Statistics
Prove Prescription Drugs Are 16,400% More Deadly Than Terrorists (This
article discusses the following issues: Death
by Medicine; medical mistakes; Vioxx; our
faulty system of medical treatment; drug ads educational? conflicts
of interest; ethics; corruption in the pharmaceutical industry.)
GANGSTERS
IN MEDICINE (This
article discusses the following issues:
JAMA
finds traditional medicine the 3rd leading cause of death; statistics
on adverse reactions; death toll equivalent to the crash of two fully
loaded 747 aircraft daily; pharmaceuticals are not intended to cure;
unnecessary surgeries and costs; poor US ranking in world health care;
economics of medicine; results of cardiac surgery; history of the
AMA; treatment instead of cure; insurance fraud; government coercion;
what to do?)
The
American Medical System is Broken (This
article discusses the following issues:
Medicare bankrupt; Death by Medicine leading cause of death and injury
in the US; statistics, adverse drug reactions-ADR's, number
one cause of unnecessary death in the US; costs; FDA for the people?
the war between health and medicine; covert government operations;
the government and the pharmaceutical industries do NOT want the problem
fixed; what to do?)
SOME
SHOCKING FACTS ABOUT HEALTH IN AMERICA
(This
article discusses the following issues:
we are sick and dying unnecessarily and it is getting worse; ABC
Nightline story; managing symptoms with drugs has failed miserably;
disease is malnutrition.)
Ritalin Research Fraud (This
article discusses the following issues:
Research on Ritalin never done.)
Drug Marketing Scheme Hits Nation's School System
(This
article discusses the following issues:
TeenScreen-drug marketing screen; influence of big pharma blatantly
obvious; pharmaceutical
money has directly funded TeenScreen;
taxpayers now footing the bill;
one
in every 145 adult subjects who entered trials for the antipsychotics
Zyprexa, Risperdal, Seroquel, and Serdolect died; of children tested
all experienced adverse effects, none were helped, the study was terminated
less than 6 weeks after it began; every one of the so-called "wonder
drugs," is now required to carry a black box warning listing the serious
and often deadly adverse reactions experienced by both children and
adults.)
Vioxx Took a Deadly Toll (This
article discusses the following issues:
Death toll of Vioxx - a drug from Merek Pharmaceutical; Vioxx raised
a person's risk of coronary heart disease by 34 per cent; data was
analyzed 1.4 million people between the ages of 18 and 84 in California;
Dr. Graham of the FDA said his supervisors discouraged him from presenting
his findings to a drug-safety meeting and threatened him with severe
consequences if he went forward.)
Merck, Vaccines and
the Vioxx Link (This
article discusses the following issues: growing distrust of drug companies;
thimerosal; Merck press release - 1999 re thimersol in vaccines; Merck
memo of 1991; Merck and Vioxx; more on mercury and toxicity.)
The Marketing of Drugs
(This
article discusses the following issues:
The
most heavily promoted drugs; promotional expenditures; rise in drug
costs.)
Drug Sales Bring Huge Profits, and Scrutiny,
to Cancer Doctors (This
article discusses the following issues:
the
chemotherapy concession; the finances of the cancer industry; chemotherapy
and non-responsive cancers; oncologists are busy; insurance reaction.)
How Drug Companies Brainwash
Doctors so Doctors Brainwash You with Drugs (This
article discusses the following issues:
free samples, pharmaceutical advertising expenditures; the perks start
in medical school; marketing vs. research; big pharma is intricately
involved in every
aspect of medical education and clinical practice; Doctors are too
willing to provide expensive, heavily advertised drugs for very minor
conditions; we are an overmedicated society.)
THE MYTH OF MEDICINE (This
article discusses the following issues: the
cancer racket; people with cancer submitting to traditional treatments
live an average of 3 years, those who refuse treatment live an average
of 12.6 years.)
Statistics
Prove Prescription Drugs
Are 16,400% More Deadly Than Terrorists
By Jessica Fraser
From: http://www.newstarget.com/009278.html
July 5, 2005
America
was rudely awakened to a new kind of danger on September 11, 2001:
Terrorism. The attacks that day left 2,996 people dead, including
the passengers on the four commercial airliners that were used as
weapons. Many feel it was the most tragic day in U.S. history. Four
commercial jets crashed that day.
But
what if six jumbo jets crashed every day in the United States, claiming
the lives of 783,936 people every year? That would certainly qualify
as a massive tragedy, wouldn't it? Well, forget "what if." The tragedy
is happening right now. Over 750,000 people actually do die in
the United States every year, although not from plane crashes.
They die from something far more common and rarely perceived by
the public as dangerous: modern medicine.
According
to the groundbreaking 2003 medical report Death by Medicine,
by Drs. Gary Null, Carolyn Dean, Martin Feldman, Debora Rasio and
Dorothy Smith, 783,936 people in the United States die every year
from conventional medicine mistakes. That's the equivalent of six
jumbo jet crashes a day for an entire year. But where is the media
attention for this tragedy? Where is the government support for stopping
these medical mistakes before they happen?
After
9/11, the White House gave rise to the Department of Homeland Security,
designed to prevent terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Since its inception,
billions of dollars have been poured into it. The 2006 budget allots
$34.2 billion to the DHS, a number that has come down slightly from
the $37.7 billion budget of 2003.
According
to the study led by Null, which involved a painstaking review of thousands
of medical records, the United States spends $282 billion annually
on deaths due to medical mistakes, or iatrogenic deaths. And that's
a conservative estimate; only a fraction of medical errors are reported,
according to the study. Actual medical mistakes are likely to be
20 times higher than the reported number because doctors fear retaliation
for those mistakes. The American public heads to the doctor's
office or the hospital time and again, oblivious of the alarming danger
they're heading into.
The
public knows that medical errors occur, but they assume that errors
are unusual, isolated events. Unfortunately, by accepting conventional
medicine, patients voluntarily continue to walk into the leading cause
of death in America.
According
to a 1995 U.S. iatrogenic report, "Over a million patients are injured
in U.S. hospitals each year, and approximately 280,000 die annually
as a result of these injuries. Therefore, the iatrogenic death rate
dwarfs the annual automobile accident mortality rate of 45,000 and
accounts for more deaths than all other accidents combined." This
report was issued 10 years ago, when America had 34 million fewer
citizens and drug company scandals like the Vioxx recall were yet
to occur.
Today,
health care comprises 15.5 percent of the United States' gross national
product, with spending reaching $1.4 trillion in 2004. Since Americans
spend so much money on health care, they should be getting a high
quality of care, right? Unfortunately, that's not the case.
