Coronavirus COVID-19. The Failure of Medical Lockdown Policy and the Political Outcome

There has been a general acceptance of the government's lockdown policy - although I hasten to say, not on this blog! However, the worm is now quite clearly turning, questions are being asked, at last, both on the streets, and in the world of politics. And it is embarrassing situation for our politicians who have locked us down now for months with no little positive outcome.

THE STREETS. Growing numbers of people, mainly younger people, are now clearly questioning the value and efficacy of lockdown policies, and this can be seen most vividly on the streets, where large crowds are congregating without any acceptance of  the 'social distancing' rules. Even the press, after months of political and medical indoctrination, are beginning to ask sceptical members of the public what they think about lockdown - and the overall consensus is that it is not working. They are right. The lockdown policy is leading to so many inconsistencies, and senseless anomalies. But people who are questioning lockdown have not analysed the basis of their opposition; they are apologetic; they do not have the evidence to defend their stance; and so they leave themselves open to criticism.

POLITICS. In most countries political differences are now replacing the consensus of recent months, not least in the UK where the official opposition is no longer slavishly supporting the government's lockdown policies. Even some MP's from the governing party are now voting against government legislation. And regional Mayors, especially in the north of England, are now opposing attempts by central government to enforce heavier lockdown policies. Yet there is no political analysis about what is happening, no understanding of why lockdown policies have failed. Indeed most opposition politicians seem to want a harder lockdown, with no clear explanation for why even more lockdown is likely to be any more successful.

So a discussion, of sorts, is beginning, but after months of indoctrination and brain washing it is not surprising that understanding about what is going wrong with lockdown is, at best, superficial, and certainly marginal to the real questions that need to be addressed. More people realise that social relationships are being damaged; that lives are being ruined; that our mental health is suffering; and that the economy is being destroyed.

The root of the problem is this; that washing our hands, social distancing, masks, lockdown policies, and even test and trace, are all aimed at chasing an invisible virus. And very clearly they do not work, and it should be clear now that lockdown itself has become the problem, not the solution.

THE FAILURE OF CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE

This failure of conventional medical policy, the only policy our doctors have, is exacerbated by attempting to measure the virus, and create fear, with the use of dodgy statistics, based on inaccurate testing, misleading information, and the use of 'damned' statistics. To mention but three:

• In Britain, 43,000 people have NOT died OF coronavirus; at least 95% have died WITH coronavirus - but OF some underlying health condition.
• There may, or may not be, lots more people diagnosed with  COVID-19 - depending on how much we can rely on the validity of the test being used to determine this. But most patients recover, fully, within a short space of time.
  
• And most people who have tested positive for COVID-19 are asymptomatic; that is, they have no symptoms of illness; that is they are not ill; their immune system is coping with the virus, just as our immune system is designed to do.

Government policy, as we have been consistently told, has always followed 'scientific advice'. This means that policy has been devised by medical scientists; that is, by leading members of the conventional medical establishment; the people who dominate and control the NHS. Conventional medicine, on its own admission, has no treatment for COVID-19. So the NHS has no treatment to offer. If a pharmaceutical drug existed that could save the lives of people who contract the virus there would be no problem. Doctors would use the drug and people would not die. As it is, however, COVID-19 patients are admitted to hospital, nurses look after them as well as they can, some survive, but many die. And all the NHS can do is to watch, with no treatment. Doctors are mere observers.

This is one of the central problems. It is embarrassing for NHS doctors to watch on, helpless, hopeless, whilst their patients die in their hospitals. It is embarrassing for government, who spend some £150 billion on the NHS every year, and rising, to see this happening. So something must be done, or at least be seen to be done. And the best they have come up with is washing our hands, social distancing, masks, lockdown, and test and trace.

THE POLITICS OF LOCKDOWN FAILURE

So I am busy politician-watching at the moment! Lockdown is palpably failing proving that chasing the virus in any form does not work; and it is becoming clear now that politician know this. The Conservative government might stick to their policy, or be forced into a tighter lockdown. The Labour opposition may come up with a different policy on lockdown. But policy remains - lockdown, or more lockdown. Yet politicians from every side admit, in their more honest moments, that tighter lockdown is unlikely to help significantly, and is more likely to increase the seriousness of social breakdown, and the destruction of the economy.

The libertarian right are, at least, addressing the political and economic damage of lockdown, objecting to the human rights violations of government policy. Yet as far as the virus is concerned they have nothing different to offer, other than allowing the infection to grow, watching on as more people are diagnosed, some are hospitalised, with many dying.

THE EVIDENCE ON LOCKDOWN EFFECTIVENESS

The Alliance of Natural Medicine has summarised the evidence that supports the effectiveness of lockdown policies. I can do it no better.

