Why are we so sick the "broken" NHS can no longer cope?

The British NHS is in crisis. Levels of sickness and disease are now so high this government organisation, funded to the extent of over £180 billion annually, cannot cope with demand. The parlous state of the NHS was described in some detail in my last blog, "The NHS Crisis: Another Installment?", using the recent Darzi report as evidence. Since the general election in July this year the new Secretary of State for Health has described the NHS, very simply and succinctly, as "broken". 

However, there is one question that the Darzi report, the NHS, and the conventional medical establishment generally, has never asked - so as a result it is never answered.

"Just why are we so sick now?" 

Actually the Conventional Medical Establishment is fully aware of both the question, and the answer; that one important cause of illness and disease is Conventional Medicine itself. The answer is in plain sight. It is in the conventional medical literature. My question here is: why is this obvious answer to NHS problems never admitted, never discussed, never mentioned?

After all, the NHS is a huge operation; so why has it been 'broken'? The Kings Fund outlines just how big the NHS has become:

• In 2022/23, the Department for Health and Social Care spent £182 billion. This money is used to fund a wide range of health and care services, including GP services, the ambulance service, mental health services, community and hospital services, all commissioned by the NHS, as well as public health services that are commissioned by local authorities. It also funds some social care services mainly through local authorities.
•  In 2022, Britain spent 11.3% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health, and this was just above the average for comparable countries. So it is not under-funded, as is so often claimed.

So given this huge annual expenditure, it is surely right to ask what is causing these unprecedented levels of sickness with which the NHS cannot cope? There are several routine answers put forward to explain this.

    1. An Ageing Population. And the assumption that an ageing population, as it gets older, also get sicker. As I have written before this is an assumption that should not be made.

    2. New Medical Treatments are getting progressively more expensive. This is undoubtedly so; whilst the NHS is bankrupt, the pharmaceutical industry is getting progressively richer, as is the medical supply industry which surround it.

    3. Poor Diet and Nutrition. This is also an important element in the nation's health; however, it is an element about which the NHS is usually relatively quiet, both in promoting a more healthy diet, and using nutrition to assist in the treatment of illness.

    4. Tobacco and Smoking. Despite the reduction is smoking, especially over the last 50 years, this is still routinely cited as a reason for our 'out of control' levels of sickness.

    5. Plus a variety of "Nonsense" reasons (about which I will shortly be writing another blog, but they point to absurd reasons that just cannot explain the levels of sickness that we are now experiencing).

To demonstrate my point I am going to use this recent article on Dementia from Medscape, which states that dementia is "highly preventable". How? The article mentions a number of factors, including illnesses like type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, hypertension, high LDL cholesterol, certain forms of cancer; and it focuses on behavioural 'risk factors' such as a lack of physical activity, cigarette smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and obesity. The article also mentions cognitive engagement and isolation, and the specific risks of social isolation, which are exacerbated by untreated hearing or vision loss, and low educational attainment. It also mentions traumatic brain injury from an accident, or from contact sports, and environmental risks like poor air quality.

So, as in so many conventional medical explanations of ill-health, it is the patient who is primarily at fault! And medicine sees it's role in helping the individual to modify their behaviour. The 'solution', we are told, is to "inform our patients about these risk factors and what can be done in terms of behaviour modification, increased screening, and treatment for these conditions". This, it says, can go a long way "in helping our patients reduce their risk for dementia".

Yet the conventional medical profession must know that it is, itself, responsible: that it is the cause, and probably a major cause, of unprecedented levels of sickness and disease. Surely they have read their own literature? Yet iatrogenic illness and disease is rarely mentioned by doctors, by the NHS, by Medical Science, by the Conventional Medical Establishment, by our government, or by the mainstream media. So why the silence?

The evidence implicating NHS treatment can be found in the medical literature. It's in the Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) that accompany ever prescribed drug and vaccine, they list (at least some) of the 'side effects' and adverse reactions that drugs/vaccines are known to cause. Iatrogenic disease has been known about since (at least) the early 1950's.

