Why is Public Trust in Conventional/Pharmaceutical Medicine Waning?

• Could the under-performance of drug-based treatments (ie, people don't get better), and the rising epidemic of chronic disease (ie, linked to serious adverse drug reactions), be responsible?

  For over 100 years we have been living in the hope (even the expectation) that ‘scientific’ medicine would successfully overcome the threat and personal tragedy of disease. Epidemics of infections of influenza, measles, smallpox, typhoid, typhus, et al, pervaded the 19th century, and were massively destructive in post-industrialised societies. They killed thousands and conventional medicine at the time (and since) had no treatment that dealt with them adequately.

  Yet by the early 20th century science seemed that it might be the answer. Just as it had given us the wonders of the internal combustion engine, flight, new means of telecommunication, photography and film, and much more, it was not unreasonable for people to assume that ‘scientific’ medicine would soon develop new drugs and vaccines that would vanquish the scourge of infectious disease.

  This expectation was brilliantly supported by the propaganda of pharmaceutical companies, and the growing medical establishment that it created. Medicine, we were told, was going to win the battle against illness and disease.

  So for the last 100+ years medical science has been the great hope. It seemed initially to be building on this confidence with the development of new drugs, like antibiotics. Yet most of all it has consistently and confidently paraded the development of new treatments - that would be available within the next 5-10 years. Yet always we have had to wait rather longer. 

  It was largely on this promise pharmaceutical medicine become the dominant feature of modern medicine throughout the developed world. Other medical therapies, including herbal medicine and homeopathy, were sidelined, dismissed as old-fashioned, irrelevant in the modern world of scientific medical advance. It would be drugs that would overcome disease - we just had to be patient!

  The debate over the origins and causes of infectious disease appeared to be settled too. According to Pasteur they were the result of germs, bacteria and viruses, and the pharmaceutical industry would soon be able to control these dreadful enemies with drugs that would kill them. Later we were sold the idea that other health factors, considered important with little evidence, could be controlled too, like cholesterol, blood pressure, pain, et al. Drugs developed to control them were seen to be the future of medicine.

  And this optimism seemed to be supported by improved health. 19th century epidemics were no longer happening. Surely this demonstrated the success of medical science? 

  Yet it became clear, to those who examined the history, and questioned the claims of the pharmaceutical medical establishment, that improving health had been brought about by other factors. These included greatly improved living standards, more progressive public health policies like better housing, cleaner water supply, better sanitation, et al. Whilst this provided a more coherent explanation for the spectacular decline of infectious disease than any effective pharmaceutical drug or vaccine available during this decline.

  Unfortunately, the brilliance of pharmaceutical propaganda successful convinced us that it was drugs and vaccines that we had to thank, not public health policies. It was Pharma that had freed us from deadly infections. So the optimism of conventional medicine continued, unabated. The Pharmaceutical Establishment persuaded us that their drugs and vaccines vanquished smallpox, overcome measles, etc. 

  And on a weekly basis the drug industry, courtesy of the mainstream media, has reinforced this message by telling us about new miracle drugs, and ground-breaking medical breakthroughs, that would ‘transform’ our experience of disease - soon.

  At the same time, however, chronic disease began to grow to unprecedented (epidemic) levels. If public health measures had largely freed us from infectious disease, it was now the rise of chronic diseases (arthritis, autism, cancer, dementia, diabetes, and much more) that now confronted us. These diseases arose in almost exact step with the consumption of the new ‘ground-breaking’ pharmaceutical drugs. The each began from a relatively low level but have increased prodigiously in the last 70-80 years, during which pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines have dominated medical care. As I have argued many times on this platform, the link between these two factors is clear to anyone who wishes to look - pharmaceutical drugs have all these chronic diseases listed “side effects”. 

  The links between chronic disease and pharmaceutical drugs is clearly written in literature of conventional medicine, It is cause and effect! And chronic disease shows few sign of abating, or even stabilising.

  Indeed, with the support of burgeoning ‘patient support groups’ and ‘health charities’, drug companies continue to feed and support the medical optimism on which it depends, repeating, ad nauseam, the same decades-old promises.

  • “Together we will beat cancer”! (Cancer Research UK).

  • “It will take a society to beat dementia”! (Alzheimer’s Society).

  Slogans like this have been used for decades. They emphasise the seriousness of the disease, encourage us to raise money by walking, running, swimming, cycling, etc., all in order to provide more money for the development of yet more pharmaceutical drugs! 

  However, these oft-repeated charitable and medical promises are beginning to wear thin, especially when no new, effective drugs have appeared, and diseases like cancer and dementia have continued to rise - quite regardless of the cleverness of charitable mottos, and despite the incredible money-raising prowess of well-intentioned, energetic health campaigners.

  At the same time the National Health Service (NHS) has become sacrosanct, inviolable in the UK. Every political party supports it, not least as, for 80 years or more, no party has been able to gain/retain power if they did not promise to spend more and more money on it. Indeed, no government has been able to spend enough money on the NHS to satisfy growing levels of sickness, and the public demand for more and more conventional, drug-based medical treatments. 

  And as the NHS is entirely dominated by pharmaceutical medicine, this has led to an unending 80-year “drug fest”, during which time the medical establishment have become excessively rich, and in almost complete control of the medical agenda.

  Yet Change is Beginning to Happen.

  Have you noticed that conventional medicine is increasingly using nutrition, exercise and ‘social prescribing’ now, often before, and in preference too, the prescription of pharmaceutical drugs, or even vaccines? As the harm caused by adverse drug effects have become clearer to more people, as older drugs are withdrawn/abandoned, and no new drugs come through to replace them, doctors are having had to resort to other prescriptions - to join a society, to spend more time in the countryside, or to pursue hobbies. And, of course, this social prescribing is proving to be as effective, if not more effective than any treatment offered by the drug industry!

  Yet many more factors are now in play. Our Members of Parliament (MP’s) are asking serious questions about the performance of the NHS. and therefore the health outcomes of the drug-dominated treatment that dominates it. As long ago as 2015, the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee questioned the huge, and growing amounts of money being paid for the ever-rising ‘negligence costs’ of the NHS, saying that “the focus must shift from describing the scale of the problem to delivering action”. It said that “future liabilities for criminal negligence claims are now estimated at £60 billion - a quadrupling in real terms of the 2006-2007 figure”.

  This level of negligence, seen wherever pharmaceutical medicine dominates health provision, has clearly been breeding patient dissatisfaction over the years. It is all contributing to a general feeling that pharmaceutical medicine is failing, that it is unsafe, that the trust and optimism we have place on it has been misplaced.

  Patient dissatisfaction with ‘scientific’ medicine seems to have been increasing for some time. The Kings Fund carried out a survey on public satisfaction with the NHS in March 2026, and these are some of their findings:

  “In 2019, 60% of respondents said that they were satisfied with the NHS and this figure had been spiralling downwards, reaching a record low of just one in five (21%) in 2024”.

  “Optimism that care will get better is lower than at any point in the past. Less than a sixth (16%) say they think the standard of NHS care will improve in the next 5 years”.

  “People under 35, ….. were significantly less satisfied with the NHS than the average”.

  This latter finding is significant. As this BBC article, “Young people less satisfied with the NHS”, emphasises the importance of younger people argues, they are less committed to the NHS’s ‘sacred cow’ image, and that it will be these new, dissatisfied generations, less aware of the hopes and expectations of the past, who will ultimately decide on the future of the NHS, and the conventional medicine that dominates it.

  And even doctors are noticing the trend. They are now complaining that patients are increasingly refusing to take their advice about the treatment they offer. So why, they ask, do patients prefer to trust “unsupported claims” (on the internet) but not their professional advice? Perhaps this is the result of decades of conventional medicine failing to tell us the truth!

  The promises made by the Pharmaceutical Medical Establishment have not been delivered, so the hope and optimism about conventional, drug-based medicine is declining. Conventional medicine is on the defensive. When negative reports about the NHS medical treatment appears the usual excuses are trotted out. 

  • The population is ageing. 

  • Increased disease is the result of improved diagnosis. 

  • And so on. 

  The dreadful experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic, of course, adds greatly to the increasing scepticism! The medical panic (social distancing, lockdowns, et al) that pharmaceutical medicine resorted to to deal with the virus, plus the patient harm caused by the mandating of ‘experimental’ vaccines to protect us from it, has been one of the most visible/obvious self-inflicted medical disasters of all time.

  Nor is the situation any different in the USA, as this Medscape article, “Doctors say patients are losing trust in their treatment advice”.

  “Nearly half of the physicians believe that patients have less trust in their treatment recommendations today than they did several years ago, a possible reflection of growing public distrust in science.”

  So vaccination rates throughout the USA are declining, alongside the deepening mistrust that has been generated in conventional medicine generally after a century of broken promises, and medical failure. Moreover, patients there have to bear the spiralling costs of pharmaceutical drug treatments, with some of the new ‘wonder’ drugs now costing tens of thousands of dollars per patient per month.

  Yet another question needs to be asked. Is the growing dissatisfaction with medical treatment more to do with the inability of the conventional medicine to be honest about what is causing increasing levels of chronic illnesses, and its lack of success in treating them? Regardless of how much we spend on pharmaceutical medicine we seem only to get sicker, and rates of chronic illnesses continue to rise.

  If the Pharmaceutical Medical Establishment wants us to trust their treatments it needs to deliver more positive clinical outcomes - not just more excuses for failure, or more promises of better tomorrow.

  
  

The Inadequacy and Failure of Patient Information Leaflets (PILs), Drug Package Inserts, to keep us safe

PILs are meant to protect patients from harm, to provide us with information about ‘side effects’, adverse reactions of pharmaceutical drugs. The UK’s drug regulator has admitted they do not do so.

Pharmaceutical medicine works within the confines of a code of ethical conduct that (should) recognise the possible dangers of drugs and vaccines, and thereby seek to protect patients from harm.

