NHS prevention plan aims to boost life expectancy

The NHS has announced a new strategy for health care in the UK. It is to move away from its current 'treatment' based approach to a more 'preventative' approach. The new Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, is developing his long-term plans for the NHS and it will focus on the prevention rather than the treatment of illness (5th November 2018).

Well, something certainly has to happen. The NHS is not coping with the demands being made on it by growing number of sick patients who seem to get progressively sick the more treatment they receive, and so requiring more a more treatment. Hancock says that 10 times more money is now being spent on treatment than prevention, and this, he says, "does not stack up". He says that there needs to be a shift in culture of the NHS, and in the way resources are balanced.

Hancock wants people to have 5 more years of healthy, independent life by 2035. To achieve this he is encouraging people to take more responsibility for their own health - to look after themselves better, staying acting longer, quitting smoking, making better life choices by limiting their consumption of alcohol, sugar, salt and fat."

               "For too long the NHS has seen itself as essentially the National Hospital Service, with primary care and GPs round the side."

So has the Health Secretary discovered the root cause of NHS failure, or more importantly, the failure of conventional medicine to make us better? My major doubt about his plan is that before illness can be PREVENTED, the CAUSE of illness has first to be correctly identified.

What Hancock seems to be proposing is that patients begin to do the things the NHS has been asking us to do for a very long time! There is nothing new about asking people to change their life style habits for healthier ones. Doctors have been doing it for decades - usually either just before or after handing out a prescription for pharmaceutical drugs. Clearly, there is nothing wrong with a better diet, more exercise, less smoking, et al. But just how exactly is this going to be achieved when it has never been achieved before?

So what about more primary medical care, using GP's rather than hospitals? Certainly it is important to know exactly what Hancock believes to be 'preventative' medicine. For instance, many of the drugs currently prescribed by doctors in massive quantities are already prescribed on the basis that they can prevent illness and disease.

Statin drugs, are perhaps a case in point. They have been, and continue to be prescribed to prevent heart attacks and strokes. So is this the kind of 'preventative medicine' Hancock is talking about? Two things if it is...

1. Since Statins have been given to patients there has been no decrease, but rather a massive increase in the number of heart attacks and strokes. Indeed, all chronic disease is now running at epidemic levels.
2. And Statins are now known to cause serious health side effects - muscle weakness, cataracts, liver dysfunction, kidney disease, diabetes, dementia et al. So this is one 'preventative' drug that is almost certainly adding to number of cases having to be treated by the NHS.

Vaccines are also widely used by the NHS with the express purpose of 'preventing' disease. Children are subject to a plethora of vaccines for a wide number of (quite minor) illnesses, and although this will be vehemently denied, there is little doubt that they cause (more serious) illness. Swopping measles for autism, or diphtheria for seizures, is not a good deal for patients, or the NHS. Similarly, older people are asked every year to swop influenza for dementia. 

So as far as prevention is concerned, vaccines are not a good deal for the NHS either. And before anyone accuses me of being 'anti-vaccine' let me suggest another description for my vaccine stance. I am pro-Hippocrates. FIRST, DO NO HARM!

Yet herein lies the problem at the very heart of the NHS, which is now completely dominated by the conventional medical establishment, and by the pharmaceutical industry.

It means that the NHS is unable to identify one of the main problems that underlays rising health demand, and rising NHS costs. It refuses to identify one important cause for increased levels of demand that is threatening to bankrupt the NHS. Let me explain why this is.

• Doctors prescribe pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines (often to prevent disease).
• These all cause side effects, often very serious side effects, which are, in effect, new and serious illnesses in their own right.
• And because it is conventional medicine that has caused the problem it is unable to admit it. This is one major consequence conventional medicine - it is, itself, creating disease.

So I suspect it is not possible for conventional medicine to do anything about it. I have been writing my DIE's website now for several years, describing how specific pharmaceutical drugs are known to cause specific diseases. One discovery I have made it that when the NHS describes the causes of each illness, the role played by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are rarely mentioned as a possible cause. Yet medical literature demonstrates that the NHS DOES know that their drugs cause disease. The NHS Choices website, for example, frequently states that the cause of a disease is 'unknown' rather than admit that it can be caused by pharmaceuticals!

