Health and Politics

Our health is NOT a 'political' issue! 

I have often said this before, not least in recent years when many Americans (particularly) have begun asking on social media whether health care is better under Democratic or Republican regimes. It is not (or it should not be) a party political issue, it should be a matter solely of personal 'patient choice'.

The health treatment we are offered IS a political issue! 

Most countries have a national health system which is largely, or significantly paid for through taxation. So the health treatment we are offered depends on three important political issues, namely:

1. How healthcare is organised
2. How much is spent on it, and 
3. What the money is spent on

These three matters are certainly based on political decisions. In Britain the huge NHS organisation is wholly paid for by government, to the tune of over £200 billion annually. The NHS accounts for a very large proportion of total resources spent on health care. So the British people, and indeed the citizens of most other countries because similar considerations apply, are highly dependent on political decisions made about health care provision.

So how is politics dealing with health services in Britain (and around other countries of the world)? Let's ask the three questions.

1. How healthcare is organised? 

Whenever there are serious problem with NHS health provision the usual political response is to come up with 'solutions' that focus on how the organisation is structured. So, for example, when a new Tory government came into power in 2010 they created a new organisation, NHS England, which took over the control and direction of health care policy. It removed the NHS from direct ministerial control in the Department of Health. Similarly, when a new Labour government took office in 2024, it decided to change the organisational structure of the NHS - this time by closing down NHS England, and returning control of health policy and implementation to Ministers in the Department of Health!

Organisational restructuring has been a regular feature, particularly during times of serious crisis. And the NHS has been in ongoing crisis now for nearly 80 years! So reorganisation, restructuring, has become a regular feature, a veritable NHS Merry-Go-Round, for all this time!

2. How much money is being spent on the NHS? 

The underfunding of the NHS has been another on-going debate throughout each and every year, and every General Election, of NHS history! It has become a symbol of political virility for political parties to claim that it would spend more on the NHS than their opponents. I have written about this ongoing phenomina in 2013, outlining how electoral success has primarily rested on the ability of political party's to convince the electorate that they would spend most on health care.

The result has been spiralling health care costs, with each new government to spend more to overcome the regular and ongoing NHS crises that have developed over the years.

3. What is the money being spent on? 

The problem is that despite regular 're-organisations', and regular (often massive) increases in spending on health care provision, the NHS in Britain (and similarly health care organisations throughout the developed western world), continues to fall into ever repeating, ever deepening crises.

The political failure of health provision has been the abject failure of politicians to ask this important third question. This constitutes the most devastating political failure of the last century. 

If re-organisation does not work; if pouring more and more money into something has little or no effect; and if the situation clearly gets worse over lengthy periods of time, the very first political instinct should be to ask the three questions:

1. What are we investing in?
2. Why are these investments not working?
3. Should we not be investing in something different?

In the 80 year history of the NHS this has not happened. Nor has it happened anywhere else in the 'developed' western world. And what every single citizen, every taxpayer, should now be asking is why are our politicians are failing in the their primary duty: to ask questions, to investigate, to interrogate, to ensure that taxpayers money is being spent wisely, and to positive advantage.

If our armies were being defeated, our military ships sunk; if increasing numbers of people became destitute, dying of starvation on the streets; if our roads were regularly becoming unusable, our railways malfunctioning; if our telephone or television systems broke down; et al; we can be assured that all three of these political questions would be asked, and answers demanded.

In particular, these questions should be asked if alternative solutions were available, but excluded. Why, we should ask, is all our money being spent on one particular health system (pharmaceutical medicine) to the exclusion of alternatives? As far as health care is concerned, natural medical therapies, like homeopathy, naturopathy, herbalism, acupuncture, et al., have been effectively excluded from the NHS. They are no longer available to patients, even for to those who would want choose them. Why does 'patient choice' have no place within our NHS? Would the re-introduction of these therapies have more success in preventing the ongoing, ever burgeoning medical crises? Can studies be devised and conducted that might demonstrate whether this is so?

Instead, each year, £billions more are poured into the NHS, and the NHS spends it on the same thing - yet more drug-based medicine. We can all see the outcome for ourselves: one crisis following another, more demands for yet more £billions! This mean more people on more pharmaceutical drugs, and suffering not only from their (clearly demonstrated) ineffectiveness, but from their serious adverse reactions. Which inevitably means increasing levels of drug-induced chronic disease.

So if politicians are refusing to raise the questions, perhaps the electorate (you and me) should start asking politicians the same three questions.

