Health Freedom: a vital principle we need to fully understand and defend with passion

Health freedom is under serious attack, mainly by the conventional medical profession, which thinks it knows best, and politicians who believe they know what we all need to protect ourselves. The Covid-19 Pandemic was, of course, the most recent and most serious attempt to undermine our right to choose how we treat ourselves when unwell. The pharmaceutical medical establishment tried to mandate (force) vaccines on people who wished to remain vaccine free.

The pandemic campaign to impose vaccines us all (when we were not ill) was tragically successful, perhaps not with those who had good reasons to support their view that they did not want the vaccine, but with those who were less certain. After all, we were all told to take the vaccine, we were not given any good reasons for refusing it. The Covid-19 narrative, repeated ad nauseam by government and mainstream media for over two years, gave us no reason to assume the vaccines were anything other than "safe and effective".

Whenever a Political Establishment wants to impose something on its citizens there is always a government willing to force it on them. The pharmaceutical industry, and powerful player in the politial establishment, wanted to force their vaccines on the entire population in order to maximise sales. They had sufficient influence and control within government, and politicians willingly gave their willing, unquestioning and active support. The mainstream media went along with it all, meekly accepting the imposition and enforcement of mass vaccination without demur.

History should teach us that this has always been so. Even in times when the political establishment was headed by war lords, or kings, or emperors, or an aristocracy, or an industrial elite, remaining “in power” has meant that the wishes of the rich and powerful had to be enacted. Today, governments around the world are dominated and controlled by immensely rich and powerful global corporations; and of these there is none more powerful as the Pharmaceutical Industry.

The Covid-19 pandemic, and the forced medication that was permitted, has demonstrated that the pharmaceutical establishment controls governments, conventional medicine, and the mainstream media. During the last 3–4 years it has been able to convince us (frighten us) that there was a pandemic, so awful, so deadly, that only the vaccines could save us, and that people just had to be forced into taking one of these untested, experimental vaccines. So as far as implementing vaccine mandates were concerned, most governments were quite prepared to put the necessary legislation into effect.

Yet the governments of the rich and powerful have their problems. There has always been a small but significant part of the population who are able to think for themselves, and recognise that what is being imposed (forced) on them is not in their best interest. Not even the strongest war lords survived forever; not even the most powerful empires and kingdoms. In time they have all fallen, usually through their own incompetence, privilege and arrogance.

Imposing drugs and vaccines seems always to have been attractive to autocracies (whether a real autocracy, or one masquerading as a democracy). Perhaps one of the earliest, and best examples of this can be seen in the history of the smallpox vaccination in the mid 19th century - click on this link to read an outline of this history, rarely told. Your will see that, as with Covid-19, smallpox was a frightening disease; people were scared; conventional medicine, even then, was arrogant enough to believe it had the solution; and the governments of the day were willing to pass the necessary legislation to enable the imposition of a vaccine mandate. 

However, as with Covid-19 vaccines, the smallpox vaccine caused so much patient harm that eventually the population rebelled against it, refused to take it, to the extent that within just a few years the first mandatory vaccine was quietly dropped (although conventional medicine did not drop the propaganda that the failed and harmful vaccine had been successful in eradicating the disease!)

Similarly, more people are now realising that the Covid-19 vaccines have caused serious patient harm. This will only increase, not least when we are all told that the much lauded Oxford University, AstraZeneca vaccine is now effectively banned around the world. People will resist again. They are already doing so; the drug companies cannot sell the vaccines as they had hoped, and their profits are falling. 

People have always, and will always resist ‘medical mandate’ imposed on them, and with good reason.

Imposing health mandates is attractive to drug companies. It enhances their profits. They have the power to influence and control politicians and governments, conventional medical authorities, and the mainstream media. But in promoting forced drugging it goes completely against the concept of health freedom, which has long and distinguished roots in human history. Here are just a few of the many sources.

