"A complete healthcare system failure"
These are the words of Dr Aseem Malhotra, an NHS cardiologist. His criticism of conventional medicine can be seen in this Daily Mail article, and he could be heard on BBC Radio 4' 'Today' programme today (24th February 2014).
I must admit to being surprised to hear the BBC interview with Dr Malhotra this morning, first because a senior doctor has seen fit to make such statements, and second, the BBC actually featuring anything that is the least critical of pharmaceutical medicine!
Basically, Dr Malhotra is one of six senior doctors, including Sir Richard Thompson, formerly the Queen's former physician, who have criticised the influence of pharmaceutical companies on the NHS. They are calling for a Public Enquiry into the effectiveness of pharmaceutical drugs, and their safety. They are complaining about several matters
- the prescription of too much medicine
- the biased funding of medical research (on drugs likely to be profitable rather than useful)
- commercial conflicts of interest
- biased reporting in medical journals
- biased reporting in the media
Patients have faced a news blackout on the dangers and ineffectiveness of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. We have had an embargo on informing the public about the fraudulent activities of drug companies. We have not been informed about the commercial conflicts of interests that clearly exist in the running of drug regulation agencies throughout the world, including the UK's MHRA, and NICE.
Today, the six senior conventional doctors are calling for a 'health debate', something I wholeheartedly support, and have been asking for in a series of blogs in 2012.
In his interview this morning on BBC Radio 4, Dr Malhotra gave some figures from FDA (the USA drug regulator) who estimate that 120,000 people died in 2014 from the adverse reactions to drugs, which was a tripling of these deaths in the last 10 years. He also referred to research which estimated that there were about 1/2 million deaths caused by pharmaceutical drugs in the USA and the European Union together.
Michal Husain, the interviewer, tried to keep to the BBC's traditional line, in support of the pharmaceutical industry.
"These are sweeping allegation, what is your evidence..?
"There are always going to be links between doctors and drug companies... that this their work"
"Drug companies and others would say there was always risks when you take medication"
Yet the figures of deaths given by Dr Malhotra are clearly an underestimate of the damage caused by conventional medical drugs and vaccines. He did not, for instance, speak about the illness and disease they caused, which are routinely dismissed as 'side effects' but which really underlay the epidemics of disease we are currently experiencing. And the death figures cited will not include all those people who have died, but their death have not been associated with pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines on death certificates. There must be literally millions more deaths caused by conventional medication which goes unrecorded. I spoke of one case in my blog "Alzheimer's Disease and the 'Flu vaccine', where a woman died of 'dementia', according to the death certificate, but had received a serious of 'flu vaccinations prior to this.
Is this going to be the start of a new openness in discussion conventional medicine? Will the Government and the NHS pick up on these concerns, and call for a public enquiry? Or will these doctors be ostracised, their reputations attacked, and their careers curtailed? (Andrew Wakefield springs to mind).
And will the media pick up on the request for a health debate? Or will all go quiet again? Will the BBC continue to herald new 'medical breakthroughs', as they have always done, for instance, with Statin drugs? And will they continue to ignore the dangers of conventional treatment, as they have always done, notably with Statin drugs? Dr Malhotra raised the issue of Statins, to illustrate his arguments this morning. On his twitter account, I have noted that several people have asked to learn more about his criticism of these drugs. Will it happen? Will the BBC pick this up? After all, Dr Malhotra is a cardiologist!
We will have to wait and see. But at least it is clear that there are a few doctors within the conventional medical establishment who are willing to present their fears - about 'an epidemic of misinformed doctors and patients', and a 'complete healthcare system failure'.