The symptoms of Dementia are known to be caused by pharmaceutical drugs. The Medscape website itself published an article, back in 2000, entitled "Definition of Drug-Induced Cognitive Impairment in the Elderly", which states the following"

        "Numerous drugs have been identified in ..... as 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."

In their most recent article, cited above, there is absolutely no mention that one cause of the dementia epidemic might be iatrogenic! And that consequently one solution to the unprecedented levels of sickness that has 'broken' the NHS might be to stop giving people drugs and vaccines that are actually causing unprecedented levels of illness and disease.

This is worrying because doctors should be aware that the pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines they prescribed every day cause the symptoms of dementia, like confusion, disorientation, memory loss, amnesia, and many others. They include the mercury and aluminium that are the ingredients of many vaccines, including the flu vaccine; and amalgam tooth fillings; antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs; statins' sleeping pills and benzodiazepines; anticholinergic drugs; antihistamines, proton-pump inhibitors, and many more.

When you then begin to ask why the conventional medical establishment does not mention this in these 'medical' articles, the omission becomes not just surprising, but deeply worrying. Was it an error? Was it forgetfulness? Or was the omission intentional? Was the author not allowed to mention iatrogenic causes? Was censorship involved? Or is the pharmaceutical industry just so powerful within conventional medicine that the truth is not allowed to surface?

If we then widen the problem to other serious illnesses and diseases, we come to similar conclusions. These unprecedented, and ever-growing levels of sickness and disease, are in part (at least) caused by conventional medical treatment.

 Allergy is known to be caused by painkillers, sleeping pills, antibiotics, anticonvulsant drugs, insulin, immuno-suppressant drugs, vaccines - and more.

Arthritis is known to be caused by painkillers, corticosteroid drugs, antibiotics, HRT; and the toxicity of most if not all pharmaceutical drugs might be implicated.

Diabetes is known to be caused by statins, beta-blockers, antihypertensive drugs, antibiotics, antidepressants and antipsychotics, steroids (including inhalers), proton-pump inhibitors, vaccines, and many more.

Epilepsy is known to be caused by antidepressants, antipsychotics, antibiotics, painkillers, asthma drugs, vaccines, and many more.

Indeed, think of any chronic disease, for which the NHS has a long waiting list for treatment, and you will find pharmaceutical drugs known to cause it. My E-Book, Iatrogenic Disease, outlines the drugs that are known to cause about over 70 different illnesses and diseases. Most of these links between prescribed drugs and illness is acknowledged on the PILs, but the size of the iatrogenic problem goes far beyond what is admitted. Often the pharmaceutical industry will go to enormous lengths of ignore and deny links between drugs and illness, and regularly have to be forced to list them on PILs.

Autism, for instance, is almost certainly caused by vaccines, notably the MMR and DPT vaccines. But this has been robustly and vigorously denied. But even if this link is dismissed,  autism is also known to be caused by paracetamol, by antidepressants, asthma drugs, and sodium valproate. Yet if you go to the NHS website and you will find that it states that the cause of Autism remains "unknown" - the only thing it does know is that it is NOT caused by vaccines!

Yet if the conventional medical establishment is in denial, and refuses to consider the iatrogenic causes of sickness, how can it hope to resolve the demands patients are making on NHS services? An effective response would be to stop prescribing the drugs that are causing the illness! But then, what else has conventional medicine got to offer? Is it easier to blame the patient's life-style? Is it too embarrassing for doctors to admit that they have caused the sickness of the patient sitting in front of them?

Or does the NHS just need more money, to spend on more of the same pharmaceutical-based treatment? This is what we have been told for the last 70+ years. Medical science would cure us - if only it had more money! 

What too few people realise is that pharmaceutical medicine is not making us well, that it is making us sick. So sick, in fact, that the NHS is 'broken' - it can no longer cope!

