"WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON?"
by Phillip Day

For the past 17 years I have been researching and reporting on contentious health issues, publishing information that has been deliberately stymied or obfuscated by the political and medical establishments. My organisation is Credence, a research and publishing company with offices around the world dedicated to exposing quackery and hidden agendas within the health industry - be it the orthodox or alternative camp - which exist because of entrenched error, financial and strategic interests, quite a few of which we will examine later in this book.

As a reporter, I am interested in medical wars - situations where eminent scientists and doctors have done the unthinkable and directly challenged their own establishments over core issues of medical science. On the face of it, this seems to be a foolish move on their part, since to shut up and follow the party line would have guaranteed them the path of least resistance and a perpetuation of their enviable livelihoods and future prospects. But come out of the closet many honest men and women in the medical fraternity have done, to the great dismay of their peers, and there were those like myself ready to report the issues and agendas with which they felt compelled to unburden themselves.

Our researchers and affiliates also compile the latest data on the developing social globalisation of Earth and its strategic implications. We are not Luddites, disdaining every new advance in favour of maintaining a dogged, impractical adherence to the sentiments and traditions of the past. As has been said, 'the only constant is change', and to resist this truism is to demonstrate a naiveté completely at odds with observable reality.

OUR BRAVE NEW WORLD
Every new year brings incredible new inventions, new advances in technologies, new medicines, further discoveries in physics, chemistry and the other sciences. There are also new political challenges and military threats. News channels such as ABC, CNN, the BBC and Sky report 24 hours a day on the problems besetting this complicated, restless and fretting planet. Credence Research monitors this prodigious output; our publications division prepares reports and publishes books on these subjects. Our lecturers travel and host public meetings around the world to share this vital information.

But The Mind Game, it must be said, has been my most extraordinary and challenging project to date. I believe, after you have finished reading my new book, due out in July, that you also will agree that there are no greater or more important issues facing us as a civilisation than those under discussion in these pages. I speak to thousands of citizens a year during the course of my own touring. Almost to a man, woman or child, my audiences are worried about the world around them. They are at present known as the Silent Majority.

Author and researcher Bruce Wiseman writes: "Outside our windows, the peaceful streets of years past now harbour violence. In some neighbourhoods, gunfire pierces the night. Police helicopters fly overhead, scanning yards and alleys for runaway criminals.

We worry about our children. Once-quiet schools are now hothouses of drug-trafficking, promiscuity, and vice unimaginable in days gone by. We hear of an ever declining literacy rate, dwindling test scores, and of graduates who can't even find their home city on a map. We wonder how they will ever make it in the adult world.

In our homes, at our jobs, on our television screens, we see that the once-clear line between right and wrong has become grey and hazy. Virtue is held up to ridicule. The honest man is viewed as a fool. Criminal behaviour is now excused under the banner of 'irresistible impulse' and 'diminished capacity'.

Hardly anyone would argue with the statement that something has been eating at the moral fabric for decades now…. No one questions that there is a palpable, destructive force. In the United States, for example, people are at each other's throats over it. Liberals blame it on conservative policies, right wingers rebuke the left. Many in the religious community have held the entertainment industry accountable."

THE SILENT MAJORITY
The Silent Majority of the public sees these things, yet has remained silent up to now. These are ordinary, decent citizens who have grown exasperated with the ineffectiveness and corruption of their political system. Many have registered their protests by refusing to vote. Others are frustrated at the media for eschewing its collective responsibility to evaluate the social problems we really face. Most people, as we will learn later, have not the slightest idea which ends the press really serves. Dumbfounded, we look on as our newspapers, TV and cinemas feed us a steady, putrid fare of sex, violence, money and the shenanigans of the famous, instead of promoting the common-sense approaches that could heal our nations, restore our health services and stabilise our societies.

As I tour around the world, I meet thousands of people a year who make up this Silent Majority. They simmer as they look around them at a culture whose framework has crumbled, whose law and order precepts have been corrupted and repeatedly violated, whose mass communications media and entertainment industries have swamped them and their youth with images of senseless, gratuitous violence and pop-pornography. Many of these families lost loved ones in tragic circumstances in two World Wars which were ostensibly fought to preserve the values our society cherished. Today those values have evaporated, in spite of the sacrifice. The obscenity of where we have arrived as a society today has not gone unnoticed. The Silent Majority has begun to stir itself from its apathy, and nurture an understandable and justifiable outrage.

If you, the reader, are one of these ranks, then my new book is for you. Today, in the first of the excerpts, we will trace together the cause of these disasters and identify the perpetrators who are summarily guilty, by the evidence which follows, of introducing, through gross deception, their font of destructive ideologies, and of carrying out a calculated attack on the very fabric of our nations and their cultures.

As we will learn, the 18th and 19th centuries brought with them more than just the technical allure of an industrial revolution. Man himself became restless for a spiritual, as well as a physical change in the way he had traditionally regarded himself and his place in the cosmos. New sciences emerged, such as evolution, psychology, psychiatry and the mental health and hygiene movements. Their impacts on our future society were to have fundamental, far-reaching and ultimately tragic consequences in the decades that followed their introduction and broad acceptance by the public at large.

PSYCHIATRY
Psychiatry is one science in particular that comes under scrutiny in my book. At first glance, most would not even acknowledge the incredible changes psychiatric and psychological theories have had on our world. Yet we shall see that they have permeated our courts, our police, our hospitals, our movies and TV, our schoolyards, our governments and even our homes. Who would consider for one moment that psychiatry could have played such a fundamental role in the development of politics, education, entertainment, war and medicine?

OFF THE RAILS?
Many have concluded that mankind itself must be going insane. Indeed, we are told, at no other time in human history has a greater segment of society been diagnosed 'mentally ill' than today. Our nations' governments, schools and courts appreciate this, which is why they are veritably aswarm with armies of politically correct legislators, administrators and the inevitable battalions of psychologists, psychiatrists and other 'mental health' experts. One could expect that with such an impressive arsenal of professional expertise on call, victory itself would be assured. Who would possibly consider for a moment, in their right mind, that these might conceivably be the very same armies responsible for all the chaos?

THOMAS SZASZ
Dr Thomas Szasz is an interesting individual. He is Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the State University of New York at Syracuse and Lifetime Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Although reaching the pinnacle of his profession, Dr Szasz has repeatedly denounced psychiatry as "…probably the single most destructive force that has affected American society within the last fifty years." An author of 23 books, including The Myth of Mental Illness, described by Science magazine as "bold and often brilliant", the Hungarian-born specialist has covered, in his writings, every type of abuse carried out by his profession. Szasz pronounces psychiatry guilty, not only of gross abuses of power and human rights over its patients, but also for the far-reaching, deleterious effects its philosophies have had on society throughout the world:

"Psychiatry is a part of the general liberal ethos…. Everybody is a victim, everybody has special rights, no responsibilities. This psychiatric view has so completely infiltrated [global thinking], people don't even think of it as psychiatry."

THE MIND GAME MISSION
This book traces the origins of psychiatry - this 'science of the mind' - and lays bare the startling and unsettling history of the Trojan Horse that has taken up residence in our midst. Part 1 of my book deals with psychiatry itself, while Part 2 examines the major 'mental disorders' from their true and vital standpoint. And it is here that the good news about our predicament is truly seen. Is there really such a thing as 'mental disease', or is the reality for us and our societies altogether more straightforward and, most importantly, manageable?