• Why, with all the taxpayer money politicians are spending on our behalf, are we getting progressively sicker?
• Why is almost every chronic disease you might wish to mention now at running epidemic levels, far higher than it was in 1948 when 'free drugs' were first made available on the NHS? And why does chronic disease continue to rise?
• Why is it so hard to get a doctor's appointment? And why are waiting lists, throughout the NHS, so large, and still growing?
• Are pharmaceutical drug/vaccines really as "safe and effective" as we are being told by the pharmaceutical medical establishment? Why do politician never question this claim?
• Are drug/vaccine side effects more serious than doctors admit; and are pharmaceutical drugs, in large measure, part of the cause of chronic disease rising to epidemic levels?
• Why are pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines routinely approved by national drug regulators, only to be heavily restricted, then withdrawn and/or banned because of the patient harm they cause?
• And why have patients been allowed to take drugs and vaccines for many years/decades before they have been banned?

As Shakespeare says, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" but we need to recognise that this 'rottenness' extends throughout Europe, Britain, Canada, the USA - indeed, to wherever pharmaceutical medicine dominates health care provision. 

Why should this be?

The pharmaceutical industry is the only one that politicians, throughout the democratic world, allow to have such a dominant, monopoly position within any of the major services they provide. 

The pharmaceutical industry has regularly faced legal convictions for deception, dishonesty and fraud (Thalidomide, Vioxx, Primodos, Sodium Valproate, Blood Contamination, Opioid scandals, et al), but politicians (plus the mainstream media) consistently fail to investigate whether this is a medical system that can be trusted with huge public funds.

The pharmaceutical industry, like all large industrial interests, lobby politicians. But none do more lobbying, more intensively, with more resources, than the pharmaceutical industry! Is this the source of their political immunity?

All these are serious political questions. So we need to ask our politicians one further question - just how much influence does the industry have on the healthcare policies they support and fund?

Ropinirole (Requip) and Gambling: why checking on drug 'side effects' is a lottery

On ITV's "Good Morning Britain" this morning they featured an item about the pharmaceutical drug Ropinirole, and its 'side effect' - creating the need to gamble. The woman interviewed explained how the drug gave her an "irresistible need to gamble", which led to her accruing debts of (I believe) £70,000.

Many people will not know this drug despite taking it! Its more commonly known by its brand name, Requip. But, as usual, the same drug goes under many other different names. It is a dopamine agonist, used mainly for Parkinson's disease and restless leg syndrome. Wikipedia says that in 2022 it was the 163rd most used prescription drug in the USA. It was first approved for use (in the USA) in 1997.

I wondered if this 'side effect' was listed by the Pharmaceutical Medical Establishment; so I went to the Drugs.com website, as I have found this often provides the most comprehensive list of known side effects. The urge to gamble was not mentioned. Many other serious 'side effects' were listed and I have listed these at the foot of this blog below. So I ask the following questions.

1. Would this patient have been warned about this possible 'side effect' before taking the drug? This seems unlikely, as it does not appear on the long list of known effects!
2. Why can a pharmaceutical drug, which was tested, approved, and marketed for 28 years, cause 'side effects' that remain 'unknown' for so long?
3. How can patients exercise 'patient choice' about whether to take pharmaceutical drugs if they are not honestly informed about all the possible 'side effects'?
4. Can patients ever be safe when they agree to take prescription drugs approved by conventional medicine as "safe and effective"?

I then went to the NHS website. To my surprise it did list the gambling 'side effect'.

            "Tell your doctor or specialist nurse if; you start binge eating, gambling or shopping uncontrollably or having an unusually high sex drive – these are signs of impulse control disorder".

So should I retract my criticism? No! This raises yet more questions about taking conventional medical drugs, not least the lottery that patients face should they seek to discover the possible harm that a particular drug can cause. I have listed the 'side effects' outlined in the Drugs.com website below. The NHS website, above, does not list many of that very long list of known 'side effects'!

Why?

Just to confirm this point, take another look at the Wikipedia entry on Ropinirole.

            In November 2012, GlaxoSmithKline was ordered by a Rennes appeals court to pay Frenchman Didier Jambart 197,000 euros ($255,824); Jambart had taken ropinirole from 2003 to 2010 and exhibited risky hypersexual behavior and gambled excessively until stopping the medication.

    So excessive gambling was known about at least 13 years ago - yet it is still not mentioned by the Drugs.com website!

    And risky hypersexual behaviour is not mentioned in either the Drugs.com, or the NHS websites!

Patient choice, and the decision about whether to take any pharmaceutical drug is impossible without full, reliable, honest and transparent information!

