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.

 

The Semmelweis Reflex. How Reliable or Honest Is Medical Science?

The Semmelweis Reflex questions whether medical 'science' is really as 'scientific' as it believes itself to be. It has been described on this website as follows:

        "Ignaz Semmelweis was a Hungarian obstetrician who disproved the belief that post-operations deaths were caused by ‘poison air’ in a hospital ward. The work done by Semmelweis all but removed puerperal fever from the maternity units he worked in. His colleagues and superiors derided his work while he was alive but antiseptic surgery drastically reduced post-operation fatalities"

The success of Ignaz Semmelweis, in the 1840's, was rewarded by him being dismissed from his post, and never being able to attain another post within medicine. He died, in obscurity, when he was in his early 40's. The Semmelweis Reflex is succinctly described by 'Science Direct' as follows:

        "Semmelweis reflex is a human behavioural tendency to stick to pre-existing beliefs and to reject fresh ideas that contradict them (despite adequate evidence)". 

This reflex in conventional medicine was alive before and Semmelweis was alive, and continues to thrive today. Dr John Campbell described the reflex in some detail in this video which is well worth viewing. It introduced me to this man's unfortunate career, and his fate at the hands of the conventional medical establishment in the 19th century.

I then read an article by Roman Bystrianyk on the smallpox vaccine. The myth that smallpox was successfully eradicated by vaccines has persisted within conventional medicine now for over 200 years, and continues. As my previous blog on Smallpox indicated, this is just not true. Bystrianyk quoted Professor Robert A. Gunn, MD, writing in 1891.

        "How strange it is that, no matter what the professional or scientific attainments of a man may be, no matter how he may have previously been honoured, nor what positions of preferment and trust he may have occupied, the moment he says a word against vaccination he is denounced as not knowing anything of the subject, and not being an authority in medicine."

As Bystrianyk states in his article, there have always been dissenting voices within conventional medicine, including those who criticized medical treatments like bloodletting, blistering, and the use of toxic substances like mercury and arsenic in medical drugs. Unlike Semmelweis (who was at least recognised posthumously) many of these voices have been, and continue to be, ignored. He points, in particular, to conventional medicine's obsession with vaccination.

        "Instead, the proponents of vaccines persisted, driven by medical hubris and profits, enacting laws that curtailed individual freedoms in the process".

The Semmelweis Reflex sums up why conventional medicine has made so little progress in fulfilling its primary objective - to treat sick people, suffering from serious illness and disease, successfully.

Look at national health services, dominated by pharmaceutical medicine, around the world. How are they doing? How successful are they in treating sickness? Why has every chronic disease reached epidemic proportions? Why is illnesses like ADHD, allergies, arthritis, autism, auto-immune diseases, cancer, dementia, diabetes, epilepsy, heart/lung/kidney/liver disease, mental health, et al, all running at unprecedented, epidemic levels. Why are hospitals full to over-flowing? Why are doctors so busy they are often unavailable?

In the Covid-19 fiasco, the official pharmaceutical Narrative was ubiquitous, clear, concise, incontrovertible - and reinforced by government, by conventional medical authorities, and the mainstream media. No dissenting voice was allowed to challenge the Narrative. The virus was deadly; it would kill millions; no-one was safe; only the new "safe and effective" vaccines were able to save us; we must all take the vaccines, or be forced to do so.

As usual there were dissenting voices but these voices were censored by the conventional medical establishment, proving that the Semmelweis Reflex was alive and well! Two of these 'life-saving' vaccines (the AstraZenica and Johnson and Johnson vaccines) have already been withdrawn, effectively banned because they were neither safe or effective. Yet we are still urged to take Covid-19 vaccines on an annual basis, alongside many, many others.

Conventional medicine regularly states that it is "scientific", evidence based; and it is this 'scientific medicine' that is winning the war against ill-health. There is precious little evidence of this victory. Perhaps it is because their have been too many Ignaz Semmelweis's whose criticisms, and alternative medical practices has been ignored, trashed, and then forgotten.

The medical genius who I discovered when I became ill, over 50 years ago, was Samuel Hahnemann. He developed the medical practice of homeopathy in the 1790's. Alongside many millions of other people around the world, I have used no other medical system since that accidental discovery.

So how has the discovery of Homeopathy fared within national health provision around the world? Apart from a few countries, most prominently India, it has been consistently rejected by the Conventional Medical Establishment. They have said for over 230 years that it is unscientific, it does not, and cannot work, and that it is nothing more than placebo. It has been effectively banned is many countries in the world.

So it would appear that the Semmelweis Reflex is more active and alive now that it was when Semmelweis himself was rejected!

Gut Health is now linked to Alzheimer's Disease: so what has damaged our gut and led to the dementia epidemic?

Gut health has recently been linked to Alzheimer's disease (and therefore, probably, many cases of dementia as a whole). The study can be found here, "Common Gut Infection linked to Alzheimer's Disease". Any other industry, on learning this, might be expected to ask the next question. 

What is causing this infection, why has our gut been harmed?

But not, of course, pharmaceutical medicine! Whilst, for example, a car manufacturer might want to learn about problems that arising in their vehicles in order to remedy it, drug companies are weary about doing so as it might just identify one (or more) of their drugs as a cause of an unhealthy gut. And this would, of course, be bad for business!

Over 15 years ago I produced a list of pharmaceutical drugs that had been (and still are) linked to dementia and Alzheimer's disease. As you can see they include:

• vaccine ingredients such as mercury and aluminium derivatives
• the 'flu vaccine
• antidepressant drugs
• antipsychotic drugs
• statin drugs
• Benzodiazepine drugs, and other sleeping pills
• anticholinergic drugs
• antihistamine and other allergy drugs
• proton-pump inhibitors
• painkilling drugs
• epilepsy drugs
• HRT (hormone replacement therapy)
• and many more.

So is it any wonder that dementia, in all its forms, has increased to epidemic proportions during the last 70-100 years, mirroring the enormous rise in the consumption of all these drugs? Another common drug prescribed in vast quantities during this time are Antibiotic drugs - designed to kill bacteria - usually taken by mouth directly to the stomach - and so let loose on the beneficial bacteria of our gut microbiome. A direct, and surely an undeniable link!

        So is dementia caused by pharmaceutical drugs? 

        And does the pharmaceutical industry want to ask this question in order to discover what has been causing the epidemic of Alzheimer's disease?

We can be absolutely sure that the drugs do; but the industry don't! My e-Book, "Iatrogenic Disease: the "Disease-Inducing-Effects of Pharmaceutical Drugs", demonstrates that most common chronic diseases are, to one extent or another, linked to well-known 'adverse drug/vaccine' reactions.

Yet you will never hear this from the pharmaceutical industry, or the conventional medical establishment, or government, or the mainstream media - most of our main sources of information. 

Why? 

The drug industry is just too powerful to permit it; and it uses its vast wealth and influence to ensure that we do not get to know about it.