There is great news here for those concerned about Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ADD/ADHD, schizophrenia, anorexia, multiple sclerosis and a host of other disorders. For the millions who wrestle with these problems and issues daily, help is at hand. My task in the pages to follow is to report to you the leading research on these issues from the mouths of the specialists themselves, so the reader may make up their own mind on how to proceed from here.

For those unsettled and perplexed by the predicaments of the modern world and why seemingly nothing is being done about them, the journey we will shortly take will explain the nature of Wiseman's "palpable, destructive force", and how it has gained so much power over us. More to the point, my new book will discuss measures whereby the public may retake control over much of what has been given up or taken away. If you are sympathetic to the mission of this book, then take heart, for there are millions of people who think the same way you do. I believe, if we are to pass on to our children a future world that contains any legacy at all of decency, honesty and a moral compass, then we must discuss and resolve the answers to the ultimate question that faces our world today:

"What on Earth is Going On?"

Dream with Me for a Moment
An excerpt from Phillip Day's new book "The Mind Game"
Due for release through Credence, July 2002

Psychiatry is widely accepted by most today as a bone fide branch of traditional medicine. But how many of us know the full history of this 'science of the mind?' Starting in this EClub issue, we commence a series of articles excerpted from health researcher Phillip Day's landmark new book, The Mind Game, which thoroughly investigate the abuses going on in the huge 'mental health' industry today.

The area of psychiatry that really worked for its expansion was in the realm of drug treatment. As we shall see, psychiatry can justifiably be charged with laying the foundations for today's runaway drug culture. How, in later years, the mental health industry would remain firmly unapologetic with regard to its role in popularising the recreational use of drugs, continually failing to bring itself to condemn the habit, while simultaneously fostering drug dependency in its own patients, many of them children. Indeed, as we shall see, psychiatry remains one of the leading drug pushers in the world, hooking millions on its expensive and extremely lucrative medications. With its earning power through the pharmaceutical industry finally appreciated and welcomed by the mainstream chemical industry, psychiatry now has its place in medicine secured, even in the minds of most traditional physicians.

Psychiatry originally started out as a great embarrassment to traditional medicine, which repeatedly refused to bring this renegade practice into the fold. Later, electroshock and lobotomies, coupled with the sheer human rights abuses that were starkly evident to all but psychiatry itself, had kept the whispers susurrating around the corridors of medical officialdom. Psychiatry however was canny enough to recognise it had a public relations problem, even if it could not, incredibly, fully appreciate why it was happening. With the advent of America's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), inaugurated after World War 2 under Robert Felix, the mental health industry began to employ some well-needed political spin to add some spit and polish to its tarnished public persona.

Nothing helped more to integrate mental health into mainstream medicine, in the public's view, than when psychiatry began prescribing drugs to its patients to control their behaviour. This was 'real' medicine being prescribed after all. Since the inauguration of modern allopathic medicine, instituted so effectively under America's Abraham Flexner and John D Rockefeller in the early years of the 20th century, drug regulation, the training of doctors in institutions funded by the drug industry and the modern drug-dominant health system have enjoyed an unparalleled financial and social success, which the allopathic system jealously guards to this day. Psychiatry remained outside this hallowed realm; viewed along with other alternative health 'charlatans' as unscientific and old-fashioned quackery. Yet World War 2 had demonstrated to the medical and government powers that human thought, behaviour and desire could be controlled using artificial means. Even after the war, as we have seen, the eugenics ideal lived on. Indeed, questions as to the whereabouts of many leading Nazi psychiatrists and doctors following the uncovering of unspeakable horrors in Europe were quietly buried or diverted, hardly earning any mention in the media of a post-World War 2 Europe, keen to put the traumas of the past behind it.

But after the war, psychiatry was truly to enter the drug arena, and thereby assure itself of massive funding and a mainstream social status as a reward for all its efforts. Now, straitjackets could be discarded in favour of a more mobile and profitable restraint - the use of drugs.

THE DRUG LANDSLIDE BEGINS
US President Howard Taft recognised the brutal impact of psychiatric drugs on society, remarking in 1910: "The illicit sale [of cocaine] and the habitual use of it temporarily raises the power of the criminal to a point where in resisting arrest, there is no hesitation to murder. It is more appalling in its effect than any other habit-forming drug used in the United States."

Even as recently as the 1950s, society still traditionally frowned on mind-altering substances, disdaining those who took them as weak and addicts who could not help themselves. Bruce Wiseman comments that "…this view of drugs may seem ancient, but it came from centuries of mankind's experience with them. After enough eyewitness accounts of fathers, sisters and acquaintances decaying, living the fate of the opium smoker, the morphine addict, the cocaine user - few needed further convincing." Interestingly, today there are those who frown upon recreational drug use while addicted themselves to pharmaceutical medication.

Back in the 1800's, bromides had been used to desensitise the central nervous system, assisting in calming the patient. Raw opium was considered too dangerous; its historical, addictive properties were widely known. The pathetic plight of the opium addict caused those familiar with the problem to develop approaches they believed would relieve the sufferer of their addiction. A new substance was brought forward and named 'morphine'. By 1870, physicians were complaining that morphine itself was horrendously addictive and was beginning to cause more problems than the opium addiction it was expected to cure.

In 1898, a solution to the morphine problem was developed and hailed as the non-addictive way forward. The new substance was called 'heroin'. Like laudanum before it, heroin, during the next decade, gained its now-famous notorious reputation for its soft-cushioning, other-worldly, central nervous system and mental effects, while simultaneously locking the patient's mental faculties and dependence into its golden brown embrace. Worse still, heroin, so powerful and thus able to be diluted for greater profit and illicitly distributed to those in need, became the drug of choice for unscrupulous dealers who peddled the narcotic and built their businesses on the misfortune of others.

The dawning of a new and uncontrollable drug problem breeding crime and violence was a new experience for western societies, who found themselves powerless in knowing what to do to combat the scourge. Once discovered, it became almost impossible to extirpate the demand for the insidious new substances, which offered their devotees an alluring escape from the pain and drudgeries of normal life. Psychiatry too was failing to provide an answer, attempting from the outset to pathologise the 'new disease of addiction', trying to cure addicts of their affliction through the use of electroshock and lobotomy procedures.

Barbiturates too were already in circulation, able powerfully to sedate the suffering patient, rendering them more amenable to control. Chloroform also had, for half a century, provided the means to 'knock a patient out', thus removing the horror of having to endure operations fully conscious. In the 1920s, it became possible to synthesise barbiturates and provide the burgeoning drugs market with a constant, reliable, regulated supply of the new product. The 1930's saw the advent too of the stimulant amphetamines, with the American Medical Association even stating that with Benzedrine ('bennies') "…no serious reactions had been reported", and that the public could, under strict supervision of their physician of course, take the drug recreationally to create "a sense of increased energy or capacity for work, or a feeling of exhilaration."

Lester Grinspoon MD articulates in a 1977 report how the medical system was keen to promote their new products to the public as 'safe and effective', with no appreciable downsides:

"Of all the myths surrounding the amphetamines, that of their alleged non-addictiveness is the most transparent, although when they were first introduced, they were hailed as having little or no addictive potential. This is not surprising, as the medical establishment originally guaranteed as non-addictive almost every drug known to cause addiction.… Cases of addiction were reported almost immediately, but the drug industry was so successful in reinforcing and sustaining early medical enthusiasm, that as late as 1958, C D Leake could categorically state that 'no clear case of addiction to amphetamines has been reported.'"

