Okay! I think vaccines are harmful, so now I'm a Russian Agent! What has happened to the health debate?

Yesterday I posted several of my blogs on the MMR vaccine, and its links to the creation of Autism as a disease. Today the mainstream media is saying that I, and many other people of like mind, am repeating Russian lies, spreading false information about the flu, measles and other vaccine. The Mirror seems to be leading this story, but the rest of the mainstream media, the Sun, the Express, the Telegraph, and of course the BBC, are joining in.

They all provide the story, with the same words, almost identical headlines, which suggests that they are, as usual, singing from the same hymn sheet, the same press release, the same propaganda. "UK lives in DANGER because of Russian propaganda and fake news over MMR jabs" states the Express. They continue.

               "Experts have previously warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin's government has been trying to erode trust in US and European Governments by spreading lies on social media and 'fake news'. But now it is feared the Kremlin is using the same techniques of misinformation over flu jabs and the MMR measles vaccine. This is all about destabilisation by external forces. War is ever changing and becoming much more cyber-based. For generations, governments in the UK and the West have been extremely worried about destabilisation from external forces." (My emphasis).

Apparently these are the words of Chris Phillips, former head of National Counter Terrorism Security Office, who said it has become "a threat to daily life". The Express article then quotes Public Health England, and the Royal College of GPs, who have "repeatedly expressed concern" over the amount of 'fake news' shared on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

So clearly I am a Russian agent, an external force, spreading misinformation, fake news, and causing destabilisation, and eroding trust in US and European Governments! 

Or am I? Are my blogs 'misinformation', 'fake news'? Or is the underlying problem here the censorship of the media's coverage of important health issues?

Underlying this whole story are people, like myself, who genuinely believe that there is clear and undeniable evidence that the MMR vaccination is causing harm to children, particularly in creating the new disease of Autism. My concerns have been around for decades,  and particularly since the late 1990's. But then, in the early 2000's there were several studies that proved conclusively that there was no link between the MMR vaccination and Autism. Since that time, the mainstream media has refused to cover the concerns, there has been no further coverage, debate has ended.

So has the issue gone away? No, it certainly has not. Those who question the safety of vaccines, all vaccines not just the MMR, have used the social media to raise important and ongoing safety issues that arise, and we have done so mainly because the mainstream media have refused to do so.

So let me make an offer to the security forces, to the pharmaceutical industry, and to the mainstream media. I will take down this blog, and stop posting on social media, if the following issues are fully and openly discussed in future, as and when necessary.

• If vaccines are entirely safe, why are so many victims of vaccine damage paid $millions by the US Vaccine Court after they have suffered vaccine damage?
• Why have governments around the world given the pharmaceutical industry indemnity against any legal or financial claim for compensation?
• If it is not vaccines, what is the cause of the epidemic rise in Autism, why is a disease unknown in the 1940's now affecting at least 1 in 10 children?
• Why has the author of an important study that 'proved' there was no link between the MMR vaccine and Autism admitted that he and his team destroyed evidence that would have proved otherwise? Why has this never been discussed in the American Congress?
• How effective is the flu vaccine, when for the last several years after flu seasons studies have shown that it has only minimal effectiveness?
• Why is the health of so many fit, healthy, normal young girls been so completely compromised and destroyed after they are given the HPV vaccine?
• Why is it that when there are outbreaks of mumps and measles it is vaccinated children who contract the illness rather than the unvaccinated?
• Why is it that so many older people, and now so many younger people, suffer with dementia? Is the research that links dementia with annual flu vaccines correct?

These are just a few of the non-debated questions about vaccine safety. There are many more that should be discussed by the mainstream media. BUT THEY ARE NOT DISCUSSED. There is silence. Media organisations refuse to engage in the health debate. Why?

Wherever there is division, or disagreement or debate in society, a genuinely 'free' press would want to discuss the issue. They would examine the arguments of both sides. They would ask questions of both sides of the argument. They would ensure that they are brought together to debate the issue. Yet in matters of health this has not been done for the last 20 years. So many people accept these vaccines without any engagement in the debate about the issues. They have never looked at the pros and cons. They have never been made aware of the issues. MOST PEOPLE, AS A RESULT, ARE QUITE UNABLE TO MAKE AN INFORMED CHOICE.

The evidence against vaccines cannot never be discussed in any mainstream media platform. We are routinely denied access to those platforms. We have to resort to social media, not because the evidence is weak, not because it is 'fake' news, not because it is disinformation, but because they are the only platforms available to us.

