by Steve Ransom
“If man were to
throw his entire medicine cabinet
into the sea, it
would be better for man and worse
for the fishes.” Oliver Wendell Holmes
In its long, hard battle for
proper recognition, genuine natural treatments for serious illnesses have
always had to fight on two fronts. Firstly, they have had to do battle with the
drug merchants, who use every trick in the book to undermine any genuine
treatments not under their own jurisdiction. And they will employ all means
possible to disseminate their damaging disinformation on ‘the
non-conformists and their wares’ as far and wide as possible in order to
protect their own lucrative market. No department, private or public, is beyond
the reach of the merchants’ all-consuming influence.
Thriller writer John Le Carré spent many years
working in the British Foreign Office and knows the politics of big business
very well. His book, The Constant Gardener, focuses on the corrupt
nature of the pharmaceutical industry. Interviewed on the subject, Le Carré stated:
“Big Pharma is engaged in the deliberate seduction of the
medical profession, country by country, worldwide. It is spending a fortune on
influencing, hiring and purchasing academic judgment to a point where, in a few
years’ time, if Big Pharma continues unchecked on its present, happy path,
unbought medical opinion will be hard to find.”[1]
The following report, dated
February 2002, comes from the Journal of
The American Medical Association:
Most Doctors Who Set Guidelines Have Industry
Ties: The vast majority of doctors involved in establishing
national guidelines on disease treatment have financial ties to the
pharmaceutical industry that could potentially sway their recommendations and
inappropriately influence thousands of other physicians, a new study concludes.
Eighty-seven percent of guideline authors had some type of
relationship with drug companies, yet these often were not disclosed, according
to survey responses from 100 authors of guidelines published from 1991 to 1999
for common diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma.
More specifically, 38% of respondents said they had served
as employees or consultants for pharmaceutical companies and 58% had received
financial support for medical research. In addition, 59% had links with drug
companies whose medications were considered in the particular guidelines they
authored. [2]
The British Medical Journal recently
featured an article entitled “Selling
Sickness: the Pharmaceutical Industry and Disease-Mongering”. The
report, which readers are strongly advised to read for themselves, reveals the
calculated manner in which unnecessary fear of disease is instilled into the
public mind, in order then to market equally unnecessary drugs and related
pharmaceutical services. In the introduction to their study, the BMJ authors state:
“There’s a lot of money to be made from telling healthy
people they’re sick. Some forms of medicalising ordinary life may now be
better described as disease-mongering: widening the boundaries of
treatable illness in order to expand markets for those who sell and
deliver treatments. Pharmaceutical companies are actively involved
in sponsoring the definition of diseases and promoting them to both
prescribers and consumers. The social construction of illness is
being replaced by the corporate construction of disease....
Although some sponsored professionals or consumers may act
independently and all concerned may have honourable motives, in many
cases the formula is the same: groups and/or campaigns are orchestrated,
funded, and facilitated by corporate interests, often via their
public relations and marketing infrastructure. A key strategy of the
alliances is to target the news media with stories designed to create fears
about the condition or disease and draw attention to the latest
treatment. Company-sponsored advisory boards supply the ‘independent
experts’ for these stories, consumer groups provide the ‘victims’
and public relations companies provide media outlets with the
positive spin about the latest ‘breakthrough’ medications.” [3]
Through information taken from
leaked documents and other sources, the authors single out GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Pfizer and Roche – all leading
pharmaceutical companies - as engaging in this practice to one degree or
another. The authors summarise their report as follows:
Ø
“Some forms of ‘medicalisation’ may now be better described
as ‘disease-mongering’ - extending the boundaries of treatable illness to
expand markets for new products.
Ø
Alliances of pharmaceutical manufacturers, doctors, and
patients groups use the media to frame conditions as being widespread and
severe.
Ø
Disease-mongering can include turning ordinary ailments
into medical problems, seeing mild symptoms as serious, treating personal
problems as medical, seeing risks as diseases, and framing prevalence estimates
to maximise potential markets.
Ø
Corporate funded information about disease should be
replaced by independent information.”
For those interested in the extent
to which this brazen form of ‘marketing’ has penetrated and ‘shaped’ our
collective understanding of illness and disease, readers are encouraged to
obtain a copy of the Credence title, Plague, Pestilence and the Pursuit of
Power. In this book, the reader discovers that engendering a heightened
fear of minor illnesses and disease is a useful political tool for profit and
control and is being used to influence public reaction in a wide variety of
ways.