        "What’s emerging is an interesting balance of evidence: The evidence for lockdown benefit continues to be wafer-thin, with the harms caused by lockdowns increasingly outweighing any perceived or measured benefits. As we showed last week, countries that have locked down hardest have among the highest covid-associated mortalities and there is no clear association with outcomes and lockdown severity or absence. Even Dr David Nabarro from the World Health Organization has gone on record to say that governments should only ever use lockdown as a last resort."

So much for our government 'following the science'!

IS THERE A DIFFERENT WAY OF LOOKING AT COVID-19?

Why do some people contract COVID-19 and die; whilst others get better, and some remain entirely asymptomatic? Indeed, why is it that in every infectious epidemic in the history of the world many people have died, but most survive? Why is it that some people live, whilst close neighbours die? The answer was a mystery until medicine began to understand the functioning of the immune system.

Unfortunately conventional medicine, and therefore the NHS, appears to have forgotten much of what they once knew about the immune system, and natural immunity. It is perhaps too busy prescribing pharmaceutical drugs, and promoting vaccines, as the answer to all ills. So several questions arise:

• Why is our NHS not informing us about our immune system? How we can support and enhance it through diet and exercise? 

• Why is the NHS not looking at the pharmaceutical drugs are known to interfere and undermine the immune system, and so making people who take these drugs more vulnterable? 

• Why is the NHS not warning us that immunosuppressant drugs have for many people completely suppressed our natural immunity, and created patients who are completely susceptible to COVID-19, and any other infections?

• Why are natural therapies not alive and well within the NHS, working alongside conventional medical practitioners so that they can learn from each other? 

• Why is the NHS not looking carefully at the way homeopathy has been used in India, Cuba, and other countries?

Regular readers of this blog will know the answer to all these questions. We are dealing with a medical monopoly within an NHS, dominated by the pharmaceutical industry.

This is what politicians (of all colours), governments, and the mainstream media are failing to look at - because such questions have become taboo. The 'experts' politicians, governments and the mainstream media consult and use come from the same monopoly group. And if alternative medical strategies are mentioned they are ridiculed, dismissed as 'conspiracy theories'.

So TINA applies: There Is No Alternative. So most people do not know about an alternative strategy. It is lockdown or nothing. The debate is about how hard (how damaging it is to social relationships, and the economy) lockdown should be.

AN ALTERNATIVE STRATEGY

It is the alternative strategy that natural medicine offer that would save us all from the non-sense and hopeless insanity of government policy lockdown, conventional medical advice, and government policy including politicians and young people wanting to have a social life, from the hopeless insanity that is government policy.

• Focus on natural immunity; give each and every one of us the tools to measure it; give us all the information we need to support and strengthen our immune system. When natural immunity is strong there is no need to lock people down, to damage social relationships, to destroy the economy. Let them get on with their lives, engage them in helping those less fortunate.

• For those whose immunity is weak, educate and protect them; give them the information they need to support and improve their immune system; recommend they make changes to their diet and lifestyle; stop giving them the pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines that are known to harm the immune system; ban immunosuppressant drugs completely and ask natural medicine to treat the 'underlying health condition' for which they are being given. And with the protection of social distancing, masks and other protective equipment, encourage them to get on with their lives.

• Where the immune system is more seriously compromised, where there are already serious 'underlying health conditions', protect and shield them fully; work out and utilise sensible and considered lockdown measures; and again, ask natural medicine to help treat their 'underlying health condition' as best it can, and repair their immune systems as much as possible.

And above all, we should accept an alternative explanation of life and death; that any infectious epidemic WILL kill some people; they always have done; it is regrettable; but it is part and parcel of living. The task of medicine and government should be to reduce this as much as possible, without destroying everything that is important to living.

UNTIL WE REALISE THIS UNIVERSALLY APPLIED LOCKDOWN POLICIES WILL BE THE BEST WE CAN DO.

IF PHARMACEUTICAL VACCINES & DRUGS ARE SO SAFE - why don't they pay their own indemnity insurance against causing patient harm?

Do pharmaceutical drug/vaccine companies take out indemnity insurance to safeguard themselves from causing harm to patients?

Do conventional doctors have indemnity insurance to compensate patients who are harmed by the pharmaceutical drugs/vaccines they prescribe?

If we drive a car, or live in a house, we buy car and house insurance. It costs us an annual premium. The benefit is that it ensures us if anything happens that hurts us, or causes harm to other people we are compensated. It also acts as a reminder; that we need to ensure that we keep ourselves safe because if we claim on the policy too often we know that the annual premium is likely to go up, and eventually, we might even make ourselves ‘uninsurable’. 

