charity organizations such as the cancer, the lung and heart associations?  It would be political and professional suicide and would be considered as a callous attitude if either politicians or other authoritarian entities dared to challenge their contentions.  Nicotine replacement therapy therefore remains a) heavily prescribed b) continuously reimbursed either through private or public medical insurance plans in various countries including the province of Quebec c) highly lucrative repetitive business for Big Pharma d) an un-attackable myth

The latest campaign to boost nicotine replacement therapy and the dangerous drug Champix (Chantix in the USA) and Zyban which carry a black box warning in the U.S.A., comes to us from the Ontario Lung Association.

In a recent press release that the Canadian press picked up (linked below), they are launching the ''Abolish Word Habit Program''  which is campaigning  for stopping to call smoking a habit and start calling it by what it is i.e. an addiction.

They explain how quitting smoking is harder than quitting heroin and cocaine and how nicotine is delivered to the brain in the addictive format.

Then they switch into their offensive mode of peddling nicotine replacement therapy and medication and especially their main agenda for this particular campaign:  getting public healthcare and private insurance plans to cover nicotine replacement therapy and Champix/Zyban :

‘’Seventy-nine per cent of smokers surveyed said they would be more likely to try at least one smoking cessation medication if they were free of charge.


(…) most smokers can't quit cold turkey and politicians need to step up.’’


He advocates counselling, nicotine replacement therapies and medications that people can afford through a drug plan.’’

How shameful for the Ontario Lung Association to lobby  for the squandering of public funds and especially that our public healthcare system is on the verge of becoming totally unsustainable!

Oh, just in case anyone still thinks that their motives are noble, reading the very last sentence of their press release should convince even the most skeptical of our readers:

‘’The association's 'abolish the word habit' program is being sponsored by the drug company Pfizer Canada Inc.’’

We will leave the last word on nicotine addiction to Pr. Robert Molimard’s expertise and wisdom.  Excerpt from: BELIEFS, MANIPULATION AND LIES IN THE TOBACCO ISSUE - Robert Molimard

The big fraud in the tobacco issue was none other than the publication of the 1988 Surgeon General Report entitled “Nicotine Addiction’’. This fraud is incomprehensible unless one sees the link with the launch of the nicotine gum. The major premise of the Report seems to be a syllogism that states: “Tobacco products cause a powerful addiction’’ The minor premise is: “Tobacco contains a neurotropic poison - nicotine’’. Hence follows the conclusion: “Therefore nicotine is responsible for the addictiveness of tobacco’’. But there is no evidence that allows us to draw such a conclusion. A host of other assumptions are possible, and there are even major arguments to oppose it, such as the fact that no cases of nicotine dependence have ever been documented when this substance was used in isolation, as was already established long before the “Medication Enterprises” began marketing nicotine as a form of medication.

(…)having arbitrarily decided that nicotine alone explains tobacco dependence and having it engrained in the minds of doctors, the authorities and the public, any research on the other possible factors of this dependency is now excluded in advance and a vast new market is made available for commercial exploitation by the pharmaceutical industry.

Kick the habit of calling smoking a habit, it's an addiction: lung association

ARE DOUGHNUTS IN HOSPITALS OUR MOST PRESSING ISSUE?

We are informed that doughnuts will disappear from Tim Hortons shops at Halifax-area hospitals this fall. Oh great, another feel-good policy that encroaches on people’s individual freedoms instead of tackling real problems.



Timbits should be the least of our worries when admitted into a hospital especially that we are free not to indulge in them as opposed to ingesting an overdose of medication inadvertently served to us by an overworked nurse - accident over which we have absolutely no control. A comprehensive 2004 study in the CMA Journal found that preventable medical errors contribute to between 9,000 and 24,000 deaths in Canada a year as reported by the CBC at the time.