One central concept is that if pharmaceutical medicine can cause serious patient harm, patients should at least be informed about that possibility, not least to enable them to make an ‘informed’ choice about whether or not to take the drugs/vaccines/treatment.

1. That is why we have Drug Regulatory bodies - to ensure that we are all informed about the potential dangers of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines.

2. That is why drug companies are obliged to test their vaccines and drugs for both (i) safety and (ii) efficacy - and to put this information on PILs.

3. That is why doctors have a reporting system (Yellow Card system in UK) that obliges doctors to report any adverse drug effects suffered by their patients to the drug regulator.

4. And that is why all vaccines and drugs prescribed to patients are accompanied by a PIL, or Package Insert, to inform patients about the potential harm each drug are known to cause.

The problem is that (i) Drug Regulators are now controlled and staffed by people with close links to the Pharmaceutical industry, whose main concern seems to be the best interests of the industry rather than the safety of patients. Another problem is that (ii) Big Pharma companies are the main funders of the ‘medical science’, and have demonstrably corrupted the ‘science’ that is supposed to underlay conventional medicine. And further, (iii) most adverse drug reactions are not routinely fed to drug regulators, those that are reported are increasingly ignored, and so many adverse drug reactions do not make their way on to PILs'.

These long-standing ‘faults’ in drug regulation, all meant to protect patients from harm, have been discussed on this forum many times. But hitherto I have paid less attention to the inadequacies of PILs.

The medical journal, MIMS reported in October 2026 that the UK’s drug regulator, the MHRA, is to undertake a major review “to improve communication of key risks associated with antidepressants, including suicide and sexual dysfunction..…” The article says that this action follows a major review that recognised most patients are NOT being sufficiently warned about the adverse reactions to antidepressant drugs. 

“The review came after patients and families raised concerns regarding the adequacy of existing PILs in communicating antidepressant risks”

What this means, in effect, is that antidepressant drugs, prescribed by thousands of doctors to millions of patients for over 70 years (antidepressant drugs were developed in the 1950’s) have not been accompanied by PILs that adequately warn about the risks of taking them! So, it says, doctors must now to impart this to their patients.

“Clinicians are advised to discuss the risks of suicidal thoughts and behaviours, and the potential for persistent sexual dysfunction with patients when starting or changing an antidepressant dose, or at their next review. They should also advise patients to seek urgent medical attention if they experience new or worsening suicidal thoughts, particularly early in treatment or following dose changes.”

After 70 years this is seriously belated advice! Both suicide and sexual dysfunction resulting from antidepressant use has been in PILs for decades! And these are just two serious side effects that have been known about antidepressant use for decades. The Drugs.com website, for instance, reports many more serious side effects, including drowsiness and fatigue, gastrointestinal problems, and weight gain and much more. So it should be asked:

• How many depressed people have committed suicide (and self harm) not because of their depression but because of the drugs they were taking to ‘treat’ their depression?

• How many people with problems during sexual activity, such as lack of libido, arousal, orgasm, pain, should now be blaming pharmaceutivcal drugs rather than personal inadequacy? (And perhaps the relationship between antidepressant drugs and gender dysphoria should be more closely investigated,  something I have already written about, here.

• Gastrointestinal problems and weight gain are also growing health problems. How many patients have these problems because they have been taking antidepressants, without realising that they are well-known adverse reaction? And how many patients now taking the new, much lauded weight-loss injection drugs are doing so as a result of the havoc that has been caused by taking another pharmaceutical drug?

Violence is another known ‘side effect’ of taking antidepressant drugs. This is also in conventional medical literature. The question is, to what extent has this serious social issue, that has increased enormously in recent years, the result of taking antidepressant drugs? Dare I say that social violence has grown “in line with the increased consumption of antidepressant drugs”? And that there are many other pharma drugs that are known to cause violence. I have read many cogent, well researched articles suggesting that most mass shootings in the USA were carried out by people with ‘mental health’ problems, and who were taking antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs. I have no evidence to suggest that this is any different in the UK!

All this indicates that PILs do not, and have not worked. It is not just about antidepressants and sexual dysfunction/suicide. Most patients, taking most drugs, remain oblivious to the possibility of drug harm. The information contained in PILs have just not reached patients.

So what measures are the MHRA bringing about, what are the “new safeguards to strengthen antidepressant safety information”? They are breathtakingly simple. But unfortunately there is no explanation about how they will be more “visible” to patients than they have been hitherto.

“A new boxed warning in the PILs aims to highlight information on suicidal thoughts and behaviours and signpost patients to sources of help. The term post SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD) is being added to the PILs of antidepressants associated with a risk of sexual dysfunction which may persist after treatment discontinuation, including certain SSRIs, SNRIs and tricyclic antidepressants.

“A new patient card, to be included in or on medication packaging, will reinforce key safety messages and help patients and carers understand how and when to seek further support. It will initially be available electronically, and may be given to the patient by dispensers as an interim measure ahead of cards becoming available. Hard copies are expected to be credit card-sized and easy to carry.”

Yes, but the crucial question is this. How will patients be any more likely to see these new methods of communication, especially if there is no-one who is going to draw their attention to them.

“An ancillary safety leaflet is being developed in collaboration with other healthcare system partners to provide more detailed information on the benefits and risks of antidepressants, as well as alternative treatment options. It is intended for use during the first consultation for new patients or at the next consultation for existing patients, and is expected to become available in 2027.

Yes, but will doctors avail themselves of the opportunity to do this during the first, or next consultation? They could/should do so now but rarely do!. So will they be any more likely to do so under this new jurisdiction?

Finally, MIMS quotes Dr Alison Cave, MHRA Chief Safety Officer, as saying that “these measures will help ensure patients, carers and healthcare professionals can have more informed conversations about the benefits and risks associated with antidepressant medicines, and better support people throughout their treatment’.

Unfortunately she does not say how this will happen! She fails to address the historical unwillingness of the Conventional Medical Establishment to inform patients about serious adverse drug reactions. From pharmaceutical companies, to medical science, to medical journals, to doctors and nurses, dismissive mantras, and throw away comments, are commonplace. “They are well tolerated” patients are routinely told. They are meant to reassure. They are meant to persuade patients to take the drugs. They are not honest!

I, for one, will certainly NOT be ‘tolerating’ any vaccine or drug.

And I patiently await the time when the Conventional Medical Establishment demonstrates that it is prepared to be honest and transparent with their patients about the serious adverse drug effects their medications can, and do cause.

The Medicalisation of Maternity Care.

It is doctors, not midwives, who now lead in maternity care services. So how is medicalisation going?

Throughout human history, delivering babies has never been an easy or straightforward procedure. In the process of giving birth both women and their babies have died in the process. Making comparisons about numbers and trends over the centuries is not an easy task.

          “In the 19th and first half of the 20th century, everybody knew about death in childbirth, particularly those women who were about to go through the process. Although death rates from many other conditions were high, they at least were among people who had been ill beforehand. Death in relation to childbirth was mostly in fit young women who had been quite well before becoming pregnant. They died, often leaving the baby, and other children in the family from previous births, with a widowed husband.”

This general understanding probably underscored the reason for the medicalisation of maternity services over recent decades. Childbirth is no longer led by midwives. Most babies are now delivered within a hospital settings overseen by doctors.

          “Over the past two decades, the landscape of childbirth in the UK has changed beyond recognition. From campaigns promoting physiological birth to scandals, safety inquiries, and a growing midwifery crisis, the role of the doula is now more vital than ever.”

A Guardian newsletter, dated 22 October 2026, ”The crisis putting maternity units in England at risk of closure”, has highlighted some of the problems that has resulted from the medicalisation process. It outlines staff shortages that are leading to the suspension and closure of some hospital in some ‘remoter’ areas of the country. The Guardian reported that up to 20 maternity units in England could close, and that “the story sheds light on a maternity care crisis that has been rumbling on for years”.

One reason the Guardian gives for this situation is the reducing birth rate, coupled with changing birthing practices.

          “More women than ever are now getting C-sections or having births that require medical intervention from doctors, and smaller maternity units are also grappling with a widespread lack of obstetricians.”

Indeed the rise of C-section births has been dramatic.

          “The proportion of births performed by caesarean increased from 31% in 2019 to 45% in 2024, and last year was the first time in England that more babies were born via c-section than “natural” births.”

The Guardian justified placing “natural” in inverted commas as it has become “a term that many women find pretty grating because it implies there’s a hierarchy between births with medical intervention and those without”. This in itself was a fundamental change in attitude. When my children were born in the 1970’s, ‘Natural Childbirth’ was in vogue, and my wife was part of this trend.

As a mere man, I became aware of the ‘struggle’ between midwives and doctors when my children were born, some 50 years ago now. If I recall correctly most births at that time took place at home, with the mother-to-be having regular access, for several months, to a midwife, who was in charge of the process, preparing the birth alongside the mother. Most births began and ended with this simple/natural process - although midwives always had access to medical advice and intervention as and when the need was identified.

Whatever the nature of the ‘struggle’ that has taken place over the intervening years it is clear that it is doctors in hospitals, rather than he midwives in the community, who now lead the birthing process. Why did this happen? It is easy to understand the medical justification - the assumption that ‘scientific’ medicine would soon be able to resolve the problems involved in giving birth. Medicine has made similar claims in many different areas over the last 100 years. 

• Vaccines have conquered infectious illness (sic). 

• Surgery is replacing failing organs and limbs (sic). 

• Pharmaceutical drugs were winning the battle against serious illness and disease (sic). 

So doctors would be able to improve the experience, and the outcomes of women giving birth. But as one midwife says:

          “I was a midwife watching as the tide shifted, as older midwives retired and as the new midwives came in, and I knew the blanket induction policy at 41 weeks would seal the fate of birthing women and people. A fate that involved induction of labour, medicalised and traumatising births often ending in a caesarean that they did not expect or want. I don’t personally believe it’s about money or Big Pharma. It’s a patriarchal medical model of pregnancy and birth that believes we are a machine that can be split into parts to be fixed and saved. Yet no one asked the women. Or the birthing people.”

