Too much medicine is doing more harm than good and costing hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide according to six experts as noted in a recent article in The Daily Mail.

These experts include: 1) Sir Richard Thompson, former-president of the Royal College of Physicians and personal doctor to England’s Queen for 21 years; 2) Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist; 3) Professor John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health in Britain; 4) psychiatrist Dr. JS Bamrah, chairman of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin in Britain; 5) cardiologist Professor Rita Redberg, MD editor of medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine; 6) Professor James McCormack, a pharmaceutical scientist.

They maintain that drug companies are developing drugs they can profit from rather than drugs which are most likely to help people.

Sir Richard Thompson was quoted as saying, “The time has come for a full and open public enquiry into the way evidence of the efficacy of drugs is obtained and revealed.
    “There is real danger that some current drug treatments are much less effective than had previously been thought.”

He said the campaign highlights the “often weak and sometimes murky basis on which the efficacy and use of drugs, particularly in the elderly, are judged.”

Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, says that patients are often given useless and sometimes harmful drugs that they do not need according to a recent article in The Daily Mail.

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, says that Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is ‘over-treating’ patients, and he says that the side effects of too much medicine is leading to countless deaths according to a recent article in The Daily Mail.

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, says that the full trial data on statins which are prescribed to millions has never been published according to a recent article in The Daily Mail.

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

“There is no doubt that a ‘more medicine is better’ culture lies at the heart of healthcare.
    “This is exacerbated by financial incentives within the system to prescribe more drugs and carry out more procedures - regardless of whether it benefits patients, it seems.
    “But there’s a more sinister barrier to making progress to raise awareness of - and thus tackle - such issues that we should be most concerned about.
    “And that’s the information that is being provided to doctors and patients to guide treatment decisions,” Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, was quoted as saying in a recent article in The Daily Mail.

He wrote: “For the sake of our future health and the sustainability of the NHS [Britain’s National Health Service] it’s time for real collective action against ‘too much medicine’, starting with the Public Accounts Committee launching a full independent inquiry into the efficacy and safety of medicines.”

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, says that prescription drugs often do more harm than good, with the elderly particularly at risk according to a recent article in The Daily Mail.

He says that one in three hospital admissions in people over 75 is the result of an adverse drug reaction.

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

Biased funding of research - funded because it is likely to be profitable, not beneficial for patients; Biased reporting in medical journals, and Commercial conflicts of interests and an inability of doctors and patients to understand health statistics and risk, “are contributing to an epidemic of misinformed doctors and misinformed patients in the UK and beyond” writes Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, in a recent article in The Daily Mail.

“But most concerning of all, this desperate situation is costing tens of thousands of lives around the world.
    “And not only that, it is causing unnecessary suffering of millions and costing billions to our national economies,” Dr. Malhotra writes.

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

“A few months ago, the medical director of NHS [National Health Service] England, Sir Bruce Keogh, admitted that one in seven NHS treatments - including operations - are unnecessary and should not have been carried out on patients.
    “And in the US, it is estimated that one third of all healthcare activity brings no benefit to patients,” writes Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, in a recent article in The Daily Mail.

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

“One person who has long been outspoken on the dangers of modern medication is Peter Gotzsche, [MD] professor of research design and analysis at the University of Copenhagen.
    “He estimates prescription drugs are the third most common cause of death after heart disease and cancer.
    “In particular, he is deeply concerned about the impact of psychiatric drugs including antidepressants and dementia drugs.
    “Writing in the BMJ, he calculated they [psychiatric drugs] are responsible for more than half a million deaths in those aged over 65 in the US and European union.
    “This is due to suicides but also because patients are over-medicated and drowsy,” writes Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, in a recent article in The Daily Mail.

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

“In particular, he [Peter Gotzsche, MD] is deeply concerned about the impact of psychiatric drugs including antidepressants and dementia drugs.
    “Writing in the BMJ, he calculated they [psychiatric drugs] are responsible for more than half a million deaths in those aged over 65 in the US and European union.
    “This is due to suicides but also because patients are over-medicated and drowsy,” writes Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, in a recent article in The Daily Mail.

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

“It is the elderly who are most at risk of so-called polypharmacy - where a patient is taking multiple drugs.
    “The problem with polypharmacy is that the more drugs you take, the more likely you are to experience side-effects that are then misinterpreted by a doctor or nurse as a symptom of disease that needs treating with additional medicine.
    “I have lost count of the number of over-medicated elderly patients I have treated, with sometimes three or four blood pressure medications making them dizzy and fall over.
    “It’s a vicious cycle and one that costs lives each year.
    “The elderly are particularly vulnerable to polypharmacy with one in three hospital admissions in the over 75s the result of an adverse drug reaction.
    “Many of these patients will fall and suffer a hip fracture because of medication side effects and a quarter of these will die as a result,” writes Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, in a recent article in The Daily Mail.