And now we are accused of spreading false information that puts people lives in danger! We would argue that lives are placed at risk because people are not warned of the dangers of vaccination. So who is right? The issue is never argued. Governments tell us that vaccines are safe. The pharmaceutical industry tells us that vaccines are safe. The conventional medical establishment tells us that vaccines are safe. The mainstream media goes along with them, slavishly - vaccines are safe. So it is not surprising that most people accept that vaccines are safe.

So which side is putting the lives of people at risk? Those who are giving people vaccines containing mercury, or aluminium, and other substances known to be poisonous? Or those who are encouraging people not to accept vaccination, thereby denying them access to vaccines that are, apparently, so effective and 'entirely safe'?

• Those who argue the former are asking for a debate, an open examination of the evidence. 
• Those who argue the latter insist that they are right, that they should not be questioned, and that to do so creates 'a threat to daily life'.

I, and many other people, believe that vaccines are harmful to health. This is not 'fake news'. It is not 'disinformation'. All we ask is that the issue and the evidence is debated, openly and honestly, by the mainstream media. We may be wrong. Our arguments may be shot down in flames by the conventional medical establishment. If so, fine. The problem is not fake news it is no news, it is media censorship that bars discussion. Everyone should at least know the issues, the arguments, the evidence. Without it no-one can exercise an informed choice about vaccines.

At the moment people will have their lives destroyed either because they see something on social media that makes them decide not to accept vaccines that are a positive bonus as they keep us healthy, or because they have not heard about the evidence against vaccines, and their dangers. There is only one thing that needs stating, in a society that prides itself in being free.

Silence in not acceptable!

Thalidomide. Still alive, kicking, and harming patients around the world to this day!

The magazine 'What Doctors Don't Tell You' (WDDTY) published an article on Thalidomide in its October 2017 edition. It gave the drug's timeline, which I reproduce here in order to draw out some of the salient features of how conventional medicine deals with pharmaceutical drugs that are known to be harmful to patients.

1953. Thalidomide is discovered in a German laboratory.
After the discovery of a new drug they are tested by medical science for both its effectiveness and safety, then approved by drug regulatory agencies. These agencies were not so developed then as they are today, largely as a result of the damage Thalidomide was later to cause.

1956. Thalidomide is launched as a prescription drug for anxiety and insomnia in West Germany.
The drug company conducted all the trials considered necessary at the time, which found that the drug was both effective and safe (they usually do), or they manipulated the trial results to indicate that the drug was effective and safe. In other words, and for whatever reason, medical science was unable to detect that there was anything wrong with Thalidomide.

1957. Thalidomide is made available as an over-the-counter drug (without a prescription) to east morning sickness in pregnant women.
I am aware that many people continue to believe that if a drug is available at the local chemist, or from the supermarket, they are safer than drugs that are available only with a doctors prescription. This is not so, and has never been so. I have blogged about this before. The most disastrous pharmaceutical drug, that was destined to do so much damage to unsuspecting patients, was mostly purchased at the local pharmacy!

1958. Up to 7,000 children in Germany are born with severe birth deformities. In the same year the UK introduced the drug on to the market.
Pharmaceutical drugs spread much quicker across the world than most viruses! Presumably the UK authorities also approved Thalidomide on as an effective and safe drug for patients, including pregnant women, and certainly the drug companies were eager to profit from it as soon as possible.

1961. Thalidomide is taken off the market in most Western countries, with at least 10,000 babies born with severe deformities; unofficial estimates put the figure at 100,000 cases.
It took over four years for medical science, and the drug regulatory authorities, to determine that one of their approved pharmaceutical drugs was causing this devastation. It is important to bear in mind that whilst ALL pharmaceutical drugs are tested for safety, it takes this length of time, sometimes longer, to discover that they are not safe, even when the consequences of taking Thalidomide are so blindingly obvious!

1962. Canada is still prescribing the drug. The drug also remains available in Spain throughout the 1970's and 1980's.
This is an amazing feature of pharmaceutical drugs. They can be banned in one country but continue to be sold in others. It is a regular feature of drug histories, it happens all the time, with lots of unsafe drugs. This suggests that either the drug regulatory agencies do not speak to each other, or that they make their decisions based on some kind of bogus 'benefit-risk' calculation that comes up with a different answer! Thalidomide was as dangerous in Canada and Spain as it was in the UK.

As far as the pharmaceutical industry is concerned, it demonstrates that they are quite willing to sell any drug, however dangerous, anywhere in the world, and despite the damage they know the drug to be causing.