Of
the 783,936 annual deaths due to conventional medical mistakes, about
106,000 are from prescription drugs, according to Death by Medicine.
That also is a conservative number. Some experts estimate it should
be more like 200,000 because of underreported cases of adverse drug
reactions. Americans today are used to fixing problems the quick
way - even when it comes to their health. Thus, they rely heavily
on prescription drugs to fix their diseases.
For
every conceivable ailment - real or not - chances are there's a pricey
prescription drug to "treat" it. Chances are even better that their
drug of choice comes chock full of side effects. The problem is,
prescription drugs don't treat diseases; they merely cover the symptoms.
U.S. physicians provide allopathic health care - that is, they
care for disease, not health. So, the over-prescription of drugs
and medications is designed to treat disease instead of preventing
it. And because there are so many drugs available, unforeseen
adverse drug reactions are all too common, which leads to the highly
conservative annual prescription drug death rate of 106,000.
Keep
in mind that these numbers came before the Vioxx scandal, and Cox-2
inhibitor drugs could ultimately end up killing tens of thousands
more. American medical patients are getting the short end of a rather
raw deal when it comes to prescription drugs.
Medicine
is a high-dollar, highly competitive business. But it shouldn't
be. Null's report cites the five most important aspects of health
that modern medicine ignores in favor of the almighty dollar: Stress,
lack of exercise, high calorie intake, highly processed foods and
environmental toxin exposure.
All
these things are putting Americans in such poor health that they run
to the doctor for treatment. But instead of doctors treating the causes
of their poor health, such as putting them on a strict diet and exercise
regimen, they stuff them full of prescription drugs to cover their
symptoms. Using this inherently faulty system of medical treatment,
it's no wonder so many Americans die from prescription drugs. They're
not getting better; they're just popping drugs to make their symptoms
temporarily go away.
But
not all doctors subscribe to this method of "treatment." In fact,
many doctors are just as angry as the public should be, charging that
scientific medicine is "for sale" to the highest bidder - which, more
often than not, end up being pharmaceutical companies. The pharmaceutical
industry is a multi-trillion dollar business.
Companies
spend billions on advertising and promotions for prescription drugs.
Who can remember the last time they watched television and weren't
bombarded with ads for pills treating everything from erectile dysfunction
to sleeplessness?
And
who has ever been to a doctor's office or hospital and not seen every
pen, notepad and post-it bearing the logo of some prescription drug?
Medical experts claim that patients' requests for certain drugs have
no effect on the number of prescriptions written for that drug. Pharmaceutical
companies claim their drug ads are "educational" to the public.
The
public believes the FDA reviews all the ads and only allows the safest
and most effective drug ads to reach the public. It's a clever system:
Pharmaceutical companies influence the public to ask for prescription
drugs, the public asks their physicians to prescribe them certain
drugs, and doctors acquiesce to their patients' requests. Everyone's
happy, right? Not quite, since the prescription drug death toll
continues to rise.
The
public seems to genuinely believe that drugs advertised on TV are
safe, in spite of the plethora of side effects listed by the commercial's
narrator, ranging from diarrhea to death. Patients feel justified
in asking their physicians to prescribe them a particular drug they've
seen on TV, since it surely must be safe or it wouldn't have been
advertised. Remember all those TV ads heralding the wonders
of Vioxx? One might wonder how many lives could have been spared
if patients didn't see the ad on TV and request a prescription from
their doctors.
But
advertising isn't the only tool the pharmaceutical industry uses to
influence medicine. Null's study cites an ABC report that said pharmaceutical
companies spend over $2 billion sending doctors to more than 314,000
events every year.
While
doctors are riding the dollar of pharmaceutical companies, enjoying
all the many perks of these "events," how likely are they to question
the validity of drug companies or their products? Admittedly, not
all doctors reside in the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies.
Some are downright angry at the situation, and angry on behalf of
an unaware public.
Major
conflicts of interest exist between the American public, the medical
community and the pharmaceutical industry. And although the public
suffers the most from this conflict, it is the least informed. The
public gets the short end of the stick and they don't even know it.
That is why the pharmaceutical industry remains a multi-trillion dollar
business.
Prescription
drugs are only a part of the U.S. healthcare system's miserable failings.
In fact, outpatient deaths, bedsore deaths and malnutrition deaths
each account for higher death rates than adverse drug reactions. The
problems run deep and cannot be remedied without drastic, widespread
change in the system's money and ethics.
The
first issue - money - is the main reason the medical industry
cannot seem to change. Prescribing more drugs and recommending more
surgeries means more profits. Getting more drugs approved by the FDA,
regardless of their safety, means more money for the pharmaceutical
industry.
As
the healthcare system stands today, physicians and drug companies
can't seem to pass up earning loads of money, even if a few hundred
thousand people lose their lives in the process. Even in drastic cases
of deadly drugs, everyone involved has a scapegoat: Drug companies
can blame the FDA for approving their product and the doctors for
over-prescribing it, and doctors can blame the patients for wanting
it and not properly weighing the risks.
What
ultimately arises is a question of ethics. In layman's terms, ethics
are the rules or moral guidelines that govern the conduct of people
or professions. Some ethics are ingrained from childhood, but some
are specifically set forth.
For
example, nearly all medical schools have their new doctors take a
modern form of the Hippocratic Oath. While few versions are identical,
none include setting aside proper medical care in favor of money-making
practices.
On
the research side of the issue, "Death by Medicine" cites an ABC
report that says clinical trials funded by pharmaceutical companies
show a 90 percent chance that a drug will be perceived as effective,
whereas clinical trials not funded by drug companies show only a 50
percent chance that a drug will be perceived as effective. "It appears
that money can't buy you love, but it can buy you any 'scientific'
result you want," writes Null and his team of researchers.
The
government spends upwards of $30 billion a year on homeland security.
Such spending seems important. Since 2001, 2,996 people in the United
States have died from terrorism - all as a result of the 9/11 attacks.
In that same period of time, 490,000 people have died from prescription
drugs, not counting the Vioxx scandal. That means that prescription
drugs in this country are at least 16,400 percent deadlier than terrorism.
Again, those are the conservative numbers. A more realistic number,
which would include deaths from over-the-counter drugs, makes drug
consumption 32,000 percent deadlier than terrorism.
But
the scope of "Death by Medicine" is even wider. Conventional medicine,
including unnecessary surgeries, bedsores and medical errors, is 104,700
percent deadlier than terrorism. Yet, our government's attention and
money is not put into reforming health care.
