Big Pharma ‘Repatenting’ Raises Prices of Top Drugs By More than 6 Times Big Pharma ‘Repatenting’ Raises Prices of Top Drugs By More than 6 Times
Big Pharma ‘Repatenting’ Raises Pric... 
befurther
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What happens when mega pharmaceutical companies get their new grip around one of the oldest asthma medications that many rely on for daily use? Based on historical data, it appears that one of the first action items is to exponentially increase the price of the same medication without any actual advancements of any kind. It’s a process that is involved with ‘repatenting.’
The art of repatenting is one that massive corporations absolutely love. When the drug companies own the patent rights to a formula, even if it is virtually the same as a generic one or has been sold for far less over the last several decades, they can charge you (and your insurance company) whatever they want. And in the case of the highly popular asthma drug albuterol, even the New York Times has reported on the absurd price increase following its ‘repatenting.’ 
In an article back in 2013 on the publication’s featured news, author Elisabeth Rosenthal explains:
“Albuterol, one of the oldest asthma medicines, typically costs $50 to $100 per inhaler in the United States, but it was less than $15 a decade ago, before it was repatented.”
And it’s not just albuterol. It’s a host of pharmaceutical creations.
“But many generics are still expensive, even if insurers are paying the bulk of the bill. Generic Augmentin, one of the most common antibiotics, retails for $80 to $120 for a 10-day prescription ($400 for the brand-name version). Generic Concerta, a mainstay of treating attention deficit disorder, retails for $75 to $150 per month, even with pharmacy discount coupons. For some conditions, including asthma, there are few generics available.
While the United States is famous for break-the-bank cancer drugs, the high price of many commonly used medications contributes heavily to health care costs and certainly causes more widespread anguish, since many insurance policies offer only partial coverage for medicines.
In 2012, generics increased in price an average of 5.3 percent, and brand-name medicines by more than 25 percent, according to a recent study by the Health Care Cost Institute, reflecting the sky-high prices of some newer drugs for cancer and immune diseases.”
And as these pharmaceutical juggernauts raise prices across the board just because ‘they can,’ they are sure not to tell you about the countless natural substances that have been found time and time again to be extremely beneficial in the fight against disease.
As pharmaceutical industries continue to raise prices in attempts to fill their overflowing wallets with consumer cash, it’s always essential to look for natural alternatives and push for ways to ensure that you won’t need their chemical intervention in the first place.
naturalsociety.com/big-pharma-repatenting-raises-prices-top-drugs-6-times/
Activist Post
Are you or your children on psychotropic drugs?
If so, you may be interested in knowing what independent researchers are finding regarding ADHD drugs, Antidepressant drugs, Antipsychotic drugs, and Anti-Anxiety drugs. CCHR International—The Mental Health Watchdog online, publishes an extensive listing of those drugs risks and/or possible side effects here.
ADHD drugs:
Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall, Metadate, Vyvanse, Provigil. [1]
Antidepressant drugs:
Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, Luvox, Wellbutrin, Cymbalta, Effexor, Lexapro, Elavil, Remeron, Strattera and Sarafem. [1]
Antipsychotic drugs:
Abilify, Clozaril, Geodon, Invega, Risperdal, Seroquel, Zyprexa, Fanapt. [1]
Anti-Anxiety drugs:
Xanax, Valium, Halcion, Klonopin, Ambien, Ativan. [1]
Blogger Raven Clabough has written an excellent article titled, “Research: Antipsychotic Meds Cause Hopelessness, Zombie-Like State” that I think my readers ought to study, as Raven has done her “homework” very well, so I defer to her article.
One of the issues Raven points out is:
According to the American Psychiatric Association, five percent of American children have ADHD, but studies reveal more than 11 percent of American children are diagnosed with the condition. [CJF emphasis added]
Therein we find a part of the problem, i.e., misdiagnoses with over-prescribing pharmaceutical drugs, which no authorities in either federal or state governments are addressing. Furthermore, a prescription-pad-practice, in my opinion, is tantamount to ‘soft medical malpractice’ by medical doctors, or others, who prescribe psychotropic drugs almost willy-nilly—all while not being held to proper oversight by those who lobby for the rules—professional organizations in many instances.
Pharmaceutical drugs/business/markets have become behemoth institutions promoting money-making industries that, apparently, are too big to tackle or handle by medical boards, state licensing boards, and the medical professions, e.g., the American Medical Association.