The point is that it is difficult to prevent illness if one of the major causes is routinely denied. Put in another way, preventative medicine is only possible if we can identify, openly and honestly, all the factors that cause illness. And conventional medicine refuses to do this.

Preventative medicine is a good idea. Homeopathy does it all the time, as do other natural therapies, all of which treat patients without causing harm. Conventional medicine causes a large amount of additional sickness, and by doing so (as I blogged recently), this produces enormous secondary costs for society.

These secondary costs are certainly preventable. But first there has to be an honest admission - that conventional medicine, even when it is claiming to be preventing illness, is actually creating more illness and disease. Then the prevention of large amounts of illness and disease becomes eminently possible - through one simple process.

STOP USING PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS AND VACCINES THAT CAUSE ILLNESS!

The MMR Vaccine. Less parents are getting their children vaccinated. And this is a problem both for conventional medicine, and our national media!

Professor Dame Sally Davis is an expert on health, Britain's 'top doctor', and the government appointed Chief Medical Officer. Or more accurately, perhaps, she is an expert in conventional medicine.

• There is an important distinction!

On 1st November 2018 her statement about the MMR vaccine made all the mainstream media. Her comments came, apparently, on the 30th anniversary of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine being introduced in the UK. The vaccine is given, free of charge, on the NHS, as a single injection to babies, within a month of their first birthday. They then have a second injection before starting school, aged three years.

The expert professor was bemoaning the fact that less people are now taking up the vaccine - only 87% in England when the target is 95%.

So let's see what she had to say, and how the media (and particularly BBC News) reported it.

               "The MMR vaccine has dramatically reduced cases of measles, mumps and rubella and saved about 4,000 deaths from measles, resulting in the UK being declared "measles free" by the World Health Organization last year."

Measles was a killer disease in this country during the 18th and 19th century, alongside the upheaval and poverty of the agrarian and industrial revolutions. The incidence of measles declined progressively and rapidly from the second half of the 19th century right up to the introduction of the MMR vaccine. Graphs that track the incidence of measles show that the introduction of the vaccine made no impact whatsoever on the continuing decline of the disease.

Did Sally Davis mention this? Was she challenged by the BBC? No, this was allowed to pass - as a factual statement.

The Professor went on to say that the MMR vaccine was safe, and had been given to millions of children worldwide. Yet the patient information leaflet that comes with the MMR vaccine contradicts this statement. I have listed the long list of serious known 'side effects' in this blog, written in 2013. The side effects include seizures, encephalitis, and death (yes, death!)

Did Sally Davis qualify this statement that the MMR vaccine was safe? Did the BBC challenge her about the claim? No, it was allowed to pass - as a factual statement.

So why are 13% of parents refusing to take up the offer of this free vaccine? A vaccine that protects against a disease that no longer exists (!) A vaccine that causes death? 

Well, Dame Sally had the answer. I was to blame, alongside the many other anti-vaccine campaigners, all of us presenting our 'misinformation', and 'fake news'.

• People who believe the myths spread by anti-vaccine campaigners "are absolutely wrong" she said.
• She urged parents to get their children vaccinated and ignore "social media fake news".
• She said myths peddled about the dangers of vaccines on social media was one reason parents weren't taking their children to get the MMR vaccine.
• "Over these 30 years, we have vaccinated millions of children.
• "It is a safe vaccination - we know that - and we've saved millions of lives across the world.
• "People who spread these myths, when children die they will not be there to pick up the pieces or the blame."

This was her message, her unchallenged message, the one that everybody heard. The voice of a medical expert, an authority on the subject, someone who is not to be challenged, by anyone!

So what has my mistake been? Why have I erred? Why have I been attacked on the media? I suggest my mistake, and the mistake of all anti-vaxxers, has been twofold.

1. We have read the evidence on the patient information leaflets and made the judgement that this level of child damage was unacceptable.
2. We have listened to parents who once had healthy children, but whose development was normal up until they were vaccinate (either with DPT or MMR), and who subsequently became seriously ill.

Clearly, according to Britain's Chief Medical Officer, we should not have done so either of these things. We should accept her word, her statements, just as the media has done - after all she is a medical expert!