The Side effects of Ropinirole (Requip) according to the Drugs.com website

Confusion, dizziness, faintness, lightheadedness, drowsiness, falling, nausea, hallucinations, sleepiness, unusual drowsiness, swelling of the legs, twisting, twitching, or other unusual body movements, unusual tiredness or weakness, worsening of parkinsonism (!), bloating or swelling of the face, arms, hands, lower legs, or feet, blood in the urine, blurred vision, burning, pain, or difficulty in urinating, chest pain or tightness, chills, cold sweats, cough, double vision or other eye or vision problems, fainting, fear or nervousness, feeling of constant movement of self or surroundings, high or low blood pressure, irregular or pounding heartbeat, loss of memory, mental depression, pain in the arms or legs, pounding in the ears, rapid weight gain, sensation of spinning, slow or fast heartbeat, sore throat, stomach pain, sweating, tingling of the hands or feet, tingling, numbness, or prickly feelings, trouble in concentrating, trouble breathing, unusual weight gain or loss, vomiting.

The Myths of Conventional Medical Success: Antibiotics

Ask most people about what they believe has been the most important and successful pharmaceutical drug ever produced, and most people would say, without hesitation - Antibiotics. Yet is this popular belief just another result of successful pharmaceutical promotion?

The first myth concerning antibiotics is their origins. "Antibiotics have been used for millennia to treat infections, although until the last century or so people did not know the infections were caused by bacteria." So antibiotic substances have been used in medicine from very ancient times. In Egypt, for example, it is known that mouldy bread was applied to infected wounds. The ancient Egyptians may not have known what they were doing, or why doing it worked; but clearly they were empiricists rather than medical scientists, and this knowledge was available to them; and they used it. Modern medical 'science' is not the only source of wisdom about drugs!

Science discovered bacteria in the latter part of the 19th century. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. Penicillin was manufactured and used throughout the 1939-1945 World War, not least for battle injuries and infections, and thereby gained its reputation as a "wonder drug". Thereafter the progress of antibiotic treatment continued with other serious infectious diseases, like tuberculosis, for which, hitherto, there had been no conventional medical treatment. In addition antibiotics were used to control post-operative infections, making surgery less dangerous, and so more successful.

So, in less than 100 years, antibiotics drastically changed conventional medicine, and many believe that antibiotic drugs heralded "a golden age of medicine". They worked; they killed bacteria; they were a 'miracle' cure. The result is that many claims have been made for antibiotic drugs, not least have extended the average human lifespan by over 20 years. So what is the problem?

First, antibiotic drugs confirmed to conventional medicine, which had spent some 700 years looking for 'heroic' cures, that pharmaceutical drugs would be the future of modern medicine. Where there was illness there would be a chemical agent able to deal with it. Medical science would soon conquer all illness and disease. Conventional medicine has believed this ever since.

Yet the seeds of antibiotic failure had already been sown. Following the discovery of bacteria and other microbes in the late 19th century there had been an important scientific debate about how important germs generally were in causing ill-health and disease. For many scientists, led by Louis Pasteur, thought they were the central cause of illness; and they believed that illness could be overcome simply by killing the 'offending' organism. This belief was popular with the drugs industry, which would be the main agent for discovering new drugs that would do just this. The future of medicine would be pharmaceutical.

However this belief was strongly challenged by another group of scientists, led by Antoine Bechamp, who said that it was the host (the person, the individual, and his/her immune system) that was important, not the germ. If the host was healthy, if his/her immune system was strong, the germ was immaterial; it would not cause illness. The scientific world was divided over the issue, but eventually the germ theory of disease 'won' the argument. This led to the rise of the pharmaceutical industry, which had hitherto been small, and relatively insignificant. Drug companies spent the next century pursuing more and more elaborate ways of killing germs.

It was natural health therapies, like homeopathy, herbalism, naturopathy, acupuncture, et al, that continued to focus on 'the host', who believed, like Bechamp, that looking after the body, and notably its immune system, was the safest and most effective route to good health. But this approach was sidelined, marginalised, overtaken, by the new, burgeoning pharmaceutical industry, and its search for, and the promotion of 'wonder drugs' and 'magic bullets'.

There has been two results of the use, and over-use, of antibiotic drugs over the years that are sufficiently well known, recognised by most people, and even the drug industry. These are (i) antimicrobial resistance, and (ii) the rise of new 'superbugs'. Fewer people are aware that (iii) antibiotics can, and do, kill 'good' as well as 'bad' bacteria, thus causing serious illness, and that (iv) antibiotic drugs have always been known to cause serious (but rarely mentioned) adverse effects.

1. Antimicrobial Resistance

There is no life-form that does not seek to protect itself when it comes under attack. The natural world in its entirety, always seeks to defend itself against attack. Survival is an important instinct, not only for humanity, but for plants, and other animals. Indeed, each life-form have adopted mechanisms, deeply embedded within them, for protection; and bacteria and 'germs' are part and parcel of this natural process. 

So it should be no surprise that when bacteria come into contact with antibiotic drugs they resist. It is what they are supposed to do!