Bluntly, we could very well do without all of them. Why? Well, if “too big” means no transparency and improper oversight, with self-regulation especially in research science, then Americans and global healthcare consumers need to re-think the propaganda they are exposed to by the media and all health agencies. Pharmaceutical ads, like tobacco ads, should be banned.
Frankly—and in my opinion, we definitely have a legal drug culture in the USA, legally sanctioned by the CDC/FDA and state health agencies. Most children are on one or two medications and dozens of vaccines; while all senior citizens can be counted on to take at least between 2 and 5 prescription drugs, plus vaccines. For just one disease—cancer—there are 771 new medicines and vaccines in development. [2] How many diseases are there? Here’s a listing of “Potential New Vaccines”, which I won’t even try to count, as I don’t have the time to scroll through all the information.
So, how many new Rx and vaccine drugs do you think are in developmental pipelines? Pretty soon everyone will be required to get a vaccine a day, at the rate they are going. Fast-tracking to get drugs into markets is something the FDA now is trying to streamline. It would seem that the FDA responds to Big Pharma in this manner: Pharma says “Jump!” and FDA asks, “How high?”
Granted that legitimate medications are necessary—even life-saving at times, but what’s going on now is nothing more than a money-making medical racket that, apparently, is positioned to do more harm than good. One hundred thousand Americans die a year from prescription drugs. [3] Moreover, many Rx drugs can become habit-forming and/or addictive. One prime ‘boutique’ drug, for example, is OxyContin®. Furthermore, how many MDs have been busted for selling scripts for prescribing the illegal use of that drug?
During the Renaissance – the 14th to 17th centuries A.D. – art was the ‘fashionable’ trend and prevailing industry or business. Then, there was the Industrial Age that started in the later part of the 1700s introducing all types of machinery. Currently, even though you may think we are living in the technology age, we actually are living in the pharmaceutical age!
The proof for that statement is in realizing that one cannot read a magazine, newspaper, or other advertisement without some reference to a pharmaceutical drug or advertisement for a health issue to bring to your doctor’s attention to prescribe a certain proprietary pharmaceutical. TV ads bombard viewers with multiple drug ads per advertising minute, similar to what the tobacco industry did in advertising their ‘cancer sticks’.
By 1969, the stage had been set for a showdown over cigarette advertising and promotion" (Wagner, 1971: 190). The U.S. Government was increasing its efforts to discourage the sale of cigarettes. Post office trucks carried posters: "100,000 Doctors Have Quit Smoking. [8]
Do you think we will ever see a “showdown” about all the pharmaceutical drug advertisements?
Supposedly, close to 80 percent of Big Pharma’s expenses are for marketing their controlled chemical substances. This article explains some of how Big Pharma spends its money to make money.
To add to that, pharmaceutical drug reps prowl physicians’ offices like bees returning to the hive—in swarms.
If no officials have realized the seriousness of the problems with over-prescribing pharmaceuticals, that’s because there is no real oversight, in my opinion. Congress constantly is lobbied by Big Pharma lobbyists who tell tales about how the latest drug is going to do this or that good, or new legislation to improve health services, all while much of the ‘science’ about drugs is not what everyone is told, including the U.S. FDA a lot of the time. Class action lawsuits by consumers being harmed by meds attest to bad pharmaceuticals.
In 2004, Marcia Angell, MD, a former editor for almost 20 years at the New England Journal of Medicine, wrote a scathing book about Big Pharma titled, The Truth About the Drug Companies, which The New York Times reviewed here. If anyone ought to know the pharmaceutical industry inside out, shouldn’t it be Dr. Angell? And still, her book has had absolutely no impact on ‘restraining collars’ being placed upon the pharmaceutical industry, their researchers’ fraudulent practices, and their apparent unethical business practices. How many of the Big Pharma ‘brotherhood’ have been fined by the USA government for fraud and other illegal practices? Are fines the only oversight? Or, do fines keep the merry-go-round going?
Here’s a listing of just ten companies that I included in my Activist Post article, “Big Pharma’s Corporate Crimes and Fines: How Can They Get Away With It?”
Now, let’s talk about the real “meat and potatoes” issues regarding pharmaceuticals.
In The New York Times review of Dr. Angell’s book mentioned above, we find this:
Over the past two decades the pharmaceutical industry has moved very far from its original high purpose of discovering and producing useful new drugs. Now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit, this industry uses its wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, including the US Congress, the FDA, academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself. (Most of its marketing efforts are focused on influencing doctors, since they must write the prescriptions.)