Couldn't
a little chunk of the homeland security money be better spent on overhauling
the corrupt U.S. healthcare system, the leading cause of death in
America? Couldn't we forfeit the color-coded threat system in favor
of stricter guidelines on medical research and prescription drugs?
No
one is attempting to say that terrorism in the world is not a problem,
especially for a high-profile country like the United States. No one
is saying that the people who died on 9/11 didn't matter or weren't
horribly wronged by the terrorists that day. But there are more dangerous
things in the United States being falsely represented as safe and
healthy, when, in reality, they are deadly.
The
corruption in the pharmaceutical industry and in America's healthcare
system poses a far greater threat to the health, safety and welfare
of Americans today than terrorism. If the Bush Administration really
wants to save lives -- a lot of lives -- it needs look no further
than the chemical war has been declared on Americans by Big Pharma.
GANGSTERS
IN MEDICINE
By
Thomas Smith December 23, 2002 NewsWithViews.com
(This
is a fabulous article that unfortunately still holds true today)
The
Journal of the American Medical Association recently reported that
as many as 106,000 deaths occur annually in US hospitals due to adverse
reactions to prescription drugs that are properly prescribed by physicians
that use them as directed by the drug companies.
Even
worse, the National Council for Patient Information and Education
reported that an additional 125,000 deaths occur annually due to adverse
reactions to drugs that the physician never should have prescribed.
In these deaths the doctor did not follow the instructions on proper
administration of the drugs.
For
example, Glucophage, a diabetic oral hypoglycemic, should
never be prescribed for patients with kidney disease or congestive
heart failure because it can cause fatal lactic acidosis in these
patients. A warning label is prominently placed on the medication
container to warn of this potential misuse. However,
JAMA reported that almost 1/4 of the patients who had been prescribed
Glucophage had Kidney damage or Congestive Heart failure or both.
The
annual death toll from synthetic prescription drugs, both from the
correctly prescribed and the incorrectly prescribed, amounts to about
231,000 deaths every year.
To
put this into perspective, this is the equivalent of a world trade
center disaster every week for over a year and a half or the crash
of two fully loaded 747 aircraft every day of the year.
No
information was reported on the number of outpatient and doctor's
office deaths caused by these very same drugs when prescribed by these
very same doctors. The reported figures alone, however, make drug
deaths caused by physicians the third leading cause of death in the
US. It
is far ahead of accidents, drunk driving, homicides, airline accidents,
as well as all other disease with the sole exceptions of cancer and
heart disease.
Many
of these drugs responsible for the death statistics cited are diabetic
drugs.
None of these drugs cure or even were intended to cure diabetes.
During
the time a patient is on the drugs his body is suffering great damage
due to the uncontrolled progress of the disease. This is in addition
to the risk and damage caused by the drug itself. According to Dr.
Mendelsohn, author of "Confessions of a Medical Heretic", 2.4 million
unnecessary operations are performed every year and they cost over
12,000 lives. When the records of six New York hospitals were
examined it was found that 43% of the Hysterectomies that were performed
were medically unnecessary.
No
one should ever submit to any surgical procedure without first obtaining
several unrelated medical opinions, at least not here in the United
States. Women are particularly vulnerable to this type of victimization.
Disease
in America
According
to the World Health Report 2000 the United States ranks twelfth, that
is second from the bottom, in their thirteen country survey of sixteen
available health indicators. We are dead last for low birth weight
and neonatal and infant mortality. We rank between ninth and twelfth
for all life expectancy categories between one year and 40 years.
Another
study ranked the United States as fifteenth in the twenty-five industrialized
countries studied.
Diabetes,
Hypoglycemia, Hyperinsulinemia are so widespread in the United States
that it is estimated that over half the population exhibits one or
more symptoms of these life-destroying diseases. Symptoms of Adult
onset diabetes are now being routinely noted in six-year-old children.
Obesity and it's related Endocrine dysfunctions are commonly observed
in teenagers. Heart Failure, a symptom of advanced Type II Diabetes,
remains in the top three killer diseases in the Westernized countries.
Although
the cause and cure for Type II Diabetes and related endocrine failure
has been increasingly well understood in the scientific community
for the last forty years, this disease is not being cured by todays
orthodox treatment regimens. In order to find a cure it is
necessary to seek alternative medical approaches to this disease.
The
Economics of Medicine
A
large part of this medical disaster that the United States currently
experiences is due to the way our medical community is organized.
Basically it is not organized to heal and to cure disease; the
medical community, particularly at its upper levels, is a commercial
venture organized to make money for its practitioners.
Although
the record of the United States Medical community in the cure of disease
is deplorable, the same cannot be said for its ability to produce
income and profit. For example, for the top fifteen pharmaceutical
companies, including such names as Abbot, Wyeth, Hoffman-La Roche,
Merck and others, the second quarter revenue for 2002 was reported
as $63,520.6 million and the corresponding reported income was 11,731.8
million respectively. This is second only to the defense industry
in the United States.
In
1997, the latest year for which we have the figures, the earnings
of physicians were reported by Broad as averaging around $200,000
per year. The lowest reporting specialty, Rheumatology reported $158,500
and the highest, cardiovascular surgeon, reported $363,300. When examining
the numbers, we noted that the high salaries seemed to be concentrated
in members of the AMA. Those belonging to less powerful trade unions
did not fare nearly so well even though they did most of the actual
patient care work.
For
example, the median staff salary of registered nurses was $35,256.
The Cardiac surgeon, for example, does nothing whatsoever to cure
cardiac disease. Three to five percent of the heart surgery patients
die on the operating table.
Cardiac
surgery provides no better three year survival rate
than no treatment at all.
A
Harvard survival study of 200,000 patients revealed that the long
term survival rate of patients subjected to surgery was no better
than the survival rate of those that had no surgery.
Of
course, your cardiac surgeon will not tell you this when you need
to make a decision on whether or not to elect cardiac surgery. Never
in history have so many accumulated so much wealth for providing their
customers or clients or patients with so little real benefit.
Exceptions
to the Rule
Many
doctors of integrity are as much victims of the system as are their
patients. Todays doctor is not free to treat disease as his conscience
dictates. He is forced to administer approved protocols whether they
are known to work or not. To deviate from these approved protocols
invites law suits, peer criticism and censure from State medical licensing
boards.
This
writer knows of two local doctors who tried to buck the establishment
and really help their patients. Both lost their license to practice
medicine. One is currently working as an administrator in a California
hospital and the other has started a nutritional clinic.