1965. Thalidomide is licensed in Brazil for erytherma nodosum leprosum (ENL).
Most people assume that when a pharmaceutical drug has been found to be harmful to patients, and has been banned because it has caused the kind of horrendous damage to human life as Thalidomide, drug companies are still quite happy to sell it, and find other reasons for selling it.

Of course, the drug was not sold as 'Thalidomide'. The name was changed, presumably so that patients were not aware of what they were taking. It is a diabolical corruption!

1998. Thalidomide is approved in the USA for treating ENL.
If dangerous drugs can be approved in the USA, where pride is taken in their drug regulatory system (perhaps inappropriately) they can be approved as safe and effective just about anywhere. Again, the drug is not called Thalidomide, even though the drug regulators would have known that what they were approving. It must be supposed that they were happy to go along with the deception!

The use of dangerous pharmaceutical drugs is allowed throughout the world, with drug regulatory agencies apparently keener to assist drug company with their profitability rather than performing their primary statutory function - to keep patients safe!

2008. Thalidomide is approved for use in the UK as a treatment for multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood.
There is no-where in the world safe from the exploitation of patients by the pharmaceutical industry, or the willingness of drug regulators to connive in that exploitation. No doubt medical science, and the drug regulation agencies, placed many restrictions on the use of the drug, although with what success is harder to fathom.

2010. The World Health Organisation pronounces that Thalidomide should not be used for any condition, as its use cannot be properly controlled.
For an agency that has also been so heavily infiltrated by the pharmaceutical industry this was a surprising and unusual decision. However, its advice was completely ignored!

2017. The UK approves the third spin-off drug from Thalidomide for treating multiple myeloma. Today, 48 countries actively use the drug.
Ask anyone whether they know about Thalidomide. Most people will know that it caused untold harm to thousands of children. Ask anyone whether they think that Thalidomide is still prescribed by doctors for their patients. Most people will say 'No'! So the moral of this timeline is clear.

• Patients are NOT protected from dangerous pharmaceutical drugs by medical science, or by the Drug Regulatory system. 
• The Pharmaceutical industry will sell their drugs to anyone, anywhere in the world, in the full knowledge that they are dangerous, but caring more about their profits than patients.
• Doctors are willing to prescribe these drugs, whether in ignorance, or on the 'evidence' produced by medical science, or just with the authority given by a drug regulator.
• The entire conventional medical establishment - governments, national health services, doctors, nurses - just go along with it.

So are you taking Thalidomide? Probably not, although it is now used for a wide variety of conditions, ranging from cancer, multiple melanoma, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and ENL (leprosy).

But if you are taking Thalidomide, it will be called something else, perhaps an 'analogue' of thalidomide (not thalidomide, but something so damned similar as to make little difference). It will be called Lenalidomide, or Pomalidomide, or Apremilast, or Otezla, and no doubt a host of other names.

The conventional medical establishment should not be allowed to play these games with our safety. But they are! And they do!

We all need to search for safer and more effective treatments, practiced by more honest practitioners.

Concordia and Liothyronine. Monopolies both large and small within the Health Service

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has found that the drug company, Concordia, has overcharged the NHS for its thyroid drug, Liothyronine. The CMA said that in 2016 the NHS spent £34 million on its drug, liothyronine, whilst in 2006 it was just £600,000. The amount the NHS paid per pack rose from about £4.46 in 2007 to £258.19 by July 2017, a staggering increase of almost 6,000%.

So what is the problem? Has demand for the drug risen? Are there lots more people suffering hypothyroidism? No, all kinds of sickness is rising, but not by 6000% in 10 years! Has there been a supply problem then, some difficulty making the drug, an increase in the cost of making it? No, the CMA said the price rise took place despite production costs being "broadly stable".

               "We allege that Concordia used its market dominance in the supply of liothyronine tablets to do exactly that."

So this is yet another example of pharmaceutical industry profiteering. Nor is it an isolated incident of a drug company milking national governments, national health services, and patients. I blogged in October 2015 about the drug Daraprim and Turing Pharmaceuticals, which gained control over the drug and increased the price from $13.50 to $750, a rise of over 5,000%!

The strategy appears to be for smaller drug companies to gain control over a specific drug, and once in a monopoly position to exploit it for all it is worth.