 

THE ECONOMIC CRISIS. A self-inflicted wound, all resulting from a failed medical system. The secondary cost of conventional medical failure.

The Chancellor announced in the UK Parliament this week (25 November 2020) that "the economic emergency has just begun". This 'economic emergency' has been triggered by the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. Rishi Sunak said the UK now faced the biggest economic decline (the economy has shrunk by over 11% in 2020) for over 300 years (1707 in fact, a crisis caused by exceptional cold weather). And as a result government borrowing has risen to the highest level ever, outside wartime. 

These are the economic facts, but on a health blog, they will not be expanded upon. This blog is concerned with the cause of this economic emergency. We have not had exceptionally cold weather. We have not had a financial and banking collapse, as in 2008. We have not had a world war. So what has happened?

Well, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic has happened. And in response to this coronavirus, governments around the world, not just in the UK, have closed down the economy. SO THE CAUSE OF THIS ECONOMIC EMERGENCY IS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY.

In response to this medical emergency, governments have implemented disastrous lockdown policies that have destroyed people lives and livelihoods, and the economy. And it is important to emphasise that these policies have been pursued on the advice of conventional medical science. IN OTHER WORDS, THE ECONOMIC EMERGENCY HAS BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE CONVENTIONAL MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT.

From the beginning the conventional medical establishment has recognised, and admitted, that it has no medical treatment capable of preventing COVID-19, or treating sick patients. Therefore conventional medicine has resorted to draconian public health measures, whose sole purpose is to chase the virus - washing hands, masks, social distancing, test and trace, and lockdown. All these policies have failed dismally. The only hope offered by conventional medicine with regard to the pandemic are the vaccines being rushed through testing and regulatory procedures. My previous blog has indicated that relying on vaccines, in this situation, is the desperate triumph of hope over experience. 

Most countries spend vast sums of money on their healthcare budget. The UK's health budget, like  many others, has risen exponentially over the last 70 years; and especially over the last 20 years. It is spent almost exclusively on one type of medicine - conventional or pharmaceutical medicine. During these years....

• chronic disease, in all its many forms, has increased to epidemic levels.
• much of this increase has been caused by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines.
• pharmaceutical medicine usually has to admit that it has no treatment for these chronic diseases.
  
• the treatment of infectious diseases, like COVID-19, is as ineffectual as it has always been.
• and conventional medicine is killing more and more people every year.

All this inevitably leads to hugely expensive national health service provision as each of these failures leads to increased demands for healthcare provision, more costs, for even more ineffectual treatment, and ever-increasing, out of control, health budget.

Yet, as I have outlined in my E-Book, "The Failure of Conventional Medicine", the secondary costs of our failed medical system are much greater than any national healthcare budget.

THIS COSTLY AND DAMAGING ECONOMIC EMERGENCY REPRESENTS YET ANOTHER HUGE 'SECONDARY COST' - COSTS THAT ARE THE DIRECT RESULT OF THE FAILURE OF PHARMACEUTICAL MEDICINE.

And all because caused by the COVID-19 pandemic? A highly infectious, virulent, killer disease? A disease sufficiently serious to justify governments creating an economic emergency of this seriousness? Although this is not a blog that is going to look at this in detail, we do  know this about the virus

• it affects large numbers, most of whom recover and survive,
• it kills people, most of whom have a serious underlying health condition: in other words, they die with it, not of it.
• it has caused few, if any excess deaths in 2020; that is, the same number of people died in 2020 that died in previous years.

These features of COVID-19 just do NOT describe a lethal pandemic. And certainly not a disease that is sufficiently serious to justify the intentional creation of such a financial crisis - one with the potential of destroying millions of lives.

 

The UK government is rightly coming under severe criticism to their handling of this pandemic. This is justified by the incompetent way they have applied public health policy. But critics should remember that the government has been following the policies recommended to them by conventional medical science.

 

And it is the competence of this the medical advice given to government that is at the core of the financial emergency.

