As Many as 139,000 Heart Attacks Linked to Vioxx

Last November Dr. David Graham, a drug monitor who had been with the FDA for 20 years, blew the whistle on the FDA’s policies of protecting drug manufacturers instead of the public. The FDA suppressed Graham’s report on his findings regarding Vioxx and an FDA official even sent e-mail messages to Lancet, a medical journal, to attempt to convince the journal not to publish the data. Yesterday, the FDA belatedly gave permission for Graham to publish his research. However, the FDA denies Graham’s allegations. Graham says as many as 139,000 heart attacks were linked to the use of Vioxx. And as many as 40% (55,600) of those heart attacks were fatal. Interesting numbers to ponder: Deaths from the tsunami in the Indian Ocean may reach 150,000. Before the US was shamed into upping its aid to $350 mil, the White House decided that giving aid in the amount of $35 mil would be plenty. The Bush administration is spending $40 mil on its inauguration parities on January 20. The cost of the US occupation of Iraq is $350 mil every 38 hours. As of yesterday, 1337 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq. But back to Dr. Graham’s scathing report on Vioxx which the FDA tried to hush up. The deaths of as many as 55,600 people were due to the greed of pharmaceutical companies protected by the federal Food and Drug Administration. And I don’t hear anyone in any part of the world, particularly the United Stated mounting a campaign to give aid to the families of these people. I certainly believe the tsunami survivors and victims’ families deserve as much aid and relief as the world can send. But let us not lose sight of the acts of aggression, neglect, and malfeasance being committed by the Bush administration which are causing death and destruction. Deaths due to FDA blunders and the GOP war in Iraq could have been avoided. It would be a little naive to suppose that the GOP’s change of heart last night regarding proposed Ethics Committee changes was due to Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert having crises of conscience. The blatant attempts to change ethics rules to allow a thug like DeLay to remain in his post even if indicted simply was not working in the Republicans’ favor. It’s probable the WH made a devil’s pact with DeLay that he would not be indicted if he pretended to be behind the change in tactics. But even this small concession that public opinion matters is an indication that the GOP’s use of mob tactics to control Congress is a bad idea. That the FDA is allowing Dr. Graham to publish his findings shows that protecting favored industries is not winning converts for the GOP. That the Bush administration finally unlocked its money vaults to give a larger pittance than the original pittance to the victims in South Asia also shows that public opinion can even make Republicans flip their policy flops. So will the WH stand firm on killing our soldiers in Iraq so that the Bushmaton won’t have to admit he was wrong? Don’t count on it.