What I underscored above hits the nail on the head in more ways than one! Children’s ‘boutique’ drugs are vaccines starting with day one of their just-born lives, the Hepatitis B vaccine for a sexually-transmitted disease. For senior citizens, there are quite a few ‘performer’ drugs, including annual flu and pneumococcal vaccines.
The bottom line about prescription drugs is that they are BIG—rather HUMONGOUS—business for all involved: Big Pharma, MDs who get kickbacks and commissions for prescribing drugs, and pharmacy chains like Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, etc. Who’s going to complain about drug abuse when they are making money hand-over-fist? Legally, too!
According to the Healthy Home Economist webpage, here are some kickback figures since 2009 for payments to Doctors: [4]
- Eli Lily 144.1 Million $
- GlaxoSmithKline 96.4 Million $
- AstraZeneca 22.8 Million $
- Pfizer 19.8 Million $
- Johnson and Johnson 10.6 Million $
- Merck & Co. 9.4 Million $
There really ought to be a law against doctors’ kickbacks! In the insurance industry, kickback practices are called rebating [5], and are illegal. That should be made the same for the medical profession and pharmaceutical industry, in particular, which needs more cleaning up than an outdoor porta-potty, I think.
Are you ready for the hard facts about pharmaceutical drugs?
According to The Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation webpage “Total Number of Retail Prescription Drugs Filled at Pharmacies” in the timeframe 2013, the total Rx drugs in the USA was 3,899,799,770 – that’s close to four (4) billion—with a “B”. That, I assume, does not include pharmaceuticals dispensed in hospitals.
Currently, there were only 320,324,830 (that’s million, not billion) people in the USA on the census clock that I accessed Feb. 11, 2015. Back in 2013, there were quite a few less souls in the USA. So, how many prescription drugs are being overprescribed? What’s the average per person? Astounding? And, still, no one thinks that’s abnormal! Can that be why we have so many sick people, and the cost of healthcare is over the moon?
Surely, Big Pharma has found its niche market, while healthcare consumers are paying the price in more ways than one! The most outrageous way is the cost of losing one’s health due to fraud in pharmaceutical science, adverse reactions, iatrogenic diseases and, especially, with vaccines for children and adults due to neurotoxins and other toxic chemicals in them. Autism is now one in 50; whereas in the 1970s, it was one in 10,000!
Prescription Drugs: Retail prescription drug spending grew 2.5 percent to $271.1 billion, compared to 0.5 percent growth in 2012. Faster growth in 2013 resulted from price increases for brand-name and specialty drugs, increased spending on new medicines, and increased utilization. [9] [CJF emphasis added]
The world’s 11 largest drug companies made a net profit of $711.4 billion from 2003 to 2012. Six of these companies are headquartered in the United Sates: Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Abbot Laboratories, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly. In 2012 alone, the top 11 companies earned nearly $85 billion in net profits. According to IMS Health, a worldwide leader in health care research, the global market for pharmaceuticals is expected to top $1 trillion in sales by 2014. [10] [CJF emphasis added. This may be what it’s all about—product sales, I offer.]
Isn’t it long overdue that healthcare consumers demand better healthcare practices, and look for other modalities of healthcare that don’t make them into legal drug addicts? Below, when you read the website about drugs pulled from the market after ‘ages’ being legally prescribed, you ought to stop and wonder, “What are they doing to us and how can they get away with it legally?” Who’s covering their derrieres, and why?
ProCon.org on its “Prescription Drug Ads” webpage features this: “35 FDA-Approved Prescription Drugs Later Pulled from the Market”. According to their information, the drugs Darvon and Darvocet were on the market for 55 years (1955 to Nov. 19, 2010) before being pulled because of causing serious toxicity to the heart with over 2,110 deaths reported! CDC/FDA, don’t you know what you are doing? Congress, where’s your oversight? State licensing boards, wake up!
DrugWatch publishes “Dangerous Drugs” here, which discusses diabetes drugs, hormone drugs, birth control pills, acne medication, cholesterol drugs, blood thinners, osteoporosis treatments, pain medication, gastrointestinal drugs, dialysis treatment, and a hair loss pill.
In essence, do you think that maybe MDs don’t know what they are prescribing? If you are taking any of those pills, maybe you ought to see another MD for a second opinion about your condition and the Rx drugs you take.
No one can trust Big Pharma’s fudged science reports to get Rx drugs through the FDA’s approval process or licensing for vaccines. In 2013, Fortune published the article “Dirty medicine… The epic inside story of long-term criminal fraud at Ranbaxy, the Indian drug company that makes generic Lipitor for millions of Americans.” [6] Statins and cholesterol-lowering drugs, including generics, are widely prescribed in the USA. However, the FDA expanded its advice on statin drugs, which consumers should know here.