Both these elements are part of any insurance deal. Insurers ensure us against harm; but we agree to minimise their financial risk through sensible, careful and responsible behaviour. This reduces the risk to insurers; and reduces the size of the premiums we have to pay.

Every company has to take out insurance in case they cause harm or damage either to people or property. In return businesses are obliged to take every necessary precaution in the way it works with its customers; and when they do it helps keep their premiums at reasonable levels. 

This contract between insurers and the ensured has become part and parcel of living in a world that increasingly wants to be minimise risk. Health and safety has become more important now than it has ever been before; the precautionary principle is universally applied.

Except, of course, that the precautionary principle does NOT apply to the pharmaceutical industry, or the world of conventional medicine!

Doctors have always had to pay indemnity insurance, but in the UK over 50% of insurance premiums are now paid by government. I have written about this in 2016 and 2017, when doctors were complaining that their indemnity insurance premiums had become too high for them to pay, and government stepped in to pay them. For more details click on these links.

• What happens when doctors harm patients?
• What happens when doctors harm patients? (2)
• Indemnity. What happens when doctors harm patients? (3)

             "Indemnity insurance enables doctors to harm patients without facing the full financial consequences of doing so. For the conventional medical establishment this is important; after all, they are dealing with dangerous drugs and vaccines every day. Doctors give them to patients on the basis that they are safe, in the full knowledge that they are not only unsafe, but cause diseases far worse than the conditions for which they are prescribed, and will actually kill a certain percentage."

Pharmaceutical drug companies, too, try to ensure themselves against the harm their drugs and vaccines cause, and increasingly their ‘premiums’ are now being paid by governments too. This is the situation in the USA, for instance, particularly for vaccine damaged patients. What this means is that when pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines cause serious patient harm it is the government who pays the compensation!

As patients it is important that we all recognise this. It means that drug companies, and conventional medicine generally, are being absolved from much of the financial liability for the harm they cause to us. They no longer have to worry about increased insurance premiums as they do not pay them.

What this means is that the medical profession no longer has to be as careful about our safety, like when you or I are driving our cars!

If the government started to pay for our car insurance, would this ‘absolve’ us from causing a road accidents, or injuring, harming and killing other people? Of course not! But at least we would not have to worry about paying increased insurance premiums! This is the position of doctors, and drug companies now; they do not have to worry about the safety of what they are doing to us.

The situation is actually worse than this! Conventional medicine is the only industry (tell me if you know another) that does not have to worry about the precautionary principle. If you refused to wear a hard-hat, or proper footwear on a construction site, if you did not sit on an ergonomic officer chair in an office, if you were regularly subjected to loud noises with ear protection, if you worked on a roof without suitable safety measures - etc., etc., - these matters would be a problem in most industry. The company would take action against the employee. The H&S executive would take action against the company.

The company remains liable for any harm caused to us.

Yet pharmaceutical companies have no such worries. They can bring out drug after drug, vaccine after vaccine, all known to have serious side effects; and they can profit from them without fear of any financial penalty. Similarly, doctors can prescribe these same drugs to patients even when they are aware of the serious adverse drug reactions they can cause.

No other industry would be allowed to get away making excuses, stating that the drug is "safe" or "well tolerated", or that the ‘benefits outweigh the risk’. The amount of illness, disease and death caused by conventional medical treatment would not be accepted by any other industry. We regularly hear about new discovered and harmful ‘side effects’ caused by drugs and vaccines that conventional medicine has been using for years, decades - and yet still nothing is done to protect patients from the harm they are known to cause.

This is not only extraordinary, it is an unparalleled situation. No other industry is absolved from doing harm in the same way that conventional medicine is. And we are all paying for it by levels of chronic illness, often the result of side effects, that have never been known before.

This is why going to see a doctor, or to the hospital, is now one the most dangerous thing we ever do in our lives.

• Take this pharmaceutical drug - just be careful and report any side effects.
• You don’t need to wear a hard hat - so long as you are careful (?!!?)
  

If conventional medicine will not look after us, we must look after ourselves. This is why I no longer see a doctor, and keep well clear of hospitals. I am thankful that I discovered homeopathy, 40 years ago; I don’t need them any more. 

But be warned!

We are told that the solution to coronavirus COVID-19 is a vaccine. So, supported by government funding, lots of drug companies are rushing to produce a new vaccine. And they are all eager to discount any risk to themselves if this rushed vaccine proves to be harmful to patients.  

So governments around the world have indemnified them from this threat. If patients are harmed by these new vaccines they will not have to pay the compensation - the government will - the taxpayer will - and that's you and me!

SO ANY INCENTIVE DRUG COMPANIES MIGHT HAVE HAD TO ENSURE THAT THESE NEW VACCINES ARE SAFE IS SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED! WILL YOU TRUST THEM?