So what has been the outcome of the medicalisation of maternity care? 

In September 2025 the UK government announced that 14 NHS Maternity Trusts were under investigation. Over the previous years the plight of so many NHS Maternity Trust’s has made regular headline news - even in the usually pro-medical mainstream media. So clearly, all is not well if the Guardian newsletter describes the broader picture as follows:

          “Some women are also worried about the type of care they might receive during vaginal births. Successive reviews portray a state of crisis, with burnt-out and exhausted midwives, a growing risk of serious injuries, and women of colour experiencing persistent racism and discrimination. A national review of maternity services in England from 2022 to 2024 by the Care Quality Commission warned that serious harm in maternity care risked becoming the norm”.

And all this with a considerable reduction in birthrates! So it has not arisen because of increased workload! 

A Medscape article, July 2026, stated that one in five women now needed emergency medical care. Discussing a Nuffield Trust report it said that more than 1 in 5 mothers (22%) needed emergency care in the year following the babies birth, the article outlining some of the salient features of emergency medical intervention in the early months following birth.

So as usual, the conventional medical establishment has failed to live up to the reputation it has routinely claimed for itself!

The National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation Report into the 14 hospital trusts was delivered in June 2026. It was a damning, describing the ‘toxic’ culture that now pervaded maternity services,. It highlighted many aspects of the problem. One key reason given for the rising rate of caesarean births is known as “defensive practice”, which arises when doctors make decisions in order to avoid blame or parental complaints, rather than doing what is necessarily in a patient’s best interests. The Health Secretary, speaking in the House of Commons, has highlighted this new “culture” that he said meant that when mistakes were made, maternity units prioritised their reputation over and above their duty of openness to families.

          “Culture is where so much of the responsibility lies. That culture is the most deep-rooted cause of the failures we have seen, and the most fundamental thing we must change”.

This is the medicalised culture that has developed over the last 50 years. It is rife throughout the NHS. The reports author, Baroness Amos, identified a host of other “shocking” failings in maternity care, including women being ignored, poor triage of mothers-to-be, putting lives at risk, and chronic understaffing of services.

The ‘old’ culture, based essentially on one mother, with one midwife, and the relationship they developed during the months of pregnancy, would perhaps have been a good antidote to all these problems but seems nowhere to be mentioned in the discussions now going on within health services.

According to the Guardian newsletter the cost of the ‘new culture to the NHS is huge, and rising. In order to settle outstanding maternity-related claims in England (alone) is estimated at £37.5bn in 2025. This is nearly two-thirds of the NHS’s £60bn clinical negligence liabilities bill, and the Guardian calculated that the bill for maternity negligence claims in England since 2019 could be more than the health service’s budget for newborns during the same period.

So I ask the question. Did these problems exist, or were they as bad in the pre-medicalised arrangements for maternity care? The old culture at least provided a structure for each woman that offered 1-1 support, friendship, and information about giving birth, including how much they wished the process to be medicalised.

When delivering any health service, my view is always that the best policy is to ‘follow the patient’, to be patient-focused, to provide as much information and support as possible to ensure that patients are making properly informed choices, and that their voice is clearly heard above the arrogant noise of the medical profession. Their science just does not deliver

Putting a huge medical bureaucracy in charge of maternity care, led by conventional doctors, is perhaps the worst possible direction that could have been taken; and it is time that we all began to realise this!

Brain Cancer and Young People. The failure of the Conventional Medical Establishment to ask the most fundamental question. Why the sudden increase?

The BBC has highlighted the issue of brain cancer and young people in the UK both on their news programmes, and this article. Its focus on it stems from an interview conducted with Archie Goodburn, aged 25, a swimmer who has this year represented his country, Scotland, in the Commonwealth Games. He was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer two years ago (when aged 23).

Goodburn reached the final of the 50m breaststroke at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July this year. He made a tearful TV appeal for more investment to be put into brain cancer research so that new treatment can be found. Later he met with the UK’s prime minister who then announced a new national brain cancer clinical lead, and promised a review of brain cancer progress, and action to get patients treated sooner.

This might appear to be a sensible approach. Brain cancer is rising rapidly, not least in younger people, not least in the UK. It is clearly a matter for concern - even for an athlete, in the prime of life, who we must assume to be physically fit, and someone who has paid close attention to diet and other fitness and health matters as part of his training in recent years. And it is quite natural that he should want ‘treatment’ to be developed for his condition.

Yet there is a prior question, rarely asked by the Conventional Medical Establishment. It is not “WHAT can be done to treat the condition”. Rather it is “WHY has this condition emerged”. As usual we have been given the diagnosis, but no cause has been suggested. Disease causation does not appear to be something that anyone is interested in.

The failure to ask the question leads to an interesting situation, a highly profitable one for the pharmaceutical industry! There is now a national call to raise large amounts of money so that medical science that develop new treatments, new drugs, for the problem. Medical charities, and Patient Support Groups, enter the scene to organise and publicise the issue.

Yet if the “WHY?” question was asked it might prove to be a more uncomfortable situation for both the Conventional Medical Establishment, Medical Science, and the Pharmaceutical Industry.

Cancer rates, of all kinds, have increased rapidly in recent decades. Cancer was once a greatly feared but uncommon disease mainly contracted by older people. Now it is more widespread, and is affecting not just fit young adults, like Goodburn, but infants and children too.

And it is well known that cancer is caused by many factors; in our sedentary lifestyle, in our diet, in the chemicals that surround us in our daily lives, in the electro-magnetic smog that is an increasing part of modern life, and not least by the pharmaceutical drugs that we have been consuming in ever-increasing quantities for the last 70 years - not least since the inauguration of the National Health Service.

Indeed, the rise and rise of cancer has exactly mirrored in increase in vaccine and drug taking in recent decades. Moreover, it is known (but not highly publicised by the medical profession) that pharmaceutical drugs do cause cancer. This fact is routinely published in the conventional medical literature, and in the Patient Information Leaflets that accompany each pack of pills, and each vial of vaccine.

I have outlined some of the research into the pharmaceutical causes of cancer here. None of this information is ‘misinformation’. It is all part and parcel of conventional medical literature. It is just not emphasised, or mentioned as a cause of the cancer epidemic that we have been experiencing for the last 70-80 years.

Worse, since 2021, many leading doctors have said that the Covid-19 vaccines have been causing cancer; including brain cancer; and that this has affected young adults too.

Conventional medicine would not doubt claim that there is no ‘scientific’ proof that this is so. They would be correct, no least because ‘medical science’ has never seriously investigated it, or been asked to investigate it. The Pharmaceutical industry dominates the funding medical research, and whilst they are happy to fund new research into new drugs they certainly will not fund research that delves into the outcomes of their existing drugs!

So to ask the “WHY?” question is problematical. The answer might have serious implications affecting a powerful commercial concerns, not least the Pharmaceutical industry. So it is better not to ask the question at all, especially if the “WHAT can we do?” leads to yet more money being raised for medical science, the possibility of discovering new drugs, for a market remedy to be exploited.

This situation demonstrates that the Pharmaceutical Establishment has developed one of the the most brilliant business plans.

• It focuses on an illness or disease.

• It develop a drug to treat it, regardless of its safety or effectiveness.

• It sells the treatment to doctors, and to patients as “safe and effective”.

• And if patients develop serious side effects, it organises people (including medical charities, patient support organisations, mostly funded by the Pharmaceutical industry) to clamour for more drugs, more treatments.

• Then it asks Medical Science to spend the new income on developing new drugs to treat a condition they have been instrumental in creating.

• Finally, drug companies can patent and sell the new drug, and the entire process can begin again from scratch.

And all this can be done with no embarrassing questions being asked about the quality of their current pharmaceutical vaccines and drugs, or the disastrous patient outcomes they have caused!

So is the recent rise in ‘turbo’ brain cancer in younger people, at least in part, the result of pharmaceutical drugs?

Did Archie Goodburn take the Covid-19 vaccines just prior to the problems he is now experiencing? If he wanted to swim competitively in 2021 he might have been obliged to get vaccinated. This was, after all, the situation that Novak Djokovic faced when he tried to play in the Australian Open Tennis tournament.

So we don’t know. And we probably won’t know. The question I want people to ask will be dismissed. “You have not evidence”. “There has been no research”. “It is just a conspiracy theory”. So there will be no research. The pharmaceutical establishment (in control as they are of governments, and mainstream media around the world) will make sure of that!

So what to do? It is time we all began to consider more seriously the “WHY?” question when we become ill. Conventional medicine appears to believe that serious illness and disease is an unfortunate occurrence, just bad luck, a chance encounter with a germ, and that this can be controlled by a drug.

Certainly no one is going to tell us otherwise. Despite the patient harm it has caused we are still being offered the Covid-19 vaccines; and other cancer-causing drugs continue to be prescribed. And most people buy into this view of health and medicine because we are not told otherwise.

So it is up to all of us to develop a scepticism about pharmaceutical medicine, its safety and effectiveness. We must all learn that more drugs and more vaccines are not the path to health, and that they are often the path to ill-health. 

We must begin to ask the right question, the “WHY are we ill?” question - and be prepared to look beyond the explanations that are routinely provided to us by the pharmaceutical health establishment.

Cancer before 50: why is it rising?

The  BBC Panorama programme with this title was broadcast, on 5th October 2026. It failed to answer this question by making one very important omission.

Back in April 2026 I wrote an article on Cancer, “Why are more younger people getting this ‘old age’ disease?”. I asked why media programmes dealing with the cause of illness and diseases (not least cancer) remain seemingly blind to the fact that pharmaceutical drugs are known to cause cancer - as a ‘side effect’. After all, it is in the medical literature for everyone to see, it is in the Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) that come with every packet of drugs, every vial of vaccine.