 

Perhaps the emergency will trigger more serious consideration of the competence of pharmaceutical medicine, and its inability to treat illness and disease. If this does become one of the outcomes of this pandemic, perhaps some good will come out of it yet. But at the moment, all the government is doing is pouring more and more money into failure - and they are going to get the blame for it.

 

AUTISM. The epidemic continues to grow. Conventional medicine doesnt know the cause. But they do know it is NOT caused by pharmaceutical vaccines.

Three links about autism came into my in-tray this week. Each demonstrates that the Autism epidemic continues to grow, and that no-one appears to be interested in finding out why.

Autism Numbers in USA increase by 10%

               "According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of children diagnosed with autism in the United States continues to increase. In a report published on Mar. 27, 2020, the CDC estimated the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the country is now one in 54 children - up from one in 59 reported by the agency in April 2018, for an increase of nearly 10 percent."

One in every 16 Irish boys has autism: crisis worse than COVID-19 and nobody cares

               "According to National Health data released last week, autism incidence among Irish children is now at 4.3%, an 82% rise in five years. One in 16 boys is affected."

England has 250,000 more autistics in 15 years. 1 in 21 English schoolboys in now autistic official Education Department statistics indicate.

               "Official UK statistics indicate 1 in 21 English schoolboys is now autistic.  Worse still when school leavers are included, in just 15 years the total number of new autistic school children and young adult school leavers is 258,000 according to CHS’ estimates from the official figures."

Autism is a disease that was unknown until the 1940's. It now affects millions around the world. Why is this? Conventional medicine does not know. This is what the UK's NHS clear and concise answer to this important question.

               "Nobody knows what causes autism, or if it has a cause."

So perhaps autism just 'happens', perhaps nothing causes it. It comes out of the blue, out of the air, like a virus. But the NHS continues,

"Autism is not an illness"

Not even an illness. Well, that's okay then - isn't it? Nothing to worry about? However, amidst all this bland uncertainty the NHS is perfectly clear about what does NOT cause autism. As the NHS says,

               "Autism is not caused by .....vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine...."

So parents who believe they had children who were developing normally prior to having childhood vaccines are just plain wrong. The vaccine is quite definitely NOT the cause. Even if "nobody knows the cause", or indeed "if there is a cause"

"It's not me, guv!"

So, no doubt conventional medicine can back up its certainty with scientific evidence. After all, it says that pharmaceutical medicine is 'science based'. So the question was asked of the USA's CDC (Centers for Disease Control), and they had to concede in a in Federal Court that it does NOT have any studies to support its claim that “Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism”.

So when some 40%-70% of parents with autistic children blame vaccines, typically pointing to vaccines given during first six months of life caused the problem, conventional medicine resorts to denial - completely unsupported by evidence.

So who is looking into what is causing the autism epidemic?

• No one, it appears; sounds like doctors don 't even think it's necessary

Who cares about what is causing the autism epidemic?

• Answers on a postcard please

And by the way, should any of you parents are wondering, conventional medicine has no treatment for autism.

Autism

Just one of the many secondary costs of conventional medical failure

Mass killings in the USA. What is the cause? Too many guns? Or too many SSRI Antidepressants? The cause has to proceed the solution.

I write this blog the day after the mass killing incident at the Marjory Stonemason Douglas High School in Florida, USA, when 17 people lost their lives. Already it is suspected that the killer, Nikolas Cruz, was taking prescribed medication, possible SSRI antidepressant drugs.

Such killings are not an uncommon tragedy in the USA. In Britain we hear only of the most serious mass shootings, the one's with the most serious loss of life. Even in America, apparently, they have become so common that not all of them are reported.

The discussion surrounding the incident has, as usual, focused on the gun control laws. Should the government reform them, restrict access to guns. Or uphold the constitutional right of Americans to carry guns for self defence. The focus is not unreasonable - the deaths, after all, are being caused by guns! The gun Cruz used was his gun, his parents made him keep it in a locked gun cabinet, but he had a key.