The price change happened after the drug was de-branded in 2007, that is, the patent expired. Drugs are expensive under patent; but the government can cap the profits drug companies are allowed to make. Afterwards, drug prices usually fall. But not if the pharmaceutical industry takes action, and gives an individual company a monopoly in marketing the drug. This is what happened in this case, and the earlier one concerning Daraprim. Concordia was, until earlier this year, the only supplier of the drug, selling in in more than 100 countries. The CMA report commented:

               "Pharmaceutical companies which abuse their position and overcharge for drugs are forcing the NHS - and the UK taxpayer - to pay over the odds for important medical treatments."

And for some patients, in a country where conventional medicine is also a virtual monopoly, this has indeed become an important drug. The mainstream media produced several patients who have found the drug useful, and have been affected by the price hype. Owing to the cost, the NHS stopped doctors prescribing it, and these patients suffered as a result.

It is, of course, a good human interest news story, and most of the mainstream media reported it. What they did not report, or even suggest, was that this story demonstrates clearly that drug companies are essentially private business enterprises, interested mainly in maximising their profit. Producing drugs is not, for them, a philanthropic patient-centred exercise. Indeed, by hyping the price to this extent it is clear that the last people the company were thinking about were the patients!

Nor did the media ask what appears to be a natural question. How is it that within the pharmaceutical world one small drug company is allowed a monopoly over the manufacture and distribution of a drug? How is it that when an established drug comes off patent, and are 'debranded', its price can rocket? Apparently this is the CMA has challenged a number of drugs companies about. It is not an isolated example.

The company, Concordia, has stated that it did "not believe that competition law has been infringed", and that the pricing of  liothyronine had been conducted "openly and transparently with the Department of Health in the UK over a period of 10 years". However, earlier in 2017, Concordia was accused of pushing up the price of another NHS drug, hydrocortisone, by striking a deal not to compete with another firm. Their innocence, and the innocence of the pharmaceutical industry generally, seems to be highly questionable.

Moreover, the liothyronine case is not the only one being investigated by the CMA. The drug giants Pfizer and Flynn Pharma have been intestigated for excessive and unfair prices being set for the anti-epilepsy treatment, phenytoin sodium capsules, and it has imposed fines of about £45 million on a number of other pharmaceutical companies in relation to the anti-depressant drug, paroxetine.

All this raises another unasked question. If this is so, how is it that a government department, and the NHS, has not picked up on the profiteering? Has there been collusion, at a time when the NHS is getting deeper into crisis and bankrupcy? As I have argued at length elsewhere, the pharmaceutical industry is important to government because it is an important part of the British economy.

Yet as always the main unasked question is whether this drug is safe. Although the media produced patients who felt they had benefitted from it, the Drugs.com website outlines the side effects of the drug, some of them serious. It warns that any patient should get "emergency help immediately" if any of the following known side effects of the drug occurs:

               * Arm, back or jaw pain
               * changes in appetite
               * changes in menstrual periods
               * chest pain or discomfort
               * chest tightness or heaviness
               * cold clammy skin
               * confusion
               * decreased urine output
               * diarrhoea
               * dilated neck veins
               * dizziness
               * extreme fatigue
               * fainting
               * fast, slow, pounding, or irregular heartbeat or pulse
               * fever
               * hand tremors
               * headache
               * increased bowel movements
               * irregular breathing
               * irritability
               * leg cramps
               * lightheadedness
               * menstrual changes
               * nausea
               * nervousness
               * sensitivity to heat
               * shortness of breath
               * sweating
               * swelling of face, fingers, feet, or lower legs
               * troubled breathing
               * trouble sleeping
               * vomiting
               * weak pulse
               * weight gain
               * weight loss
               * wheezing

Monopoly is a major problem in the provision of health care services. A monopoly over the sale of a single drug can lead to cost of pharmaceutical drugs becoming exhorbitant. The monopoly of a single type of medicine within a national health service can lead to patients having to suffer the consequence of harmful and dangerous drugs, with patients believing that they are the only way to treat their illness.

  

The Dead Horse Theory. "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount!"

The Dekota Indians had an excellent theory, and it is one that the many governments around the world which are struggling to fund their national health service, dominated by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, might benefit from learning. It is the 'Dead Horse'. The 14 points that follow clearly represents the current strategy many governments use, including the British government's policy towards the National Health Service.

The NHS is in constant crisis. It spends an enormous amount of money, mainly on pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines (= the dead horse), yet year by year demand for health services outstrips the supply. More money is then demanded, given, and spent on yet more drugs, but quite regardless of this, the crisis continues. The horse is, indeed, dead, and it has been dead for some time. The animal is, after all, over 70 years old, and it has been fed, almost exclusively, on pharmaceutical drugs during all that time! The NHS does not realise this, or if it does it ignores the wisdom of the Dakota Indians, and instead makes use of 'more advanced' responses!