The only surprise, perhaps, is that conventional medical science has never appeared to recognise that this universal response might happen as a result of their drugs - perhaps they have been too busy with their adulation of 'wonder drug'. Nor did conventional medical practitioners help themselves by selling antibiotics to patients, in ever-increasing quantities, including many who did neither needed them, or benefitted from them. Doctors have regularly prescribed antibiotics for "non-bacterial" illnesses for which they could not an effective!

Nor should it have been a surprise that patients increasingly demanded antibiotic drugs from their doctor. Over the decades antibiotics were sold as 'wonder drugs', 'miracle cures', and patients soon began to believe this constant drug promotion, reinforced as it was by government, conventional medicine, and the mainstream media - without question. Sick patients wanted to get better; and they insisted that they should be given antibiotics - regardless!

So resistance means that antibiotic drugs, that once had seemed helpful in overcoming the 'germs' associated with ill-health, have become increasingly ineffective, that no longer had even the most transitory beneficial effect of killing bacteria. Diseases once thought to be 'conquered' by them, are beginning to return. For instance, the return of tuberculosis (TB) after decades of medical claims that antibiotics had eradicated it, is now a reality. The return of this, and other diseases, confirms that any success antibiotic drugs may have had were little more than a (rather long-lasting but nonetheless) temporary illusion.

Even the conventional medical establishment began to realise that in time there would be no effective antibiotics left that would kill the germs they believed caused disease.

2. The Rise of Superbugs

A 'superbug' is a term for organisms that have developed the ability to resist commonly prescribed drugs, and have arisen entirely as the result of antibiotic drug treatment. The bugs were not just resistant, they have transformed themselves into germs that now causes serious illness. Many people will know about MRSA, Candida, and C-Difficile. But as this Healthline article reports, the USA's CDC now lists 18 bacteria that endangers human health. 

    Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter

    Candida auris

    Clostridioides difficile

    Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae

    Drug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae

    Drug-resistant Campylobacter

    Drug-resistant Candida

    ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae

    Vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE)

    Multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa

    Drug-resistant nontyphoidal Salmonella

    Drug-resistant Salmonella serotype Typhi

    Drug-resistant Shigella

    Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)

    Drug-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae

    Drug-resistant Tuberculosis

So in recent years conventional medicine has realised that it can no longer develop new antibiotic drugs, in part because the pharmaceutical industry now understands it cannot produce drugs that kill germs but do not lead to resistance; but mainly because doctors are now under pressure not to prescribe antibiotics, which reduces demand for them, and undermines the profitability of developing new antibiotic drugs.

3. Antibiotic drugs kill 'good' bacteria

Antibiotics are indiscriminate killers. They do no target the bacteria doctors want to destroy, they cause collateral damage which devastates the bacterial balance that exists normally within the body. Our bodies are made up of a multitude of so-called 'germs'; so when someone takes a course of antibiotics no-one (including drug companies and medical doctors) can be entirely sure which germs will be killed, which will survive, and how the bacterial balance will be compromised.

For instance, most antibiotics are taken by mouth, which means they pass quickly through to our stomach, and the digestive system. This immediately threatens the gut microbiome, which is a highly complex system of bacteria and other organisms that digests our food. So antibiotics interfere with the digestion of food, with serious implications for our health.

Recent research has linked the compromised microbiome with some of the most serious diseases. Notably, all these diseases have reached epidemic levels during the antibiotic 'bonanza' of the last 80 plus years, yet they have never before been associated with antibiotic drugs. This 2022 paper, "Impact of antibiotics on the human microbiome and consequences for host health" has investigated the long term effects of antibiotics on "the healthy state microbial composition problem" in some detail.

        "More recently, scientists have uncovered the detrimental impact of broad‐spectrum antibiotics on the gut microbiota. Home to bacteria, archaea, microeukaryotes, and viruses, the gut microbiota plays a fundamental role in human health. It prevents pathogen colonization, regulates gut immunity, provides essential nutrients and bioactive metabolites, and is involved in energy homeostasis (Mills et al., 2019). In infants, the gut microbiota is acquired during birth and thereafter plays an essential role in the development of infant gut immunity. Evidence to date strongly suggests that balanced microbiota composition and rich species diversity are essential to its optimal functioning (Heiman & Greenway, 2016), which can be compromised in disease states (Mosca et al., 2016). Likewise, reduced diversity and imbalanced microbiota composition in the infant's gut are associated with intestinal illnesses and a predisposition to certain diseases later in life (Milani et al., 2017; Volkova et al., 2021)

This seems to be one of those honest scientific papers that rarely (if ever) finds itself discussed, outside a small scientific medical elite within the conventional medical establishment. So the vast majority of people are not aware of what they describe, namely "the detrimental impact of broad-spectrum antibiotics on the gut microbiota". The usual wall of denial has greeted the paper: governments fails to inform us, the conventional medical establishment (as usual) continues to insist that antibiotics are "safe and effective"; and the mainstream media does not bother to investigate!