Takeover
of the American Medical Association
This
sad state of affairs is directly traceable to the takeover of the
American Medical Association by the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations
in the early part of the twentieth century.
At
the turn of the century the medical community was in a sad state of
disrepair. There were no qualifications to become a doctor. If one
wanted to be a doctor it was only necessary to hang out a shingle
and start the practice of medicine. Medical schools were poorly financed,
often taught contradictory medical philosophies and had little impact
on the practice of medicine.
In
1910 the American Medical Association, todays AMA, was on the verge
of bankruptcy. Few doctors belonged to it and even fewer paid any
attention to it. Quackery of all kinds was rampant. The market was
flooded with fake cancer cures and 80 proof liver tonic. It was in
this environment that Rockefeller and Carnegie moved in and bought
the AMA and then used it to take control of the entire United States
medical establishment.
In
1910, Henry Prichard president of the Carnegie foundation, bought
control of the AMA for the sum of $10,000. He then financed the publication
of the Flexner report, as it was then called, to gain popular support
for the changes that were to be made in the medical community. With
public backing secured by the publication of the Flexner report, Carnegie
and Rockefeller commenced a major upgrade in medical education by
financing only those medical schools that taught what they wanted
taught. Predictably, those schools that had the financing churned
out the better doctors. In return for the financing, the schools
were required to teach course material that was exclusively drug oriented.
That is why today our doctors are so heavily biased toward synthetic
drug therapy and know little or nothing about nutrition. Dr. David
Edsall, former dean of Harvard medical school, said "I was, for a
period, a professor of Therapeutics and Pharmacology, [at Harvard]
and I knew from experience that students were obliged then by me and
by others to learn about an interminable number of drugs, many of
which were valueless, many of them useless, some probably even harmful...."
For
a time, these changes actually improved the practice of medicine in
the United States. Then, as the distorted medical curriculum began
to churn out doctors whose only concern was prescribing synthetic
drugs, things began to deteriorate into what we see today. Today
the average medical doctor receives 3 hours or less training on nutrition
despite the fact that our bodies are constructed entirely of what
we eat and drink.
Today's
doctor receives much of his ongoing education from detail men. The
detail man is the drug company salesman whose job it is to teach the
doctor how to use the latest drugs.
Treatment
Instead of Cure
Even with all of this history the medical doctor retained a great
deal of his autonomy through the 1930's and into the late 1940's.
In 1949 another major change took place in the medical community that
set the stage for the disaster we see today. It was in 1949 that
the medical community reorganized itself into the competing medical
specialty groups we see today.
Prior
to 1949 a doctor was a doctor; he dealt with all disease and injury.
After 1949 this was not so. The reorganization established many of
the specialties that we know today. It was then that the Cardiac
Specialist, the Endocrinologist, the Hepatic and Biliary Specialist
and many other professional specialty groups were formed.
The
symptoms of the then raging epidemic of Type II Diabetes were divided
among the specialty groups so that each group had their own set of
proprietary symptoms. The story given out for the reorganization was
that it would help to focus more attention on the then current Diabetes
epidemic. However, in practice it caused the entire medical community
to treat their own proprietary symptom set and nobody focused on curing
the disease anymore. This was the origin of the "treat the symptom"
and "ignore the cause" philosophy that now dominates the entire medical
community. This was the turning point event that led to the removal
of the word "cure" from the medical vocabulary. Today, if you
mention the "c" word around your doctor he will usually glaze over
and pretend not to hear you. He only responds to the word "treatment".
Under
the Rockefeller and Carnegie influence their pharmaceutical firms
started to pour out the vast array of synthetic drugs that the doctors
trained to their medical school standards now prescribed almost to
the exclusion of any other remedies. Among the first drugs to
be marketed this way were the oral hypoglycemic agents. They were
deliberately designed to treat the symptom while not curing the
disease.
Insurance
Fraud
Since
the name of the medical game was money, a means had to be devised
to provide the patient with money that could only be used to pay for
approved medical treatment. Enter the insurance company concept.
Today
employees have, as an important part of their remuneration for their
work, a health insurance policy. This health insurance policy does
not pay for all health related needs; it only pays for those health
related services that are approved. These, of course, are the
synthetic drug therapies that are known to work poorly, if at
all.
In
order to secure effective medical treatment from the alternative sector
of the economy the patient must pay for it himself; insurance companies
specifically exclude virtually all alternative treatment. One
wonders why so many continue to pay for an insurance program that
cannot, even in principle, be of any real benefit to them.
Government
Coercion in Medical Practice
In
the ordinary course of events, good medicine would eventually drive
out bad medicine. As more and more people discover ways to maintain
and improve their health, without drug therapy, they will simply abandon
bad medicine and resort to alternative therapies. Indeed, this is
happening.
Also
happening is a concerted government effort to discredit and declare
unlawful those effective therapies that represent the greatest threat
to orthodox medicine. In the last fifty years many effective cures
have been developed for many of the major killer diseases that we
have. In each instance the developer has been branded a quack,
his business has been ruined and in some cases he has been sent to
jail.
Even
with outright governmental attacks on those that would promote effective
therapies in America, the tide is turning. More and more Americans
are waking up to the reality of our medical community. More and more
they are finding it to be a fraud and they are turning to less conventional
treatments and modalities.
Informed
Americans that require effective medical treatment for anything more
serious than a head cold are turning away from orthodox drug quackery
in droves. The medical community is trying hard to make it illegal
to refuse their treatment.
A
major effort is currently underway (Codex) to severely restrict the
availability of nutritional supplements to those that use them throughout
the world. Our government is seriously considering mandatory vaccination
programs.
Many
believe that our Food and Drug Administration, FDA, represents the
American people and that the FDA acts to insure that our food and
drugs are safe and effective. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The FDA acts entirely to restrain and manage competition between
and among those that manufacture our food and drugs. They do this
only for the purpose of minimizing competition in business.
Rockefeller
is famous for proclaiming the only sin is competition. Willy Ley,
a former head of the FDA, said it best when he said "What the Food
and Drug Administration does and what the public thinks that it does
are a different as night and day".
Today
in America the practice of medicine is not free. It is one of the
most tightly controlled commercial enterprises in the world. That
is why it produces such extraordinary income for it's favored and
such misery, disease and death for its victims.
What
to do!
Given
the growth of the medical monster that ate the United States, what
can we who live here do to effectively manage our own health?
Perhaps the single most important thing that we all must do is to
recognize that our health is our most important possession.