So was Sally Davis's challenged at all by the BBC? And did they, in line with the BBC's editorial guidelines, give time to anti-vaccine campaigners to put their position? No, she was not challenged. And no, no one was allowed to put the contrary case - that the MMR vaccine was,  in fact, dangerous, and parent were right to refuse to subject their children to its known side effects.

Instead, Dame Sally was allowed to bemoan the fact that there had been too many cases of measles in England this year - a grand total of 903 so far (!) - and that young people had missed out on the MMR vaccine "who had been particularly affected".

Any statistics on that, Sally? So perhaps the BBC asked her how many of the 903 children had been vaccinated? Unfortunately, they did not bother to ask.

And then, of course, the usual nonsense, routinely trotted out by the media whenever vaccines are brought into question.

               "In 1998, a study by former doctor Andrew Wakefield incorrectly linked the MMR vaccine to autism. The research is now completely discredited."

Actually, Andrew Wakefield's research has been replicated many times now. But we cannot expect the mainstream media to mention this. So did they challenge the statement? No, of course not. The job of the media, as seen by the media, is to support the conventional medical establishment, to act as an Echo Chamber for anything they want to say, without challenge or question, whilst at the same time bashing anyone who holds a contrary view, backed by contrary evidence.

So the result of Professor Dame Sally Davis's interview, and the vacillation of the mainstream media, will be that more parents are absolutely certain about the importance of vaccination, and the safety of vaccines, who have no knowledge of the warnings on the patient information leaflet, or the experience of parents whose young children have been seriously damaged.

So much for informed patient choice!

MEDICAL SCIENCE. It provides the 'evidence base' for conventional medicine. But is drug testing honest?

On the same day that the UK government announced in its budget an increase of £20 billion for the NHS, it was reported that "Unpublished medical research is "a threat to public health". Apparently this is the conclusion of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, which says that important information about the efficacy of new drugs and treatments are going unpublished, posing a risk to health. It goes on to say that

               "... despite repeated warnings, not enough is being done to make sure the results of all clinical trials are reported".

Medical science is supposed to provide the "evidence base' for conventional medicine, dominated as it is by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. Yet it is accused, here, of failing to make public all the available evidence from all clinical trials - and that this has been going to for a long time - despite repeated warnings.

Repeated warnings?

The modern system of drug regulation, and drug testing regimes, began soon after the pharmaceutical industry was forced to recognise that one of its drugs, Thalidomide, had caused devastating harm to hundreds of babies in the 1950's and 1960's. In future, drug regulation would safeguard patients from dangerous drugs that were harmful to our health.

YET THE FACT IS THAT SINCE THE 1960'S DRUG AFTER DRUG HAS BEEN  PASSED BY DRUG REGULATORS, AND PRESCRIBED TO PATIENTS, ONLY TO CAUSE SO MUCH HARM THEY HAD EVENTUALLY TO BE BANNED!

Withholding information means that evidence indicating that a new drug is harmful is not published. Even our doctors do not know. They prescribe drugs to patients - ignorant of the evidence of harm that may be caused. Only the pharmaceutical companies, and the medical 'scientists' know about this, and it is in the business interests, and their profits. that they decide that we are not to be told.

Yet the situation is far worse than just the withholding of information. Information about the harm caused by pharmaceutical drugs is hidden from view in lots of other ways. I have written about this in more detail in "Drug Regulation and Medical Science", emphasising the reasons why conventional medicine is not scientific, why drug regulation is ineffective, and why it does not provide an 'evidence base' that safeguards patients. In summary, this is what is known:

• The financial rewards of a 'successful' drug mean that drug companies are reluctant to admit any 'negative' information.
• Drug Regulation agencies, throughout the world, are now dominated by people who have a vested interest in the pharmaceutical industry. In effect, they have been 'captured' by drug company place-men.
• The funding of drug trials is predominantly done by the pharmaceutical industry, with all the problems 'cheque-book science' brings with it.
• they select the scientists
• they make it known that if scientists want further work drug companies require the 'correct' result.
• The manipulation of drug test results is also a problem. The way this is done was outlined in Ben Goldacre's book "Bad Pharma", and summarised and extended in my ebook. My summary is as follows

               "Goldacre ... is ...setting out what has long been recognised about what constitutes a properly and honestly constructed randomised trial. All medical scientists know this but quite regardless have chosen to conduct the trials in the way (he) describes. Perhaps these 'scientists' will argue that they had to, even though they must have been quite aware that they were 'massaging' the test results in favour of the drug companies."