Admittedly, our medical authorities and administrators have more pressing issues to address than micromanaging what we eat through bans unless of course our medical condition dictates otherwise. It’s not as if the patient who insists on having a doughnut after (or instead of) a hospital meal will not get a relative to bring one or a dozen when visiting. The question begs to be asked that if they are going to dictate to Tim Horton’s to leave off the menu the main food item they are known for, why are they allowing them a franchise on the hospital premises in the first place? How long before they also ban them from selling coffee?

Tim Hortons: Should doughnuts be banned from hospitals?

L'EFFET NOCEBO

Canoe.ca nous informe qu’une étude de l’université McGill a découvert que 1 sur 5 médecins et psychiatres prescrivent des placebos à leurs patients.  ‘’ Bien que plusieurs médecins disent prescrire des placebos pour «faire plaisir» à leurs patients qui souhaitent sortir du cabinet médical avec une ordonnance en main, 60% des psychiatres interrogés dans le cadre de la recherche déclarent croire à l’effet thérapeutique des placebos. L’«effet placebo» ferait en sorte qu’une personne qui pense recevoir un traitement actif se sentirait mieux par un mécanisme psychologique d’autosuggestion. Seulement 2% des psychiatres ne croient pas à l’effet placebo.’’

Si 98% des psychiatres et plusieurs médecins croient à l’effet placebo,  il va de soi qu’ils croient également à son contraire - l’effet nocebo.  Il ne peut y en être autrement.  L’effet nocebo est ce qui se produit chaque fois qu'un médecin ou autre professionnel de la santé cause plus de tort que de bien lorsqu’il fait appel à l’état émotionnel de son patient.  Dire à un patient qu’une procédure médicale sera extrêmement douloureuse, par exemple, peut faire en sorte que le patient sentira plus de douleur que si on lui avait rien dit.  Selon la Framingham Heart Study, une étude américaine continue concernant les maladies cardio-vasculaires, les femmes qui se croyaient susceptibles à des maladies cardiaques étaient quatre fois plus susceptibles de mourir de telles maladies que celles qui, tout en ayant des facteurs de risque semblables, ne le croyaient pas.  La littérature nous indique aussi que l’effet nocebo peut être contagieux.  On nous donne comme exemple le cas d’un professeur  qui signala une odeur d'essence à l’école qui lui a vraisemblablement causé des maux de tête, des nausées et des étourdissements.  L’école a été évacuée. La semaine qui suivit, près d'une centaine d'étudiants et personnels se sont présentés aux urgences avec des symptômes similaires.  Aucune explication médicale ne pouvait justifier ces symptômes malgré les divers examens médicaux qui ont été effectués.  Cependant, un questionnaire a fait ressortir que la plupart des patients connaissaient ou avaient vu une personne malade avant de développer les mêmes malaises qu’eux.

Sachant qu’un si grand nombre de professionnels de la santé croient à l’effet placebo et nécessairement à son contraire, l’effet nocebo qui en latin signifie ‘’je nuirai’’, comment est-ce qu’ils peuvent rester aussi passifs devant les diverses ‘’campagnes de peur’’ que la santé publique administre à la population au quotidien et même y participer ?  N’est-il pas de leur devoir de se révolter devant ces campagnes de santé dites préventives qui suscitent des grandes peurs aux plus vulnérables au point de les rendre malades autant psychologiquement que physiologiquement ?  (Voir notre article DE LA GASTRO À LA PSYCHOSE EN PASSANT PAR LA VARICELLE )

N’est-il pas du devoir de chacun de nos médecins et spécialistes d’exiger auprès de la santé publique et les médias de mettre un bémol aux messages de santé dits préventifs qui, au lieu d’aider la population, causent sans doute  l’effet contraire allant jusqu’à possiblement créer le phénomène d’hystérie de masse ?  

Plusieurs médecins prescrivent des placebos

NEW YORK'S PETTY FINES AND BANS

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Audrey Silk is president for New York City C.L.A.S.H