Hippocrates Oath (460-377bce)
    “I will not give anyone poison, if asked, nor take the initiative of such a suggestion”

Code of Medical Ethics
Article 36: article R4127-36 of the Public Health Code
    “The consent of the person examined or treated must be sought in all cases. When the patient, in a state of expressing his will, refuses the investigation or treatment proposed, the doctors must respect this refusal after informing the patient of his consequences”.

Nuremberg Code (1947)
    “The consent of the human subject is absolutely essential, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights resumed this ban against unintentional experimentation, in its 1966 test, which states:
    “No one may be subjected without his consent to medical or scientific experiment”.

Geneva Statement for Doctors (1948)
    “I will respect the autonomy and dignity of my patient. I will not use my medical knowledge to infringe human right and civil liberties, even under force. I will keep absolute respect for human life, from conception. I will consider my patient’s health as my first concern”.

Helsinki Declaration (1996)
The Declaration of Helsinki is a set of ethical principles regarding human experimentation developed originally in 1964 for the medical community by the World Medical Association. It is widely regarded as the cornerstone document on human research ethics (Wiki).

    “The participation of persons capable of giving informed consent to medical research must be a voluntary act. No person capable of giving that informed consent can be involved in a search without giving their free and informed consent”.

Oviedo Conventional (1997)
Article 5:
    “An intervention in the field of health can only be carried out after the data subject has given free and informed consent. This person is given prior adequate information about the purpose and nature of the intervention, as well as its consequences and risks. The data subject may, at any time, freely withdraw his consent”.

Loi Kouchner (2002)
Article 111-114:
    “Every person shall make decisions concerning his health with the healthcare professional and taking into account the information he provides him/her.The doctor must respect the will of the person after informing them of the consequences of their choices. If the person’s willingness to refuse or discontinue treatment puts his or her life and risk, the doctor must do everything to convince him or her to accept the much needed care. No medical or treatment can be practiced without the free and informed consent of the person and this consent can be withdrawn at any time”.

Salvetti Stop (2002)
    “No medical treatment is mandatory in the European Union: “as a non-voluntary medical treatment, mandatory vaccination is an interference with the right to privacy, guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms”.
(Salvetti v Italy - ECHR decision of 9 July 2002. No 42197/98).

French Civil Code
Article 16-1
“Everyone has the right to respect their own bodies. The body in inviolable”.

Yet governments around the world have been content to repudiate these principles and policies in pursuit of enforcing vaccine mandates on behalf of the Pharmaceutical industry.

UK Government (2012): "Shared Decision Making: Liberating the NHS: No decision about me without me"
    “Making shared decision making a reality: no decision about me without me”.

Council of Europe
Resolution 2361 (2021)
    “Advisory opinion: the Assembly urges member states and the European Union".
Article 731:
     “To ensure that citizens are informed that vaccination is no mandatory and that no one is under political, social or other pressure to get vaccinated, if he or she does not wish to do so personally”.
Article 732:
    “To ensure that no one is discriminated against for not being vaccinated, due to potential health risk or not wanting to get vaccinated”.

(Note. Most of this information on the principles of health freedom was put together by a source that I have since lost. Please advise if you are aware of the source. I am happy to add a full reference to it here).

Health freedom is a vitally important principle. For the future we need to recognise that powerful corporations will want to undermine it, that governments are willing to concede it, and that the mainstream media is likely to meekly acquiesce to it. The most recent example of this, the mandating of untested, experimental Covid-19 vaccines, is as invidious as anything perpetrated by the German Nazi regime in the 1930's and 1940's, and condemned at the Nuremberg trials. In both cases large numbers of people were subjected to experimental medical treatment, without their informed consent, and with the grievous suffering that resulted.

There is little doubt that it will happen again, possible in the near future. We should use the intervening time to ensure when it does more people are aware that their health freedom is a precious gift that they should treasure, and defend with some passion.