Chapter 5 of the paper outlines a multitude of studies that have linked antibiotic use with conditions such as obesity, diabetes, asthma, diarrhoea, allergy, atopic dermatitis and more. It outlines other studies which show how antibiotics, during pregnancy and infancy, can affect a child's immune system, and lead to "disease in later life, both directly and indirectly". Most serious, perhaps, is the section on 'Changes in the Immune System" which outlines several studies that "demonstrate the complex relationship between the microbiota and the host immune response, and the impact of antibiotics on this interaction which needs to be further studied. It can also impact the effectiveness of vaccines used postantibiotic treatment." 

The paper has this conclusion:

        "Antibiotics disrupt the microbial balance and hence the networking within the bacterial community, and that with the host. The resulting resistant bacteria make clinical treatment difficult. Due to this complex link between the host and microbiota, the current usage of antibiotics requires careful stewardship, with an emphasis on the application of antibiotic alternatives, while limiting collateral damage".

Obviously the paper is written by medical scientists who continue to believe that antibiotics, in some shape or form, will still have a part to play in conventional medical treatment. This is an honest position; but it is not one on which I can agree. Antibiotic drugs have been prescribed by conventional medical doctors for 80 years. They are still routinely described to patients as "safe and effective", and prescribed in ever-increasing quantities. And conventional medicine has continued to do so without any apparent awareness that antibiotic drugs could cause an increase in the diseases mentioned in the study. This makes drug-based medicine (not just antibiotics, but especially antibiotics) a inherently dangerous medical system, unaware of the dangers to which it is exposing patients. It is a medical system that can experiment with patient, giving them drugs whose 'side effects' can remain unknown 80 years!

This situation is getting worse. In a study published in October 2024, a link has been found between antibiotic drugs, the microbiome, and Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's has, to my knowledge, never been linked with antibiotic drugs before, and like most revelations about adverse drug reactions it is still being played down. 

        "In a large UK-representative population, the risk of PD was modestly lower among adults who had previously received multiple courses of penicillins in the last 15 years and modestly higher among those exposed to antifungal medicines in recent years".

I suspect the significance of this link between antibiotic drugs and serious illness and disease will only develop over time, and require many more studies. It is not possible to interfere with the human body, not least by compromising the gut microbiome which digests our food, and not cause serious damage to our health. And it is becoming clear that this is what antibiotics have been doing - for many decades.

This is probably one of the reasons that pharmaceutical companies are now talking about the development of more 'targeted' antibiotics - but again, this seems more to do with drug promotion than reality. Medical science has always proved itself to be less clever than its propaganda! And 'targeted antibiotics' would still be based upon the same failed understanding of health - that in order to be healthy we have to kill germs!

4. The other 'side effects' of antibiotic drugs

Conventional medicine still refuses to accept that antibiotic drugs have serious adverse reactions which are just as harmful as any other pharmaceutical drugs. But they do. For instance, the Drugs.com website outlines that they can commonly cause skin rash, allergic reactions, soft or watery stools, short-term diarrhoea, upset stomach, nausea, loss of appetite, Fungal (yeast) vaginal infections, oral thrush; and more seriously severe allergic reaction that results in difficulty breathing, facial swelling, severe watery or bloody diarrhoea; Clostridium difficile infection, stomach cramps, and yeast infections in the mouth or vagina. These 'side effects' have been known for decades, but they are routinely discounted.

The British NHS website says that "these side effects are usually mild and should pass once you finish your course of treatment". And even the Drugs.com website fails to list the side effects discussed in this blog. So even now the conventional medical establishment shows itself to be reluctant to disclose about weight gain, diabetes, et al, which they must know about, but clearly are not sufficiently honest to disclose. Informed patient choice is impossible within such secrecy, and lack of transparency.

So if we look at antibiotics from outside the closed walls of pharmaceutical propaganda, they cannot be described as a success. And as conventional medicine continues to describe them as "safe and effective" it is difficult for them to admit that their most acclaimed 'wonder drug' has failed. In the fullness of time, antibiotic drugs will be seen as a failure, not just because of resistance, or the development of superbugs, or serious adverse effects, but because most of the diseases they were supposed to have eradicated are now returning.

If we are to regain our health we need to revisit the Pasteur-Bechamp debate, and recognise that what is most important is the host, and its immune system; and that the body is not made well by attacking the bacteria that, far from being a threat, are an important part of staying healthy. 

Pharmaceutical medicine will refuse to do so; its enormous wealth, power and influence is based on pursuing the failed 'germ theory' of disease, and its belief in the need to control and kill the very things that keep us healthy.

This blog is one of a series of blogs that examines the myths of conventional medical success. Others in the series include:

    Eradicating Smallpox.

    Conquering Polio.

    Conquering Measles.