1. Buying a stronger whip.
The NHS believes that it would be able to produce better outcomes for patients if staff could only be made to work harder, to increase their productivity.

2. Changing riders.
The NHS regularly changes it riders, managers are sacked who are just not good enough, and do not spend the money properly. It is important to employ better riders to manage the available resources.

3. Threatening the horse with termination.
The NHS cannot pursue this policy, as unfortunately, in this case, the dead horse has wealthy and influential backers, too powerful to be 'terminated'. However, it regularly terminates some drugs and vaccines because they are so clearly dead, but never the complete animal.

4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
NHS committees are rife, and have been vital to the NHS development. They study why the demand for health care continually outstrips supply, why offering more drugs and vaccines appears to lead to more sickness (invariably deciding it is due to patients getting older), and to come up with new ideas about how the NHS might function better.

5. Arranging to visit other countries to see how others ride dead horses.
The NHS regularly examines health services in other parts of the world. They usually find there is not much difference because they, too, are trying to ride the same dead horse! But some countries spend more of their GDP on health, so if only they could have more money too......

6. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
The NHS regularly seeks to lower standards, for instance, nurses doing the work of doctors, hospital beds being reduced, et al. This is not to save money, but to release more money to spend on reviving the dead horse with more pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines.

7. Re-classifying the dead horse as 'living impaired'.
The NHS, whilst hyping the value of every new pharmaceutical drug and vaccine, is at the same time trying to reduce patient expectations. Look at the NHS Choices website to see just how many illnesses and diseases there are for which, we are told, their is no treatment, no cure, no chance of recovery.

8. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
The NHS is an inefficient public enterprise, say some, and if more of the work could be contracted out to private companies the greater efficiency would ensure that the dead horse might be able to enhance health outcomes for patients.

9. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase the dead horses performance.
The NHS is constantly asking for new horses, new pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines to help them if their fight against disease. The one's they have may not work, the new ones just might be better.

10 Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horses performance.
The NHS always needs more doctors and more nurses to provide even more health treatment to an increasingly sick population, treatments based, of course, on those that has been offered for decades.

11. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.
It is frequently said that the NHS is too 'top-heavy', that there are too many managers and administrators (people who do not give patients the drugs) and not enough doctors and nurses, who do.

12. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overheads, and therefore contributes substantially more than the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.
Unfortunately the NHS is totally committed to the most expensive of all medical treatments, so this is a difficult argument to make. However, it does regularly state that the newer drugs costs are too expensive, and that 'generic' cost less.

13. Re-writing the expected performance requirement for all horses.
The NHS has struggled for decades to keep waiting times (for a doctors' appointment, for A&E, for operations, for hospital beds) to a minimum. We are regularly told that unless more money is spent on the dead horse, patients must expect longer waiting times.

14 Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position of hiring another horse.
Most NHS managers and supervisors are former doctors who have spent their careers prescribing 'dead horse' drugs and vaccines to their patients. Why should they start recognising that the horse is dead after a lifetime of devotion to it?

IT IS TIME WE STOPPED FLOGGING THE DEAD HORSE!

IT IS TIME TO GIVE THE HORSE A DECENT BURIAL!

Yippee! Another Wonder Drug, this time for Breast Cancer! But does it stand up to media hype? And is there a better alternative?

The avalanche of new wonder drugs never seems to cease. There are only two other things seem to match the sheer numbers of these announcements:

• the rise of the diseases these drugs are supposed to treat
• and the profits of the pharmaceutical industry

Still, lets take a look at the two new wonder treatments for advance breast cancer. As I often do, I have used the BBC News feature to describe how they act as advertising agents for the drug company, Pfizer. They always regurgitate the press release, unquestioned and unexamined, as do the rest of our 'free' news organisations!

The BBC described them as 'breakthrough', 'life-changing' drugs, as usual. The news story is that they have now been approved for use in the NHS by NICE, which is not a surprise as they are funded by the pharmaceutical industry, and by people who have worked, or will work in the industry. The drugs are called palbociclib and ribociclib.

Palbociclib was approved in the USA in February 2015, Ribociclib in 2017. Apparently, these breakthrough drugs slow down advanced breast cancer to about 10 months, and can delay the need for chemotherapy. Even if the terms 'breakthrough' and 'life-changing' are supported by these claims is questionable, but certainly they come at a cost. The BBC reported that just one cycle of palbociclib, 21 capsules, £2,950, and for 63 tablets of ribociclib, the price is the same.