'DOLOPHINE'
World War 2 Nazi Germany, with its unrestricted and well-funded drug research, produced dolophine, named after its Führer. In the aftermath of the war, this drug was renamed 'methadone'. Psychiatrist Marie Nyswander was one of many enthusiastically promoting methadone as the non-addictive solution to heroin. However, by 1963, Nyswander and fellow psychiatrist Vincent Dole, of the Rockefeller Institute, were admitting methadone addiction in their patients, but proffered that it could replace heroin addiction for life.

Dr Michael Smith, of the Lincoln Detox Program in New York, explains how the 'cure' soon became the new problem: "Withdrawal from methadone is a long, drawn-out, brutal experience. There is not a two-to-five-day crisis of vomiting and tremors, as with heroin. These and other frightening symptoms occur for weeks and usually months on end."

Not surprisingly, methadone continued to be touted after the war as the permanent replacement to heroin. By the 1970's, methadone maintenance programs were treating more than 75,000 patients across the United States. In 1987, The Columbus Dispatch was reporting that less than 1% of methadone junkies were able to stop using the drug.

MUGGINGS ANDS MONEY
Clinics themselves became the cause of the problem. By the mid-1970's, Nyswander and Dole were themselves admitting the failure of their methadone program. A 1987 article in the Journal of Psychiatric Drugs declared: "Approximately half of those who were now paying for [methadone] maintenance reported resorting to crime to pay their clinic fees. As one client described the situation: 'The clinic has now become my drug dealer. I am committing crimes to pay for an addictive drug [methadone]. It's really not much different than the street."

Predictably, psychiatry was to pioneer another drug to cure the methadone problem. This time 'ibogaine' became the hope for an end to the addictions, which psychiatry itself had brokered. However ibogaine's notorious reputation gained it a Class 1 regulation (dangerous and of no medical value) and treatment with it was outlawed in the United States. Bruce Wiseman sums up:

"The lessons of heroin and methadone have been poorly learned by our mental health experts. Most drug addicts already feel they are in a netherworld from which there may be no return and, so far, these experts and their experimental cures have only led them deeper into it."

MASSIVE MARKETS = MASSIVE REVENUES
The explosion of pharmaceutical drug use for mental disorders has fuelled a huge expansion in drug sales globally. Billions of dollars are spent annually in North America alone to treat the 'mentally ill'. These medications have become among the most expensive costs of the US mental healthcare system. The elderly especially have struggled with the rising cost of prescription drugs in Canada, prompting both candidates and their parties in the year 2000 elections to address the issue of the elderly being unable to pay for their medications.

IMS Health US reported in their March 2001 annual report that psychotropic medication sales increased by 21% over the previous 12 months. Sales of medications relating to treatment of mental illness were second throughout the global market.

An IMS Canada Report for the province of British Columbia in 1997 indicated a 66% increase from 1992-1996 in the number of psychiatric prescriptions issued. A recent US study showed that the number of 2-4 year olds on psychiatric drugs such as Ritalin and Prozac soared 50% between 1991-1995.

DRUGS AND CRIME
Given that psychotropic drug use for mental patients began in earnest in the 1960's concurrently with the releasing of psychiatric drugs, such as methadone, heroin, LSD and Thorazine into Crowley's drug-fuelled, sexually 'liberated' society for 'recreational purposes', we can get a clear picture of what psychiatry has really done for the world if we analyse social statistics coming out of the United States during this period.

Between 1960 and 1992, the US violent crime rate known to police went from around 105 violent crimes per 100,000 to around 760/100,000. During the same period, the aggravated assault rate known to police jumped from 80/100,000 to 440/100,000. The forcible rape rate known to police went from 10/100,000 to 43/100,000. Arrests for drug abuse violations among African Americans soared from 220/100,000 to a peak of 2,400/100,000 in 1990. Those for Caucasians rose from 50/100,000 to 400/100,000 in 1992.

A NEW UTOPIA?
Drugs which produce altered mental states of any kind have always instinctively appalled ordinary citizens, symbolising weakness in the person taking the drugs, a loss of control over one's most basic social responsibilities, and the embarking upon a spiral of addiction often leading to death. That drugs producing these effects could simultaneously be viewed by other, more influential groups within society as a major evolutionary step in the consciousness development of mankind seems, at first glance, dismissible and fantastic. But are we truly surprised when research psychopharmacologist Ronald Siegel of the University of California Los Angeles' Department of Behavioral Sciences asks us in 1990 to:

"…dream with me for a moment. What would be wrong if we had perfectly safe drugs? I mean drugs that delivered the same effects as our most popular ones, but never caused dependency, disease, dysfunction, or death? Imagine an alcohol-type drug that never caused addiction, liver disease, hangovers, driving under the influence, or workplace problems. Would you care for a cigarette that is as enjoyable as marijuana or tobacco, but as harmless as clean air? How about a pain-killer as good as morphine but safer than aspirin; a stimulant more appealing than cocaine and less harmful than caffeine; a tranquilizer less addicting than Valium and more enjoyable than a martini; or a user-friendly hallucinogen that is as benign as a movie?"

Siegel argues that for man to be truly happy, he must satiate his four desires: hunger, thirst, lust and, predictably, the need to become intoxicated. However one views the opinions of the influential Siegel (to which he is, of course, entitled), one must decide what is to be made of the 10 million Americans who take tranquillisers each year, and the millions elsewhere in the world who are hooked on benzodiazapines and other 'popular' medications people like Siegel are pushing.
(…to be continued)

Cancer Risk in Chips, French Fries, Bread - Study
by Peter Starck

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (Reuters) - Basic foods eaten by millions around the world such as bread, biscuits, chips and French fries contain alarmingly high quantities of acrylamide, a substance believed to cause cancer, Swedish scientists said Wednesday.

The research carried out at Stockholm University in cooperation with experts at Sweden's National Food Administration, a government food safety agency, showed that heating of carbohydrate-rich foods, such as potatoes, rice or cereals formed acrylamide, a much-studied substance classified as a probable human carcinogen.

The research was deemed so important that the scientists decided on the unusual step of going public with their findings before the research had been officially published in an academic journal.

"I have been in this field for 30 years and I have never seen anything like this before," said Leif Busk, head of the food administration's research department.

Findings unveiled at a news conference called by the food administration showed that an ordinary bag of potato chips may contain up to 500 times more of the substance than the top level allowed in drinking water by the World Health Organization (WHO).

French fries sold at Swedish franchises of U.S. fast-food chains Burger King Corp. and McDonald's contained about 100 times the 1 microgram per litre maximum permitted by the WHO for drinking water, the study showed.

One milligram, or 0.001 grams, contains 1,000 micrograms.

KNOWN HAZARD
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies acrylamide, a colourless, crystalline solid, as a medium hazard probable human carcinogen.

According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, acrylamide induces gene mutations and has been found in animal tests to cause benign and malignant stomach tumours.

It is also known to cause damage to the central and peripheral nervous system.

"The discovery that acrylamide is formed during the preparation of food, and at high levels, is new knowledge. It may now be possible to explain some of the cases of cancer caused by food," Busk said.

"Fried, oven-baked and deep-fried potato and cereal products may contain high levels of acrylamide," the administration said.

"Acrylamide is formed during the preparation of food and occurs in many foodstuffs. Many of the analysed foodstuffs are consumed in large quantities, e.g. potato crisps (chips), french fries, fried potatoes, biscuits and bread."