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

“But what is most disturbing is that Professor [Peter] Gotzsche claims much of the behaviour of the pharmaceutical industry that drives this over-prescription fulfils the criteria for ‘organised crime’ under US law,” writes Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, in a recent article in The Daily Mail.

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

“In 2012 GSK [GlaxoSmithKline] landed a $3 billion fine - the largest healthcare fraud settlement in US history - for illegally marketing several drugs including an anti-depressant, a diabetes drug and one for epilepsy.
    “But in the period covered by the settlement, it posted profits of more than $25 billion in the sales of these drugs,” writes Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, in a recent article in The Daily Mail.

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

“As he [Professor Simon Capewell, Vice President for Health Policy for the UK’s Faculty of Public Health] and I point out in an editorial published two weeks ago in medical journal BMC Medicine, community based studies reveal that almost 75 per cent of new users will stop taking their statin within a year of prescription with 62 per cent citing side effects as a reason,” writes Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, in a recent article in The Daily Mail.
    “In fact, the emerging evidence suggests at best, the benefits of statins have been grossly exaggerated and side effects underplayed.
    “In recent weeks, two separate research groups in Japan and France have, independently of each other, questioned the reliability of many of the earlier industry sponsored studies that show the benefit of statins.
    “In fact the Japanese research went as far to even suggests that statins may be a cause of the increasing population burden of heart failure.”

[See below for a list of articles which summarize what the Japanese research group and French and Swiss cardiologists concluded about statins.]

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

“It has been just over 10 years since John Ioannidis, professor of medicine and health policy at Stanford University, published a landmark paper explaining why most published medical research is likely to be false.
    “But it’s not just about studies being poorly designed or stats being manipulated.
    “He went as far to claim ‘the greater the financial interests in a given field, the less likely the research findings are to be true’,”  writes Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, in a recent article in The Daily Mail.

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

“Now, when a patient comes to see me with any new symptom my first thought is could this be a medication side effect?”  writes Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, in a recent article in The Daily Mail.

Larry Hobbs: Every problem that my mother had over the last 17 years of her life (1994-2011)—and she had lots of problems—were due to drug-induced side effects, and yet 17 out of 17 doctors that my mother saw were blind to the fact that these problems were due to drug-induced side effects.

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

“Unfortunately, there are multiple recent examples exposing that our so-called guardians and regulators, NICE [UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence] and the MHRA [UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency], are not only ill-equipped to deal with these issues [when research findings are false],” writes Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, in a recent article in The Daily Mail.
    “Or, as the immediate past president of the Royal College of Physicians Sir Richard Thompson told me [NICE [UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence] and the MHRA [UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency] are “part of the problem rather than the solution”.’
    “NICE was called out when several leading doctors, including Sir Richard, wrote to the Secretary of State for health raising major concerns over the impartiality of the guideline development group on statins with 8 of its 12 members declaring financial ties to companies manufacturing statins and related drugs.
    “And in April 2014 independent scientists of the Cochrane Collaboration - considered the gold standard body of independent scientists - concluded that Britain wasted more than £500 million on the influenza drug Tamiflu.”

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

“The fact that prescriptions are at an all time high with more than 1 billion handed out every year [in the UK] - the figure has doubled in the past decade - should be regarded as a public health crisis in itself,” writes Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, in a recent article in The Daily Mail.

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.

“Corporate greed and systematic political failure has brought the NHS [UK’s National Health Service] to its knees,” writes Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a London-based cardiologist, in a recent article in The Daily Mail.
    “Last week, responding to a series of recent scandals - including failure of institutions and universities in the UK to tackle research misconduct - former editor of the BMJ, Richard Smith, wrote: ‘something is rotten in the state of British Medicine and has been for a long time’.
    “For the sake of our future health and the sustainability of the NHS it’s time for real collective action against ‘too much medicine’.
    “This can start with the public accounts committee launching a full independent inquiry into the efficacy and safety of medicines.
    “I believe it is an underlying scandal that may likely to dwarf that of the Mid Staffordshire NHS scandal - where scores of patients died due to poor care, a public enquiry concluded.
    “Medical science has taken a turn towards darkness.
    “And sunlight will be its only disinfectant.”

Dr. Malhotra is one of six doctors warning about the influence of drug companies on the prescribing of drugs.