Yesterday a BBC Panorama documentary asked the question, “Cancer before 50: why is it rising?” The programme can be seen on BBC i-Player. Please watch it (30 minutes) to confirm that I am correct - pharmaceutical drugs were not mentioned, not once, as a ‘possible’ cause of cancer.

Apparently the programme raised the question because NHS data showed that rates of bowel, breast and other cancers are rising among younger generations.

Remember that when the NHS was inaugurated in 1948, nearly 80 years ago, cancer was a dreaded disease; but not a common one. And remember too that it was then considered a disease of older age.

So why are ever younger people getting cancer?  The Panorama programme featured several patients who were facing the much-feared diagnosis, and it proceeded to investigate some of the factors that might be driving the increase. In doing so it dealt with diet, ultra-processed food, to changing diets, to chemicals that are now found in everyday products, and mentioned obesity and much else. Panorama claimed that it would:

     “… examine the latest scientific research into possible causes and asks whether regulators and government are doing enough to protect public health”.

Yet if the BBC deliberately chooses to ignore the role of pharmaceutical drugs, a known cause of cancer as a ‘side effect’, it should be asked whether they themselves are “doing enough to protect public health”?

Perhaps they, too, are failing to inform the public about an important link to the rising cancer epidemic. If I am correct, cancer was an uncommon disease before the drug-fest of the NHS was started? An it was primarily a disease of old age.

So what was the situation in 1948? There is a document on the internet, ‘Public Health in 1948: remarkable statistics’ report’ that can be seen here. It was a document published by the Ministry of Health that examined health and mortality outcomes between the inception of the NHS on 5th July 1948 and March 1949

     “The mortality rates of 1948 were compared with those of 1938 (the last full year of peace before the outbreak of the Second World War and the year which had the lowest pre-war death rates of any year before the war). The report found that there had been a significant reduction in death rates. It suggested that mortality rates had fallen by 20%.

So the UK population was healthier in 1948 than it was in 1938. But unfortunately when I tried to read further I was forbidden access to the report! (Check it out)!

So I went to a report by the Nuffield Trust entitled “Death through the decades”. This looked at, and compared the causes of death in the 70 years from 1948 to 2016. It starts positively by looking at deaths from heart disease and stroke, and (as is usual) attributes this to pharmaceutical medical care:

     “We can see positive developments particularly clearly in deaths from heart disease and strokes, both of which have fallen by 40% since 1948, even as the population has grown. This probably reflects advances at every level of medicine. Statins and other drugs have improved prevention, new immediate interventions to break down blood clots have been developed, and there is better care after people experience an attack”.

Of course, it could also be the result of a multitude of social, work-related and environmental changes too But then it moves on to deal with cancer deaths (alongside dementia death too).

     “On the other hand, cancer claimed nearly twice as many deaths in 2016 as in 1948. Dementia is somewhat difficult to classify due to the widespread practice in 1948 of simply logging “senility” as a cause of death. But even if we add together “senility” and dementia, deaths from these causes have quadrupled”.

The report says that these are not merely increases in the proportion, but in the total number of deaths.

So whilst Nuffield claims responsibility for improvements in health for conventional medicine , the report does not explain responsibility for failures. This trend continues to this day, right up to yesterday’s Panorama programme.

The question I raise is an important one. Why is a vital question is being ignored, not just by the BBC but by all mainstream media; not just by the media but by most of the conventional medical profession; and by Government too?

Moreover, where are the public to find someone prepared to ask the question, “have pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines played a role in the rise and rise of cancer, as well as the creeping involvement of younger people in its devastating consequences?”

If the question is not asked there will never be an answer. What is more, failing to ask the question (in a programme that tasked itself to “examines the latest scientific research into possible causes and ask whether regulators and government are doing enough to protect public health”) was not an unintentional omission. It is always a deliberate and regular omission, a intentional failure to ask questions pointed questions about the role of pharmaceutical medicine in the creation of modern illness and disease.

Medical science provides us with important clues to this link in its admission that pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines cause ‘side effects’. Side effects - what an innocuous phrase! Yet there appears to be a unwritten, unspoken societal decision to ignore this association between pharmaceutical drugs and serious illness and disease.

Why? Just how powerful are the drug companies? Does anyone dare challenge them? Will we ever know if the question is never asked?

So are we patients supposed just to go on taking the pills, and the shots, without being aware of what the consequences might be? Are we instead destined to believe that we should blame illness and disease entirely as the consequences of other, non-medical things?

 

Is Alzheimer's Disease, and Dementia generally, Iatrogenic - caused by Doctors?

I have been suggesting that Dementia is linked to increased drug taking in the last 80+ years for nearly twenty years. This is my blog from 2013. As with all iatrogenic (doctor-induced) disease, the conventional medical establishment has always vehemently denied and discounted it. Their drugs and vaccines are (of course) “safe and effective”, and medicine is committed to “first, do no harm”. And it’s very survival depends on people believing this.

This is a difficult position for conventional medicine to maintain, given that the ‘side effects’ (adverse reactions) to their drugs and vaccines have to be published - although this is limited to the ‘side effects’ that are proven and admitted by the pharmaceutical industry.

Yet some honesty seems to be creeping into what conventional medicine is prepared to accept about the patient harm that it causes. I recently read this Medscape article, “Is Alzheimer’s Disease transmissable. Inside the evidence for ‘Iatrogenic’ AD”. Medscape is, of course, very much part of the conventional medical establishment, which does not normally admit such as thing.

          “But a small and growing body of evidence suggests that, in rare circumstances, amyloid-beta pathology associated with AD - and possible AD itself - may be transmitted from one person to another through certain medical procedures including childhood injections of cadaver-derived growth hormone (c-hGH), dura mater grafts, and renewed neurosurgical instruments”

And the article goes on to ask “what evidence supports the existence of iatrogenic AD” and details the evidence that supports the link with cadaver-derived growth hormone (c-hGH), dura mater grafts, renewed neurosurgical instruments, and also blood transfusions. Two questions emerge from this. 

• First, this article was published a couple of weeks ago, and refers to information that has been known for much longer. Why is such information not made available publicly (short of subscribing to small specialist journals like Medscape)? 

• And secondly, more importantly, why does the Conventional Medical Establishment not look into their published evidence that clearly shows that most pharmaceutical drugs, including many of the most widely prescribed, are known to cause the symptoms of dementia?

I have listed many of these prescription drugs that can be linked with Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia my e-book, here, “Iatrogenic Disease. The “Disease Inducing Effects” (DIE’s) of Pharmaceutical Drugs and Vaccines”.

The evidence, their own evidence, links pharma drugs with dementia is far more convincing way - the only way that goes close to explaining the 80 year old dementia epidemic. Yet link between pharmaceutical ‘side effects’ and all serious illnesses and diseases, including dementia - but is rarely discussed in conventional medical literature - perhaps for obvious reasons.

So if the Conventional Medical Establishment feels unable openly and transparently to investigate the link between pharmaceutical drugs and dementia, we ‘ordinary’ folk should certainly be doing so. After all, if the medical profession is failing to do so, it is in our own interests to protect ourselves from the dreadful outcome of prescription drug taking.

 

Paraquat. When something is found to be harmful and banned Big Industry continues to sell it.

Does profit speak louder than our personal safety, or the environment we live in?

The USA state of Vermont has banned the use of the pesticide, paraquat. In America this has been announced as a triumph - apparently it is the first state to do so. But reading the article here in England I wondered - surely paraquat has been banned for some time?

It was! Paraquat has been banned in England since 2007 over concerns about neurotoxicity and health risks - particularly the association with Parkinson’s disease. However, more research informed me that although banned for use in England, it is still produced in the UK for export to other countries where it remains legal.

Am I surprised? No, and no-one should be surprised. It is common practice in most industries, not least the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. 

• Discovering and demonstrating that a chemical, or a drug, is harmful is one thing - and to do so takes a lot of time, effort and expense. 

• Convincing the government, or the mainstream media, leave alone the industry, is quite another - it can (and often does) take many decades to do so. 

• And then getting the industry to stop producing the banned product adds another level to the problem - profit invariably takes precedence over public and environmental safety.

So paraquat has been produced in the UK since 2007, by Syngenta, and this production is only being stopped this month - June 2026 - 19 years later. Moreover, the decision was not taken because of government regulation but “reflects competitive pressures and ongoing legal challenges related to health risks associated with paraquat, particularly its links to Parkinson’s disease”.

However, my AI source was able to reassure me that paraquat would continue to be produced elsewhere, indeed “that over 750 companies produce paraquat worldwide”. 

So what price that Parkinson’s Disease will continue to be a scourge to the world’s population?

“The cessation of production in the UK does not eliminate paraquat from the market, as it remains legal and widely used in other countries, including the United States”.

Similarly many thousands of pharmaceutical drugs have been quietly withdrawn or banned over the last 80+ years plus. I have listed just some of them here. But this does not mean that these dangerous drugs are banned everywhere as a result. If they can be sold anywhere, in sufficient quantity to make a profit, the pharmaceutical industry will sell them. Companies will protest - “the safety of our products is our primary concern” - but time after time this is proven to be untrue.

Surely the most infamous of all banned pharmaceutical drugs, Thalidomide, is not being sold now?

“Yes, thalidomide is still prescribed to patients, particularly for treating certain cancers like multiple myeloma and some skin disorders. However, it is strictly regulated due to its history of causing severe birth defects”.

Is anyone reassured?

Weight Loss Drugs: start taking one drug and end up taking many, many more!

Pharmaceutical medicine has a wonderfully sophisticated and successful policy of ensuring their drugs don't work effectively so we need more drugs to deal with their ineffectiveness

Many millions of patients, throughout the world, have been encouraged recently to start taking GLP-1 weight loss drugs (Ozempic, Wgovy, Mounjaro, et al). The promotion of these drugs has, as usual, been superb. So the drug companies who make them have made fortunes. The problem for patients, as always, is that they were largely unaware of their possible adverse reactions.