Among products analysed in the study were potato chips made by Finnish company CHIPS ABP, whose shares fell 14.5 percent to six-month lows, as well as breakfast cereals made by U.S. Kellogg, Quaker Oats Co, part of PepsiCo Inc, and Swiss Nestle, and Old El Paso brand tortilla chips.

"For us, these are completely new findings which have never before been known to the world's foodstuffs industry," CHIPS ABP said in a statement to the Helsinki stock exchange.

Stefan Eriksson, marketing manager Burger King's subsidiary in Sweden, told Reuters by telephone: "We have received the information and we are evaluating what it will mean."

Spokesmen for the other companies mentioned in the research were not immediately available for comment.

NO PRODUCTS WITHDRAWN
Margareta Tornqvist, an associate professor at Stockholm University's department of environmental chemistry, said the consumption of a single potato chip could take acrylamide intake up to the WHO maximum for drinking water.

Busk said, however, that the product analysis based on more than 100 random samples was not extensive enough for the administration to recommend the withdrawal of any products from supermarket shelves.

"Frying at high temperatures or for a long time should be avoided," Busk said, adding: "Our advice to eat less fat-rich products such as french fries and crisps (chips), remains valid."

He said the findings applied worldwide, not only to Sweden, as the food raw materials used in the analyses had showed no traces of acrylamide.

Swedish authorities had informed the European Commission and EU member countries, Busk said.

"It is the first time we have come across such a result. We will evaluate this study and look at it but it is important to say that Sweden has not withdrawn any products from the market," said European Commission spokeswoman Beate Gminder.

"Therefore we'll have to see what the scientific evaluation by our side and by scientists in the member states will bring about," she said.

Liliane Abramsson-Zetterberg, a toxicologist at the Swedish food administration, said: "The cancer risk from acrylamide is much higher than (the levels) we accept for known carcinogens."

But smoking, which is known to cause cancer, remained a bigger risk, she said.
April 24, 2002 11:20 AM ET - Reuters.com/news

The page below is a web version of a leaflet by the Consumers for Health Choice. Click here to download the original leaflet in word .doc format.

About CHC
CHC is an independent consumer organisation which has 6,000 members in the UK, and over 260,000 supporters on its database. It is run by a Board of Directors who are elected annually. CHC has offices in London and Brussels and works with similar organisations around Europe.

About the NAHS
The National Association of Health Stores has existed since 1931. We serve to support, protect and represent the specialist natural health product retailer, and work closely with CHC in campaigning to preserve our freedom to choose safe and natural health products.

CHC and the NAHS are now asking for your help to defeat three new threats to consumer choice.

Food Supplements Directive
Europe has passed a new Directive on Food Supplements containing vitamins and minerals.
This could lead to the banning of many safe and popular nutrients, and the imposition of unnecessary limits on the potency of many others. The Directive contains a list of nutrients that may be used in food supplements, but at present, there are 300 safe and popular nutrients on the UK market that are not included in the list. This alone will affect thousands of products that will require re-formulation, such as virtually all multi-vitamins.
We believe the setting of maximum limits should be done only on the basis of safety - if a nutrient is safe there is no reason why consumers should not be able to buy it. But the Directive would allow much lower levels to be set, leading to the loss of a substantial number of safe and effective higher dose supplements.

Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive
Europe has advanced significantly on a directive on herbal products. This will force herbal remedies into the formal regulatory environment of pharmaceutical drugs and threatens the continued availability of many herbal remedies and mixtures of herbs with nutrients. To get a licence under this Directive, a product would have to have been on the market for 30 years, (including 15 years in Europe) which means newly introduced herbal remedies would be banned. A product that is a mixture of a traditional herb plus vitamins and/or minerals would also be banned since the mixture is unlikely to have been on the market for 30 years and the Directive does not provide for them!

Amendments to the Medicines Directive
Europe is also now considering amending the Medicines Directive in such a way that threatens to bring many food supplements within the regulatory regime for pharmaceutical drugs, again threatening their continued availability in the UK.

Details of all these threats are available on our websites: www.healthchoice.org.uk
and: www.nahs.co.uk

Writing a Letter to Support our Campaigns

We need you to write letters to your MP and MEPs.

To find your UK Member of Parliament (MP) visit: http://locata.co.uk/commons

To find your Members of the European Parliament (MEP) visit: http://www.europarl.eu.int

Or contact your local library or e-mail CHC: enquiries@healthchoice.org.uk

Write to your MP at: The House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA

Write to your MEP at: The European Parliament
Rue Wiertz 0147
Brussels, Belgium

Many MPs and MEPs also have e-mail addresses which are available through the links above, but there is nothing like a traditional hand-written letter to convince them that you were prepared to go to some time and trouble to write to them! In the UK, we all have several MEPs elected to represent each Region. You can write to them all if you wish, or just pick one from the list.

What do I say in my letter?
Your letter does not need to be long or complicated. Please consider making the following points in your letter to your MP and your MEP, but above all, please be polite!

Ø make sure you give your name, postal address and email address, if available

Ø explain why you value your freedom to choose dietary supplements and/or herbal remedies

Ø point out that UK law already requires that food supplements and natural remedies have to be as safe as food, and also appropriately labelled

Ø state that you are supporting the CHC and NAHS campaign to protect the right of consumers to have continued access to a wide range of natural health products

Ø request that your MP and MEPs

¨ oppose the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive which threatens many longstanding herbal remedies;
¨ oppose the proposed amendments to the Medicines Directive which threaten to reclassify food supplements as medicines requiring an expensive licence; and
¨ oppose the introduction into UK law of the Food Supplements Directive which would lead to a ban on many hundreds of safe nutrients and unacceptable limits on the potency of many more.

Ø thank your MP/MEP for their support and request that they take up your concerns with the relevant authorities.

Please write today, and ask your friends to do the same!

We need your support
Running campaigns in the United Kingdom and Europe at the same time is very difficult and requires substantial resources.

If you value your right to choose safe, higher dose health supplements, please support Consumers for Health Choice.

Please consider making a donation. Cheques may be made payable to "Consumers for Health Choice".

Or better still, perhaps you could afford to contribute a small amount each month? If so, do please consider completing the Standing Order form on the back of this leaflet and sending it to your bank.

Consumers for Health Choice
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Fax: 020 7222 4192

Email: enquiries@healthchoice.org.uk

When you buy natural health products, please ask your local retailer to support
CHC and the NAHS.

CHC - defending your right to choose!

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WARNING:

IT'S HAPPENING NOW!
All consumers, young and old, will lose their freedom to purchase safe, higher dose supplements and herbal remedies of their choice.

ANTI-FLUORIDE CAMPAIGNER'S
PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF!

Congratulations to CTM member David Maddock from Dorset whose personal persistence in combating fluoridation policy in Portsmouth paid off handsomely. David sent us his fluoridation street survey notes.

Letters carry far more weight than petitions.

Photocopied letters fall into the photocopy pile and therefore carry less weight than the hand-written letter. However, individual computer generated letters, which just require a signature, are ideal.

Personalise each letter with the name, correct address and postal code. Select a month to carry out the street survey; i.e. July 2002. You can then enter the correct date by hand that the signature was signed.

You are selling signatures to letters, you are not present to educate. Education at this stage robs you of time. Just carry a picture of teeth damaged by fluoride, because a picture tells a thousand words. A picture plus the words "I don't want your kids' teeth damaged by dental fluorosis. Please sign our letter, so you keep your freedom of choice."

The majority of people support freedom of choice.

1 per cent will object "Where did you get my name and address?" Just smile, apologise and leave.