However, after reviewing what’s happened in the past, we can be certain that business as usual at CDC/FDA and professional associations probably will be the same. The only thing that may change in the future is larger fines with no real relief for healthcare consumers, since the U.S. FDA apparently is Big Pharma’s lackeys.
For consumers, who are confused about their pills looking differently from previous pills taken, generic meds, or would like to identify pills found around the house that may have been brought into the house under dubious circumstances, there’s the website “Pill Identifier” published by Drugs.com .
The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program is “an international substance abuse prevention education program that seeks to prevent use of controlled drugs, membership in gangs, and violent behavior.” [7] That must include the medical profession—MDs in particular—and all others who push prescription drugs as a cultural and economic thing to do.
As an afterthought to all the above information, the information does not include OTC—Over the Counter Drug—sales in the USA, which amount to another huge market. As you can see from this data site reporting OTC sales from 1964 to 2013, we truly have become ‘legal drug addicts’.
The figures speak for themselves:
In 1964 OTC sales were $1.9 Billion
In 2013 OTC sales totaled $33.1 Billion, almost 17.5 times an increase in 48 to 49 years.
Even the above figures are not an accurate picture, since according to the annotations on asterisked chart figures for the years 2000 to 2008, Wal-Mart OTC sales were not included.
Lastly, I think I must report conflicts of interest, personal or professional, in the pharmaceutical industry and its products. I own no pharmaceutical company stocks, nor have I taken pharmaceutical drugs since about 1974, when prescription medications almost killed me. That was the best thing that ever happened to me. It made me find holistic health modalities, which gave me back my life. However, I must admit that when I was 7 years old, penicillin probably saved my life for which I am grateful, since I had lobar pneumonia.
References:
[1] http://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/
[2] http://www.phrma.org/innovation/meds-in-development
[3] http://www.alternet.org/story/147318/100,000_americans_die_each_year_from_prescription_drugs,_while_pharma_companies_get_rich
[4] http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/is-your-doctor-getting-drug-kickbacks/
[5] https://www.wallstreetinstructors.com/ce/continuing_education/ethics2/id39.htm
[6] http://fortune.com/2013/05/15/dirty-medicine/
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Education
[8] http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/nc/nc2b_10.htm
[9] http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/downloads/highlights.pdf
[10] http://www.drugwatch.com/manufacturer/
Resources:
Why Do Americans Take So Many Prescription Drugs?
http://www.oftwominds.com/journal08/Prescription-Drugs.htm
Death from Prescription Drugs: The New Epidemic Sweeping Across America
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/26/prescription-drugs-number-one-cause-preventable-death-in-us.aspx
www.activistpost.com/2015/02/big-pharmas-psychotropic-and-other-drug.html
This story was co-published with the New York Times' The Upshot.
You'd think drug and medical device makers would know how to spell the names of their own products.
But when companies submitted data to the federal governmentlast year on their payments to doctors, some got the product names wrong. Forest Laboratories misspelled its depression drug, Fetzima, as "Fetziima" 953 times — in more than one-third of all the reports on the drug. Medical device company Amedica Corp. sometimes called its Preference screw system "Preferance."
Amid much anticipation and after a lengthy delay, the government in September unveiled its Open Payments database, saying it would bring transparency to relationships between physicians and the drug and medical device industries. But this openness has been clouded by numerous errors that detract from its usefulness.
The database mistakes surfaced as we developed an app, rolled out this month with The Upshot, to identify the drugs and medical devices that were most heavily promoted to doctors in the last five months of 2013, the period covered by the data. We found that many of the drugs with the highest spending weren't cures or even medical breakthroughs, but rather "me-too" drugs that were little different than other drugs on the market.
As we tried to get accurate tallies of all payments associated with each drug and device, we encountered widespread problems with companies' submissions. We also learned that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the Open Payments database, doesn't double-check what companies submit.
"We are very committed to not altering data," said Shantanu Agrawal, director of the agency's Center for Program Integrity. "Our role is not to spell-check for the industry. The act of transparency also will improve the data itself."
As companies' errors are exposed, he explained, they will work to fix them.
While misspelling product names was an obvious, infrequent error, we encountered a variety of other problems. Companies, for instance, routinely recorded payments associated with a single drug under multiple names.