When GLP-1 weight-loss drugs were introduced it was already known that they caused serious side effects, so much so that they were recommended to be taken under strict supervision for no more than two years. The main problem with these restrictions was that even if people did stop taking them, they were known, quickly, to put the weight back on.

So now patients will be glad to know (sic) that the drug companies have come up with a solution. This Medscape article informs us that there is now a new ‘follow-up’ drug, Orforglipron.

          “Patients who lost significant weight … were able to maintain much of that loss after switching to once daily oral orforglipron”.

And, ever eager to help the pharmaceutical industry, the mainstream media has been quick to popularise the message. The BBC’s response can be seen here: “Daily pill to help keep weight off after stopping obesity jabs”. It is not untypical of many other similar articles.

          “Trials found that patients given the tablet, called orforglipron, every day for a year avoided regaining much of the weight they had lost - a known risk when coming off GLP-1 injections …. More research is needed to find out how long someone might need to stay on treatment - it might even be life-long, say experts”. (My emphasis).

The study was published in the journal Nature Medicine, external. It was funded by the drug manufacturer Eli Lilly, who also make the GLP-1 jab, Mounjaro (the one used by the UK’s NHS). And as with all pharma funded research it should not be too surprising that it came out in favour of the product, and to the drug industry generally.

So people who may have thought that they only had to take one drug for a maximum of two years have now discovered that they should take another one - for the rest of their lives.

Nowhere in the mainstream media’s promotion of Orforglipron were its side effects adequately mentioned, certainly not to the extent that it enables patients, and potential patients, to make an ‘informed’ choice about whether they should take them. Neither the BBC or Medscape article mentions more than “nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea” as potential side effects.

Yet the side effect of Orforglipron are already well known, and published in conventional medical literature, outlined here in this Drugs.com webpage.

• Common side effects of orforglipron are given as nausea, stomach (abdominal) pain, heartburn, constipation, headache, gas, diarrhoea, bloating, hair loss, vomiting, tiredness, indigestion, and belching.

• Serious side effects are given as inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis), severe stomach problems, dehydration leading to kidney problems, low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), dizziness or light-headedness, blurred vision, anxiety, irritability, mood changes, sweating, slurred speech, hunger, confusion or drowsiness, shakiness, weakness, headache, fast heartbeat, feeling jittery, serious allergic reactions, changes in vision, gall-bladder problems,

In addition there is also a Box Warning (that is, the strongest safety-related warning that is issued by the FDA) for “the increased risk of thyroid C-Cell tumors”.

So this is quite a long list of serious side effects that have been ignored by both Medscape, the BBC, the mainstream media generally. And, of course, by the entire conventional medical establishment. And conventional medicine are now promoting a drug that has to be taken for life - plus further drugs to ‘treat’ any of the side effects that develop during the course of their lives.

Patients are being badly (dishonestly?) misinformed!

Where do we get health advice from? Our doctor, or from AI?

Or will it make any significant difference?

New UK research says 1 in 7 people already using AI for health advice instead of contacting their doctor, or mainstream NHS services. The research is reported by Kings Health Partners.

          “AI is creating a significant shift in how people access healthcare, yet public attitudes to the technology remain deeply divided, according to a major new study by King’s Health Partners, Responsible AI UK, and the Policy Institute at King’s College London. The research finds that one in seven (15%) of the public have used AI chatbots for health advice instead of contacting a GP or other NHS service, and one in ten (10%) say they have used AI for mental health therapy or wellbeing support instead of seeing a trained professional.”

Kings Health Partners considers this to be an issue, largely because the AI platform did not recommend consulting a medical professional, and recent evidence has shown that AI misdiagnose up to 80% of cases. I suspect that most of the Conventional Medical Establishment will agree that it represents a problem, not least as the government is planning to accelerate the adoption of AI across the NHS.

Yet is this really a problem? Over recent decades doctors have been increasingly ‘programmed’ by the medical establishment about how to diagnose, and how to prescribe. There is little doubt that AI platforms will be similarly ‘guided’ in due course. They will not be programmed to do anything beyond a diagnosis, and a prescription for drugs.

Can you imagine any patient reporting that they are unwell, and AI telling them they should support their immune system with good diet, sensible exercise, and relaxation? Or an AI system will be programmed to suggest homeopathic treatment, or herbal remedies, or acupuncture?

The pharmaceutical medical monopoly is too strong, too powerful. There is not much doubt that conventional medicine will continue to control the guidance patients receive, regardless of where that advice is sought. The pharmaceutical medical establishment tells doctors what to do now. And no doubt they will soon control what AI platforms recommend to us.

So neither doctors or AI platforms are likely to be given much leeway! It is almost inevitable that whoever is consulted, the same or similar advice will be given! Conventional medicine demands conformity, so society will continue to be faced with the consequences of drug-based treatment - increasing levels of epidemic chronic disease.

All of us will need to realise that in order to escape from the clutches of Pharmaceutical Medicine we will all have to discover for ourselves safer, more effective natural medical therapies.

There Is Safe Treatment of Dementia

“There's no cure for dementia” is the plaintiff cry emanating from the Conventional Medical Establishment. Dementia, we are told, is the inevitable passing of years, the relentless process of ageing.

I disagree! It is not that straightforward. Lots of people reach their 80’s, 90’s, and 100’s, fully compos mentis, Why do so many more fail to do so now? At the same time an increasing number of people are not reaching their 50’s with sound mind, memory and understanding. So why is dementia now affecting so many younger people? These trends need to be explained.

No disease is ever successfully treated or cured unless the cause is known. Only when the cause can be removed, the disease can be prevented. And if you can avoid the cause you can avoid the disease!

What is dementia?

There are over 100 forms of dementia, the most common being Alzheimer’s disease. I am not going to differentiate between them here, for reasons that will become clearer later.

Dementia seriously and progressively restricts the individual’s ability to carry out normal daily functions and activities of living. Ultimately, dementia can destroy every faculty that makes us human. It affects parts of the brain that control our thought, our memory, our social interaction, what we say and do, and out lives. Dementia progressively depletes mental agility, thinking speed, and leads to memory loss, understanding, and judgement. It can affect our personality, increasing apathy, and inability to control of emotions, growing disinterest in friends and surroundings, and much more.

Trends in Dementia

Dementia is now an epidemic. If we confine our attention to Alzheimer’s disease, it is just over 120 years ago that neurologist, Alois Alzheimer, first described it. His patient was a woman who developed dementia in her 50s and died in 1906. Now, Alzheimer’s disease is the foremost form of dementia, estimated to affect 24 million people around the world. The disease has been described as “a ticking time bomb”. Alzheimer’s Disease International has projected that by 2040 there will be some 81 million sufferers throughout the world, with much of this increase being in the ‘developed’ world. The ‘developed world’ is, of course, the part of the world that consumes most pharmaceutical drugs!

The UK’s Alzheimer’s Society published a major study on the social and economic impact of dementia in 2007 and 2014. Both were undertaken by King’s College London, and the London School of Economics. They provided the most detailed insights into the prevalence and impact of dementia in Britain.

• One in 79 (1.3%) of the entire UK population, and 1 in 14 of those aged 65 years plus now has dementia. The majority are women.

• In 2007 they estimated that there were 700,000 people living with dementia in the UK. In 2014 this had risen to 850,000 people.

• The total number of people with dementia in the UK is forecast to increase to over 1 million by 2025, to over 2 million by 2051.

• There are now 42,325 people with early-onset dementia (onset before the age of 65 years) and 773,502 people with late-onset dementia (onset after the age of 65 years) in the UK. In 2007 the figure given was 15,000 for early onset.

• In total, 311,730 people with dementia in the UK are living in care homes, of whom 180,500 are living in residential care and 131,230 in nursing homes.

• Among people with late-onset dementia, 311,730 (38.7%) are living in care homes (either residential care or nursing homes) and 493,639 (61.3%) are living in the community.

• The total cost of dementia to society in the UK is £26.3 billion, with an average cost of £32,250 per person. (The total cost figure in 2007 was £17 billion).

So dementia has become a serious problem. But it is not a problem that is being addressed adequately by the Conventional Medical Establishment.

What is the cause of dementia?

The NHS website describes the causes of dementia in line with the approach of conventional medicine generally.

          “Dementia is caused by gradual changes and damage in the brain. The most common causes of dementia include diseases in which the brain cells degenerate and die more quickly than they would as part of the normal ageing process. The changes usually happen because of a build-up of abnormal proteins in the brain. This damage leads to a decline in a person’s mental and, sometimes, physical abilities.”

As it so often does, conventional medicine is providing a physical description of what happens to the brain; it fails to deal with what causes those physical changes. Clearly anyone who develops dementia has suffered some kind of brain damage. The question is, or should be, what has caused the brain to lose its ability to function and operate normally; and why is it that other people do not develop this dysfuncction?

So often, the main excuse conventional medicine provides for the epidemic rise of dementia has been that ‘people are living longer’, that dementia is ‘a normal part of ageing’. There are three reasons to question whether this is an adequate or even a viable explanation.

1. Many people live to advanced old age without suffering any noticeable form of dementia.

2. many people are now contracting dementia in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. The conventional medical establishment now calls this ‘early onset dementia’.

3. The epidemic rise of dementia, in all its forms, far outstrips any rise in demographic trends.

The Pharmaceutical Drugs known to cause Dementia

The cause of the dementia, like so many other diseases, is often said by conventional medicine to be ‘unknown’. They might mention factors such as genetics, family history; and life style factors such as smoking, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. And no doubt all these factors play a small part. Yet none seem sufficient to explain the extraordinary rise in dementia.