NHS in Crisis (Autumn 2020). Coronavirus COVID-19 is confirmation that conventional medicine is failing us

The NHS is now in a constant financial crisis. Coronavirus COVID-19 may be clouding the overall picture but look underneath the bluster and panic the pandemic has caused and there is, in effect, no difference to the annual NHS crisis which I have been describing for the last 10 years (to see this series of blogs, type 'NHS in Crisis' in the search bar above). The main features of the crisis, every year, are:

• The NHS is a prisoner of the conventional medical establishment, which has no effective treatment for most chronic disease, and all infections; coronavirus is just another infection.
  
• People get sick, become patients, and as the NHS has little effective treatment, they do not get better; they continue to be sick, and in need of treatment.
  
• Most treatment involves patients taking pharmaceutical drugs and vaccine, and the main outcome is that they actually get sicker - through their well-known adverse drug reactions which are outlined in conventional medicine's own literature.
• As people don't get better, and conventional medical treatment makes them sicker, demands for health services increase, and the NHS cannot meet demand for treatment; it causes a financial crisis, and the NHS demands more money for more treatment; treatments that do not work, and made us sicker.
  
• The government provides more money, which increases the amount of largely ineffective, and harmful treatment; this leads to an increasing patient demand for medical services, and NHS demands for yet more funding.

And so the crisis perpetuates itself, year by year. The main result is that the NHS is now a gigantic organisation, built upon its ongoing failure to meet patient treatment needs, plus the willingness of successive governments to fund this growing monster.

So how has coronavirus COVID-19 changed this situation?

1. Coronavirus COVID-19 is an infection for which conventional medicine has no treatment. This is not new, but faced with an new, highly infectious disease, the NHS has been scared into a full-scale panic. It fears that demand for treatment, by sick people, it will be overwhelmed, and thousands of patients will die. The government has bought into this fear, that the NHS will be overwhelmed, and this has led to its central strategy - to "Save the NHS", which has become its constant mantra.
2. The absence of effective treatment for COVID-19 is not a new phenomenon for the NHS. Conventional medicine has always had a paucity of effective treatment - for any illness. The inability of the NHS to treat serious illness and disease successfully is the reason for its failure, and has been an integral part, the major cause, of the ongoing annual NHS crisis.
3. COVID-19 has certainly increased the degree of panic within both government and the NHS. Although the number of patients hospitalised, and the number of people dying have not been significantly greater than in other recent years, the policies of panic we are witnessing are doing unprecedented harm to our social life, and to our economy.
4. The pandemic has, however, led to the cessation/postponement of many other NHS treatments for illness and diseases far more serious than coronavirus. Routine testing, treatments and operations have been stopped in order to provide the NHS with greater capacity to deal with COVID-19 patient. In recent years this has been done during the annual winter crises, but this year this has been  extended through the summer, and into the autumn; and is likely to continue until the spring - at least. The result is that waiting lists have gone through the roof, and it is expected/feared that this may lead to an increased number of non-coronavirus deaths, almost certainly more than the deaths caused by COVID-19.
5. SO FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME THE NHS HAS HAD TO ADMIT THAT IT CAN NO LONGER TREAT EVERY PATIENT, IT CANNOT COPE WITH THE LEVEL OF SICKNESS AND DISEASE THAT EXISTS.
   
6. The coronavirus panic has also been successful in removing any semblance of financial constraint. The nation's coffers are now wide open. After 10 years of austerity the new Conservative government, elected in December 2019, was already planning to increase spending on the NHS by £billions. Now it has discovered the 'magic money tree' so that it can spend much more than it had planned on health services.
   
7. The current crisis is no longer seasonal, it has now stretched beyond the winter, in the spring and summer, and now into the Autumn and winter. It has become an annual event lasting a full year. Will this continue? We will see
   
8. The only sign of an NHS (conventional medicine) saviour is a new vaccine, which does not exist, which is being rushed through its trials, at enormous cost to government and taxpayer (and enormous profit for the pharmaceutical industry).
   

So the NHS crisis of 2020, which will now run through the winter into 2021, is merely an extension of what I have been writing about over the years. It is no different. There may be no NHS demands for increased resources but this is because it has now been given a blank cheque; effectively it can now spend whatever it wants to spend, regardless of whether it will bankrupt the national economy. 

And whatever money the NHS spends it will be spent on more conventional medical treatment, which will once again prove to be ineffective, and add to the level of sickness - as it has done now for decades.

The vaccine, for instance, will be rushed through the testing process; the people who have become sick in the vaccine trials to date will be forgotten; or paid off; it may not be effective (no vaccine for any strain of coronavirus has ever been effective); it will cause more patient harm (our government has already recognised it is likely to harm patients by agreeing to indemnify drug companies from any harm their vaccine causes).