    Whooping Cough (Pertussin)

    The Covid-19 Pandemic

Has Medical Science Rediscovered the Immune System?

 "Scientists discover new part of the immune system"

These were the headlines of several British mainstream media outlets on 6 March 2025. The Israeli researchers said that what they had discovered "transforms our understanding of how we are protected against infection".

Of course, we have known that it is our immune system is what keeps us healthy for a very long time, although pharmaceutical medicine in recent years have been telling us that only their drugs and vaccines can keep us safe. But followers of natural medical therapies have always known about the importance of the immune system. This is how the BBC article on the discovery explains the new discovery.

        "A new part of the immune system has been discovered and it is a goldmine of potential antibiotics. (Scientists have) shown a part of the body known to recycle proteins has a secret mode that can spew out an arsenal of bacteria-killing chemicals. The researchers in Israel say it transforms our understanding of how we are protected against infection".

Well, this is brilliant! Isn't it? Perhaps we should all have known how special our immune system is in protecting us from illness and disease: but this discovery demonstrates just how clever the body is in achieving this remarkable feat, unaided, undirected. 

Apparently the discovery centres on the proteasome, described as "a tiny structure found in every cell of the body". Its main role is to "chop up old proteins into smaller chunks so they can be recycled to make new ones".  But now a series of scientific experiments (detailed in the Journal 'Nature') shows the proteasome detects when a cell has been infected by bacteria, and can then change its structure and role. "It begins to transform old proteins into weapons that can rip open the outer layer of bacteria to kill them".

The brilliance of our immune system is the reason why most people who follow natural medicine are content to rely on it to keep us fit and healthy. We certainly need to support and strengthen our immune system all the time but if we do this the secret of staying healthy, and recovering from sickness, is to rely upon it.

But this is not what conventional, drug-based medicine does. So the Guardian's article on the research adds to the headline: ... "and it could help solve our antibiotics crisis".

The antibiotic crisis to which they refer is, of course, that the pharmaceutical industry have been producing antibiotic drugs for nearly 100 years; and each one of them, in turn, has led to (i) resistance, and (ii) the development of superbugs. So pharmaceutical medicine has effectively stopped trying to replace the antibiotics as they no longer work. So an "Antibiotic Apocalypse" has been widely predicted within conventional medicine - the drugs on which they have relied for so long are no longer working, and are not going to be replaced.

So apparently medical 'science' sees this new scientific understanding of how the immune system works to be an opportunity to produce new and different antibiotic drugs! Prompted and assisted, of course, by this new knowledge about our immune system. Presumably the new drugs that might emerge can be patented by pharmaceutical companies (in order to ensure and boost profits), and to market them to an increasingly sick population.

But wait? Isn't the body already producing these 'new' antibiotics? Is it not doing so on the basis of the actual bacterial 'threat' to the health of each one of us as individuals? The research suggests that the proteasome, present in each cell, can detect a new 'problem', and reacts to it accordingly by producing a new and appropriately antibiotic? So if our body is capable of doing this for itself, why does conventional medicine need to intervene and produce its own?

This question represents the difference between pharmaceutical medicine and natural medical therapies (homeopathy, naturopathy, herbalism, acupuncture, et al). The latter seek, each in their different ways, to support and strengthen the functioning of the immune system. By contrast, conventional medicine seeks to interfere with the immune system with drugs - on the basis that 'it' knows best what our body needs.

And, in fact, this is the choice that we all have, as patients. 

    When we are fit and healthy do we have confidence in our immune system to keep us so? 

    When we are sick do we have confidence that our immune system is working to make us better? And that it needs to be supported, and left alone in order to do so?

If, as this research seems to demonstrate, that our body is capable of recognising a problem, and then can produce an 'antibiotic' capable of responding to it, why would we want a conventional doctor to 'second-guess' this natural process. 

Do we really believe that a doctor can do it better? 

Or should we not just leave well alone?

Is the Nation Sufficiently Healthy to Recruit an Enlarged Army?

Recent political events surrounding the new Trump administration in the USA have raised issues about the recruitment an enlarged armed forces throughout Europe. Almost inevitably this will ultimately lead to questions about the lack of health and fitness of our young people for military service - and this in turn may raise even more serious questions about the quality of our health services.

A 2024 study from the USA Pentagon, reported on Miltiary.com, showed that 77% of young Americans would fail to qualify for military service - without a waiver being made for being overweight, using drugs or having mental and physical health problems. A similar study in 2017 had showed that 71% of Americans would have been ineligible to serve. So this is not only a huge proportion of the population, it is a problem that is rapidly growing - a 6% increase in 7 years.

This reminded me of the problems Britain experienced during the Boer War (1899-1902), and the period leading to the First World War (1914). Throughout the Boer War, a prolonged and intense conflict in Southern Africa, there were constant concerns about the fitness, strength and suitability of the recruits to the army. Huge numbers of men had volunteered to fight but many were rejected. In 1902 it was estimated that 60% of the male population were physically unfit for military service.