To support the case for the drugs the BBC used a patient who had used the drug (without using the word 'anacdotal'), the head of oncology at Pfizer UK, and a professor of molecular oncology from the Institute of Cancer Research, who was also a consultant medical oncologist, and the Professor who led the clinical trials. The latter said that "these drugs have allowed women to live a normal life for longer".

As usual, no-one from outside the conventional medical establishment was asked to comment. And on the Today programme, no questions were asked about the side effects of the drug. The Drug.com website has produced these for both palbociclib and for ribociclib, at least those currently accepted, these being drug used sparingly over a short period, and with very few patients. For palbociclib they include:

• body aches or pain
• ear congestion
• fever
• headache
• loss of voice
• painful or difficult urination
• swelling or inflammation of the mouth
• trouble breathing
• ulcers, sores, or white spots in the mouth
• unusual bleeding or bruising
• unusual tiredness or weakness
• Anxiety
• chest pain
• dizziness or lightheadedness
• fainting
• fast heartbeat
• sudden shortness of breath or troubled breathing

As usual, our mainstream media does not believe that patients are entitled to know about these. It is difficult to know how patients can make an 'informed choice' about whether to take these drugs, or other pharmaceutical drugs, without this knowledge. The only side effect mentioned was from the patient who had tried the drug "You get slight fatigue from it, but it was manageable..." was all she said, perhaps someone who had a better than normal experience of the drug, and perhaps someone put forward by the drug company for this very reason.

I would predict that in time the adverse drug reactions will be far worse that those already known. This has been the history of every pharmaceutical drug, and there is no reason to think that these drugs will be any different.

Breast cancer patients require treatment. And there is safer, and more effective treatment (providing a life expectancy gain far in excess of 10 months). It is homeopathy. I have written about it many times before, although this one was criticised for being 'anacdotal (something convention medicine does not do, of course)! First, cancer is often the end result, the 'side effects' of pharmaceutical drugs taken for other conditions. So to avoid cancer it is sensible to avoid these drugs. But in addition there is research evidence to confirm over 200 years of clinical outcomes, that homeopathy is an effective treatment for cancer. Yet the media is not interest, of course. So although Homeopathy might be able to provide effective treatment for cancer, including breast cancer, this is not considered to be a medical 'breakthrough', it is not considered to be 'life changing'.

But, of course, it is!

The NHS Crisis (2017-2018)

This is becoming an annual blog - the British NHS in crisis! Despite spending increasing £ billions on the NHS over the last 70 years, the amount of sickness and disease continues to increase, demand for conventional health care expands year by year, hospital waiting times lengthen, difficulty getting an appointment with a doctor more difficult, and major demands for yet more funding become shriller and more strident.

So the pattern is this - increased sickness, followed by increased spending on conventional medicine, followed by even more sickness, and increased demands for even more money. Yet no one EVER questions whether spending more money on a medical system that is clearly and demonstrably failing is the appropriate response to NHS problems. It has always been thus - read my previous blogs.

• The NHS Debate (NHS in Crisis 2011)
• Our doctors in Crisis (NHS in Crisis 2015)
• Britain's NHS in Crisis (2016)
• NHS in Crisis (2016)
• NHS in Crisis (2017)

This year, the expected crisis has been heralded by Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England since April 2014. His recent speech, made two weeks before the Budget, outlines the crisis that he is expecting this winter. For a fuller account of what he said go to the Telegraph report of his speech.  Basically, what he said was that NHS performance would decline significantly without an immediate cash injection, and made the usual case for spending more money, - an extra £4 billion next year. He warned that if increases were limited to 0.4% next year, as currently planned, it would mean deeper rationing of care, staff cuts and record waiting lists. He added that the budget for next year would fall “well short of what is currently needed to properly look after our patients.” He continued

               "Our duty of candour requires us to explain the consequences of these decisions to help inform the difficult choices that will be made in the years ahead.”

My duty of candour is to ask why it is that, year by year, the conventional medical establishment is still unable to cope with the demand for health services, and ask the pertinent question - why the medicine the NHS is using consistently leads to increasing rather than reducing demands on those health services. 

• Should we not expect that patients get well after treatment? 
• And certainly that they don't get sicker, leading to increased levels of health need.

Anyway, these are a few of Simon Stevens chilling warnings about what he expects to happen over the winter of 2017-2018, and his demands for yet more money for the NHS.

