AMA calls for ban on drug ads as skyrocketing medical costs push Americans to seek alternative treatments

November 23, 2015 BY:  Jonathan Benson, Staff Writer

(NaturalNews) The medical-industrial complex is in big trouble. Americans are waking up to the sham that is pharmaceutical profiteering, and many of them are now turning to "alternative" treatments, which are really just the standard treatments that existed throughout the world before the days of FDA-approved drugs. And this revolution in medical care has the corrupt American Medical Association (AMA) shaking in its boots.

This prominent physicians group, which earlier this year attempted to destroy Dr. Mehmet Oz for trying to help his viewers prevent disease through nutrition, has decided to target direct-to-consumer drug advertising – but not for the reasons you might think.

The AMA is concerned that hordes of Americans are abandoning expensive and often ineffective prescription drugs in favor of inexpensive, natural cures and preventative herbs, plants and foods. So the group is now calling on Congress to issue a ban on direct-to-consumer drug advertising – not because such advertising poses threats to public health, but because it's apparently harming Big Pharma's bottom line.

At a recent Interim Meeting, the AMA adopted its own comprehensive policy that it says will help reduce the cost of prescription drugs for consumers. And part of this policy involves pushing towards the removal of drug advertising on television and in print media, a breach of consumer trust that is currently legal in only two countries: the United States and New Zealand.

"Today's vote in support of an advertising ban reflects concerns among physicians about the negative impact of commercially-driven promotions, and the role that marketing costs play in fueling escalating drug prices," stated AMA Board Chair-elect Patrice A. Harris, M.D., M.A., about the initiative. "Direct-to-consumer advertising also inflates demand for new and more expensive drugs, even when these drugs may not be appropriate."

AMA 'tethered to the drug industry,' says media group
The AMA's fetid disregard for public safety in all this couldn't more accurately depict the true nature of this slimy organization. The AMA doesn't care that prescription drugs are a leading cause of death in the West, nor does it mind that drug companies like Martin Shkreli's Turing Pharmaceuticals are raising the prices of life-saving drugs by more than 5,000 percent just because they can.

No, the AMA's only concern is the fact that Americans can no longer afford to pay astronomical prices for pharmaceuticals that cost pennies on the dollar to make. And this means less money in the pockets of corrupt AMA-member doctors who will no longer receive lavish kickbacks in exchange for prescribing deadly drugs to their patients.

With its massive income stream at stake, the AMA has taken to trying to eliminate direct-to-consumer drug advertising, which it says costs the drug industry about $4.5 billion annually. The irony, of course, is that direct-to-consumer drug advertising is a major component of how Big Pharma gained so much market share over the past century – and this greed-driven system is now apparently biting the hand that fed it for so long.

The AMA wouldn't even exist if it weren't for direct-to-consumer drug advertising, by the way, which is how the group funded itself in the early days of its existence. The AMA has long sold advertising space to drug companies in its highly regarded journal, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), which says a lot about where its priorities lie.

Sources for this article include:

AMA-Assn.org

NaturalNews.com

Ethics.Harvard.edu
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