Perhaps there are two changes that the coronavirus COVID-19 panic might bring about. First, it will throw the NHS more deeply into crisis, a more permanent crisis. Second, the disastrous social and economic outcomes of the pandemic will bring to people's attention to the failure of conventional medicine. 

• Why is it that we cannot see our relatives in hospital, in care homes, or even attend their funerals?
• Why is it that we cannot hug our grandchildren?
• Why is it that we cannot socialise with our friends?
• Why is it that our freedoms and liberties being undermined?
  
• Why is it that we have lost our job in what were viable, profitable companies and industries?

The outcome of Coronavirus COVID-19 might just be that it leads to a re-assessment of a system of medical care that kills, allows patients to die, destroys economies, and social life - as the result of an infectious disease?

There are so many questions gradually surfacing now amongst the people. The are arising from the inadequacy and failure of hand-washing, social distancing, lockdowns, and similar policies - all seeking to 'chase the dreaded virus'. 

Any successful medical system would not be chasing the virus. This has always been a pointless task; we have always shared our world with bugs, bacteria and viruses. An effective medical system would, instead, be ensuring that we all, each one of us, focused on our immune system, and how we are able to strengthen and support our ability to cope with infections. 

And this is just what homeopathy, and other natural medical therapies do; and have been doing throughout the pandemic.

DRUG REGULATION. Reporting Pharmaceutical Drug Side Effects. Do doctors take their responsibility seriously?

Conventional medicine admits that pharmaceutical drugs can produce serious adverse reactions to our health; in other words, that they can do harm to patients. However, as this blog will demonstrate, doctors usually fail to report serious drug side affects do so with their patients.

After the Thalidomide tragedy of the 1960's, a comprehensive system of drug regulation was introduced, designed to stop patients being harmed by drugs. It is still in operation today; or at least it should be. (To read a critique of drug regulation, as it exists throughout the world, click here). An important part of the regulatory process was the reporting of side effects to the drug regulator.

In addition, this blog has regularly referred to several studies that have demonstrated that only between 1% and 10% of drug side effects (at best) are ever properly reported.

My recent experience of two NHS patients, both of whom I know well, have demonstrated that the process of drug regulation, and in particular the reporting of drug side effects, is not working. And it is not working because conventional doctors are not using the reporting system, but actively ignoring it.

This situation raises serious questions about whether patients can make an informed choice, about health freedom and patient choice, and the honesty of conventional medicine.

• All adverse drug reactions, or 'side effects' as they are euphemistically called, are supposed to be reported by doctors, not as a matter of personal judgement, but as a matter of routine.
• And doctors are supposed, if not obliged, to tell their patients of the known and suspected side effects of the drugs they prescribe.
  

TP. The first patient is a woman in her late 80's. Only a year ago I commented on her health; that she was so well for her age, fit and fully active, and on no medication (except for eye drops taken for her long-term glaucoma). I linked these two facts together, as I always do; people who do not take pharmaceutical drugs remain healthier for longer. 

Then TP went to see her doctor as she was worried (she is an inveterate worrier) about her high blood pressure. She was given drugs, and her health has deteriorated seriously since that time.

Her doctor gave her Amlodipine for the high blood pressure. This drug has a long list of side effects; but her doctor did not tell her about these; and TP did not read the Patient Information Leaflet (PIL). So few people ever do - they assume that their doctor will not give them drugs that will do harm. So when, over the next few months, TP began to complain of slow and irregular heartbeat, fatigue, joint and muscle pain, loss of appetite, nausea, swelling of ankles and feet, difficult urination, dizziness, anxiety, depression, and loss of memory, I suggested that these were not the result of old age, or high blood pressure (as she assumed, and other people told her) but were adverse drug reactions to Amlodipine.

This is not a popular diagnosis! Certainly, when this possibility was mentioned her doctor did nothing; even though she is supposed to know about adverse reactions, and to report them when potential side effects are reported by a patient. And TP herself did nothing; on the basis that her doctor would not give her anything that would cause such problems.

So the situation continued. TP's health declined until she was admitted to hospital, where she stayed for 3 days. When she was discharged the drug regime had changed. She had been taken off Amlodipine, but now she was taking 3 drugs, Bisoprolol, Losartan, and Eliquis. Again, hospital staff did not tell her about the side effects of the new drugs, and she did not did bother to read the PILs which came with them. For 2-3 weeks she seemed to be much better; relief was expressed that the hospital had sorted out her medication, which was now working properly. 

But gradually she became unwell again, with many of the old side effects returning, and a few new ones. The worst of these was increasing short-term memory loss and confusion. Her friends were now worried that she was suffering from dementia, after all, she was in her late 80's now.