We have no choice but to accept total responsibility for our own health.
To leave such an important consideration to someone who clearly has
much to gain by lying to us just does not make sense.
Typically,
we buy our cars and houses with a great deal more wisdom than we bring
to the doctor's office when we go there. The modern orthodox medical
community treats symptoms; they do not cure disease. When you
visit the doctor, it is perfectly in order for you to ask bluntly
whether or not the treatment he wants to give you will cure the disease
you have.
Some
years ago, when I had a serious case of Type II Diabetes, I asked
my doctor that question about the treatment he offered me. First he
pretended he did not hear me. When I persisted and made eye contact
and repeated the question he replied, "this is the prescribed treatment".
Such
an evasive answer to such a direct question sent me to the library
where I did the research to get a better answer. I quickly discovered
that the drug he offered me would not only not cure the disease, but
that it was guaranteed to put me on the road to becoming an invalid
long before my time.
Fortunately
I rejected his treatment. I went on to search the scientific literature
where I quickly found what I needed. It had nothing to do with synthetic
drugs. It took me about 3 1/2 months to fully reverse my diabetes.
That was seven years ago. The disease remains in full remission to
this day.
There
is one important caveat that must be mentioned at this point. If you
are currently under a doctor's care and are dissatisfied with the
results you are getting, do not just stop taking the prescribed medication.
Get your doctor, or another doctor if yours will not cooperate, to
help wean you off prescription drugs and to help you to devise a workable
alternative therapy. Many of these synthetic drugs will produce serious
side effects if they are abruptly discontinued. When
I had the problem I had not yet taken prescription medication.
After
accepting full responsibility for your own health, the second most
important consideration is to do your homework and learn about
the disease or disability that you have. Buy books, attend seminars,
subscribe to newsletters, search the internet, learn about what it
takes to actually reverse the disease that afflicts you.
Investigate
Alternative Medical Practitioners
Many
Naturopaths and Chiropractors can be of great help in actually curing
disease. Do not fall for the idea that only doctors are smart enough
to understand these things. Look for that unusual doctor that
will risk really trying to help you; and, realize that he is taking
a substantial risk when he does so. In
other words, do the best you can to find something better for yourself
than what your doctor offers.
Help
Each Other
If
you discover something important, don't be afraid to share the information.
Be vocal when government organizations attempt to restrict or deny
your access to natural nutritional supplements. If you are fortunate
to find a doctor with this kind of integrity, understand the importance
of what you have found and give him all of the support that you can
give.
There
is a medical doctor in California, we will call him Doctor Q, that
refused to compromise his integrity in his practice of medicine. He
ended up in jail, put there by his fellow doctors. His patients got
together, got him out of jail and had a special bill passed in the
State legislature to protect his practice of medicine. Today he still
runs a flourishing practice where he ministers to patients from all
over this country. He is actually curing disease not just treating
it.
Third,
after accepting responsibility for your own health and becoming informed,
recognize that medicine is a business. Your doctor is a paid consultant
just like your electrician or plumber and he is listed in the same
yellow pages. You have every right to get the information for
which you are paying. When your doctor retreats into arrogance and
refuses to provide direct answers to direct questions, consider getting
another doctor. There really are many safe and effective therapies
that go far beyond drugs. However, we must demand them on the
firing line, in the doctor's office, when we need them.
RETURN
The
American Medical System is Broken...
Opinion
by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen Thursday, May 27th, 2004
Everybody
knows that the US MEDICARE System will go belly-up in the year 2011.
It's going to be, at that point, so costly that the United States
simply won't be able to afford it anymore. Foreign owned "Big Pharma"
is bleeding us to death. American corporations, right this moment,
are cutting back their health care offerings. No one can afford the
skyrocketing costs. Health Insurance companies are desperately trying
to reduce provider expenditure - and because of that, Americans are
being offered a poorer, and poorer, quality of health care. Everything
NEW is being banned. Foreign owned "Big Pharma" is bleeding us
to death. But, more shocking, is that the system itself is a deadly
rip-off of gigantic proportion.
A
new study, a compilation of most recent studies, called "Death
by Medicine," says: "It is evident that the American medical
system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States.
The
total number of iatrogenic deaths shown is 783,936,
The
2001 heart disease annual death rate is 699,697;
the
annual cancer death rate, 553,251."
The
number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR)
to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million.
Dr.
Richard Besser, of the CDC, in 1995, said the number of unnecessary
antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections was 20 million.
Dr.
Besser, in 2003, now refers to tens of millions of unnecessary antibiotics.
The
number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually
is 7.5 million. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization
annually is 8.9 million."
And
that's only the "deaths."
The
Lazarou study on Hospital ADR also showed that, besides the 106,000
"deaths," twenty times that number of people had health problems caused
by that same hospital Adverse Drug Reaction. There were an additional
2,200,000 health problems caused by Adverse Drug Reaction to drugs
in hospitals. It would be reasonable to assume, then, that that
factor of twenty times the number of deaths could be applied to all
of the death statistics - meaning that in addition to the total
783,936 deaths there were 15,678,720 serious health problems caused
by the American Medical System.
Shocked?
It gets worse... Wait until you read how slovenly our system
actually operates. The top three causes of Unnecessary Deaths in
the United States are related to our health care system... The
number one cause of unnecessary death in the United States, called
Iatrogenic deaths (783,986) is shown in the table below, re-printed
by permission of the authors:
Condition
........................Deaths ........
......Cost ..........................Author
Hospital
ADR ..................106,000 deaths
....$12 billion .............Lazarou1
Suh49
Medical
error ...................98,000 ................$2
billion ..............IOM6
Bedsores
........................115,000 ..............$55
billion ..............Xakellis7 Barczak8
Infection
..........................88,000 ................$5
billion ..............Weinstein9 MMWR10
Malnutrition
...................108,800
-------- ..................................Nurses Coalition11
Outpatient
ADR .............199,000 ...........
..$77 billion ...............Starfield12
Weingart112
Unnecessary
Procedures .37,136
...... .....$122 billion ................HCUP3,13
Surgery-Related
..............32,000 ........ .......$9
billion ...............AHRQ85
TOTAL:...........................
783,936 ...........$282 billion
The
number two cause of unnecessary death in the United States is Heart
Disease. Statistics show "The 2001 heart disease annual death
rate is 699,697."
The
number three cause of unnecessary death in the United States is Cancer.
Statistics show "the annual cancer death rate, 553,251."
The
total number of known unnecessary deaths, per year, directly due to
the American Medical System is 2,036,884.