• Withholding 'negative' tests results is then covered, and in my book I provide several examples of when this has been done, involving drugs like Vioxx, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Fosamax, Neurontin, Avandia, et al. Some of these cases date back to the early 2000's so it is little wonder that the House of Commons report talks about 'repeated warnings'!

There is more dishonesty though. I go on to deal with drug companies secretly pulling out of studies that are producing the 'wrong' results. And the 'favourable' interpretation of test data. And the lack of any checks on the honesty and integrity of published medical science.

So why is it that nothing happen? Why will this House of Commons report, like similar reports, make any difference? Why has Ben Goldacre's book (published back in 2012) made no difference to the way medical science operates? Why does the dishonesty and corruption, outlined in my 'Failure of Conventional Medicine' ebook, continue to be ignored by politicians and the media?

And why do we continue to insist on spending more money on an NHS dominated by pharmaceutical 

drug and vaccine treatment? An extra £20 billion for the NHS? To spend on the same medical treatment that has consistently failed to cope with the health demands being made on the NHS for over 70 years? Does it make sense?

It is all quite simply the result of the conventional medicine's amazing success in keeping the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, from us!

We must now wake up to the reality - that pharmaceutical drugs do not work. They harm us. The more drugs and vaccines we take, the sicker we become. Conventional medicine is not winning the battle with illness and disease, as it so often claims. It is creating epidemics of chronic disease.

So the solution is not to spend another £20 billion of the same, failed and failing medicine. It is to begin to look for something different, something safer and more effective, something that actually works for patients, something that keeps them healthy, and make them better when they are sick.

The Secondary Costs of Conventional Medicine

Hitherto, this blog has focused on how much conventional medicine costs to deliver. Every time a patient visits a doctor, undergoes a medical test, is given pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, goes into hospital, is operated on, etc., it costs money.

The cost of conventional medical treatment is staggeringly high. It is bankrupting many health services around the world. Medicine based on pharmaceutical drugs is the most expensive medical system available, by far. And in Britain, and elsewhere, demands for more and more money are constant being made.

This blog has also argued that conventional medical treatment is not very effective. It is failing to make patients well, it does not cure illness, indeed, it often admits that it has no treatment for major diseases.

The blog has also argued that it is not a safe system of medicine, that through adverse drug reactions patients can often be seen getting sicker, not better. One illness leads to drug prescription, and through drug side effects, the patient contracts another illness, for which more drugs are required, which also cause illness - and so on.

So once patients step over the threshold of conventional medicine they keep having to return, they don't get better, they need more and more treatment, which makes them sicker and sicker. And so it has gone on for the last 70 years and more.

The Secondary Costs of Conventional Medicine
But what happens then? What happens to people who are made sick, or made sicker, by conventional medicine? This is where the secondary costs begin.

• At the start of life, healthy babies and children who have been vaccinated, and the vaccines cause health damage. So, for example, we now have ADHD, an Autism epidemic, and many other diseases, that increase the number of people who require a lifetime of care - special education - ongoing health treatment- special day care provisionet al. Plus parents who can no longer work as they have to become full-time carers.

• Older people who become ill, not because of their age, but because the harm caused by pharmaceutical drugs. For example, the rising numbers of older people (and indeed, much younger people) who suffer from dementia, who can no longer look after themselves, whose children have to give up their careers to look after them. And the home care services, and the residential care they need as their dementia progresses.

Then there is the explosion of diseases, all now running at epidemic levels. and all known to be caused (at least in part) by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines (click on the links to see which drugs cause these conditions).

• People with allergy, often allergies that require intricate special diets, and the fear that to eat a simple food that become a killer
• The Arthritis epidemic that stunts people's life, makes them immobile, and prevents them from earning their own living.
• The Asthma epidemic that now curtails the ability of so many people to lead a full, sometimes an independent life.
• The epidemic of cancer that cuts short the lives of so many people, requiring both medical, social, and end-of-life care.
• The explosion of diabetes, and its related conditions, that is now incapacitating so many more people than ever before, and increasing their need for life-long medical and social care.

