BIG PHARMA'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET
BY
KATHLEEN DEOUL
(IX of XII)

A December 2002 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported the findings of a study encompassing over 42,000 individuals comparing the benefits of four types of high blood pressure drugs - diuretics, ACE inhibitors, calcium channel blockers and alpha-adrenergic blockers. The news was, to say the least, unwelcome in Big Pharma's corporate offices.

What the researchers discovered was that cheap, generic diuretic drugs that have been around for years were far superior to the new and expensive high blood pressure medication Big Pharma has been touting.

The individual results were stunning. In the case of ACE inhibitors, the patients averaged 2 points higher on systolic pressure and had a 15% higher risk of stroke. For African-American participants, the risk of stroke was 40% higher! For calcium channel blockers systolic blood pressure was only about 1% higher but they had a 38% greater risk of developing heart failure. The portion of the study using the alpha-adrenergic blocker was actually stopped because people taking the drugs had a 25% higher rate of heart disease than those on diuretics and were suffering double the rate of heart failure!