The Case Against Pharmaceuticals:
The DISEASE Business
In January of last year the Rath Health Institute ran a full page ad in the New York Times in which the problems with America’s pharmaceutical based health care system were exposed for all to see. I have often written about the down side of drugs, and the biased and detrimental disease care system we have here. I also have throughout my entire career supported the use of natural substances over pharmaceuticals whenever possible. I enjoyed the essay, which was linked with a petition drive to make our legislators aware of the problems. I want to review and embellish upon a few of the major points that were made for you here.
First, the pharmaceutical industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that has orchestrated the largest and most pernicious fraud ever upon the American people. While expounding on it’s commitment to public health, and its state of the art technologies promising a healthier America, in reality it is in the "capitalize through disease business". Pharmaceuticals cover but do not cure problems. It appears the American medical-pharmaceutical complex has no incentive to find cures, and thus in the process wipe out its customer base. Billions of dollars of research have gotten us nowhere nearer to finding the cure for heart disease or cancer or diabetes than we were 50 years ago.
The search for cures has been replaced by the search for palliative and patentable drugs that can boost the stock of the drug companies, and make a select group of people rich, while Americans stay ill, and dish out exhorbitant dollars in the form of health care premiums and/or prescription costs that do not help them get well.
Second, these drugs are not only simply palliative, they are also dangerous, as evidenced by the regular post-release recall of various medications, the latest of which was Vioxx. One hundred thousand people each year die from drug side effects. Millions more are hurt or disabled in some way. There will be more bad drugs coming our way. Many of the drugs thought to be safe will also turn out to have been dangerous to our health. Now if a drug had a chance of curing your disease, it might be worth the risk of suffering a side effect. But with only palliation as a benefit, the harm these drugs can cause is a strong net negative.
Third, political activism to the tune of multiplied millions of dollars, undue influence peddling and conflicts of interest within the very agencies that are supposed to regulate them, and manipulation or control of the media have been ongoing tactics designed to maintain and expand this warped disease care system. Recently under the gun due to the Vioxx fiasco, the pharmaceutical lobby has made self preservation an important priority. Now they are adding their voice to the outcry for limitation of punitive damage awards, as called for in the current push for medical malpractice reform. But for them it is not to protect obstetricians from liability suits, and to keep them from having to move to a different state. The Bush administration received enormous campaign contributions from the drug lobby. What they expect in return is the ability to sneak through liability protection for drug companies under cover of medical malpractice tort reform. This is the Trojan horse tactic. A bad thing is concealed within a good thing! Passing of legislation now proposed will extend the pharmaceutical companies’ ability to continue their lucrative business with disease as usual. No longer will they have to face the prospect of financial extinction at the hands of the harm caused by their toxic chemicals.
Fourth, a particularly abhorent major tactic used by drug companies is to support the national conspiracy to withhold lifesaving information about the health benefits of vitamins and natural therapies, which are non-patentable, and therefore less profitable, and to dominate the post graduate education of physicians. Through sponsorship and funding of continuing medical education activities, and political influence in the FDA and the media, drugs are set up as the standard for all advances in medicine while natural treatments are studied/or mentioned only in an attempt to discredit them, and to scare and misinform the public.
Finally, alongside their campaign of disinformation about vitamins, the pharmaceutical companies support through the political process the suppression of natural products by legislation or regulation. Natural therapies often offer a safe and efficient method of reversing disease and restoring health, something that drugs are never able to do. As such, they present a real and legitimate threat to the base premises of the pharmaceutical business, a main one being that it is more profitable to sell drugs to “control” diseases than it is to find real cures. And for every person taking a vitamin, the drug industry figures that some drug revenue profits have been lost. And for every person restored to health through effective therapy aimed at the cause, thousands of dollars of present and future drug profits are lost. The industry’s response to this threat has been to support global efforts to ban and outlaw natural therapies, and is the background that should be understood in interpreting the Bush administration’s attack on the Dietary Supplement Health and Education act (DSHEA). This key legislation alone explicitly protects the rights of Americans for free access to natural therapies and freedom of health care choice. Undermining or repeal of this act will adversely affect the health outlook for millions of people, while it enriches the drug companies even further.Let your congressmen and senators know that you are opposed to allowing Medical liability reform to become a Trojan horse which ends up protecting the special interests of the pharmaceutical companies. No amnesty should be granted to any drug companies that would limit their liability in lawsuits over the harm their products cause. Tell them you want continued free access to natural health information and therapies as protected by DSHEA, and governmentally funded research in methods of natural treatment so that the next 50 years will bring us some disease cures, instead of more drug fiascos.
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