Could it be that the cause of dementia is not really ‘unknown’, least of all a puzzle to the Conventional Medical Establishment. The magazine ‘What Doctors Don’t Tell You’ (WDDTY) in October 2015 stated

          “Evidence is emerging that a large coterie of drugs for conditions such as high cholesterol, depression and insomnia can all bring on dementia”.

The self-published book by Grace E Jackson, ‘Drug Induced Dementia - a perfect crime’ catalogues the vast amount of scientific evidence that pharmaceutical drugs are a primary cause of all forms of dementia. Anyone who is concerned about contracting Alzheimer’s Disease, or anyone who is caring for someone diagnosed with dementia, should read this book.

The rise of dementia almost exactly mirrors the increased consumption of prescribed drugs during the last 100+ years. And the incidence of dementia is also reflects the amount of drugs consumed by different countries throughout the world.

So does the Conventional Medical Establishment know about this link? The patient harm that pharmaceutical drugs do is contained within the own literature, including the link with dementia. Sometimes their own medical journals discuss the link. For instance, the Medscape website has published an article entitled “Definition of Drug-Induced Cognitive Impairment in the Elderly”, which states:

          “Numerous drugs have been identified in ..... causing a multitude of psychiatric symptoms, including hallucinations, fearfulness, insomnia, paranoia, depression, delusions, bizarre behaviour, agitation, anxiety, panic attacks, manic symptoms, hypomania, depersonalisation, psychosis, schizophrenic relapse, aggressiveness, nightmares, vivid dreams, excitement, disinhibition, rage, hostility, mutism, hyper-sexuality, suicidality, crying, hyperactivity, euphoria, dysphoria, lethargy, seizures, Tourette-like syndrome, obsessiveness, fear of imminent death, illusions, emotional lability, sensory distortions, impulsivity, and irritability, which can impact on mental capacity. Further, there are a number of medications that may be linked to causing cognitive impairment by inducing delirium, confusion, disorientation, memory loss, amnesia, stupor, coma, or encephalopathy.”

So an important question arises. Why does the Conventional Medical Establishment ignore this when communicating with the general public? Why do they insist that the cause of dementia is “unknown”. Why do they consistently suggest that the causes are demographic, or genetic? Most important, have patients and their families ever been informed that pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines might be an important cause dementia, or indeed that there is such a thing as ‘drug-induced cognitive impairment’?

One outcome of such honesty and transparency would be the emergence of a safe preventative treatment for dementia. STOP PRESCRIBING THE DRUGS!

And has the general public been made aware of the drugs we should all be avoiding in order to prevent dementia, or indeed any of the other brain-related illness? Medscape has done so in its article, providing a long list of drugs to be avoided.

          “Among these drugs are: acyclovir, anticholinergics and atropine, anticonvulsants, tricyclic antidepressants, asparaginase, baclofen, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, beta-blockers, buspirone, caffeine, chlorambucil, chloroquine, clonidine, clozapine, cytarabine, digitalis glycosides, disulfiram, dronabinol, ganciclovir, histamine-2 antagonists, ifosfamide, interleukin-2, ketamine, levodopa, maprotiline, mefloquine, methyldopa, methylphenidate, metrizamide, metronidazole, pergolide, phenylpropanolamine, pilocarpine, propafenone, quinidine, salicylates, seligiline, sulfonamides, trazodone, and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. Often these medications produce more than 1 type of psychiatric symptom.”

But there is much more, known links between pharmaceutical drugs and dementia.

Vaccine ingredients: aluminium and mercury

The association between dementia and aluminium and mercury is well established. In modern society we have increased our contact with these poisonous substances. This includes contact through dental amalgam fillings (a mercury based compound placed routinely in our teeth, in the wet environment of the mouth that leeches this poison into our bodies, close to our brain)!

And both aluminium and mercury have been an ingredient of most, if not all vaccines in the last 70 years. These vaccines are, or course, usually injected directly into our bloodstreams which means that toxic ingredients have a direct route to our brain!

The Influenza Vaccine

Dr Hugh Fudenberg, MD, one of the world’s leading immuno-geneticists, found that people who have had 5 consecutive ‘flu vaccinations between 1970 and 1980 (the years he studied) the chance of getting Alzheimer’s Disease was 10 times higher than those who had one, 2 or no shots. Dr. Fudenberg said that this was due to the mercury and aluminium elements in ‘flu vaccinations, and that the gradual mercury and aluminium build-up in the brain causes cognitive dysfunction. (Hugh Fudenberg, MD, is Founder and Director of Research, Neuro lmmuno Therapeutic Research Foundation, and this information came from transcribed notes of his speech at the NVIC International Vaccine Conference, Arlington, VA September, 1997).

Dr Haley, in NeuroReport, 12(4): 733-737, 2001, said this about the association between mercury and Alzheimer’s disease.

         “Seven of the characteristic markers that we look for to distinguish Alzheimer’s disease can be produced in normal brain tissues, or cultures of neurons, by the addition of extremely low levels of mercury. In addition, research has shown that Alzheimer’s diseased patients have at least 3 times higher blood levels of mercury than controls. How much more research is necessary before the appropriate regulatory bodies respond with restrictions on the use of mercury-leaking dental amalgam fillings and ALL vaccines?”

Antidepressant Drugs

Antidepressant drugs have regularly been linked with dementia. WDDTY (Oct 2015) in its article ‘The Damaged Brain’ says that antidepressants appear to target the brain’s white matter, causing damage and functional impairment. It quotes four studies (Stroke, 2008; 39:857-862, ProcNatlAcadSciUSA, 2003;100:1387-92, AmJPathol, 20012; 158: 453-68, JAffectDisord, 2009;117:24-29) that “have found a greater incidence of dementia among populations using antidepressants.”

In a Danish study, including all patients treated with antidepressants, “the rate of developing dementia was increased compared to the rate among persons unexposed to antidepressants. Nevertheless, the rate of dementia changed over time; thus during the initial prescription periods the rate increased with the number of prescriptions”.

Antipsychotic Drugs

WDDTY (Oct 2015) also outlines the known links between dementia and antipsychotic drugs such as Clozaril, Zyprexa, Risperdal and Seroquel. It highlighted two studies, (IntJGeriatrPsychiaatry 2005; 20: 872-5, AlzheimerDisAssocDisord, 1994;8: 2011; 211-27) that focused on autopsy studies which showed that those who had taken antipsychotic drugs showed evidence of brain deterioration “suggestive of Alzheimer’s, or some other form of dementia”, both indicating that taking antipsychotics more than doubled the patients chances of having dementia.

Another study (JNeurolNeurosurgPsychiatry, 2007; 78:233-9) found that taking an antipsychotic drug alongside an antidepressant quadrupled the patients’ chances of having dementia.

A UK study (LancetNeurol, 2009; 8: 151-7) found that antipsychotic drugs were not effective in doing what they were supposed to do, but were associated with greater cognitive decline.

And in another British study (AgeAgeing, 1998; 27:181-8), which looked at every case in a dementia register for 1993-4, found that 13% had a past history of psychiatric treatment, and the use of psychiatric drugs was nearly four times greater among those who had gone on to develop dementia.

Statin Drugs

WDDTY (October 2015) outlined the evidence linking dementia with Statins. These drugs, according to claims made by conventional medicine, lower cholesterol, and thereby help to keep Alzheimer’s at bay. They do not, and as the article says, there is no evidence that they do.

          “…the lack of effectiveness of statins for treating AD was firmly established in 2009, when two reviewers independently analysed two large-scale randomised controlled trials… Their conclusion was that statins given late in life to people at risk of vascular disease won’t prevent AD or dementia”.

In fact, as the article suggests, it is now becoming clear that cholesterol has a useful role in maintaining brain function, which means that any attempt to lower cholesterol (with statins or any other drugs) has the exact opposite effect. Professor Yeon-Kyun Shin, who undertook this research, is quoted as saying:

          “If you try to lower the cholesterol by taking medicine that is attacking the machinery of cholesterol synthesis in the liver, that medicine goes to the brain too. And then it reduces the synthesis of cholesterol, which is necessary in the brain”.

Benzodiazepine Drugs, and other sedatives/sleeping pills

Benzodiazepine drugs, including that well-known ex-‘wonder’ drug Valium, are not only addictive, with long-term side effects, and associated with many deaths: they are also connected with a 50% increased risk of dementia. Research was published in the British Medical Journal in 2014, “Benzodiazepine use and risk of Alzheimer’s disease: case control study” which concluded:

          “Benzodiazepine use is associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. The strong association observed for long term exposure reinforces the suspicion of a possible direct association even if Benzodiazepine use might also be an early marker of a condition associated with an increased risk of dementia. Unwarranted long term use of these drugs should be considered as a public health concern.”

Doctors know about this link. The GP magazine, Pulse, published an article “Benzodiazepine use linked with the development of dementia” in September 2012.

          “Patients taking benzodiazepines have more than a threefold increased risk of developing dementia, shows a long-term UK epidemiological study. Welsh researchers followed more than 1,100 men over 22 years and found 9% of them took benzodiazepines regularly at some point during the study…. This level of risk remained when researchers adjusted to take account of factors such as psychological distress”.

Despite this, Benzodiazepine drugs continue to be prescribed; and often for more than the one month limit that has been imposed on them.

WDDTY (Oct 2015) confirms this picture, pointing to further studies linking Benzodiazepines with dementia, and explains how the link works.

          “Newer studies show this has to do with their effect on brain gangliosides. These molecules, made up of fat and sugar, are largely found in brain lipids and covering every neutron. They are essential for regulating cell growth, forming neural synapses and responding to foreign invaders like toxins and bacteria. Without gangliosides, we lose the myelin on our nerve cells, or the entire neton, and may even die”.

One sleeping drug, Zolpidem, which comes under a variety of different names, was found in one study to increase the risk of getting dementia by a massive 84%!