I pointed out, in vain, that all the 3 drugs she was now taking were known to cause 'confusion'. It was a 'side effect' clearly stated on each of the PILs. 

But obviously (sic) a hospital specialist would surely not put her on drugs that might harm her. So she continued taking them, and her confusion got worse, quite quickly. TP's doctor was informed, and also asked whether the 3 drugs might be the cause of her confusion. This suggestion seemed to make little difference; the drugs were not stopped, even temporarily. Yet if her drugs were causing confusion the problem could be treated simply, and probably resolved, by taking her off the drugs!

But conventional medicine is loathe to admit that pharmaceutical drugs can cause serious illness and disease, even when their literature tells them that it does. So instead she was sent for a blood test. And her doctor informed her that she would be given a dementia test. 

"First, do no harm" does not appear to be something that is alive and well within conventional medical practice.

SL. The second patient is a man in his late 40's. SL is not someone who supports conventional medicine, he has been a user of homeopathy for most of his life. However, following an sport-related accident, which led to headaches, and difficulty finding words, he was given an MRI scan which, to everyone's surprise, discovered a sizeable tumour on his brain. He was sent for another, more detailed MRI scan; but this time he was to have an injection - to improve the quality of the scanned image. SL told me that he asked the doctors what the injection was, but they were reluctant to tell him. Eventually, at his insistence, he was told it was Gadobutrol (Gadovist). He insisted on having the box, and the PIL that came with the drug, so that his homeopath could have a look at it. This is how the PIL describes the side effects of Gadivist - click here to read the PIL for yourself.

"The most serious side effects (which have been fatal or life-threatening in some cases) are:

• heart stops beating (cardiac arrest) and severe allergy-like (anaphylactoid) reactions (including stop of breathing and shock).

 

In addition for the following side effects life-threatening or fatal outcomes have been observed in some cases:

• shortness of breath (dyspnoea), loss of consciousness, severe allergy-like reaction, severe decrease of blood pressure may lead to collapse, stop of breathing, fluid in the lungs, swelling of mouth and throat and low blood pressure."

Thousands of people, throughout the world, have MRI scans, every day; and it seems likely that most of them, the vast majority, either do not bother to ask about either the side effects of the scan, or this drug; do not read the PIL; and are not told about its dangers by doctors.

The Gadovist PIL went on to describe a multitude of other known (and officially accepted) adverse reactions caused by the drug, although as usual they are always heavily discounted.

• "Like all medicines, this medicine can cause side effects, although not everybody gets them".
• "In rare cases".
• "Uncommon".

Yes, they many indeed be uncommon and rare....

• if very few side effects are reported by doctors; 
• if known side effects are routinely kept from patients by their doctors; 
• if , when side effects are mentioned, they are accepted or properly reported by doctors; 
• if patients are not told, and discouraged from finding out about drug side effects;
  
• and not encouraged to report them when they experience them.

Both these cases demonstrates that all is not well with drug regulation, the system designed to keep patients safe, and free from the harm pharmaceutical drugs are known to cause. Moreover, they suggest that it is the doctors, the people who are supposed to administer the system, who are largely to blame.

If these two cases are typical of what is going on within conventional medicine, and my experience is they are, then drug regulation is not happening, it is being circumvented and ignored. 

This means that patients are routinely at risk of harm. Informed patient choice and health freedom cannot exist without full and freely available information. And it would appear that this is not provided - unless patients (like SL) actually demand it.

 

DANGEROUS DRUGS? It's not just the harm they cause to our health: beware the fact that doctors don't tell us about them!

The problem with pharmaceutical drugs is not only that they cause serious harm to our health; it's the fact that doctors do not tell us about them; and frequently deny it.

I recently answered a question on the Quora forum from someone who was taking the harmful side effects of the ADHD drug, Adderall. This was my answer - an answer that is relevant to ANYONE and EVERYONE who is taking ANY pharmaceutical drug.

          "Your question is what concerns me about conventional medicine generally, not just for yourself, but for other people who allow doctors to prescribe dangerous and harmful pharmaceutical drugs for any illness. It’s not just that drugs like Adderall are prescribed to patients; much more serious is that patients are NOT told about the harm they can cause. The dangers of pharmaceutical drugs are well known; but so often conventional doctors do not tell their patients about it; they discount them as ‘side effects’; they are not up-front about the ‘permanent effects’ of taking them."

I provided a link that outlined some of the side effects of Adderall, Adderall Side Effects: Common, Severe, Long Term - Drugs.com, but then emphasised that although some were listed  as ‘rare’ or ‘uncommon’, their rarity was down to the fact that most doctors routinely and consistently fail to report drug side effects to the regulatory authorities.