The
government regulatory systems "we the people" put into place to make
sure this didn't happen have been compromised...
Does
anybody, for a minute, believe that the US Food & Drug Administration
(FDA) is working for "we the people?" Don't be absurd. The
FDA is managed, completely, by "Big Pharma." Doubt that? Then
you aren't watching the drug pricing scam, where prescriptions
drugs are marketed in the United States from 2 to 20 times their cost
in other countries - and the FDA, literally, is with guns-drawn, raiding
companies attempting to import those SAME prescriptions from Canada,
Mexico, etc.
Does
anybody, for a minute, believe that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
is working for "we the people?" Don't be absurd. The FTC is manipulated,
completely, by "Big Pharma." Doubt that? Then why has the FTC manufactured
a different standard for "health claims" for supplements, herbals,
electro-medicine devices, etc - those things that compete with drugs
in the health market?
And,
how is it that the covert FTC "Operation Cure-All" exists at all?
Congress
never authorized the FTC to run covert operations - only the CIA,
and other "intelligence" groups can do that. So, how is it that
"Operation Cure-All," which I believe is actually run out of a New
York ad agency, and has no offices, phone numbers, directors, employees,
accountability, etc., is allowed to use the FTC name?
State
Licensing Boards have been given the responsibility for regulating
health care in America, State by State. Do they do anything to solve
the problems listed above? NO, they do not. There is NOT ONE STATE
in the United States that has a program to do something about the
problems described as the number one killer of Americans - Iatrogenic
deaths (783,986). Not one State has a program to put a stop to,
or even look at, the problems of Hospital Adverse Drug Reactions (106,000
deaths), medical errors (98,000 deaths), bedsores (105,000 deaths),
infections (88,000 deaths), malnutrition (108,800 deaths), outpatient
Adverse Drug Reactions (199,000 deaths), unnecessary procedures (37,136
deaths), surgery related (32,000 deaths).
And,
what about those 15,678,720 serious health problems caused by the
American Medical System? Those numbers INCREASE every year because
our State regulatory agencies ignore their responsibilities. The
"Support System" has been compromised...
What's
the common thread that wends its way through the American Cancer Society,
the AIDS network, the local "Run-For-Whatever?" Drug money.
All of those above are primarily funded, directly, or indirectly,
by "Big Pharma." So the so-called "War on Cancer," the "War on
AIDS," the "War on whatever." is ONLY about promoting new expensive
drugs - NOTHING ELSE.
But,
Worst of All... Worst of all is that the American Medical System
KNOWS it's broken, and is taking steps, not to fix its problems, but
to destroy those trying to make changes for the better, those trying
to make, and keep, people healthy, those focusing on finding cures
for Cancer, AIDS, heart disease, etc.. It is trying to maintain the
"status quo."
Not
only have the agencies "we the people" put in place intentionally
ignored the problems in health care, but they have been carefully
re-focused to attack solutions that compete with the drugs-surgery
paradigm.
There
is a real war, with large stakes, going on in North America. It's
way bigger than the "war on terrorism." I call it "the war
between health and medicine." The FDA, the FTC, some of the State
Regulatory Agencies, and a large part of the "Support System" have
knowingly, or unknowingly, joined ranks against solutions to the problems.
The
FDA, as we know, raids supplement manufacturers, electro-medicine
installations, using battering rams, automatic weapons, asset seizure
- all the tricks to stop competition against their "big pharma" masters.
The
FTC runs the covert "Operation Cure-All," targeting American citizen's
attempts to communicate new ideas in health care. But, that isn't
all. There's more. For instance, the "Quackbusters," we know, are
a subversive organization formed, and funded by twenty-six drug companies,
after the American Medical Association (AMA) was ordered by the Federal
Court to cease its covert operation against the Chiropractic profession.
Their job is to harass market competitors to the drug treatment paradigm.
I believe they are run out of a New York ad agency.
The
"bible" for the quackbusters, the place where all the "quackbusters"
send their unsuspecting victims for allegedly "good information,"
is the website "quackwatch.com," run by a de-licensed, failed MD out
of his basement in Allentown. Pennsylvania.
The
quackbuster "flagship," the so-called National Council Against Health
Fraud (NCAHF) is currently being run out of the office of its current
president, a hair removal and ear-piercing specialist in Braintree,
Massachusetts.
The
biggest "quackbuster" success was in 1996 when they took over the
Federation of Medical Board (FSMB)'s conference in Chicago, and used
that meeting to re-focus all of the State Medical Boards away from
the Federal Government's definition of "health fraud," (overbilling,
un-bundling, etc.). There, they were able to insert their own definition
- that "alternatives" to the drug/surgery paradigm was "health
fraud."
The
FSMB, for all of it's high sounding goals, has NEVER addressed the
issue of its individual State members coming down hard on the number
one cause of deaths (783,986) - Iatrogenic deaths - in the United
States. In fact - they have NEVER brought up the issue at all - and
obviously have no intention of doing so. Certainly, they have NO
INTENTION of suggesting that their members DO SOMETHING about the
problem.
The
State of Wisconsin, where I'm working on a problem with the State's
Department of Regulation & Licensing (DRL), for instance, has a population
of 5,461,710. Extrapolating that to the US population of 284,000,000
we find that Wisconsin has 1/52 of the US population. Dividing 52
into the total number of deaths (2,036,884), and the 15,678,513 health
problems, shows that Wisconsin's share was 39,170 total deaths, and
301,513 health problems. And, Wisconsin's DRL prosecutors, I've
found, won't prosecute anything BUT alternative practitioners.
The over-druggers, the bad surgeons, the bedsore ignorers, the
malnutrition deliverers, etc. are perfectly safe in the cheese State.
For
years the staff of the California med board, like most other State
health regulatory agencies, focused their attacks on "good" doctors
- those that stepped out of the drugs, drugs, and more drugs paradigm
to find newer and better solutions for their patient problems - and
conspicuously ignored the activities of the "bad "doctors - those
that were responsible, of late, for making "organized medicine" that
number one killer of Americans.
It
was, and is, commonly believed that California med board enforcement
teams made decisions to spend limited enforcement dollars prosecuting
doctors not on the seriousness of their actions, but on their potential
to NOT be able to afford a defense. In other words - they went for
the "easy hit."
The
California based Union of American Physicians & Dentists (UAPD) once
told me that about 55% of all California MDs were "solo practitioners,"
working in small, individual offices - but that 95% of the prosecutions
by the med board were filed against those same "solo" practitioners.