Wygovy; Mounjaro; weight loss, and pharmaceutical drugs

The obesity/diabetes drugs, Wygovy, Ozempic, Mounjaro, have become a pharmaceutical best sellers. They are making the drug companies very wealthy! The active ingredient, semaglutide, helps control blood sugar, lowers appetite, and makes patients feel "full". The current claim of medical science is that these semaglutide drugs can lead to weight loss of more than 10%.

Given the burgeoning epidemic of obesity around the world this claim is an attractive one for so many people who find losing weight difficult. The sales of these drugs increased rapidly in 2023 following their promotion by the mainstream media's on behalf of the drug companies. They were "breakthrough" drugs, we were told by all media outlets.

(Have you noticed how little advertising the pharmaceutical industry has to do for itself? A press release usually does it, with the media content to pass on the advertising, free of charge, without any apparent investigation into the claims being made).

The drawbacks of these drugs are already well known:

• When patients stop taking the drug they put this weight back again.
• The drugs are not recommended for more than two years (so they have to be, or should be stopped within that time, making any gains reversible).
• Such are the concerns about these drugs the UK's NHS only prescribe them to patients who fulfil certain criteria, within a limited number of specialist weight-loss management clinics.
• Semaglutide is already known to cause serious side effects, these including anxiety, bloating, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, confusion, constipation, diarrhoea, depression, fever, headache, indigestion, nightmares, seizures, tightness in the chest, trouble breathing, unusual tiredness or weakness, acid/sour stomach, heartburn, and much more.
  

To date these disadvantages have not slowed down burgeoning sales, especially as some pharmacies are selling them directly to the public, at a monthly cost of around £100 to £200.

Have we been here before?

For anyone who believes they have heard this before, can I refer you to one of my previous blogs, written in March 2018: Acomplia. What happens to all the 'wonder drugs' and 'miracle cure's of conventional medicine?"  Read the blog for a fuller description of events, but broadly this is what happened to Acomplia.

• Acomplia was an obesity drug, approved in 2006, and hailed as a new 'wonder drug'.
• In 2008 the drug was refused a licence in the USA, and withdrawn in the UK and Europe, particularly over fears of serious adverse reactions, particularly depression and suicide.
• The medical science, which had proclaimed this wonder drug, was found to be 'faulty'.
  

         "one study discovered that one-third of people on the drug lost 10% of their body weight, and 60% lost a less impressive 5%. Apparently, what the study did not say was that everyone in the trial was also on a low-calorie diet, and virtually everyone put the weight back on once they stopped taking the drug".

I will copy the conclusion of the Acomplia episode here, and predict (with a high degree of confidence) that this will be the conclusion of Wygovy/Ozempic story within the next few years.

 

"The European Medicines Agency (EMA) commented that the drug had proved less effective in 'real life' than in clinical trials. Patient hopes raised in the 'science' laboratory but dashed in real life. So it had been decided to suspend the licence for Acomplia as:

               "New data from post-marketing experience and ongoing clinical trials indicated that serious psychiatric disorders may be more common than in the clinical trials".

So Acomplia demonstrates better than most pharmaceutical drugs the many aspects of the hopelessness of medical science and drug regulation, which in the interests of selling drugs raise hopes, but lead only to further patient damage.

• The NHS resorts to a drug for a condition that would be better treated via life-style and dietary treatment.
• The drug is significantly less effective than the trials (the medical 'science' funded by the pharmaceutical industry) suggested.
• The full side effects of the drug remain unknown through all the 'scientific' drug testing, the regulator process, the licensing, and the prescription of the drug.
• The side effects turn out to be considerably more serious than the original condition or illness.
• And a drug thought to be unsafe in one country (the USA in this case) is considered to be perfectly 'safe' in others (indeed, most of Europe) - before it is withdrawn there too.

There is no such thing as a wonder drug, or a miracle cure, there never has been, and there probably never will be (on the basis that future performance is best predicted by past performance). So the next time the mainstream media, or your doctor tells you about a remarkable new treatment - run a mile, very, very quickly!"