This is (one of) the many reasons why there is so much chronic illness around now; chronic disease epidemics have largely been the result of the trust we have placed, and continue to place, on conventional medicine, and our doctors. 

We have been doing this now for 70–100 years - and EVERY chronic disease you might care to mention is now at running at epidemic levels. Plus there are now so many 'new' and ‘rare’ diseases that have no conventional medical explanation, but likely conventional medical causes. So I ended with a plea, which I repeat here - for everyone.

Please, please read about these so-called drug ‘side effects’, and do so BEFORE you start taking them. Take the information seriously; don't rely on the reassurance of doctors; make an informed decision about whether you wish to risk adverse drug reactions.

And then, begin to do what so many other people are now doing - look at natural medical therapies, like homeopathy, naturopathy, osteopathy, chiropractor, acupuncture, et al, for safer and more effective medical treatment.

The Three Serious Outcomes of Coronavirus COVID-19. The Threat to Social Relationships. The Destruction of the Economy & Jobs. Personal Freedom & Liberty

Conventional Veterinary Medicine culls animals and birds in the name of 'medicine' because of infections like Foot and Mouth, Swine and Avian Flu - even the culling of badgers because of bovine TB. And they call it 'treatment'. So I have wondered for some time what similar nonsense conventional medicine would come up with if humanity was ever faced with a 'killer' virus.

Now we know. Conventional medicine admitted early in the crisis that it had no treatment for Coronavirus COVIS-19. As a result, the first 'treatment' was to scare everyone about its seriousness, to create fear, to frighten us into compliance. It was likely that over 500,000 might die. 

Fear was required in order ensure that we conformed to the only treatment conventional medicine had to offer; we had to wash our hands, socially distance, go into social lockdown, and eventually to wear masks we were initially told were useless. At least we were not to be culled, we were spared the fate of animals and birds.

And fear ensured that we all conformed, and went into lockdown. The media has also conformed; until recently it has tirelessly relayed the governments medical message, and ruthlessly refused to ask the important questions this blog has been was asking for the last 7-8 months. The media consistently and unquestioningly supported the government line. For months no opposing voice was ever heard, it was never allowed to be heard. And if there was an opposing voice it was ridiculed and attacked.

Now, after some 9 months of nonsense conventional medical policies, all based on the advice of science, medical science, there is a growing realisation that life is going to have to return to 'normal'; that the current restrictions are unacceptable.

There are three areas, in particular, that now have to be addressed. And after an extensive period of obsession with an 'untreatable' virus, the mainstream media is beginning - just - to discuss them; they are being forced to do so because growing numbers of people know there is something serious wrong, not working, with conventional medical strategy. 

So why is the strong alliance between  government and the mainstream media breaking down? And why now? Why have critical voices, previously censored, begun to be heard - after all this time? The answer tells us much about the mainstream media, our so-called 'free press'. 

Fundamentally, the media will toe the dominant (government/corporate led) line until such time that this line is no long viable, can no longer be supported.

Three serious issues, the main long term consequences of the nonsense policies pursued by governments around the world, and promoted by conventional medical science, are now forcing the media to discuss them.

1. Social Life and Family Relationships

Social lockdown has produced many unpalatable and unacceptable consequences.

• Hospital visiting has been stopped, preventing close friends and relatives visiting even the most severely sick patients. People have entered hospital, suffered for days, weeks and months, without being able to see those who love and care for them, or being to benefit from the moral support they could have received from them.
• Funerals have been conducted with attendances heavily restricted to a handful of people who would otherwise have attended.
• Weddings have suffered seriously, with perhaps the doubtful advantage of having the option of postponement.
• Grandparents have been unable to see or hug their grandchildren.
• People in relationships have been unable to meet with their friends and lovers.

 An increasing number of people are now demanding to know why, they are questioning the non-sense of such a policy, they are asking why these measures have not worked.

2. Jobs and the Economy

Government policy is in the process of destroying the economy, people are losing their jobs, unemployment is rising, and likely to rise considerably further in the months to come - all as a result of government policy, based on the 'science' of conventional medicine.

For 10 years, prior to the onset of Coronavirus COVID-19 in early 2020, three Conservative-led governments have responded to the 2008 financial crisis with a policy of severe austerity. This was the correct economic policy for such times - restrict spending on education, law and order, local government, the armed forces - everything except health spending and the NHS. Then, faced with an epidemic, the conservative government  began to spend money from what it has described, dismissively, as 'the magic money tree'. After 10 years of damaging austerity the government was suddenly prepared to spend any amount of money, even silly amounts of money on 'moon missions', committing it to borrowing £billions - all because of a viral infection for which conventional medicine had no treatment, and in order to 'save the NHS' which had no treatment, and could only care for people as they died.