A great number of profitable
oncology services are now being offered to a fearful population – a population
whose understanding of cancer has been ‘shaped’ almost entirely by those who
sell and deliver treatments. Great News on Cancer in the 21st
Century reveals the extent to which establishment medicine has been
teaching us what to think about cancer but not how.
G Edward Griffin is the author of World
Without Cancer. On the approval and licensing of non-pharmaceutical cancer
treatments, he states:
“Therefore - and mark this well - as long as the present
laws remain, the only substances that ever will be ‘approved’ for cancer
therapy will be proprietary. No substance from nature will ever be legally
available for cancer or any other disease unless its source can be monopolised
or its processing patented. No matter how safe and effective it may be, and no
matter how many people are benefited, it will forever be relegated to the
category of ‘unproven’ therapies. As such, freely available cures from nature
will always be illegal to prescribe, to promote, and in many cases even to
use.” [4]
In opposition to the incessant
drive by big business to dominate our health choices, Dr Matthias Rath provides another
non-populist summary of the primary ethics of the merchant’s house:
“Throughout the 20th century, the pharmaceutical industry
has been constructed by investors, the goal being to replace effective but
non-patentable natural remedies with mostly ineffective but patentable and
highly profitable pharmaceutical drugs. The very nature of the
pharmaceutical industry is to make money from ongoing diseases. Like other
industries, the pharmaceutical industry tries to expand its market - that is,
to maintain ongoing diseases and to find new diseases for their drugs.
Prevention and cure of diseases damage pharmaceutical business and the
eradication of common diseases threatens its very existence.
Therefore the pharmaceutical industry fights the
eradication of any disease at all costs. The pharmaceutical industry itself is
the main obstacle, why today’s most widespread diseases are further expanding,
including heart attacks, strokes, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes,
osteoporosis and many others. Pharmaceutical drugs are not intended to cure
diseases. According to health insurers, over 24,000 pharmaceutical drugs are
currently marketed and prescribed without any proven therapeutic value.[5] According to
medical doctors’ associations, the known, dangerous side-effects of
pharmaceutical drugs have become the fourth leading cause of death after
heart attacks, cancer and strokes. [6]
Millions of people and patients around the world are
defrauded twice: A major portion of their income is used to finance the
exploding profits of the pharmaceutical industry. In return, they are offered a
medicine that does not even cure.” [7]
In an eye-opening book entitled Reclaiming
our Health: Exploding the Medical Myth and Embracing the Source of True Healing,
author John Robbins has collated some
interesting statistics:
The Cancer Industry
Percentage
of cancer patients whose lives are reliably saved by chemotherapy - 3%
Evidence
to show that, for the majority of cancers, chemotherapy exerts a
significant positive influence on survival or quality of life - none
Percentage of oncologists who said that if they developed cancer they
would not participate in chemotherapy trials due to “the
ineffectiveness of chemotherapy and its unacceptable degree of toxicity” - 75%
Percentage
of people with cancer in the United States who receive chemotherapy - 75%
Company
that accounts for nearly half the chemotherapy sales in the world
- Bristol-Meyers Squibb
Chairman
of the Board, Bristol-Meyers Squibb - Richard L Gelb
Richard L Gelb’s other job - Vice-Chairman, Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center
Director, Bristol-Meyers Squibb - James D Robinson
III
James D Robinson III’s other job - Chairman of the Board, Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Director, Ivax, Inc. Chemotherapeutics - Samuel Broder
Samuel
Broder’s other job (until 1995) - Executive Director, the
National Cancer Institute.[8]
Dr Richard Schulze has spent many
years speaking out against the pharmaceutical cartels and promoting personal
responsibility in healthcare. One of his more famous sayings is “Getting
well is easy, it’s the getting sick that takes years of constant, dedicated,
hard work.” When
he was 11, his father died in his arms of a massive heart attack. At 14, his
mother also died of a heart attack. They were both only 55 years old. At 16
years of age, Richard was diagnosed with a genetic incurable heart deformity.