Anticholinergic Drugs

Anticholinergic drugs are more common than many people may realise. Indeed, most will take them without realising they fall into this drug category. They are prescribed to relieve conditions such as insomnia and sleep problems, high blood pressure, heart disease, chronic lung problems, poor digestion, tremors, muscle stiffness, weakness, anxiety and incontinence. Many are openly available, without prescription, at the local chemist!

An article in the British Medical Journal (Feb 2006; 332: 455-459) refers to research that suggests doctors should be aware that anticholinergic drugs can cause confusion, memory loss and disorientation. Karen Ritchie, the author of the article, told Reuters (London) said that:

          “A large number of elderly people are taking medications that can mimic early dementia and are likely to be classed as having early dementia. A very large number of people with so-called early dementia have these effects due to drug consumption. The drugs they are taking are very common - they include things like antihistamines”

          “What we showed is that many of the people who are classified in this way have it due to the medication they are taking, and not because they have early Alzheimer’s disease”.

WDDTY said this of the study demonstrates how quickly dementia can develop when taking these drugs.

          “In a study of 3,690 older people taking anticholinergic medication, the researchers discovered that mental functioning began to be affected within 60 days”.

This 2020 study also confirms the link between anticholinergic drugs with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, “Association of anticholinergic medication and AD biomarkers with incidence of MCI among cognitively normal older adults”.

Even the UK’s Alzheimers Society is aware of this study because they too have published it. But then, like so many other patient support organisations they are heavily funded by the pharmaceutical industry!

Antihistamine and Allergy Drugs

Antihistamines are also anticholinergic drugs. The abstract of one study, published on the PubMed website, says the following:

          “Antihistamines are frequently administered to psychiatric patients for a variety of purposes. Several large studies of schizophrenics have revealed an extremely high prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease neuropathology compared with that in the general population. The neuroleptic treatment of schizophrenia appears to be implicated in this phenomenon. Many of the neuroleptics have anticholinergic effects, some being antihistamines…. It is proposed here that anticholinergics, including many antihistamines, either exacerbate the Alzheimer process or possibly contribute to its etiology / pathogenesis through their effects on cerebral cholinergic systems”.

Proton-Pump Inhibitors (PPI’s)

PPI’s reduce the amount of acid made by the stomach, and are used to treat acid reflux and ulcers of the stomach and the gut. The link between PPI drugs and dementia is confirmed in several studies. One, ‘Acid inhibitors may raise risk of developing dementia’ found that they may lead to confusion, delirium and dementia, and particularly that memory problems were seen in older black people, who were chronic users. Another, ‘Risk of dementia in elderly patients with the use of proton pump inhibitors’ assessed the association between PPI use and the risk of dementia in older people. It concluded that PPI patients had a significantly increased risk of any form of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, compared with non-users.

          “Due to the major burden of dementia on public health and the lack of curative medication, this finding is of high interest to research on dementia and provides indication for dementia prevention”.

Yet this study, ‘Inappropriate prescribing of proton pump inhibitors in older patients: effects of an education strategy’ found that there was frequent prescribing of PPI drugs for older patients that was entirely inappropriate, and “independently associated with co-morbidities and dementia”.

Epilepsy Drugs

These have been implicated as a cause of dementia in a Finish study published in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, 2018;; doi: 10.1111/jgs.15358). It found that anti-epileptic drugs, known to impair cognitive function, also raise the risk of dementia by 60%, and Alzheimer’s by 20%, and that the risk is even higher if the regular dose of the drug is higher.

Hormone Replacement Therapy. (HRT)

Researchers from the University of Helsinki analysed the medical histories of more than 84,000 women diagnosed with Alzheimer’s between 1999 and 2013, comparing them with women without dementia. (BMJ 2019. 364:1665). They calculated that women who had taken HRT for more than 10 years had a 17% increased risk of contracting the disease.

This finding runs counter to what the conventional medical establishment are now telling us - that HRT had a ‘protective’ effect against Alzheimers’. Apparently some of the compounds from HRT drugs have been seen in the brain plaques that are common in Alzheimers.

H2 BlockerDrugs

H2 blockers, or H2 receptor antagonists, have been marketed since 1976 as Tagamet. Impaired cognitive function is the most frequently reported adverse effect of H2 blockers, especially with older people. They have been found to cause delirium, hallucinations, confusion, disorientation, hostility, psychosis and paranoia. (AnnInternMed, 1991:114: 1027-34).

Prostate Cancer Treatment

ADT drugs (androgen deprivation therapy) is a standard treatment for prostate cancer and has been linked with dementia. It lowers levels of testosterone, which protects against the brain disorder.. A study of nearly 17,000 patients showed the men using ADT doubled their chance of getting dementia. (JClinOncol, 2015; doi: 10.1200/JCO.2015.63.6266).

Oxybutynin (Ditropan)

This drug is an ‘antimuscarinic’, a family of drugs derived from mushrooms designed to control an overactive bladder. It is regularly prescribed by doctors even though it is known to trigger dementia. Indeed, WDDTY state that research has found Oxybutynin has been “consistently linked” with dementia and cognitive impairment. Yet despite its known side effects, it is still prescribed to 27% of elderly people with an overactive bladder.

Poly-pharmacy

Mixing drugs, or taking many drugs at the same time, as so many older people do on the advice of conventional doctors, is also implicated in causing dementia. As the WDDTY website says:

          “Multiple medications - known as poly-pharmacy - can fog the brain, while diabetes and high blood pressure (hypertension) drugs can also accelerate cognitive decline, say researchers from the University of Michigan Medical School. It’s a difficult balance to get right, say the researchers, but doctors and patients shouldn’t overdo the pharmaceutical response to hypertension and diabetes. Low blood pressure and low blood sugar are directly associated to cognitive performance”.

Perhaps in order to avoid dementia, ‘getting the balance right’ is easier than these researchers believe. Recognise the culpability of pharmaceutical drugs in creating the current epidemic of dementia, refuse to take, and look for safer alternative treatments!

Drugs for People who already have Dementia!

Older people who already have dementia are often ‘treated’ with pharmaceutical drugs that themselves are known to have a negative effect on cognition, according to data from approximately 13 million individuals presented at the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) 2024 Annual Scientific Meeting.

“Classes of medications including anticholinergics, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, and non-benzodiazepine sedatives (Z drugs) have been identified as potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) in patients with dementia, according to the American Geriatrics Society Beers Criteria for Potentially Inappropriate Medication Use in Older Adults.”

Other Drugs

Long as this list of drugs is it is not an exhaustive one but it should be a precautionary warning.

Nor should it be a surprise that powerful and toxic pharmaceutical drugs can cause dementia. The brain is the most delicate organ we have, and the most easily damaged.

The connection is usually not shared with us by the Conventional Medical Establishment. But any cursory examination of the British National Formulary, or websites like Drugs.com, demonstrates that most pharmaceutical have ‘confusion’, ‘disorientation’, memory loss, and many other symptoms of dementia, as a drug ‘side-effect’.

So there is strong evidence to connect dementia with drugs. Yet this study, “Drug-induced cognitive impairment: delirium and dementia”, provides this admission, and this advice.

          “Because cognitive impairment caused by drugs is so frequently overlooked, it is important that when symptoms of confusion, altered concentration or difficulty thinking occur that you and your physician review any medications you are taking to determine if any of them might be the cause.” (My emphasis).

CT Scans

Nor is it just pharmaceutical drugs that can cause dementia. Researchers at the University of Southern Denmark found that having two CT scans in a lifetime can start to change our brain at the molecular level. They found that even low radiation doses, the equivalent of two CT scans, can trigger molecular changes in the brain that cause cognitive dysfunction. This was reported in WDDTY (February 2017), reference Oncotarget, 2016; doi:10.18632/Oncotarget.12376.

The Safe Treatment for Dementia

The NHS website says that most types of dementia cannot be cured. “There is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, although medication is available that can temporarily reduce some symptoms or slow down the progression of the condition in some people”. So the website deals mainly with ‘care plans’, ‘palliative treatment’, ’supportive measures’, and cognitive behavioural therapy to reduce depression. All these recognise that there is no treatment for dementia other than its management.

There are some drugs that Conventional Medicine sometimes uses, such as Donepezil (Aricept), galantamine (Reminyl) and rivastigmine (Exelon). These ACE inhibitors are prescribed for people with early to mid-stage Alzheimer’s disease. When describing these drugs, NHS Choices described their action as follows:

          “A number of medications may be prescribed for Alzheimer’s disease to help temporarily improve some symptoms and slow down the progression of the condition”.

So perhaps the best advise that conventional medicine can give you about the safe and effective treatment of dementia is for you to stop taking pharmaceutical drugs! However, I suspect you no one will ever be given this advice.

The Homeopathic Treatment of Dementia

Anyone suffering from any form of dementia should realise that when conventional medicine says there is ‘no treatment’ for a disease (which they often do) it actually means that there is no conventional treatment for the disease. It also means that conventional medicine does not want people to get to know that there are other forms of treatment available to them!

Homeopathy is a medical therapy that avoids the side-effects and adverse drug reactions of conventional medical treatment. Homeopathy is the second most popular medical therapy in the world, and the most popular holistic system of medicine. Homeopathy is based on remedies made from a variety of substances, all of which are known to cause symptoms of illness when taken in their normal form. However, homeopathy has discovered that substances that cause symptoms of illness can also be used (in homeopathic potency) to cure those same symptoms of illness.

This is the principle of “Like cures Like” on which all homeopathy is based.

The task of the homeopath is to find a remedy whose symptom picture matches the same symptoms of a person’s illness. Remedy symptom pictures have been developed over the last 230 years.

Homeopathy does not differentiate, it does not need to differentiate, between the different type of dementia. The selection of a homeopathic remedy is based on the individual’s symptoms of illness, not on the basis of any broad conventionally-defined illness diagnosis.