There are already signs that these drugs will soon have to be withdrawn, with one pharmaceutical consultant saying that Ozempic, "the hot new weight-loss drug", poses medically dangerous gastrointestinal and mental health risks but fails to address the root causes of metabolic conditions.

So I will get back to you when pharmaceutical drug history repeats itself, as it so inevitably does. In the meantime it seems that these new obesity/diabetes drugs are going to cause a lot of patient harm in the years to come.

Post Script 15th May 2024

These obesity drugs just get better and better - according to the drug industry anyway. This is what the Guardian has told us this morning.

 

            "If you hear brand names like Ozempic and Wegovy and think of suddenly gaunt A-listers posing on the red carpet, it is surely now time to think again. There has already been substantial evidence that as well as in their initial role as a diabetes treatment, semaglutides – the kind of drug in question – can have a real impact on obesity for people for whom nothing else works. Now a new study has found that they don’t just help those people lose weight – they have a major effect on their heart health, regardless of how much weight they lose."

 

Yes, another game changer - the best drug, we are reliably informed, since Statins. Heart disease has increased substantially since the introduction of Statin drugs, I suspect semaglutide will now be used for patients of heart disease, and in line with this original blog, I would predict the same outcome. A continuing rise in heart disease (plus an additional problem arising from the adverse drug reactions too, of course).

Postscript

I am not the only blogger who has drawn attention to the dangers of Semaglutide drugs. This article, posted on 13 September 2024 not only outlines the serious adverse reactions these drugs are known to have caused, but also outlines have pharmaceutical interests are now proclaiming that they can do other wonderful things, like slowing down the ageing process, preventing cancer, arthritis, Alzheimers and Parkinson's disease, and help people give up smoking!

There appears to be no end to the pharmaceutical industry hyping its drugs. Do they really still believe what they tell us? Do they remain ignorant of the harm they are causing? Or is it just all about selling drugs and making profits?

The Financial Consequences of Sodium Valproate

Sodium Valproate is a demonstration that our medical system is failing. It has given pregnant women a drug that has caused an estimated 20,000 children born with serious birth defects, that is, 20,000 people who will require medical intervention and support for the rest of their lives. Compensation and damages will add to the cost of the NHS, the demand on taxpayers money, in a health service, and a national economy that is already under serious pressure.

I have written about these "secondary costs" of a failed medical system (pharmaceutical medicine) before, see these links. They explain why conventional medicine has always demanded more and more resources, and why it will always do so.

• The Secondary Costs of Conventional Medicine (October 2018)
• The Secondary Costs of a Failing Medical System (January 2019)
• The Economic Crisis. A self-inflicted wound resulting from a failed medical system. The secondary cost of a failed medical system (November 2020)

The scandal of Sodium Valproate starts, but does not end, with the damaged lives of young children, their families, or even the compensation/damages claims that will be forthcoming. It is the ongoing, or secondary costs that will stretch long into the future. Parents cannot work because they have to care for their children. Children lose their potential to develop into full citizens who can contribute to society as otherwise they would have done. As they grow older many will depend on benefits and other support. And, of course, the ongoing medical treatment needed to deal with the consequences of the harm done by Sodium Valproate.

The Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review’s (IMMDSR) report, ‘First do no harm’, referred to in yesterday's blog, outlined some of the harm caused by this dangerous drug. The report makes it clear that the babies are born with birth defects that include spina bifida, autism, malformations of the brain, heart, and kidneys, and in severe cases, death.

Yet when conventional medicine talks about what has caused these diseases they rarely mention that they might be cause by prescribed pharmaceutical drugs.

• Spina Bifida. The NHS says that "It's not known what causes spina bifida but a number of things can increase the risk of a baby developing the condition". They mention lack of folic acid, family history, genetics, obesity and diabetes; and they mention epileptic drugs, including Valproate; but discount this by emphasising that doctors will not prescribe them "if there's a chance you could get pregnant while taking them, but they may be needed if the alternatives are not effective".
• Autism. The NHS says that "nobody knows what causes autism, or if it has a cause". It does know, however, that it is "not caused by vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine". However, although it is clear from the IMMDSR report that they do know it is caused by Sodium Valproate they fail to mention it!