But is it a sufficient to focus on the gun? Ownership and possession of a gun does not mean that the killer have to use it to kill people.

We hear that Cruz had a troubled past, that he was adopted, and his mother died 3 months earlier of  pneumonia. According to Vaxxter, a family friend has already told a local newspaper, the Sun Sentinel, that Cruz had been on 'medications'.

               “I know she had been having some issues with them ..... He was being a problem. I know he did have some issues and he may have been taking medication. (He) did have some kind of emotional or difficulties.”

Mass shootings have often been linked to pharmaceutical drugs. I wrote about the connection back in 2011 when I first heard evidence linking mass shooters to pharmaceutical drugs, not least to SSRI antidepressant drugs. Since then I have research all the pharmaceutical drugs that are known to cause violence, and these include not only antidepressants, but Antiviral drugs, Benzodiazepine drugs, ADHD drugs, Lariam and Champix (Chantix). As Vaxxter comments:

               "One thing is becoming more and more clear, we need to take a deeper look at what these SSRI medications are doing to our society. We need more awareness and more studies."

I have looked, listened and watched the mainstream media to hear of any recognition of this link between drugs and mass killings, without success. The focus remains on guns.

So what happens in a country does have rigorous gun control laws? In Britain there are not so many shootings, very few in fact. But the problem, instead, is knives and stabbings. How many of the young people involved in this violence are taking pharmaceutical drugs? Perhaps USA citizens will not be surprised that we don't know, because we don't look into it, our focus is on preventing young people getting access to knives!

The problem is that if we don't identify the CAUSES of violence, all the causes of violence, then the problem of violence can never be reduced, leave along resolved.

If it is guns, or knives, we can introduce some measure of control. If pharmaceutical drugs are to blame nothing will be done as the problem is never raised, never considered, never investigated. If it is drugs, and we don't recognise it, all we can do is to wait until the next depressed youngster is given antidepressants, and wait until he decides to kill someone - whether with a gun or a knife!

Postscript 20th February 2018
This latest School Shooting atrocity was also undertaken by young man who was on pharmaceutical drugs. The gun killed the 17 victims; the trigger was pulled by the 'side effects' the conventional medicine.

Postscript 7th May 2018
A new study from Clemson University, published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies, 2018; doi: 10.1007/s10826-018-1096-2, has found that one-third of school mass shooters were taking psychiatric drugs, and that one-third were diagnosed with a mental disorder and were taking psychiatric drugs such as antidepressants.

The Dementia Epidemic. What is the cause?

There are a variety of pharmaceutical drugs that have the side effect "confusion", "memory loss", "decreased mental alertness" and other symptoms of dementia. There are less pharmaceutical drugs that admit to "dementia", or Alzheimer's Disease, as a side effect!

There are a whole host of websites that will confirm that drugs are a major cause of confusion and memory loss. I have listed some of these at the foot of this blog below. More to the point, a cursory perusal of the British National Formulary, or MIMS (medical bibles for doctors which provide details of known drug side effects) will indicate that many, if not most pharmaceutical drugs have these symptoms of dementia as side effects.

The question is, are these side effects just minor, temporary conditions, rather like some conditions we more normally associate as 'side effects' - a headache perhaps, or a dry mouth? Or do they constitute a longer term, more permanent threat to the brain? Can they so easily be dismissed?

Regular readers of this blog will know that I use the term "DIE's" for drug side effects - I think that this is a more accurate description. They are 'Disease Inducing Effects' and should not be discounted as either minor or temporary.

I have listed the scientific evidence that has linked dementia with a considerable number of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, and these drugs include some of those most commonly taken drugs, especially those regular taken by older people. They include

• The flu vaccine (especially if taken over a period of successive years),
• Antidepressant drugs,
• Antipsychotic drugs,
• Statin drugs,
• Sleeping pills, particularly of the Benzodiazepine family,
• Anticholinergic drugs,
• Antihistamine drugs,
• Proton Pump Inhibitor drugs, such as Rennies and other popular brands,
• H2 Blocker drugs,
• Painkillers,
• and many others.