Deliver the letters by hand to the chairman of the authorities in question and always collect a receipt of the number of letters delivered.

In the case of Portsmouth Water the water company received around 100 hand-written letters against for a few letters of support.

Portsmouth Health Authority never started the consultation period, which shows the power of the letter.

I also conducted my own street survey; Do you want or not want water fluoridation? In that question, the public cannot tell if you are for or against water fluoridation. Around 33% were against, 17% for (local newspapers supported water fluoridation) with 50% saying they wanted more information on the subject. This is interesting because it shows how intelligent the public are - they want more information - a fact totally missing from so called NOP surveys that 4 out of 5 want water fluoridation.

(If you collect names, addresses and postcodes from those who expressed opposition to fluoridation in your street survey, you can then use their information to compile that person's letter to the water authority with their name and address details. All the person has to do then is sign the letter and give it back to you, so you can deliver it to the water authority along with the other letters you have collected).

Here is an example of a letter that can be used.

Dear Sirs,

I understand that the Southampton & South West Hampshire Health Commission has requested that you fluoridate my water supply.

When I turn on my tap I expect to receive water in its purest possible form. The Company, Directors or Employees cannot be forced to include fluoride into my water supply. Neither have they any duty to do so.

The addition of fluoride to my water supply is based on medical grounds, and it is illegal to medicate me without my permission, which I DO NOT GIVE.

In the event of an accident or incident involving overdosing of fluoride chemicals, the Company, its Directors and Employees are at risk of criminal prosecution and will be held responsible.

The Company, its Directors and Employees cannot absolve themselves of the responsibility by claiming that certain health officials assured them of the safety of fluoride.

Yours sincerely,

Well done David and keep up the inspiring work!

Fish Oil Cuts Risk of Sudden Death

People who eat several servings of fish each week may lower their risk of heart disease and death, two national studies report.

In one study, men without heart disease were 81% less likely to experience sudden death when their blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids were high regardless of their age, smoking habits, or the amount of other types of fatty acids in their blood.

Omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in fatty fish such as salmon and mackerel, may lower the risk of developing an irregular heart rhythm and reduce blood cholesterol and clotting -- all risk factors for heart disease.

The findings point to a way for individuals to lower their risk of sudden death from heart attack.

The results suggest that increasing intake of omega-3 fatty acids by either supplements or by diet may substantially reduce the risk of sudden death, even among those without a history of heart disease.

More than 50% of people who die suddenly of cardiac causes have no signs or symptoms of heart disease.

In the first study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine researchers looked at the experience of about 22,000 male doctors who enrolled in the Physicians' Health Study in 1982. They were all free of heart disease at the time, and about 15,000 volunteered a blood sample.

Over the next 17 years, 94 of the men who had given blood samples and who had not subsequently been diagnosed with heart disease died suddenly. The researchers chose about 180 surviving members of the study and compared them with those victims. In particular, they compared the bloodstream concentrations of substances called omega or n-3 fatty acids, found primarily in fish oils.

On average, the men who died suddenly had lower amounts of n-3 fatty acids than the ones who did not. When the researchers divided all the men into four groups based on the concentration of n-3 fatty acids in their blood, the men in the highest quarter had only a fifth the risk of sudden death as those in the lowest quarter.

In the second study, which appears in JAMA, researchers studied the experience of 85,000 female nurses. Like the physicians, they volunteered to be questioned and followed over many years as part of the Nurses' Health Study, which began in 1976.

The researchers used dietary information gathered in five interviews between 1980 and 1994 to estimate fish intake. They also calculated the approximate amount of n-3 fatty acids consumed, based on the type of fish the women listed in their diet questionnaires.

The researchers found that the more frequently a woman ate fish, the less likely she was to suffer a heart attack or to die of any cardiac cause. Specifically, those who ate fish once a week had a 30 percent lower risk of heart attack or death as those who never ate fish. Eating fish five times a week was only slightly more beneficial; those women had a 34 percent lower risk.
Although ocean-living, cold-water oily fish such as salmon, swordfish and tuna offer the largest, easily accessible sources of n-3 fatty acids, there are others. Flax seed oil, canola oil and English walnuts all contain significant amounts of the oils.

A European study published in 1999 showed that fish oil supplements reduced the risk of sudden death in people who had previously survived a heart attack. The n-3 fatty acids appear to have a specific antiarrhythmic effect, possibly by stabilizing the membranes of heart muscle cells.

The oils also have a blood-thinning effect, like aspirin. In some observational studies, fish consumption has been associated with a lower risk of stroke. There have been anecdotal observations that fish oil supplements may have antidepressant effects as well.

The findings support a growing body of research indicating that omega-3 fatty acids may reduce the risk of heart disease and death.
The New England Journal of Medicine April 11, 2002;346:1113-1118
JAMA April 10, 2002;287:1815-1821

DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT:
If you live in the Chicago area you will certainly want to mark your calendars for one of the leading world experts in Omega-3 nutrition to speak to the public for only $10. Her book, The Omega Diet, is one of the best ones out there on omega-3 fats for health. You can read more about the lecture by reviewing her lecture page.

If you have been reading the newsletter for awhile, you will know that omega-3 oils are something I have been promoting for some time now. Last month I posted an excellent review on this topic that was published in the Canadian Medical Journal.

Omega three fats are essential to your health. You can certainly get them from cod liver oil or fish oil.

Please remember that nearly all fish are contaminated with mercury and should ideally be avoided. You will want to identify a clean source of fish oil.

If you already have significant sun exposure then you should not take cod liver oil as you will run the risk of overdosing on vitamin D. You should then take fish oil capsules. The standard fish oil capsule is 180 mg of EPA and 120 mg of DHA. You should take approximately one capsule for every ten pounds of body weight, preferably in two divided doses. So if you weigh 160 pounds you would take 8 capsules twice a day. If you have problems with belching them up, you will want to consider taking them on an empty stomach.

Probably the best value for fish oil capsules is the one we sell in our office. The Kirkland brand from Costco. They sell a 300 capsule bottle for about $7.50. Because Costco has such a high turnover, the oil is very fresh. You can tell, by puncturing one of the capsules and seeing if there is any "fishy" aftertaste. This is usually a sign of rancid fat and an indication of an inferior product.

Cod liver oil has the benefit of providing you with vitamin D and A. A reasonable dose for cod liver oil is one teaspoon for every 30-40 pounds of body weight. If you use cod liver oil during your summer you will need to be careful of vitamin D toxicity and I suggest you review the information on vitamin D testing.

When you take fish oil supplements or cod liver oil in the doses I recommend please be sure and take an one vitamin E 400 unit supplement per day as this will help serve to protect the fat from oxidation. This is less of an issue with the cod liver oil as the vitamin D itself is a very potent antioxidant.

You will also need extra amounts of the "fourth and unforgotten" oil soluble vitamin, vitamin K. If you are juicing plenty of green vegetables and taking the cod liver oil or fish oil with the juice you should absorb the vitamin K in the vegetable juice. However, if you have osteoporosis or osteopenia, you will want to consider adding an extra 1000 mcg ( 1 mg ) of vitamin K per day.

Generally our diet contains far too much omega 6 fats. Experts looking at the dietary ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids suggest that in early human history the ratio was about 1:1. Currently most Americans eat a dietary ratio that falls between 20:1 and 50:1. The optimal ratio is most likely closer to the original ratio of 1:1. For most of us this means greatly reducing the omega-6 fatty acids we consume and increasing the amount of omega-3 fatty acids.