• He says that without extra funding, waiting times would rise to a record high of 5 million patients, an extra million people on the waiting list, with 1 in 10 people stuck on a waiting list by 2021. It would be, he said, the highest number ever!
• He stated that the deterioration would be so steep that Parliament would need to pass new laws, abolishing rights to treatment within 18 weeks.
•      "It boils down to this, on the current budget, far from growing the number of nurses and other frontline staff, in many parts of the country next year hospitals, community health services and GPs are more likely to be retrenching and retreating.
•      "On the current funding outlook, it is going to be increasingly hard to expand mental health services or improve cancer care. Services the public need and rightly want.
• He said that the NHS has already "reluctantly" limited the annual increase of waiting list operations, to protect funding for Accident & Emergency, Mental Health services, and GP care, and that these temporary measures to manage demand would have to become permanent.
• He said that this would mean that the government would have to publicly, legally abolish patients' national waiting times guarantees.

Stevens went on to claim that the British NHS were underfunded by some £20 to £30 billion per year! This is on top of the (approximately) £120 billion already being spent on conventional health care! And in demanding more resources he referred to the Brexit battle bus, and the slogan on its side, 'Vote Leave for a better funded health service, £350m a week'. This is the amount of additional money he is looking for, amounting to £18,200 billion every year. Stevens demands also came with a threat to politicians.

               "Rather than our criticising these clear Brexit funding commitments to NHS patients - promises entered into by cabinet ministers and by MPs - the public want to see them honoured. Trust in democratic politics will not be strengthened if anyone now tries to argue, 'You voted Brexit, partly for a better funded health service. But precisely because of Brexit, you now can't have one.'"

So what would this staggering increase in NHS resources be spend on? The same as before! The same failed conventional treatments, the same failed pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, with all their side effects and adverse reactions. 

In the Telegraph article, referred to above, it is interesting to see a conventional medical explanation for why the NHS is under so much pressure. It gives 4 separate reasons.

1. An ageing population. There are one million more people over the age of 65 than five years ago. This has caused a surge in demand for medical care.
2. Cuts to budgets for social care. While the NHS budget has been protected, social services for home helps and other care have fallen by 11 per cent in five years. This has caused record levels of “bedblocking”; people with no medical need to be in hospital are stuck there because they can’t be supported at home. 
3. Staff shortages. While hospital doctor and nurse numbers have risen over the last decade, they have not kept pace with the rise in demand. Meanwhile 2016 saw record numbers of GP practices close, displacing patients on to A&E departments as they seek medical advice
4. Lifestyle factors. Drinking too much alcohol, smoking, a poor diet with not enough fruit and vegetables and not doing enough exercise are all major reasons for becoming unwell and needing to rely on our health services. Growing numbers of overweight children show this problem is currently set to continue

These are all inadequate explanations, singly and together.

1. There are indeed more older people, but demand is not coming just from older people now. Diseases once believed to be a product of ageing now strikes people of all ages. The huge increase in Cancer now affects all age groups, including very young children. Diabetes strikes irrespective of age. Arthritis and joint replacements is no longer age sensitive, with younger people suffering the complaint, and replacement surgery. The rise and rise of heart, liver and kidney disease, and the need for organ transplantation, similarly affects younger, middle aged and older people.
2. Conventional medicine has been able to keep people alive, but it has not been able to maintain people's quality of life. So whilst more people may be kept alive after illness, but without the ability to function adequately, or to cope with the everyday tasks of living. They are alive but dependent, and this is the result of health services, dominated by conventional medicine, for over 70 years.
3. This is not an explanation. Staff shortages are the direct result of the failure of conventional medicine to make patients better. More demand for health services, more sickness, more dependency on car leads to the need for more doctors, more nurses, and other medical personnel.
4. Lifestyle factors have always been a factor in our health, both individually and as a nation. In the past conventional medicine has been tardy in its recognising the importance of lifestyle factors to health, preferring instead to prescribe pharmaceutical drugs to deal with the resulting problems rather than pointing to the need for lifestyle change.

So how difficult the winter of 2017/2018 will be for the British NHS remains to be seen. No doubt I will be blogging about this in due course! But one thing is certain - spending more money on the same old, failed medicine will not improve matters. Indeed, it will make matters worse. The side effects and adverse effects of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are misnomers. They are really new illnesses and disease, all of which have to be treated. And when they are treated, with more pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, the sicker patients become, and the more demand they make on health services.

It is a horrible vicious circle that no-one has yet considered!