After curing himself of this
so-called incurable disease through changes in his lifestyle (and no surgery),
he set out on a mission to help others. Schulze had first-hand
experience of being in the clutches of the orthodoxy and determined to set out
to do something about alerting the wider world to some of its perils. Dr
Schulze now travels the
world, delivering his message:
“Over 200 years ago, Ben Rush, who signed the Constitution
of the United States, warned that we needed to include a medical freedom clause
in the Constitution. He said if we didn’t it was likely that one group of
doctors would monopolise healthcare by passing legislation to outlaw other
types of doctors and systems of medicine.
This is exactly what happened. Over the last 80 years,
organised medical groups and pharmaceutical companies, using lawyers, bribes,
lobbyists, insurance companies and the strong arm of the Food and Drug
Administration, have been very busy. They have corrupted elected officials to
pass laws to remove any competition. They have crushed Natural Doctors, Natural
Medicine and Self-Care. Their goal is to monopolise healthcare and make us
dependent on medical doctors and pharmaceutical drugs. It almost worked!
We have watched them pass more and more laws restricting
our rights. They have made many healing herbs, foods and even nutrients
illegal. Natural health professionals who flourished a few decades ago are now
barred by law to practise, and natural doctors, holistic healers, health food
store-owners and even family members of the sick have been arrested and jailed
for using natural remedies. If you disagree with your doctor regarding the
medical treatment of your children, they can be taken away from you, put in a
foster home, and you can be arrested for endangering the health and welfare of your
child.
There are many people who are jailed every year, put there
for disagreeing with medical doctors and their policies. Organised medical
crime has gone so far, they have outlawed words for other health professionals
to use, such as ‘Diagnose’ and ‘Cure’. Just by using these words you can be
arrested for practising medicine without a license.” [9]
It seems that the delivery
system of 21st century conventional healthcare is being bought and
taught to think of treatment and prevention of disease in pharmaceutical terms
only. The current move by the European Parliament to restrict the nutritional
supplement market is a case in point. In its sights are over 300 vitamins,
minerals, herbs and other nutrients, whose sales they are seeking to
streamline and bring under their own jurisdiction. All this under the guise of wanting
to protect the public from harm.
The following text is taken from
an article exploring the potential ramifications of this move:
“Imagine dropping by your favourite health food store to
find it boarded up and out of business. So you go around to your local
drug-mart to pick up some vitamin C, but the only dosage on the shelf is
ridiculously low. The druggist informs you that 60mg is now the maximum dosage
available without a prescription. So if you’ve been taking a mega-dosage of
vitamin C to help fight heart disease or build up your immunity against cancer,
you’ll have to find a doctor willing to prescribe that dosage - you’re no
longer free to decide on your own how much of this natural vitamin you want to
take.
Sounds like a nightmare? It gets worse.
Imagine that all of this is the result of new legislation
imposed by lawmakers with direct ties to pharmaceutical companies - powerful
companies that will use the law to create an enormous new source of profits.
Now that’s a real nightmare. But what makes it truly nightmarish is that,
incredibly, it will soon become a reality in the United Kingdom and most of
Europe - if the global pharmaceutical industry has its way.” [10]
Extracted from Great News on Cancer in the 21st Century by Steve Ransom
[1]
Interview with John Le Carré, The Nation, New York,
9th April 2001
[2] Stenson, Jacqueline, “Most Doctors Who Set Guidelines Have Industry Ties”, JAMA, 5th February 2002. Full article at:
www.curezone.com/art/read.asp?ID=119&db=1&C0=13
[3]
Moynihan, Ray, Heath, Iona & David Henry, “Selling Sickness: the
pharmaceutical industry and disease-mongering”, British Medical Journal Online, BMJ, 13th April 2002
[4]
Griffin, G Edward, World Without Cancer, American Media
Publications, Los Angeles, 1997
[5]
AOK Magazine, April 1998
[6]
Journal of the American Medical
Association, 15th April 1998
[7] Opening statement on European Directive on Vitamin Supplements
www.drrath.com
[8]
Robbins, John, Reclaiming our Health: Exploding the Medical
Myth and Embracing the Source of True Healing, Kramer Publications, 1998
[9]
Dr Schulze’s Natural Healing Crusade: www.whale.to/v/shulze1.html
[10]
Thompson, Jenny, “Euro Parliament Classifies Vitamins as Drugs - US Next?” Health Sciences Institute, 29th
April, 2002 at: www.rense.com/general24/drgs.htm