Please recognize that we get ALL the omega-6 and omega-9 fat we need from food. We do NOT need to take any supplements for these fats. Many of the omega fat supplements you see in health food stores will only serve to worsen your health, not improve it as they contain omega 6 fats which will worsen your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio.

I strongly recommend avoiding sunflower, corn, soy, safflower, canola, or products that contain these oils. That is no hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated fats, no margarine, no vegetable oil, no shortening. These oils are chock full of omega-6 fats and will only worsen your omega 6:omega 3 ratio.

Acceptable oils will be a high quality extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, avocados, and organic butter, or better yet grass-fed organic butter.

Another way to improve your omega 6:3 ratio is to change the type of meat you are eating. You could consume more game meat like venison, or other game animals that are raised exclusively on grass type foods. However, these are hard to find and generally more expensive than beef.

Since nearly all cattle are grain fed before slaughter, if you eat most traditionally raised beef, it will typically worsen you omega 6:omega 3 ratio.

Normally a good ratio for omega 6:3 in fish is 2 or 3 to 1. The lower the better. Grassfed beef from Grassfed Organics is much higher in Omega 3 than fish, with a 6:3 ratio of 0.16 to 1. This information is from a study done at Iowa State University in August 2001.
www.mercola.com

HIV REWARD INCREASES

The reward for proof of the existence of HIV has been greatly increased. Alex Russell, a former assistant editor at Continuum Magazine, is offering $100,000 for photographic proof that HIV exists. Details of the offer can be found at
http://www.redflagsweekly.com/Thursday_report/prize.html

Speaking to Alex recently, he said that in his long-running campaign to bring to light the fraudulent nature of the AIDS industry, not one single major player from that industry has yet come forward to claim the money - this despite the fact that the offer has been personally posted to them, including Robert Gallo, Luc Montagnier, Antony Faucci of the US National Institutes of Health and to all other leading AIDS establishments across the world. All he wants is a photograph and a scientific paper.

If you have the photograph that proves HIV exists, then write to Alex at alex@lalage52.freeserve.co.uk

KAITAKE AND INGLEWOOD HAVE FLUORIDE RULED OUT

The New Plymouth District Council yesterday ruled out any prospect of fluoride being added to the water supplies of Inglewood and Kaitake. In a surprise move, the council overturned a recommendation of its own policy committee to hold referenda in the two areas.

Yesterday's decision was clear, with only councillor Mike Merrick voting against the change of direction.

The flip-flop disappointed Lyndie Foster Page, who was one of two dentists urging the council to add fluoride to the remaining water supplies in the New Plymouth district. "It surprises and disappoints me. We had the full support of the District Health Board too. Now we'll continue to have decay rates higher than New Plymouth, especially among the poorer socio-economic groups," she said.

The Inglewood and Kaitake community board chairpersons, Jean Pierce and Sue Henchman, also had a change of heart. They told councillors they were now against holding referenda, despite their respective boards recommending last month they do so.

After yesterday's council meeting, Mrs Pierce said she had consulted her board members earlier in the day after hearing of a possible move to do away with the referenda.

"They supported the change unanimously. I've only had one phone call. We had a poll 10 years ago and 91% were against adding fluoride. I think the community will be happy with the decision. And the $30,000 cost of holding a referendum was an awful lot of money."

Mrs Henchman was also unrepentant about her new stance. "Originally we went with the referenda and, normally, I wouldn't go back on a vote, but in this particular instance I can see the sense in staying with the status quo." She had not discussed it with her board, but was confident it would support her.

Councillor Elaine Gill led the move to over-rule the policy committee's decision. She said the previous council had debated the fluoride issue and held a tribunal on it because there was a groundswell of opinion in New Plymouth.

"I don't feel there is the same feeling about it now. I just wasn't supportive of the committee's recommendation. I would stress that I am not anti-fluoride, in fact I'm very much for it."

Mr Merrick was the only one to vote against the move. "That's because I believe referenda is an appropriate way of dealing with the issue. I suggested it when New Plymouth debated it, but had no support then."

Mayor Peter Tennent said that although the council did not make a habit of rejecting the recommendations of its standing committees, it had every right to. "Revisiting it is democracy in action."
Daily News - New Plymouth 2002-04-12

Make-Up Holds Hidden Danger of Cancer
by Amelia Hill

Women are being exposed to deadly diseases through the everyday use of common cosmetics bought over the counter.

The growing list of synthetic ingredients manufacturers add to their products are turning the most innocent-looking shampoos and moisturizers into cocktails of toxins that could cause cancer over years of sustained use.

These synthetic ingredients are inexpensive, stable and have a long shelf-life. Manufacturers love them, but although the majority of products appear safe in the short run the results from long-term use could be deadly.

Modern cosmetics contain a host of dubious ingredients that would be more at home in a test tube than on our faces. Coal tar colours, phenylenediamine, benzene, even formaldehyde, are just a few of the synthetic chemicals commonly included in shampoos, skin creams and blushes - toxins which are absorbed into your skin with every use.

There is no question that people are being damaged by their cosmetics. How can they not be? So many things are put into cosmetics now that are carcinogenic and it is allowed because cosmetics are not considered to be as serious as drugs or food.

The adverse effect of toxins is compounded over decades, confusing hormone receptors and slowly altering cell structure. Chemicals are transmitted into the bloodstream in a number of ways: powders have the least absorption, while oily solutions or those designed to increase moisture allow more of the chemical to be absorbed.

Eye makeup can be absorbed by the highly sensitive mucous membranes. Hair sprays, perfumes and dusting powders can be inhaled, irritating the lungs. Lipstick is often chewed off and swallowed.

The United Nations Environmental Program estimates that approximately 70,000 chemicals are in common use across the world with 1,000 new chemicals being introduced every year. Of all the chemicals used in cosmetics, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health has reported that nearly 900 are toxic - although other groups attack that figure as being far too conservative.

Compared to the toxins found in our air, soil and waterways, cosmetics seem a trivial pursuit to many environmental health and consumer advocacy groups. But many of the same poisons that pollute our environment, from dioxins to petrochemicals, can be found in the jars and bottles that line our bathroom shelves.

It is too early to know with certainty how serious the long-term impact could be on health, but warns that hormone-disrupting chemicals may lurk in cosmetics which could lower immunity to disease and cause neurological and reproductive damage. 'Many of these same ingredients have been found to cause cancer in laboratory animals,' she said. 'At best, a visit to your neighbourhood cosmetic counter could result in allergies, irritations and sensitivities.'
The UK Observer April 7, 2002

PHILLIP DAY COMMENT: Many reading EClub regularly will know that I have made it a consistent crusade of mine over the years to warn the public about the dangers of chemical damage brought about through the use of common personal care items, such as shampoo, toothpaste, make-up and hair dyes. In Cancer: Why We're Still Dying to Know the Truth and Health Wars, I devote chapters to this most important issue, and its connection with serious degenerative disorders, such as cancer.

Clearly the public wish to use products that enhance their beauty and personal hygiene, and no one for a minute is suggesting that we go without. My recommendation is for everyone to seek out companies that manufacture these types of products with the harmful ingredients replaced by safe alternatives. In my books I make such recommendations. Remember that chemicals with which we are intimately connected each day of our lives must come under particular scrutiny, as these have the potential to damage us consistently.

Roaccutane: 'I went psychotic and nobody could get in'
By Steve Boggan

Luke Hassett is slowly dragging himself towards the light, but he will never forget the darkness of a psychosis that he believes was triggered by taking the controversial acne drug Roaccutane.