What have corrupt USA Admirals have in common with the mayhem caused by the pharmaceutical industry

This morning, amidst all the trifling news of political scandal being reported in the mainstream media, I turned over to RT (Russia Today) news. They were dealing with the 'Fat Leonard' corruption scandal. I was amazed as this was not a new story but something that has been going on for months. Why did I now know about it? But then, I thought, why do 99% of people not know about the ongoing corruption associated with the pharmaceutical industry? It is censored news which is not reported in our 'free' news media. What we are allowed to know depends on what the Establishment wants us to know.

I searched the internet in order to find out who was reporting the story. "USA", "Admirals" produced an article from RT, and little else. I noted that the scandal was called the "Fat Leonard" scandal, so another search. To my surprise, Wikipedia had a page, and apparently the scandal dates back to 2010. It said that the Washington Post called the scandal "perhaps the worst national-security breach of its kind to hit the Navy since the end of the Cold War." This referred to an article published in 2016, "The man who seduced the 7th fleet". The search showed that in the UK the Daily Mail had reported on the scandal recently, and the Guardian some months ago. But most information available came from non-mainstream news websites.

As Wikipedia outlines, at the heart of the scandal was Leonard Glenn Francis, known as "Fat Leonard" for his 350-pound weight. Apparently he had provided thousands of dollars in cash, travel expenses, luxury items, and prostitutes to a large number of US uniformed officers. In return they gave him classified material about the movements of US ships and submarines, confidential contracting information, and information about active law enforcement investigations his company. The, Francis "exploited the intelligence for illicit profit, brazenly ordering his moles to redirect aircraft carriers to ports he controlled in Southeast Asia so he could more easily bilk the Navy for fuel, tugboats, barges, food, water and sewage removal." Wikipedia stated that in 2013, 31 people have been criminally charged in connection with the Fat Leonard. The RT feature today declared that the scandal now involved 60 admirals, and hundreds of officers within the US Seventh Fleet.

Is this not a news story that deserves more public attention and examination - the most powerful navy in the world caught up in bribery and corruption at the highest levels? Perhaps I should have known about it, but then, ask the next 100 people you meet what they know about it, and find out how many of them are aware of the story!

At the same time, ask them whether they know about the harm pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines cause to millions of patients every year, and discover how many people know about this.

• Ask the next 100 people you meet who have had a vaccination, or have vaccinated their children, and discover how many know about their dangerous side effects.
• Ask the next 100 people you meet who take Statin drugs whether they are aware of their side effects.
• Ask the next 100 people you meet who have taken Antibiotic drugs whether they are aware of their side effects.
• Ask the next 100 people you meet who is suffering from a serious illness or disease if they are aware that conventional medical drugs could have caused their condition.

The fact is that our mainstream news media does not tell us the truth. At least, it does not tell us the whole truth! We may believe (because we have always been told) that our press and news media are 'free', and can investigate and report on any matter of public importance. This is part of our democracy, an integral part of our personal freedoms. It takes governments to task. It exposes crime and corruption wherever it happens. And so on......

But of course, it does no such thing, and certainly not all of it. We can all recognise, and can look back at news reporting in time of war (WW1, WW2, Vietnam, et al) when the full enormity of the death and destruction occurring were intentionally kept from the public. It would not have been in the public interest for us to know at the time, we are told. But this does not happen in peacetime.

Yet it does. As far as the 'Fat Leonard' scandal is concerned it is not in the wider public interest for us to be too aware of the corruption that exists within powerful military forces, which are protecting the free world! If we knew this, to the full extent that it exists, would have dreadful implications for our government! So people in the corridors of power mingle with people in the corridors of information to determine what we are allowed to know, and how much we are allowed to know.

Similarly, with the Pharmaceutical industry. The public should not be told about the harm and disease caused by drugs and vaccines because it is these things that keep us healthy. For instance, if we all knew that childhood vaccines have been instrumental in causing the Autism epidemic over recent decades people would refuse to vaccinate their children. This would have dreadful consequences for the main funder of mainstream news organisations. So people in the corridors of the drugs industry mingle with people in the corridors of information to determine what we are allowed to know, and how much we are allowed to know.

This is how important news, across the entire spectrum, is censored. There is news that is too sensitive, has too many implications, for the Establishment to want to divulge. Although individuals wrong-doing can be investigated and pursued (they are just bad, corrupt people with evil intentions), pursuing rich and influential institutions is much more difficult. They are vital components to our life, and our society. Or so they believe!