"Me Too" Drugs, Heartburn and Papaya

Many people use Papaya for heartburn, including myself. we thereby completely bypass any prescription pharmaceutical, as well as the incurred cost or side effects. Nexium is the 'me-too' heartburn drug of Prilosec. It is essentially Prilosec with the inactive ingredients removed, given a new patent, and marketed as if it were better. Studies were slanted to make it look better by giving patients in the study higher doses of Nexium than that of Prilosec. Let's see, what do you and I call this? We call it lying.

We are covering THE TRUTH ABOUT DRUG COMPANIES, by Marcia Angell, MD., the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.

What are "me-too" drugs? Chapter five, p 75

..."In the five years 1998 through 2002, 415 new drugs were approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), of which only 14 percent were truly innovative. A further 9 percent were old drugs that had been changed in some way that made them, in the FDA's view, significant improvements. And the remaining 77 percent? Incredibly, they were all me-too drugs--classified by the agency as being no better than drugs already on the market to treat the same condition. some of these had different chemical compositions from the originals; most did not. but none were considered improvements. So there you have it. Seventy-seven percent of the pharmaceutical industry's output consisted of leftovers."

p. 76 third paragraph

"Sometimes it's simply a matter of extending the life of a blockbuster drug that is going off patent by making a virtually identical drug and shifting users to the new one. The drug just has to be different enough to qualify for a new patent."

Dr. Angell goes on to say this is exactly what happened when the patent forPrilosec (heartburn), was about to expire and was replaced with Nexium. P. 77 Paragraph two. The active part of the Prilosec molecule, omeprazole, was taken out, patented, and renamed Nexium. "(it wouldn't have done to call it "Half-o-Prilosec" but that is what it was)" and promote it as an improvement over Prilosec, just in time to switch people over before the Prilosec patent expired."

She adds, p. 78, paragraph 3, that in studies between Nexium and Prilosec, that AstraZeneca used higher doses of Nexium than of Prilosec to achieve results slanted to look like Nexium was better than Prilosec.

Instead of any of these, you could try chewing papaya tablets before dinner, or even once you get heartburn. I have a nurse friend who first told me about this. She has been doing this for years. Now, the head of a nursing home wing, when her employees complain about heartburn (trying to get out of work and be sent home) she tells them to chew up a handful of papaya tablets. She says, next thing you know, they are out buying some papaya tablets as well.

Many people use papaya tablets, or other digestive enzymes, for heartburn. I rarely get heartburn, but on the few occasions I do, I use it as well. You can buy a little roll to keep in your purse or pocket, for around $2, and just give it a try. I bet it works for you too ;-)

Joke of the Day

My husband and I seriously saw this in the want ads, while we were out driving around looking for garage sales today. The ad was for office space, and it listed all the amenities included in the rental price. It started with 'Live Receptionist"....versus what, a dead one?