"My mind felt like it was going," recalls the twenty-two year-old. "I had mental blocks and found it difficult to understand people. My thought processes were over the wall, then I went psychotic. I went into my own little world and nobody and nothing could get in. I completely blame that drug, I don't believe it should be allowed on the market," he said.

"I have lost two years of my university life, I have been treated for two lengthy periods in hospital, my physical health has been affected and I've been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, all because I took Roaccutane for what I considered to be mild acne.

"I believed it was a wonder drug from America. Whatever the benefits of this drug, the potential side-effects mean it is simply not worth taking. I wish I'd never heard of it. I want to fight until it is banned."

Mr Hassett, who was a 19-year-old student at Leeds University, wanted to clear up his acne. He was referred to the Leeds dermatological unit from the university hospital in October 1999.

"I felt the side-effects straight away," he said. "I had to keep putting on lip balm to stop my lips from cracking, then the membrane on the inside of my nose began to come away and my eyes became dry, tender and sore.

"I decided to stop taking the drug in February 2000, but I did not think I needed to consult my doctor. I began to get excruciating stomach cramps and I was screaming in pain. Shortly afterwards my mind started to go."

Mr Hassett's mother, Muriel, said his condition terrified the family. "Until then he was a sociable boy with no mental illness but after taking Roaccutane he began to have terrible depression," she said. By November 2000 Mr Hassett's psychosis and paranoia led him to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act and to him being taken to hospital for treatment. A year-and-a-half later, he is still there.

"I feel I'm getting better now now and they are reducing the anti-psychotic drugs, so I can have a lucid conversation like this," he said.

"But I've lost so much time and my health has suffered so badly. I have no doubt, in my own mind what is to blame for this, Roaccutane."
UK Daily Mail, 29 April 2002

TIME MARCHES ON
(A look at aging attitudes)

1970: Long Hair
2000: Longing for hair

1970: The perfect high
2000: The perfect high yield mutual fund

1970: KEG
2000: EKG and ECT

1970: Acid rock
2000: Acid reflux

1970: Moving to Calif. because it's cool
2000: Moving to Calif. because it's warm

1970: Growing pot
2000: Growing pot belly

1970: Trying to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor
2000: Trying NOT to look like Marlon Brando or Liz Taylor

1970: Seeds and stems
2000: Roughage

1970: Popping pills, smoking joints
2000: Popping joints

1970: Killer weed
2000: Weed killer

1970: The Grateful Dead
2000: Dr. Kevorkian

1970: Going to a new, hip joint
2000: Receiving a new hip joint

1970: Rolling Stones
2000: Kidney stones

1970: Being called into the principal's office
2000: Calling the principal's office

1970: Screw the system
2000: Upgrade the system

1970: Disco
2000: Costco

1970: Peace sign
2000: Mercedes logo

1970: Parents begging you to get your hair cut
2000: Children begging you to get their heads shaved

1970: Taking acid
2000: Taking antacid

1970: Passing the drivers test
2000: Passing the vision test

1970: Whatever
2000: Depends

FLUORIDE VICTORY IN THE UK!

Dear Paul Connett and CTM,

Great news, I gave a presentation to Copeland Borough Council with my opponent Dr Peter Tiplady who is medical officer of health for North Cumbria. Then the full council went into debate. Copeland have been members of NWCAF since 1989 they voted 28 to 12 with one abstention to continue opposing fluoridation and to ask the water company and health authority to stop.

The other council in West Cumbria which is a fluoridated area is Allerdale which has always had a policy FOR fluoridation and it has taken a number of years to get them to hold a debate. However every three months they publish a council newspaper and send it to every household, so they consulted this way with the people, 83% of the people who responded wanted the council to oppose fluoridation, so they were literally forced to have a debate.

They set up a task group to study the evidence and adopted Dr Tiplady on it, we wrote letters of objection but they took no notice, I attended their final meeting as a member of the public as they had asked Dr Tiplady for references on reduction of IQ's in children. I knew he would not produce them so I calculated that I could possibly interrupt the meeting with the references. This I did but I had interrupted twice before because he could not answer the councillors questions, I did this politely.

The task group voted to recommend to the council that they reverse their policy on fluoridation on the freedom for the people they represent to choose what medication they wanted not to have it compulsory added to the drinking water supplies. The full council voted 30 to 12 with 5 abstaining to reverse their policy on fluoridation.

However the job is not finished, our task now after stopping fluoridation in Buttermere is to stop fluoridation in West Cumbria. NWCAF will put all our efforts into this.

Liz Vaughan
North West Councils Against Fluoridation

PHILLIP DAY COMMENT: Liz Vaughan and Jane Jones are two of Britain's most tireless anti-fluoridation campaigners. They both deserve awards, in my opinion. If you are interested in setting up opposition to water fluoridation in your local area in Britain, contact the National Pure Water Association at www.npwa.freeserve.co.uk and get some help on how to set things up effectively and professionally.

Our goal? A Fluoride-Free Britain by 2005.

Unhappy Doctors: What Are the Causes and What Can Be Done?
by Nigel Edwards

Unhappy doctors are a worldwide phenomenon.
Several reports from around the world describe declining morale among doctors, but little is known about the reasons. Workload and pay, though important, do not fully explain the problem.

A key factor seems to be a change in the psychological compact between the profession, employers, patients and society so that the job is now different from what doctors expected. Developing a new compact that is more acceptable to the profession is important.

Potential Causes Of Unhappiness
Pay and workload are obvious causes for unhappiness among doctors. However, evidence from systems with much higher pay and longer consultation times suggests that these are not enough by themselves to ensure high morale.

Several of the causes are probably the result of changes in the expectations of patients, governments, and employers; and there may also be causes within medicine itself.

The developed world has seen significant reductions in medical autonomy and increases in accountability as a result of the growing evidence base and a long running attempt to bring medicine under managerial and cost control by governments, payers, and employers.

This has resulted in the growing use of guidelines, protocols, audit, regulation, and inspection that many doctors perceive as eroding their control over their professional lives.

Though there are benefits from these changes, having control over work is important for the job satisfaction of clinicians and can have implications for overall health of employees. A related change in the relationship with employers has been the increased emphasis on numerical targets, efficiency, and volumes of work that dates from the late 1970s.

The changes in relationships with patients and society are particularly important. There has been a decline in deference for all professions and a perceived loss of trust, coinciding with a feeling that the media has become much more hostile.

In fact doctors are a highly trusted profession, and the proportion of negative news stories is fairly constant although the total number of stories has increased.

At the same time, patients are increasingly active consumers and they demand and have been encouraged to expect enhanced services, including extended hours and rapid access.

The easy availability of health information coupled with a sense of entitlement is shifting the power in the doctor-patient relationship and causing unease.

This is compounded by sometimes unrealistic expectations about the power of medicine to solve the ills of modern life. This is a bogus contract between the profession and patients but one that doctors have themselves sometimes encouraged.

Medical Causes
Several causes relate to medicine itself. The job is difficult and emotionally demanding, and doctors are more likely to be self-critical and have other personality traits associated with work related stress.

The poor record of the profession in giving mutual support or giving and receiving feedback aggravates this. Working in teams is also associated with being better able to cope with stress, but skills in team working are not universal in the profession. The selection, training, and socialization of doctors has tended to compound the problems of high workload, stress, and reaction to changes in the job.