It is important to stress that homeopathy does not treat conventionally diagnosed illness or disease directly. It treats patients who have individual symptoms. So the homeopathic treatment of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, individualises the process. The following remedy descriptions, taken mainly from the Hpathy website, describe some of the dementia characteristics the remedies are known to treat.

Alumina

An excellent remedy for those who are depressed and afraid of losing their minds. They become confused with their identities and experience rapidly changing moods. Patients are often chilly, constipated, and very hurried in their actions and movements.

Baryta Carb

Helps those who have regressed back to childish behaviour. They may be fearful, timid and shy and lack confidence. There is loss of memory and some patients may suffer from chronic glandular disorders.

Calcaria Carb

Complete lack of development of brain and other organs with forgetfulness. Slowness and inability to acquire knowledge.

Chamomilla

Sensitiveness; irritability, peevishness; very easily angered and suffers profoundly as a result thereof.

Ignatia

Extreme mental sensitiveness due to grief, disappointment in love affairs.

Lycopodium

Great depression of spirits; despondent; worried about his salvation; about being able to perform his duties; about passing in examination, fretful, irritable, morose, very vehement and angry. Constipation, eructations of sour food.

Mercurius

Complete loss of all sense of decency; filthy in body with grovelling mentality; great weakness of memory; impaired vision; foul breath; heavy coated tongue.

Natrum Sulph

Can often bring relief to those who are fixated with and dwell on past hurts and unpleasant events. They may feel sad and lonely, be filled with self-pity, or be unable to express the love they feel for others. These people often have headaches and painful joints.

Nux Vom

Often angry, quarrelsome, irritable, disposition to find fault with everything and every body. Extreme sensitiveness to the words and attention of others, easily hurt, can be insensitive to other’s feelings. May want to commit suicide but is too cowardly to do so; very irritable, quarrelsome, vindictive.

Staphisagria

Sleeplessness. Coward with shamefulness, disgust, humiliation, despair, shyness with desire for solitude

Tarentula

Rages over something and throws whatever in hand and whatever he could reach. On slightest contradiction or objection he will hit the person with whatever he can get hold of.

These are very short definitions of remedies that are much more complex. It is always advisable to consult with a qualified homeopath who will have much greater, and more precise knowledge of the kind of issues particular remedies can deal with, and linking the individual with the most similar, and thus the most effective remedy.

These are some longer, more detailed descriptions of three few homeopathic remedies that have been developed.

Alumina

The remedy Alumina, or Aluminium, is perhaps the most well-known of the homeopathic treatments for dementia. Patients who need Alumina are very absent-minded. They find it difficult to concentrate on anything and their memory is poor. They can appear generally slow and dull, especially when they first wake up, and can get very upset or angry if you try to hurry them along. As the disease progresses they become confused and disoriented. Physically, Alumina patients are often slow and unsteady on their feet. They shuffle or stagger as they walk. Their legs feel heavy and almost paralysed. The same paralysis affects the digestive tract and the patients can find it difficult to swallow and also to pass even soft stools. They can develop a craving for indigestible things such as coal or earth.

Anacardium

One of the main themes associated with Anacardium is that of duality; the patient is split into two personalities or feels pulled in two conflicting directions. This makes it particularly appropriate for patients who switch from periods of clear thought and normal behaviour to times when they do not recognise family or friends and appear extremely fearful or aggressive. At times they appear as if nothing is wrong with them. They are happy to see their loved ones and will talk easily about their plans for the day, what they have been watching on TV, places they have visited. On another day that personality seems to have disappeared and is replaced with somebody who yells “Who are you? Why am I here? I want to go home.” They lash out at their family members or their carer. They recognise nobody and are terrified that everybody wants to harm them.

Anacardium has a terrible feeling of inferiority. In dementia this can manifest itself as a feeling that they have no control over their life. They know that their memory is weak and that they find it hard to make decisions. But they resent the way that other people seem to organise and control them. They want to choose their own activities and pastimes, but they can’t remember what they enjoy doing. When somebody offers a suggestion they are angry and abusive, often using bad language and even biting or spitting.

Baryta Carb

This remedy has been described as a gentler version of Anacardium. Like the Anacardium patients, those needing Baryta carbonica have no self-confidence. However, unlike Anacardium, these patients have often displayed an obvious lack of confidence and low self-esteem all their lives. Anacardium are strong-willed and even appear arrogant as they strive to hide their feelings of inadequacy.

Baryta carb is often used as a remedy for children but it is equally relevant to adults who display childish behaviour. They are tremendously shy and, when approached or spoken to they may grab tightly onto the arm of their carer, or in some cases even hide behind them. As the dementia progresses they seem to revert to childhood. They wander around clutching a doll or a teddy bear. Once they feel reassured enough to talk to you they will tell you all about their toy – its name, what it likes to eat or drink, whether it has been good or naughty.

Baryta carb patients are generally very emotional. They can burst into floods of tears about the most minor upset. The cause of the tears may be so slight that you struggle to work out what has upset them.

Baryta carbonica has a marked effect on the cardiovascular system. It affects the muscular walls of the heart and the blood vessels, causing palpitations, distended arteries and aneurism. It can therefore be a useful remedy for cases of vascular dementia.

Cannabis Indica

The homeopathic remedy Cannabis indica is completely legal and available in the UK because of the amount of dilution involved in producing homeopathic remedies. As you might expect from a substance that affects the nervous system (and in its raw form can create a feeling of euphoria as well as hallucinations) Cannabis indica has a profound effect on the mental state. It is a very important remedy in the treatment of dementia, particularly where there is tremendous fear of insanity. The patients know that their memory is failing and they are are terrified about what will happen to them.

Cannabis indica has a very notable effect on the patient’s communication skills. People who need this remedy can be very excitable and talkative, and yet they have difficulty remembering words or phrases. This makes it seem as if they are gibbering and talking nonsense. They stammer or stutter as they speak. During a sentence they struggle to find the correct words, or even completely forget what they were about to say. They can’t finish the sentence or they seem to change from one subject to another before reaching the end. They have similar problems with writing; they have to stop mid-sentence because they can’t remember the point that they were trying to make. Either they write very slowly and haltingly or they scribble quickly but what they have written doesn’t seem to make sense. When they read all the letters on the page seem to blend into each other.

Cannabis patients suffer from confusion and disorientation. They lose their way even when in familiar surroundings and can’t remember how to get home. In a care home they may wander around looking lost and afraid; they don’t remember where they are or have forgotten how to find their room. They can suffer from delusions and hallucinations and are often frightened of the dark.

Graphites

Graphites is a remedy for cases of dementia where the patient suffers from severe short-term memory loss but the long-term memory is good. They are reliving past memories. They believe themselves to be children and wander from one room to another, asking “Where is my mum?” Or they imagine that they are in their 30s or 40s and are in the middle of their working life. They say “I have to leave in a minute. I have to go to the office.” or they describe over and over again the tasks that they used to do in their job.

Because these patients imagine themselves to be in another age, they don’t recognise their own family members. They show no interest in their (grown up) children, because they do not fit the images that they have in their minds. They turn away from their husbands or wives because they imagine themselves to be youngsters and they have no memory of their spouses. This is how the “indifference” of Graphites can manifest itself in dementia.

Graphites patients are usually very weepy and can sometimes be confused with Pulsatilla, especially as they are often overweight and like to be out in the fresh air. But unlike Pulsatilla they are chilly and complain about the slightest draught. Graphites affects the skin and these patients might also suffer from dry skin that cracks and bleeds. You will find their carers applying cream (often Cetraben) to the patients’ skin after bathing.

Hyoscyamus

This remedy can be very effective for dementia patients who are highly sexed and display themselves with complete abandon. They masturbate openly in front of other people, show no embarrassment and, when reprimanded for their behaviour may laugh gleefully. They understand that such explicit sexual behaviour is “naughty” and that is one of the major reasons for doing it. They love to shock other people and get great enjoyment both from the masturbation itself and the reactions that they get.

This same desire to shock and offend can lead them to use bad language and rude gestures. They swear at their family members or carers when it is time for bathing or for their medication. Hyoscyamus patients are very suspicious and imagine that the carers are trying to poison them or harm them in some way.

Patients that need Hysocyamus can be quite malicious towards other people. They may kick or hit out at the people who are trying to help them, or at other patients (particularly those that are timid or easily bullied). If they make somebody cry they show no remorse and may even laugh uncontrollably. They think it is funny that the person is upset.

Evidence Supporting Homeopathy

There is a significant and growing amount of evidence confirming that homeopathy is a safe and effective medical therapy.

The most important proof is clinical experience, that is, the many millions of patients who, having suffered serious illness, have been treated successfully with homeopathy. This is going on throughout the world, and been doing so for over 230 years.

Homeopathy has also developed a voluminous Materia Medica. This contains intricate details of the healing properties of several thousand substances that are used to make homeopathic remedies. The short remedy pictures above are just a tiny part of this knowledge.

Scientific studies are the third most important evidence for the safety and effectiveness of homeopathy. There have been studies suggesting that the progress of Alzheimer’s disease can be slowed by homeopathic treatment. These studies have been discussed here. It concludes that a Homeopath should be consulted in the treatment of Alzheimer’s.

The German homeopathy company, Heel, has also been working on the homeopathic treatment of dementia, and in its article on a 2011 Neuorscience convention in Washington presented several studies on a multi-target medication based on low dose natural substances that had proven to positively influence both symptoms as well as disease-related mechanisms of Alzheimer’s. This concludes with this statement:

          “All studies have confirmed our earlier observations: this medication has proven to enhance the learning and memory performance significantly in a dose-dependent fashion”, says Dr. Bernd Seilheimer from Heel. “It showed at least as effective as the Gold Standard at all tested behavioural models. In addition, it is very well-tolerated. No negative side-effects could be documented with the natural preparation. Following the new paradigm, multi-target preparations could become a natural alternative to conventional preparations for treating complex diseases such as Alzheimer’s.”