In response, a Committee on Physical Deterioration was set up by the British government. The Fitzroy Report (produced in 1904) described the poor physical condition of army recruits, and recommended an urgent improvement in both living and working conditions, not least those arising from overcrowding, poverty, pollution, and parental neglect. Perhaps these findings should not have been a total surprise. It followed two centuries of extreme social upheaval - the Agrarian and Industrial Revolutions. And the report did lead to important, quite rapid social change.

The latest report from the Pentagon states that "When considering youth disqualified for one reason alone, the most prevalent disqualification rates are overweight (11%), drug and alcohol abuse (8%), and medical/physical health (7%)”. So it is not social conditions that are now causing the problem: it is drugs, including medical drugs, and a health system that is just not working. 

Moreover, the problem of recruitment to the armed forces remains in Britain.

        "The British Army has consistently fallen short of its recruitment targets ... each year since 2010, as highlighted by the recent Ministry of Defence data. The figures reveal a cumulative deficit of 22,350 in the Basic Training Starts (BTS) Targets for British Army ‘Other Ranks’, compared to the total recruitment goal of 119,530 set over the period from 2010 to 2023."

And the reason for the failure to recruit are similar to those found in the USA.

        "The total number of rejections over the last five years was 125,861, with 23,763 Commonwealth applicants turned away due to “lack of vacancies” and 76,187 rejected on medical grounds over the period." 

So over the last 5 years, ‘medical reasons’ have emerged as the foremost reason for the British armed forces to reject those who wish to join. And what we need to remember is that this rejection of 76,187 applicants follows nearly 80 years of a National Health Service, "free at the point of need", and now costing the country over £200 billion annually.

So what does that say about the quality of the medicine provided by our overly-costly NHS?

But then we may never know, as this is not a question our military, our health services, and our government, is ever likely to ask!

Sickle Cell Disease. A new treatment costing £1.65 million being offered by the NHS

Sickle Cell Disease is rightly considered to be a horrible condition. It is thought that about 15,000 people have the condition, in England alone, affecting people mainly of Black African and Caribbean heritage. It can cause intense, recurring pain, and it can be life-changing, and even life-threatening.

The NHS has announced that a new, "groundbreaking", individualised 'gene editing' therapy will be offered to patients in England on the National Health Service (NHS). Good news, then? 

The main problem is that the treatment is going to cost the already over-stretched, almost bankrupted NHS £1.65 million per patient. It is expected that 50 people per year will be offered the treatment - total expenditure of an astonishing £82.5 million per annum.

If the treatment works, this may represent excellent value - at least for 50 people every year. But the NHS spending this amount of money represents what is known, in economic jargon, as "an opportunity cost", that is, the opportunity to spend this money on other things.

Other things, for example, like spending money on the treatment of the remaining 14,950 people who currently suffer with sickle cell disease!

Conventional medicine always does this. It comes up with new, 'groundbreaking' treatments that are so expensive they are either not used, or used only by people wealthy enough to pay for their own treatment, or used with a tiny number of people at public expense.

So I have an alternative suggestion!

Earmark this £82.5 million for sickle cell disease. Divide the money between the 15,000 patients who suffer from the disease, and allow each patient to spend their £5,500 on homeopathic treatment!

Homeopathy has been treating Sickle Cell Disease for many, many years; often with complete success. Do a web search - "homeopathy, sickle cell", and see for yourself. Even if each consultation with a homeopath costs £100 per month (with remedies), not one of these 15,000 patients will have to spend more that £1,200 on their treatment. 

The remaining £4,300 could then be spent by the 15,000 sickle cell patients on celebrating their freedom from the disease.

It is time for some new, "groundbreaking" thinking about how the NHS spends public money - on treatment that actually works

The Epidemic Rise of Chronic Disease: and the Bonanza of Pharmaceutical Drug Taking: a Known Link?

We are sicker now than we have ever before. We are in the middle of a health crisis. In the 1930's 7.5% of people suffered from chronic disease in America. Today, 60% lives with one or more chronic conditions. Other 'developed' countries (countries with a high level of pharmaceutical drug consumption) show a similar trend. Life expectancy is also reducing, both for healthy life expectancy, and total life expectancy. This is where 80 years of pharmaceutical medicine has led us!

I found these figures on Twitter. They provide a general idea about the percentage increase in the incidence of chronic diseases since 1990, that is, during the last 30 years. I do not know who worked out the percentages, their absolute accuracy, or to which country, or countries they apply.