Why? four reasons, I think.
(1)
Because doctors working for hospitals, HMOs, etc., had the protection
of HUGE legal defense budgets, and the services of lawyers that could
wipe the floor with anything the med board could face them with.
(2)
Hospitals will not report MD problems to the Medical Board - hiding
from the board their activities - to protect their defective doctors.
(3)
State investigators and prosecutors had been focused on prosecuting
"good" doctors through alleged "training" (propaganda) provided, I
think, by the Federation of State Medical Board (FSMB), and other
"quackbuster" influenced, or controlled, groups.
(4)
Investigators and prosecutors are, simply, poorly trained in the issues,
and functionally incapable, of even understanding the complex issues
of health care enforcement.
The
California Medical Board recently heard the FINAL report of the "Enforcement
Monitor," thrust on them, at our request, by the California legislature.
The Board, and the board staff, have already adopted, and put in place,
fifty (50) of the sixty-five (65) recommendations in the FINAL report.
Within that report is a significant change in focus - and the setting
up of the apparatus, including the legislation, and the additional
funding necessary, to go after "bad" doctors - with a vengeance.
California,
to its credit, has become the first State to proactively address the
horrifying fact that "organized medicine" is the number one killer
of Americans - and do something about it.
I
applaud the members of the California Legislature and the Medical
Board for this LANDMARK action. The report, frankly a model for every
State, addresses seven basic issues of enforcement - in detail. The
report, upwards of two hundred (200) pages outlines how an enforcement
agency actually works, and makes recommendations on how to improve
it.
So,
what do we do with this? This report will be officially presented
by delegates of the California Medical Board to the Federation of
States Medical Board (FSMB) in April of 2006 - and I have no doubt
that the New York ad agency that controls the "quackbuster" operation
will conduct a campaign to stop this process from going nationwide.
However, the powerful North American Health Freedom Movement has groups
in every State.
I
urge all of you to consider formally presenting California's actions,
and report, to each State's Medical Board - and very nicely, but insistently,
demand that they do exactly the same thing - and if they don't - go
immediately to the State Capitol, and sit down with the Chairman of
the Senate and the House of Representative's Health Committee - and
lay the cards on the table...
In
summary - we started out to simply get the staff off the backs of
cutting edge MDs, and other practitioners in California - and we changed
the practice of California medicine forever.
Take
a look at the numbers in the graph above - won't it be nice to reduce
those numbers to near zero? Yes, this is the biggest victory in the
history of health freedom battles EVER. For years we've been fending
off attacks from the very people that were massively killing Americans
- we've turned the tables. In California we have more to do. "Victory"
just makes us work harder.
Foreign
owned "Big Pharma" is bleeding us to death. Can We Do Something About
It?
Of
course we can. And, we are…….Stay tuned... Tim Bolen - Consumer
Advocate! This "Millions of Health Freedom Fighters - Newsletter"
is about the battle between "Health and Medicine" on Planet Earth.
Tim Bolen is an op/ed writer with extensive knowledge of the activities
of a subversive organization calling itself the "quackbusters," and
that organization's attempts to suppress, and discredit, any, and
all health modalities that compete with the allopathic (MD) paradigm
for the consumer health dollars.
The
focus of the newsletter is on the ongoing activities, battles, politics,
and the victories won by members of the "Health Freedom Movement"
against the "quackbusters". It details "who the quackbusters are,
what they are, where they are operating, when they appear, and how
they operate - and how easy it is to beat them..."
For
background information on the "Battle between Health and Medicine"
go to: http://www.savedrclark.net/by_whom2.htm.
A copy of THIS newsletter, and older ones, are viewable at the website
http://www.quackpotwatch.org/default.htm.
(There is an especially good article there that talks about Chiropractic
and the 1978 federal trial findings against the American Medical Association
called "The Last Days of the Quackbusters". For EVEN MORE
interesting and related articles go to http://www.bolenreport.com.
SOME
SHOCKING FACTS ABOUT HEALTH IN AMERICA
We
lead the developed world in deaths from:
* Heart disease
* Prostate cancer
* Breast cancer
* Colorectal cancer
* Diabetes
* Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under
age 10.
And
even though we spend over 100 billion dollars a year on cancer
treatment and research, the overall survival rate for cancer patients
is
NO BETTER than it was 50 years ago.
Every
45 seconds someone in the U.S. dies of cancer. That's over 500,000
deaths per year - and most of them are long drawn-out, painful deaths.
AND IT'S GETTING WORSE!!
Chronic
fatigue, Immune diseases, constipation, PMS, joint pain, hemorrhoids,
high cholesterol, premature aging, heart disease, obesity, malnutrition,
and breathing difficulties are all on the rise.
The
incidence of diabetes in the United States has DOUBLED in just
the LAST 5 YEARS!!
50
years ago, diverticular disease (herniations of the colon) was virtually
unknown (affecting less than 10% of the American Population.)
Today, according to the Merck Manual, 100% of all Americans will
have many - if they live long enough.
30 years ago, colorectal cancer was virtually unknown. Today it is
the single most prevalent cancer among men and women combined.
The number of Americans who suffer from asthma, according to the Centers
for Disease Control, has risen by an astounding 75% in just the last
20 years.
An
article in the March 2002 issue of the British Medical Journal found
that physicians would rather continue using therapies that are unsafe
and ineffective than admit they were wrong to the patients they were
seeing.
Breast
cancer rates are up 30% in just the last 15 years. And now it's official.
In the February 9, 1994 issue of the Journal of the American Medical
Association, the "War on Cancer" was declared a failure. "In all age
groups, the incidence of cancer is increasing…Few new, effective treatments
have been devised for the most common cancers." · 3 billion prescriptions
are written yearly for drugs that treat only symptoms.
AND
THE MOST SHOCKING FACT OF ALL: The April 15, 1998 Journal of the
American Medical Association reported that there are more than 2,000,000
drug "reactions" annually in the United States, more than 100,000
of those reactions are fatal. This makes prescription drugs the
third leading cause of death in America.
But
the reality is actually far worse. The number of individuals killed
from poor medical judgment, medical malpractice, etc was estimated
to be 250,000/yr. Those numbers only count drugs that are prescribed
correctly and at the right dose. Not included are patients who are
given the wrong drugs, or who are given those drugs at the wrong dosage
or in the wrong combination. And these numbers do not include the
patients who have fatal reactions to the drugs, but whose deaths are
mistakenly attributed to other causes. Nor do these numbers include
the patients whose cause of death is deliberately obscured to protect
the physicians and hospitals involved. Add in these numbers, and you
will find that deaths from adverse reactions to drugs may number as
high as 700,000 a year. (Actually the FDA estimates that only 1% of
all adverse reactions are reported - which if true, would make 700,000
a very conservative estimate.)