Conventional medicine never admits culpability, even when they know they are culpable!

The cost of Conventional Medicine around the world is rising exponentially, and it has been for the last 80 to 100 years. The UK's NHS has always demanded, year by year, resources, to cope with more and more sickness and disease.  

Why does it need more more money? Why is there epidemic levels of sickness and disease, regardless of how much is spent on treatment?

The Sodium Valproate scandal suggests that iotragenic (or doctor-induced) disease plays a very large part in this increased demand.

People get sick, and they are given pharmaceutical drugs that make them sicker. And then they are given more drugs to treat increased levels of sickness, leading to chronic disease, and the need for more medical care. It is these 'secondary' costs of medical failure, rarely if ever mentioned, that are fundamental to the funding of the conventional medicine. 

The problem of NHS funding not "an ageing population"; nor is it the increased sophistication (or even the increased cost) of medical treatment; or any of the other reasons routinely trotted out for medical failure. 

The problem is iatrogenic. 

It is the result of a medical system that is inherently harmful, dangerous to our health.

Sodium Valproate: an anti-epileptic drug that has caused patient harm for 50+ years

This story demonstrates how the pharmaceutical industry makes huge profits from drugs that seriously harm patients, and how it uses it's allies, in government, conventional medicine, and the mainstream media, to make sure no-one realises that the drugs they are taking are harmful.

Sodium Valproate is an epilepsy drug, an anti-spasmodic. It was first approved in 1967, over 55 years ago. Conventional medicine has known it causes patient harm for most of that time; but despite restrictions of prescribing it, it is still being prescribed, and will continue to be so. Despite the fact that it is still causing serious harm.

Anyone who knows the history of pharmaceutical medicine should not be surprised to hear this. It has happened, and it continues to happen, with most prescribed drugs. Go to this link for other drugs that have gone through a similar process. Patients taking any of these drugs do not usually its history of harm, at least, not the full extent of the damage they can cause. Conventional medicine insists that they are "safe and effective" - for as long as they can.

I wrote about Sodium Valproate 13 years ago, here, "Epilim; a dangerous drug, but no legal redress for families". 

In January 2024 NICE (the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) introduced new restrictions.

        "From January 2024, valproate must not be started in new patients (male or female) younger than 55 years, unless two specialists independently consider and document that there is not other effective or tolerated treatment, or unless there are compelling reasons that the reproductive risks do not apply".

Powerful advice indeed! But should not this advice have been given over 55 years ago?

Conventional drug-based medicine might appear to be protecting patients against dangerous drugs like Sodium Valproate, but they have not been doing so, so stringently, for the last 55 years. What this means is that the drug has been harming patients throughout this time, that drug companies have been profiting from selling it; and they can still do so as the drug continues to be available for prescription!

Except, of course, that conventional medicine has known (or should have known) about how dangerous this drug was for a very long time.

• My 2010 blog on Sodium Valproate (Epilim) concerned a group of parents whose children had been harmed by this drug who were seeking legal redress. They were opposed by the drug company, the NHS, and the government - who presumably maintained that the drug was "safe and effective".

So a drug like Sodium Valproate can be (i) tested by medical science and pronounced "safe and effective"; (ii) national drug regulators (whose sole task is to protect patients from dangerous pharmaceutical drugs) can examine and approve it; (iii) the drug company can sell it to medical authorities; and (iv) doctors can prescribe it to patients. And vast profits can be made, especially when the drug is protected by the conventional medical establishment, including both government and the mainstream media. 

In 2020 the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review’s (IMMDSR) report, ‘First do no harm’, picked out Sodium Valproate as a particularly dangerous drug. It explored the harm it caused. There is actually a disease named after the drug - foetal valproate spectrum disorder (FVSD), which is the blanket diagnosis for the wide variety of disorders and development issues known to be caused when the foetus is exposed to the drug in the womb​​. The babies are born with birth defects that include spina bifida, autism, malformations of the brain, heart, and kidneys, and in severe cases, death.