ADHD                     plus 819%
Alzheimer's             plus 299%
Autism                    plus 2,094%
Bipolar                    plus 10,833%
Celiac Disease        plus 1,111%
Chronic Fatigue      plus 11,027%
Depression              plus 280%
Diabetes                  plus 305%
Fibromyalgia          plus 7,272%
Hypothyroidism      plus 702%
Lupus                      plus 787%
Osteoarthritis          plus 449%
Sleep Apnea            plus 430%

Yet I do know, and we should all know from our own experience, that the figures are broadly accurate. Even the conventional medical establishment does not deny them (they just rarely talk about them). The rise and rise of chronic disease is rarely challenged, and never explained, by medical authorities.

This epidemic rise of chronic disease reflects the reality of our declining health. There has undoubtedly been an enormous increase in levels of illness in the last 30 years. Indeed, these figures would be far, far worse if the base year chosen had been 1950 - that is since the beginning of the consumption bonanza of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines began.

Moreover, many other chronic illnesses could have been included in this list which would have further underlined the problem in recent decades: for example, cancer, allergy, asthma, epilepsy, heart, liver, kidney, and lung disease, osteoporosis, and many others.

We are getting sicker and we should all be aware of this. There are lots of other ways of observing this trend, not least the growing pressure on health services in the drug-taking countries of the world, and the ongoing patient demands for medical treatment, and ever-increasing resources to provide them.

More and more money is now being spent on pharmaceutical medicine than ever before. So why are pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines not working? More and more of us are consuming more and more for longer and longer periods of time.

This blog has regularly pointed to the fact that there are regular announcements (through government and mainstream media outlets) of ‘medical breakthroughs’,  new 'wonder drugs' that will overcome this or that disease. So why are these ‘medical breakthroughs’ not bearing fruit, why are we not getting better?

Moreover, each new 'medical breakthrough' is costing more and more. National health services around the world, but especially in high drug-taking countries, are struggling to cope with the medical demands of increasingly sick patients. Many national health services are close to bankruptcy.

So why do we continue spending more and more on the provision of the same health services, year on year, only to discover, year by year, that all that happens is that we get sicker? For the last 20 years my suggestion has long been that it is time for us to put the two trends together!

That the increased consumption of pharmaceutical drugs/vaccines are directly linked with these massively increased levels of sickness.

However, they are rarely linked together. Increased sickness has invariably been accompanied by increased demands for, and the provision of, more £$billions to be spent on the same old (failed) medicine. So each time the vicious is replicated, more spending, and more ill-health.

So are the two trends directly linked? And if so, where is the evidence for such a link? 

The answer is simple. The link is easily and clearly explained by something that is widely known, and a matter of recrod - “drug side effects”, or “adverse drug/vaccine reactions”. Conventional medicine knows a lot about adverse drug reactions. This knowledge is published within conventional medical literature. It is readily available to anyone who wants to investigate and understand the link between ill-health and drugs. The problem is that the llink is not made by governments, or the mainstream media, or the conventional medical establishment. It is their silence on this matter that suggests that they have each become part and parcel of the pharmaceutical establishment. 

Indeed, the situation is worse than this. Government, the mainstream media, and conventional medicine are each promoting pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. They subliminally do much of the advertising for drug companies. And they usually refuse to inform patients about the link between known ‘side effects’ and increased levels of sickness.

In another recent blog I argued that when disease causation is discussed, most everything known to be, or thought to be causative of disease is mentioned; but pharmaceutical drugs are usually notably omitted. Whilst the blog focuses on dementia and Alzheimer's disease similar arguments can be made for most, if not all the other chronic diseases mentioned above. It is all there, in conventional medical literature.

So if YOU suffer from a chronic disease, what pharmaceutical drugs have you taken that might have caused your illness?

I have done the work for you! Have a look in my e-book, "Iatrogenic Disease: the disease-inducing-effects (DIEs) of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines". You will see here that over 70 of the most common chronic diseases are covered, and some of the drugs and vaccines known to cause them as "a side effect".

Yet you do not have to take my word for it. Everyone can do their own research. If you are taking pharmaceutical drugs for any illness, have a look at the 'Patient Information Leaflets' (PILs) that come with each drug packet, and with each vaccine. They all outline most (although not all) the known side effects of that drug.

The solution might be to stop taking pharmaceutical drugs. Yet do not stop taking them without consulting your doctor. Although taking them may well be causing serious illness and disease, to stop taking them suddenly can also be a problem. Drug taking is a no-win situation for the patient!

The prospect of contracting chronic disease might be terrifying. But it is time conventional medicine began to acknowledge that the drugs/vaccines they use are a significant part of the problem, and reducing drug taking is part of the solution.

And for those people who want to stop or reduce their consumption of drugs, they would do well to do what many people are now doing (and I did over 50 years ago) - to look at the role of alternative medical therapies, like homeopathy, which are invariably safer, and more effective medical therapies.