There are many more illnesses for which conventional medicine admits it has no cure. And worse, there are a multitude of illnesses that are known to be caused, directly, by conventional medical treatment. Many of these are covered in my ebook, DIEs - the Disease Inducing Effects of Pharmaceutical Drugs.

So the cost of conventional medicine does not stop with the direct provision of health services, it goes far, far beyond this, to the services sick people require to live permanently with illness, the number of people who are no longer economically active, or have to care for relatives who cannot care for themselves, or who need state support to live their lives.

So how much are we talking about? The British NHS alone costs £120 billion (and rising). 

• Is it half this amount, again?
• Double? 
• More? 

It is difficult to calculate the 'secondary' costs of conventional medicine, not least because the conventional medical establishment steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the damage it is doing to our health, to our lives, and to the society in which we live.

Female Ailments. "It's part of being a woman! You just have to put up with it!"

How many women have heard this from their doctor? Menstrual problems? Cystitis? PMT, PMS? Mastitis? Vaginal Thrush? These can all be painful, annoying - but just get on with it. It's life! Not only have many women told me about this response, some have commented that if men had periods there would have been a cure for Amenorrhoea, Dysmenorrhoea, Menorrhagia, Metrorrhagia, et al, long, long ago.

Conventional medicine has been dominated by men ever since its origins, in the universities of 12th and 13th century universities. It continuers to be dominated by men. And it is usually male doctors who make these dismissive comments.

Homeopathy has always been different. From the beginning it has always had effective treatments for 'women's complaints', but throughout the 20th century, and today, it is female homeopaths have played a leading role in its progress and development. Unlike me, a mere man, they know from personal experience what these conditions are like, and much of their work has been directed towards these neglected ailments.

I was aware of this during my training as a homeopath. I was under no illusion, women have particular medical needs, and they should not be underestimated. And why should they be underestimated. Homeopaths have at their disposal some remarkable remedies to deal with all these conditions. If, similarly, conventional doctors had drugs equally able to deal with them they probably would not be dismissive either - often their attitude is the result of having little to offer.

In my 'Why Homeopath?' website I have compared and contrasted what conventional medicine and homeopathy has to offer women for all these ailments. Have a look at the links below, the one's  relevant to you, to see the difference in treatment options.

Menstrual problems (in all its many forms).

Cystitis.

PMT, PMS.

Mastitis.

Vaginal Thrush.

You will then be more able to make up your own mind what kind of treatment is best for you.

NHS in Crisis (2018-2019)

It's only October but a new winter NHS crisis is on its way. Actually this annual crisis should not be called a 'winter' crisis. It's becoming an Autumn, Winter, Spring crisis - and I suspect soon it will become a Summer crisis too!

Nor should we be talking of an 'NHS" crisis. It is really the crisis of conventional medicine, the medicine that has a virtual monopoly with the NHS, which is itself dominated by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. (For my previous posts on this subject, some dating back to 2011, go to the top right of this page and enter a search on 'NHS Crisis').

Notice of the crisis has been given by the NHS Providers organisers, widely reported in the national press this morning (22 October 2018). Its report, 'Steeling Ourselves for Winter 2018/19' says that there are “clear warning signs” that the situation is likely to be worse than last year (itself the worst on record), and describes pressures across all hospital activity, and primary care - staff vacancies, a tired and pressured workforce.

And this is despite £millions of additional money being pumped into the NHS, with £billions more promised over the next few years. All that this proves is that it is pointless pouring more and more money into a failing and crumbling health system. Yet this is what the warning is about - more money - the NHS does not have enough money:

• GP's, and primary care generally, need more money
• Ambulance services needs more money
• A&E services need more money
• Every hospital speciality needs more money
• Mental Health services need more money
• Children and Adult disability services need more money
• Social care needs more money

Political parties are clambering over each other, trying to out-bidding each other, to provide more money for the NHS. But they have never been able to provide enough. Not even the Labour government of 1997 to 2010 could do that. They increased NHS spending by nearly 300% over this time - but this did not stop what the report describes as "the recurring cycle of winter crises".

Nor will more money, however much can be found. The problem is that conventional medicine does not make patients better. Pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines makes them sicker, through the pernicious effect of side effects, adverse drug reactions. Pharmaceuticals cause disease - and the more money the NHS is given the more drugs patients are given - and the sicker they become.