Take H.P. Acthar Gel, an expensive injectable drug used to treat multiple sclerosis, kidney disease, lupus and other conditions. The drug's maker, Questcor Pharmaceuticals, logged payments related to the drug under eight names, including Acthar, Acthar-Pulm, Acthar-IS, Acthar-Rheum and Acthar-MS. The payments associated with each name didn't stand out much. But when they were all added together, the drug ranked in the top 20 for spending on doctors. For our analysis, we grouped them together. (Questcor has since been acquired, and its new owner said it would report all future payments under one name.)
Sanofi and Genzyme US Companies reported more than 31,800 payments totaling $1.7 million associated with Lantus, its long-acting insulin, but listed the drug under a variety of names: Lantus Timely Insulin, Lantus-Vial, Lantus TML and Lantus Capture Insulin. We combined them as Lantus. (We tabulated Lantus SoloStar payments separately because the drug comes in a pen delivery system, not a vial.)
Another complication was that about 8.5 percent of the 4.3 million general payments companies reported to the government were not connected to specific products. More than 140 companies did not list products at all in their payment records. We were not able to say which products those payments related to in our analysis.
Other companies didn't leave product fields blank but, in some cases, might as well have. Gilead Sciences listed the product associated with eight payments as "unrecognized" and connected two dozen more to "Gilead Corporate." Novo Nordisk and its subsidiaries attributed 90 payments totaling $133,000 to a product called "Disease State," a phrase that is physician talk for a medical condition like diabetes, not a particular drug. Three companies connected a total of 2,700 payments to "non-covered product. We created a catchall category for such payments, listing them under "Other."
We also learned that some companies listed products in the wrong category, or listed them as both drugs and devices in the same payment records. Luitpold Pharmaceuticals Inc., a drug maker, did this in more than 8,000 payment records. Uroplasty Inc., a medical device company, did it in about 2,100 records. Other companies, including Exactech Inc., OsteoReady LLC, NeuWave Medical Inc. and Orthopediatrics Corp., reported payments this ways hundreds of times apiece.
Companies were able to associate each payment with up to five drugs and five devices, so summing up spending by drug and device was tricky. When a payment was connected to more than one product, companies did not break out how much was attributable to each. Rather than guessing how to apportion such payments, ProPublica applied the full payment amount to each product. Since some companies routinely listed multiple drugs for individual payments, excluding such spending would have substantially distorted their totals.
Sometimes, when we dealt with individual payments attributed to multiple products, we found that companies had listed the same products more than once.
Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a division of Johnson & Johnson, did this hundreds of times with its arthritis drug Simponi, listing it as both drug No. 1 and as drug No. 2 in records for the same payments. A company spokeswoman said although Janssen submitted the same name twice, the second reference was to Simponi Aria, a distinct product. As a result, we had to write code to count these payments only once. Novartis Pharmaceuticals did the same thing with its cancer drug Afinitor.
Other companies listed different dosage strengths of the same drug as different products. We also wrote code to ensure we didn't double count these payments.
In a number of cases, multiple subsidiaries of a company reported payments related to the same drugs. Five subsidiaries of Johnson & Johnson reported payments associated with the diabetes drug Invokana: Janssen Research & Development LLC; Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems Inc.; Animas Corp.; Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. and LifeScan Inc. Several subsidiaries of the drugmaker Astellas reported payments connected to Mycamine, a drug to treat fungal infections. (When we calculated payments for individual products, we included every company making payments on its behalf.)
There's no indication that companies were being deliberately evasive — indeed, payments could have come from different subsidiaries. But the complexity shows how difficult it would be for the general public to get a true sense of payments from the publicly released data sets.
Even companies that experienced reporting problems said they were proud of their efforts. For example, several dozen of the 20,000 payments Purdue Pharma reported for its pain drug Butrans and its sleeping pill Intermezzo were attributed to "BUP" and "INT," but company officials were quick to point out that translates to an error rate of less than 1 percent.
"I'm really pleased that we were able to achieve such high accuracy with our first submission, but given the complexity of the reporting and tight deadlines the industry faced, it's natural that there would be gaps in the overall data set," Maggie Feltz, who leads Purdue's Open Payments initiative, said in a written statement. "I'm confident the industry will continue refining its methods and we'll have an even better outcome next year."
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry trade group, said mistakes were understandable since this had been the first year companies reported this information publicly and the government repeatedly changed its guidance for companies. Officials hope the coming year goes more smoothly. Data covering the full year 2014 is expected to be released this June.