Medicine has been based on a model in which doctors are trained to deal with individuals, not organizations; to take personal responsibility rather than delegate; and to do their best for each patient rather than make trade-offs in a resource constrained environment.

These factors make high workloads and high levels of workplace stress all the harder to deal with. They also create a real problem in that professional values and training based on an individualistic orientation do not prepare doctors to function successfully as members of large, complex organizations. Little training is given to equip doctors for this, and the difficulty that many consequently experience leads to stress and frustration.

Failing To Deliver What Was Promised
An important theme in all of these changes is the dissonance between what doctors might have reasonably expected the job to be and how it now is. The psychological contract or compact is a useful concept to explain this problem.

This is the implicit deal between doctors, patients, employers and society that defines what the parties to the relationship give and what they get in return. This seems to have changed without any explicit discussion with those involved and without being replaced with an equally meaningful or rewarding alternative.
British Medical Journal, April 6, 2002;324:835-838

Severe Vaccine Shortages Termed 'Unprecedented'
By David Brown

Shots designed to protect children against eight of 11 vaccine-preventable infections have been intermittently in short supply everywhere in the United States since last summer.

Some will remain hard to get for at least another six months.

"This is unprecedented," said Walter A. Orenstein, a physician who directs the National Immunization Program for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. "I have never seen anything like the supply problems with this many vaccines in the 24 years I've worked in immunization."

There's no single cause behind the shortages. Instead, they've arisen from a combination of business decisions, bad luck and greater than expected demand for the vaccines.

The vaccines in short supply are the: DTaP triple-combination that protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (also known as "whooping cough"); MMR, another triple combination that protects against measles, mumps and rubella; Pneumococcal conjugate, which protects against seven strains of the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae; and Varicella vaccine, which protects against chickenpox.

The current troubles began with the announcement by the pharmaceutical company Wyeth Lederle in January 2001 that it would stop making vaccines containing tetanus and diphtheria components.

This immediately cut the supply of DTaP, a mainstay of childhood vaccination that every American is supposed to get five times by age 6. It also reduced the amount of Td vaccine, the classic "tetanus shot" people get when they have dirty wounds. With few exceptions, that one is now available only in emergency rooms.

Only one company, Aventis Pasteur, makes Td, and only two, Aventis and Glaxo SmithKline, make DTaP. Although each is boosting production, they've been unable to meet demand.
This precipitous drop in supply was worsened by the fact that Aventis Pasteur's DTaP contained thimerosal, a mercury-based antibacterial compound put in vials holding multiple doses.

In 1999, the CDC asked manufacturers to take thimerosal out of childhood vaccines.

The company now makes only single-dose vials, each of which must be slightly overfilled because the entire volume can never be pulled out by the syringe. This unavoidable waste effectively reduces the vaccine yield by about 25 percent.

At the same time the DTaP shortage emerged, Wyeth Lederle experienced a run on Prevnar, the S. pneumoniae, or "pneumococcal," vaccine it launched in February 2000. By last September, the company had distributed what it expected to sell for all of 2001. The CDC stepped in and recommended that doctors defer the last of the four recommended doses until production caught up.

Merck & Co., the other major U.S. vaccine maker, has also had production problems. It shut down its sole vaccine plant for repairs for a week in August and for nearly all of October. This interrupted the supply of MMR vaccine and chickenpox vaccine, both made only by Merck. Full production didn't resume until February, and there has been spot shortages of both vaccines for months.

The shortages stem, in part, from the fact that only a handful of U.S. companies still make vaccines. A generation ago, there were about 20 producers -- a number that included some state health departments. There's been nothing short of a stampede away from the business.

There are many reasons for this, starting with the fact that vaccines historically have been high-volume, low-profit items in drug companies' catalogues. This is still true of older vaccines.

The CDC paid about $11 for a dose of MMR in 1987; the price is only $15.50 today. Only the newer, still-under-patent products such as the chickenpox vaccine ($39 a dose, at the government discounted price) and the pneumococcal vaccine ($46) offer the kind of profit margins pharmaceutical companies are accustomed to. Furthermore, because the federal government buys so much, discount pricing is the rule, not the exception, in the vaccine market.

Vaccines are also hard to make. They're derived from bacteria and viruses, which are trickier to handle than inert chemicals. Many require elaborate processing to keep them safe, uncontaminated but still active. It takes Aventis Pasteur almost a year to make a batch of Td. Wyeth Lederle's Prevnar takes six months, with each batch spending time at a plant in New York and at another in North Carolina.

As with the making of drugs, vaccine production is heavily regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, and companies must periodically spend large amounts of money on plant improvements to meet the FDA's requirements. Many complain that they can't recoup their investment through sales.

In fact, that's part of the reason Wyeth Lederle bailed out of DTaP production. A competitor is working on a vaccine that would combine DTaP with polio and hepatitis B vaccines, potentially making Wyeth's product obsolete. Spending money on a plant to keep making the old vaccine was simply viewed as not worth it.

Vaccines account for only 1.5 percent of the global pharmaceutical market.

Among the economic disincentives is the fact that vaccines are given on a rigid schedule and only occasionally -- far different from products such as antidepressants and cholesterol-lowering drugs, which are taken for years and whose "target" populations are constantly expanding.

Moreover, vaccine hazards stand out starkly in populations in which the diseases the vaccines prevent are no longer visible.

"When you are dealing with a healthy child, any side effect is viewed as unacceptable," said Wayne Pisano, executive vice president of Aventis Pasteur in North America.

In the 1980s, when publicity about a rare, sometimes disabling complication from the old form of the pertussis vaccine caused a rise in lawsuits and a drop in immunization, Congress enacted the no-fault Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which handles such claims. Nevertheless, many drug companies now fear that the program won't shield them from a new wave of lawsuits arising from the rumours of new, unproved, vaccine complications.
Edited from Washington Post, April 20, 2002; Page A01

DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT:
I suspect most people reading the above article when it was published in the Washington Post felt it was a major tragedy that our country could get into such a mess. Astute readers of this newsletter will recognize that this must be some sort of answer to prayer. It is likely that many will never recognize the connection though. My guess is that many were praying for the health and protection of their children and then the vaccine shortage develops. Most will never realize that their children not having, or at least significantly delaying vaccinations, will go a long way towards protecting their children's health.

It really is reprehensibly irresponsible that the CDC could mandate the removal of mercury from vaccines and yet it is still being administered to children. I suspect this is one of the major reasons we are having such an epidemic of brain injuries in children such as autism, pervasive developmental delay and ADHD.

Mercury is not the only problem with vaccines. If you are not familiar with some of the central concerns regarding this issue please review Dr. O'Shea's article on this topic or the graphs which clearly show that most diseases we vaccinate for were reduced prior to immunizations. If you don't realize we are in the midst of an autism epidemic, please review the recent table I posted on this.

I have treated many hundreds of children with autism and am quite confident that a severe restriction of grains and sugars produces a profound improvement in the brain injury that accompanies this illness. Many parents recognize that a gluten and casein free diet is important and frequently provides benefit. However, this is only a small portion of the dietary changes that are required.

It is quite common for many children to follow a gluten and casein free program and receive only minimal or no improvement. This is largely related to the fact that they are consuming other grains or grain-like starches such as potatoes, rice and corn. Once the child rigidly follows elimination of these, there is quite a profound improvement in the disease.

The new modification of the eating plan includes generous portions of cod liver oil that has incredibly useful omega-3 fats and vitamin D, and also the natural (cis) form of vitamin A, that seems to provide an independent benefit in many children with autism.
www.mercola.com