So the NHS provides us with a vicious circle. This is why demand constantly outstrips the ability of the NHS to cope. It invests its money into a failing and moribund medical system. Unfortunately, politicians, governments and the mainstream media are unable, even unwilling to recognise this. And the conventional medical establishment has a vested interest in the system remaining as it is - so they are unlikely to tell us either.

So more money for the NHS, to avert another crisis?

• Or should we go out and buy a car that cannot move (except, perhaps in reverse)?
• Or a washing machine that is unable to wash our clothes?
• Or a vacuum cleaner that does not pick up dirt from our carpets?

Anyone who is concerned about the prospect of another health crisis in the next few weeks does have an alternative, to do what many other people are doing - finding a medical system that works - a natural medicine that promotes a healthy lifestyle to stay healthy - that does not require the patient to take drugs that make them sick - that offers the prospect of curing illness and disease.

Look up a local homeopathy, or herbalist, or naturopath, or osteopath. Visit your local natural health centre to see what they have to offer. It will invariably offer something better than is available in our monopolistic National Health Service!

Patients pressurising doctors to give them more drugs. Why? And is honesty with patients the best solution?

Public Health England (PHE) is concerned that patients are pressurising doctors to give them more antibiotic drugs (Pulse 18 October 2018). This is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, it has become a feature of the National Health Service in the UK. Patients, it seems, can never get quite enough of the pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines that are on offer to them - even when doctors do not think they need them.

Another recent post in Pulse may be relevant here, it suggested that if patients were aware of the cost of the treatments they received they would appreciate them more. So perhaps if patients were aware of the cost of antibiotic drugs they would appreciate them more? Unfortunately, antibiotics are not particularly expensive. And they are already too popular, in too much demand it seems, and PHE feels it needs to take action.

So PHE is going to reintroduce its 'Keep Antibiotics Working' campaign. In doing so it has the approval of doctors because "93% of those surveyed said that it supported them in refusing patient requests for antibiotics" - by informing the public about the risks of antibiotic resistance, and to urge them to take their clinicians advice on antibiotics.

As this blog has regularly reported, there are two major problems with antibiotic drugs. One of these is, indeed, resistance - the creation of superbugs - their inability to treat the conditions, illnesses and disease that once they were able to treat - an increasing number of patients no longer responding to them.

The other problem is the serious side effects they are known to cause. For my previous blogs on the dangers of antibiotic drugs, go to the top left-hand side of this page and search 'antibiotic drugs'. Alternatively, go to my webpage on the dangers of antibiotics drugs.

So why do patients continue to demand antibiotic drugs, given that they are now known to cause such serious side effects? The answer is, of course, patients are not told. To a large extent the conventional medical establishment does not accept that they cause harm, even though the evidence is there, published and available within their own information base. Certainly doctors do not admit, publically, the harm they cause. And the mainstream media does not ask questions about the dangers of antibiotic drugs. So how do we ever get to know?

Since the 1940's we have all been told that antibiotics are wonder drugs. Once we were told they were wonder drugs with no side effects! This is the information most people still understand and believe. They have never been told otherwise - so why should they know that they are dangerous?

So whether the '‘Keep Antibiotics Working' campaign works remains to be seen. Pulse states that in 2016 antibiotic prescribing decreased by 6% over three years, but that research continued to show that between 8% and 23% of antibiotic prescriptions are still inappropriate. They want to reduce this by half.

I believe that this is unlikely to happen. It will not happen until we are all told the real reason we should not pester doctors for drugs - that they are dangerous to our health.

As long as doctors tell us that the problem with antibiotics is a 'technical' one, concerning 'resistance', whilst we continue to believe they are effective and safe, patients will continue to demand them, and doctors will feel pressured into prescribe them. Patients need to be told that antibiotics are UNSAFE, and HARMFUL to our health.

So the solution to this particular problem is an easy one - HONESTY! 

But actually honesty is a problem for conventional medicine. Most of their drugs are largely ineffective. All of them are dangerous. And perhaps even more important, antibiotics are the very drugs upon which the reputation of conventional medicine has been built for the last 70 years. This base is becoming increasingly flimsy, at best, and it crumbles a bit more every time a doctor prescribes another drug to another patient.