As more people are realising that ongoing epidemics of chronic disease are caused, in large part, by pharmaceutical drugs, is this causal link even more complex than we have realised? Some 15 years ago I started to construct my “Iatrogenic Disease” ebook. My objective was to produce evidence that is usually ignored - that taking pharmaceutical drugs can lead to side effects, serious adverse reactions, and to serious illness and disease. The evidence I found, and published, all comes from conventional medical literature (click on this link). However, the link between prescribed drugs and chronic illness is still too often ignored when disease causation is discussed.
Take a look, it is entirely free to browse. It is largely the result of my years practicing as a homeopathy - consulting with so many people who were taking pharmaceutical drugs, who had developed illnesses that we clearly identified as ‘side effects’ of the drugs they were taking. Many patients, just by stopping taking the drug(s), were able to start the process of recovery from ill-health.
Yet the situation is probably more complicated than the simple sequence outlined, that is, (i) taking a drug »» (ii) side effect »» (iii) serious illness and disease. Consider, for instance, the headline on this Medscape article (dated 23 October 2025).
“Is diabetes linked to dementia. Latest evidence revealed”.
“At the 61st European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Vienna, Austria, researchers highlighted emerging evidence linking both type 1 diabetes (T1D) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) with dementia and cognitive decline”.
The implication of this ‘emerging evidence’ is that the pharmaceutical drugs that are known to cause diabetes (and there are many, see this link) can also cause, or lead to dementia - so they too might need to be added to the list of drugs that cause dementia (there are also many of these, see this link). The Medscape article looks at the emerging evidence in some detail, and it is credible, if not compelling.
Suspecting the link is one thing. Proving it would be another. But the risk of taking any of the ‘implicated’ drugs, should surely be unthinkable.
Then on 7th November 2025 Medscape published another article.
“Common OTC Sleep Aid linked to Heart Failure Risk”.
Again, there are many pharmaceutical drugs known to cause sleeplessness (there are plenty of them, see this link). Once the patient suffers from sleeplessness they are often prescribed Melatonin, and this drug now be added to the list of drugs known to cause Heart Failure. One drug leads to another drug, all to deal with the ‘side effects’ of another drug.
Heart failure is not given as a ‘side effect’ of melatonin in conventional medical literature (see this NICE link). Why? Melatonin, as a hormone, has been around since 1958, and has been considered sufficiently safe to be sold over-the-counter (OTC). Yet only now has it been associated with heart failure? It is not unusual for pharmaceutical drugs to be considered safe, only to be found unsafe many decades later. But it is worrying because it begs the question - how many more drugs are causing how much more health issues that we know little or nothing about?
Yet perhaps the most concerning development during the last few years has been been numerous studies that have linked a variety of diseases with a compromised stomach microbiome. We are what we eat. Perhaps, but first we have to be able to digest what we eat in a way that successfully utilises the food’s potential value. And we should all be aware that one of the main culprits for compromising to stomach in antibiotic drugs. Over the last 70 years we have taken antibiotics as if they were sweeties (and, of course, sweeties that are entirely safe and effective)!
Antibiotic drugs kill microbes. Most antibiotics are taken by mouth so pass directly to the stomach. The stomach microbiome is made up of a complex mixture of microbes. So is it any wonder that it has been compromised? And that as a result of this we have developed a multiplicity of chronic diseases?
My conclusion? The full extent of the harm caused by pharmaceutical drugs to human ill-health is almost completely unknown. Patients know, and we are told, about only a tiny proportion of what doctors know. And doctors know only a minute proportion of the total picture of the harm their drugs cause.
However, the outcome of the pharmaceutical drug-taking bonanza of the last 70+ years is plain to see.
Epidemics of almost any chronic disease you might wish to mention, each one continuing to grow annually.
Health service provision everywhere near breaking point.
Governments around the world bankrupting themselves by pouring ever-increasing amounts of money into yet more spending on pharmaceutical medicine.
Drug companies getting richer, and spending their profits on keeping politicians, government, the mainstream media, et al., on board.
Populations getting progressively sicker; without any understanding that the drugs they are taking are a large part of why they are sick.
This circularity can be broken only at one point. We have to stop pouring money and resources into drugs. We have to begin saying “no” to popping pills. We have to start accepting that pharmaceutical medicine has failed, miserably. And begin moving in other more positive directions - towards how we, as individuals, can live better to stay well, to take responsibility for our own health, and to look towards natural medical therapies to support us.