On
an ABC News Nightline program, the Harvard School of Public Health
found that approximately 1.3 million people a year suffer some kind
of injury because of hospital treatment, and 180,000 of those people
die. A study by a group of French doctors actually makes that
1% estimate seem wildly optimistic. The study found that only about
1 out of every 24,000 adverse reactions is actually reported by doctors
to the appropriate monitoring agency.). Finally if you combine that
700,000 with the numbers of people who die from misdiagnosis, inappropriate
treatment, or secondary infections received in hospitals, or just
plain physician error, and the startling fact you're left with is:
the modern medical paradigm, despite all of its accomplishments, is
arguably the single leading cause of death in the United States.
At
this point in time (2006), it has been well established that medical
doctors are the leading cause of death in America. Please understand,
this is NOT an attack on medical doctors - the vast majority
are extremely competent, highly dedicated, and (as I mentioned earlier)
often even heroic.
Nevertheless,
it is important to realize that when it comes to the major diseases
of our time, the modern medical paradigm of searching for "magic bullets"
and managing symptoms with drugs has failed miserably.
REMEMBER:
YOUR GOOD HEALTH IS EASIER TO MAINTAIN THAN IT IS TO REGAIN, DISEASE
CAN BE PREVENTED AND MOST CAN BE REVERSED.
There
is only one disease and that is deficiency. Deficiency creates cellular
malfunction, which creates the groundwork for toxicity. Whether
you call it a cold or heart disease, the cause is the same: deficiency.
1)
You can take control of your health by monitoring what you eat.
2)
Every time you sit down to eat YOU CHOOSE what you put in your body.
3)
The daily choices you make influence the length and quality of your
life.
RETURN
Ritalin
Research Fraud
The
use of the drug Ritalin, commonly given to hyperactive children, is
again under scrutiny. Dr. Stephen Breuning, the psychologist who
first researched the medication, pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court
(9/89) to falsifying his findings.
A
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) investigation showed that
Breuning, who was responsible for one-third of the literature on drug
therapy for hyperactive children during his research years, "knowingly,
willfully and repeatedly engaged in misleading and deceptive practices
in reporting results of research," (Ginsburg, S. Baltimore [UPI],
November 11, 1989).
Accordingly,
the research was never done as described in the grant application
to the NIMH, and the results Breuning claimed were never attained.
It was the first federal conviction of a researcher for falsifying
results. Breuning was sentenced to 60 days in prison, ordered to
pay $11,352 in restitution to the University of Pittsburgh (where
Breuning worked), and was placed on five years probation by U.S. District
Judge Frank Kaufman, who said the former researcher "will pay dearly
for the rest of his life." The use of Ritalin is still controversial
and has resulted in numerous court battles between schools and parents.
Some
doctors say the benefits - increased attention span and performance-outweigh
the side affects which may include twitching, depression, violence
and sometimes suicidal tendencies. Other doctors feel that most hyperactive
children can be treated using more conservative measures. While
many of those using A.K. (Applied Kinesiology) have experienced excellent
results with these children, further studies are needed to provide
a better understanding of this complex problem.
RETURN
Drug
Marketing Scheme Hits Nation's School System
January 26, 2006.
By Evelyn Pringle
TeenScreen,
the elaborate drug marketing scheme concocted by the pharmaceutical
industry and a front group operating out of Columbia University, is
being promoted by the Bush administration's recommendation to screen
the nation's school population for mental illness.
The
Bush appointed New Freedoms Commission on Mental Health issued a report
in July 2003 urging the screening of students in all 50 states and
recommended TeenScreen as the model program for the job.
Although
touted as a suicide prevention tool, TeenScreen backers also claim
it can diagnose a host of mental health disorders in students with
the completion of the 10-minute survey. On March 2, 2004, the program's
Executive Director, Laurie Flynn, testified at a congressional hearing
and said that in the screening process, "youth complete a 10-minute
self-administered questionnaire that screens for social phobia, panic
disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, major depression, alcohol
and drug abuse, and suicidality."
Warnings
against the mass screening of children are coming from every segment
of society, including parents, medical professionals, investigative
journalists, and human rights groups, in large part, because the influence
of pharma in TeenScreen is so blatantly obvious.
For
example, prior to joining TeenScreen, Flynn served as the executive
director of National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) for 16 years.
NAMI calls itself as "a grassroots organization of individuals with
brain disorders and their family members."
But
in reality, NAMI is pharma's number one front group, dedicated to
promoting the sale of as many "legal" drugs as possible. Which means
prior to her promotion to the position with TeenScreen, Flynn was
the number one "legal" pusher for 16 years.
While
employed by NAMI, Pharma paid Flynn's salary. Internal NAMI documents
obtained by Mother Jones Magazine, for the period between 1996 and
mid-1999, show that 18 drug companies gave NAMI a total of $11.72
million. The firms include Janssen ($2.08 million), Novartis ($1.87
million), Pfizer ($1.3 million), Abbott Laboratories ($1.24 million),
Wyeth-Ayerst ($658,000), and Bristol-Myers Squibb ($613,505). The
group's top donor during that period was Eli Lilly with total contributions
of $2.87 million.
Flynn
even wrote an article titled, "Before Their Time: Preventing Teen
Suicide," which said: "The TeenScreen Program developed 10 years ago
by Columbia University and offered in partnership with the National
Alliance for the Mentally Ill helps communities across the nation
identify teens with mental illness who might be at risk for suicide."
Now
NAMI can hardly dispute the charge that it serves as a funnel for
drug money when its web site lists "Corporate Partners, Grants, and
Foundations," as Abbott, AstraZoneca, Bristol-Meyers-Squibb, Eli Lilly,
Forest Lab, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Jannsen, McNeil, Pfizer, and Wyeth.
So
if TeenScreen is "offered in partnership," with the NAMI, its logically
safe to assume that drug money is involved in the development of the
program.
Pharma
constantly funnels money through groups like NAMI, which in turn become
conduits for the promotion of industry marketing schemes. According
to psychiatrist, Dr Peter Breggin, founder of the International Center
for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, "these groups hold national
meetings that bring together drug advocates to talk directly to consumers.
They also put out newsletters and other information that praise medications.
Sometimes they actively suppress viewpoints that are critical of drugs
- for example, by discouragi