Given the large amount of information the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services asked companies to submit and the agency's evolving rules and guidance, "it's not surprising to me that there are some errors out there," said John Murphy, PhRMA's assistant general counsel. As time goes on, he said, "I'd suspect this stuff will get much more streamlined and much better."
Check whether your doctor has received payments from the pharmaceutical industry using our Dollars for Docs tool. Also, read what we've learned from the Open Payments data.
MD Pill Pushers- A Personal Story befurther
9 y
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The medical profession is an extension of the
pharmaceutical industry.
Instead of curing us, many doctors are making us sick,
preying on us for profit like drug traffickers.
by David Scott Douthit
(henrymakow.com)
This is the story of Matthew. He is my step grandson, who has been raised entirely by my wife since shortly after birth. I have know Matthew since he was eight-years-old. Although Matthew is a good kid, at that time he was struggling with what was called Autism, a label for a wide spectrum of abnormalities surfacing in early childhood.
Matthew's issues started shortly after he was given a vaccination for Measles, Mumps, Rubella. This is often the case for children with Autism. The doctors claim it is just coincidence. The critics claim it is the ethyl-mercury contained in the serum as a preservative that actually causes Autism.
Of course the doctors have an answer for the critics. That answer is to unleash a horde of government-paid spokesmen to dispel such pesky old wives tales. The Doctors also have a solution for autism. That solution is to unleash a horde of potent psychoactive chemicals to mask, stiffle, and cripple the dread disease, which just happens to reside within human beings.
Those chemicals include but are not limited to, Zyprexa, Seroquel, and Zoloft. Zyprexa was the subject of a Rolling Stone Magazine article clearly explaining how drugs are often marketed for conditions they were not developed for. This makes billions in profits for the stockholders, who risk their very fortunes to help humanity. You see, it is those overwhelming profits that help develop new drugs to help humanity. And so this cycle goes.
Meanwhile back on the block, kids like Matthew have to wade through a chemical maze designed to generate an entirely new perception of life.
POSTURING
That is where Matthew was when I came into the picture. The Doctors were working fervently to solve Matthews problems with a pill. And Matthew exhibited all sorts of problems too. He would have mini-seizures called "posturing".
(left, Matthew and his mother Rebecca)
Isn't it lovely how the Doctors always seem to hatch a clever euphemism to cover an ugly truth. Posturing consists of holding both hands out in front of the body, palms up as if being inspected. Matthew would then roll both beautiful brown eyes completely into the back of his head exposing just the whites of his eyes.
This would occur all throughout the day. Matthew seemed to be completely unaware of what occurred. It all seemed so strange to me, but my future wife assured me the doctors had told her this was perfectly normal. Of course it didn't have anything to do with those potent psychoactive chemicals...
It was those wonder-working chemicals that caught my interest. I accepted the Doctors' explanations for Zyprexa, Seroquel and Zoloft because I simply did not know enough. Ignorance is bliss. But when the Doctors added Adderall to Mathew's regime, they were pushing the very limits of credibility.
Adderall is an amphetamine class drug such as Ritalin. When Matthew was on Adderall, he exhibited behaviors very similar to crack heads. His eyes would roll in their sockets in a different way. His behavior at school had reached the point they were going to expel him. I convinced my wife, the Doctors were barbarians who had sold there souls for a free trip to Hawaii perk. I convinced her to take Matthew off all the drugs, to at least let his poor system clear.
Within two weeks, 80-90% of what the Doctors were calling Autism totally disappeared never to be seen again, including "posturing".
Matthew's behavior corrected itself. A new Matthew emerged from the ruins of the old, like say a Phoenix or something. The transformation was complete. The new un-drugged Matthew no longer shoveled Potato chips into his mouth, and he consequently lost a bunch of excess weight. He developed a vibrant sense of humor. He was a human being again.
The special school Matthew had been attending had a policy that required all parents to drug their children. Working in conjunction with the school, the doctors found fertile ground to traffic drugs. It all seems so "drug-dealer-like" to me, but what do I know I am just a parent?
In any event, Matthew was not welcome at the special school anymore, so for the very first time he ventured into the public school system. It was a daunting task, but something he lived up to. Isn't it weird how people excel when challenges are placed in front of them, and they are free to use their minds?
Many years later Matthew graduated from that public school system without incident, and with many new friends. He regularly works out with weights. He has many hobbies and interests, including girls which is far beyond the scope of this article.
Matthew is almost 20-years-old now and is looking forward to facing life's challenges, undrugged, unfettered, and flags flying in the wind.