A Patient Safety Commissioner, Henrietta Hughes, described the ongoing use of Sodium Valproate as  “a far bigger scandal than thalidomide”.

​The IMMDSR report made headline news, unusual for such negative news about pharmaceutical drugs. Even the mainstream media could not ignore it at the time. But eventually the publicity was effectively ignored. The fact that conventional medicine can continue to use the drug is testimony to this. Once, harmful pharmaceutical drugs were banned by drug regulators. This is what should happen but it appears that this is no longer the case - regardless of the horrendous publicity. There has been much more, as these few examples demonstrate.

• In January 2018 this BBC News video talked about "the sodium valproate scandal", exposing "the scandal of sodium valproate and pregnancy, and how devastatingly it could affect family for generations".

• In April 2022 the MHRA (UK's drug regulator) looked into cases of unsafe epilepsy drug being given to pregnant women as it was "associated with birth defects", and without proper warnings being given to patients.
  

•  In December 2022 the MHRA recommended that no one should take the drug "without advice from their healthcare professional".
  

• In February 2023 BBC News reported that a woman, who three children were born with disabilities after she was prescribed an epilepsy drug during pregnancy has "welcomed new GP guidance". (Note, after 55 years during which time the damage had been done, but the guidance was "new"). This article comments, sagely, that "it is thought thousands of UK children have been harmed by foetal exposure to sodium valproate since the 1970's".

One of the findings of the IMMDSR report was that the voice of the patient has been dismissed over the years, that conventional medicine (the NHS) just did not listen to them. Remember my 2010 blog? The large group of parents, with damaged children, who went to court to argue that what they were being told (that the drug was "safe and effective") was not correct? They lost! And as a result of this, so did many more parents whose children were born, damaged, during the next 12 years. 

So perhaps the new guidelines will protect potential parents now - if doctors follow the guidelines. But no-one should believe that Sodium Valproate's only adverse drug reaction is to cause serious birth defects. It is now thought that male infertility can be damaged. The drug is also known to cause of other serious conditions, such as nausea, confusion, delusions, feeling of unreality, mental depression, difficult/laboured breathing, vomiting, weakness, bleeding, encephalopathy, suicidal thoughts behaviour, and many more. It's all in official medical literature! To see a more complete list of adverse reactions visit this link. 

Except, of course, that for an entirely complete list of adverse drug reactions to Sodium Valproate we might have to wait another 55 years! The pharmaceutical industry is a slow learner, especially when big drug profits are being made.

Nor should anyone believe that Sodium Valproate is prescribed only for epilepsy. It is also used for people with Bipolar Disease, and Schizophrenia, Migraine - and several other illnesses.

And many people will not know that they are taking Sodium Valporate, as like most pharmaceutical drugs, it is branded under many different names. These include Absenor, Convulex, Depakene, Depakin, Depakine, Depakine, Depalept, Deprakine, Encorate, Epival, Epilim, Stavzor, Valcote, Valpakine, Orfiril, and no doubt many others. The branding of drugs seems to be done to deflect attention, and create confusion! One drug, with a multiplicity of names!

The conclusion is easy to relate. Sodium valproate has been associated with birth defects for many years. The medical profession has denied this for 55 years, during which time thousands of patients, around the world, have been damaged. Patients were not properly informed about the dangers - not least because the medical profession were denying these dangers until recently. Conventional medicine invariably does so, and many of the drugs they say are "safe and effective" today are nothing of the sort. But we will not know, or be told, for many years, if not decades.

 

The fact is that most pharmaceutical drugs are harmful to patients; the medical establishment is quite aware of the harm they cause (it is in the medical literature) but it continue to allow doctors to prescribe them. Moreover, patients continue to take them because they are not adequately informed about their dangers.