Simultaneously it locked down the economy. No one except essential workers were allowed into work; whole industries were closed down; staff were put on an expensive furlough scheme. Expenditure commitments increased whilst income from taxation reduced.

Yet none of this expenditure was able to stop that loss of jobs, the unemployment; and consequently the number of people who are angry, and are beginning to ask if this intentional destruction of the economy was for a good reason.

3. Personal Freedom and Liberty

If social life, and the economy, were put at risk, uprooted by coronavirus COVID-19, a third casualty soon became apparent. In order to ensure that nonsense medical policies could be introduced, and enforced, governments around the world introduced laws that now threaten personal freedom and liberty. In the UK, legislation was quickly enacted to give the government powers to control the spread of the virus, but which now seriously threatens our time honoured personal freedoms and liberty. In the UK the legislation was called the Coronavirus Act, and it was designed to 5 things:

1. to contain and slow the spread of the virus,
   
2. to ease legislative and regulatory requirements,
   
3. to enhance capacity and the flexible deployment of staff across essential services
   
4. to manage the deceased in a dignified way,
   
5. to suppose and protect the public to do the right thing, and follow public health advice.

All this seemed perfectly reasonable, understandable, acceptable; especially after most people had been scared stiff by reports of the serious nature of the infection - predictions (500,000 people might die, et al) that have never materialised. But this was legislation that would enable to government to impose strict limitations of people's freedom and liberty - even when it became clear that government policy was not working.

The Price for an Untreatable Virus

These have been the main three costs to humanity when faced with an (allegedly) killer virus. Unlike the animal world we have not been culled - like veterinary medicine has imposed on cows, pigs, poultry and badgers! But we are paying, and certainly will be paying, every price short of this.

 All for a virus that is not particularly dangerous!

• death figures - it has been calculated that 95% of those who have died have other, underlying illnesses: they have died with coronavirus, not of it.
  
• note, the dangers of the virus used to be calculated by the number of deaths; now it is being measured by the number of cases because deaths are nowhere near the levels of earlier this year.
• The total number of deaths, caused by all causes, have not been significantly higher, if at all, when compared to previous years.
  

So all this has arisen from the same common denominator:  the extraordinary inability of pharmaceutical medicine to treat an infectious disease - something that has never been discussed.

"Breaking Up With Fear and Conformity" by Tessa Lina

This lovely poem, which expresses the feelings of so many people about health and freedom during this 'pandemic', was published by Off-Guardian.com on 4th October 2020.

 Data’s rotten,
Tests are toast.
News is sullen,
Coast to coast.

Feudal darkness
Here and now!
To the masters
Peasants bow.

Facts are fiction,
Love is screen.
Gossip’s trending,
Trends are mean.

Hear, hear,
Where’s the joy?
Ask Alexa.
She’ll annoy.

This is a breakup letter. I am breaking up with fear.

Farewell, my clean and proper friends. I’ve had enough. I am not interested in your scarecrows and rules of good behavior.

I did my time inside the cage, and now I intend to breathe.

Your air is stale with gossip and anxiety. It’s suffocating. It’s low on oxygen. I can’t.

Your safe space is for crippled animals.

I feel bad for you but I don’t owe you self-abuse.

I really can’t do this anymore. I tried and tried and tried—but my fear is no more, and it’s time to say good bye. It’s not me, it’s you. The heroes you pray to insist that I betray my heart and intellect. I can’t do that. I am not a slave. You do it if you want but you have to let me be.

Perhaps I’ve never belonged in the cage of good behavior. Perhaps, I’ve always been unshackled.

This world is full of love and beauty.

This world does not belong exclusively to you or whomever has hurt you and made you proudly, complacently obedient.

You are not the owner of everyone’s descriptions of things and ways to think. My relationship with language, with the mystery of life and with the physical world around us is important to my heart, and you don’t have any say in that.

Thus, your influence over my language is over. Your convictions and hangups have nothing to do with me.

So please do what’s best for you, and I’ll do the same, with love and hope for truth. I wish you well, and I am not scared of your ghosts.

If I can be of help to you in a dignifying way that doesn’t require my self-betrayal, I am around with all good vibes. Just don’t hate me for not kneeling before your fears.

I feel like a kid again, free from adult confusions, curious about everything, attracted to freedom and aliveness, and drawn to my fellow travelers whose spirits are pure and whose minds are interesting.

Please spare me the shaming and the boring Pravda-like clichés, they won’t convince me, they will only prolong the agony of parting.

I’ve been waiting for this moment my entire life. Farewell.

We’ll meet again.

 

Tessa Lena is a Russian-born musician living in New York, you can read more of her work at her blog Tessa Fights Robots.