Many older people are prescribed a cocktail of different pharmaceutical drugs, and conventional doctors have little knowledge about what this type of polypharmacy can do to human health, leave alone to the human brain which is our most vulnerable organ.

Dementia is not just affecting older people. It now strikes people in their 50's and 60's, even some people in their 30's and 40's! It is estimated that 1 in 3 people will suffer from dementia, and that in future this might rise to 1 in 2. So something needs to be done, and we cannot wait for conventional medicine to be honest. So we need to take action to protect ourselves, and our loved ones. My suggestion is simplicity itself!

• Do not take pharmaceutical drugs, and do not accept vaccinations for flu or indeed any other condition.
• If and when you are ill look to other medical therapies for treatment. They are often more effective anyway, and they are certainly safer because they do not use toxic substances, such as mercury and aluminium, known to have harmful effects on the brain.
• Anyone who is taking pharmaceutical drugs, or have taken them in the past, should seek out assistance from a homeopath to antidote the toxicity that has been introduced into you body.

Conventional medicine is harming us, as individuals, and as a population. It is time for us all to say "No, no more. We have had enough!" And we should do so whilst we still have the mental capability of doing so.

Postscript. A selection of websites that discuss the link between pharmaceutical drugs and confusion, memory loss, etc

• https://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2012/03/08/many-drugs-can-cause-confusion/ 
• https://www.webmd.com/brain/medications-that-can-cause-confusion-or-a-decreased-alertness 
• https://bebrainfit.com/20-medications-that-can-cause-memory-loss/ 
• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3451468/Common-antibiotics-trigger-DELIRIUM-Drugs-cause-confusion-hallucinations-agitation-weeks-study-warns.html 
• https://www.aarp.org/health/brain-health/info-05-2013/drugs-that-may-cause-memory-loss.html#quest1 
• https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/408593_5 
• https://womensbrainhealth.org/think-about-it/10-drugs-that-may-cause-memory-loss 
• https://www.caregivers.com/blog/2013/07/3-causes-confusion-in-the-elderly/ 
• https://www.healthline.com/symptom/confusion#modal-close 
• https://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/side-effects/mental-confusion-or-delirium 
• http://www.healthinaging.org/resources/resource:potentially-inappropriate-medication-use-in-older-adults/ 
• https://www.helpguide.org/harvard/whats-causing-your-memory-loss.htm 
• https://www.davidwolfe.com/medications-cause-memory-loss/ 

I was well before my doctor prescribed drugs for me! And I am better now I have stopped taking them!

Phyllis (not her real name) is a good friend, older than us, she is now well into her 80's. Only a few months ago we commented on how well she was for her age. She told us that she had never had a serious illness in her life, except for glaucoma, for which she had regularly taken eye drops. She is a meticulous woman, tidy, organised and efficient. As a homeopath I always smiled; if she was ever ill I would think first of the remedy Arsenicum Album! Indeed, she also had another typical Arsenicum feature, she was anxious, she was a worrier, she worried about everything, especially her health. She would, perhaps, been a hypochondriac, except that she really did not have much to worry about on that score! Yet, this was nearly her undoing.

A few months ago she went to see her doctor. She had a pain in her arms, not really a pain she said, more a sensation really. The doctor agreed to do some tests. Then, as she was leaving, she mentioned her high blood pressure, and showed the doctor the figures she had taken with her home blood-pressure gadget. Typically Arsenicum! Not only did she have a blood pressure machine at home, she took readings regularly, and was sufficiently organised to have the readings with her when she went to visit the doctor!

This was how it all began. The doctor said the readings were high, and prescribed her a drug to lower it. Initially Phyllis said she did not want to take drugs. But the doctor asked if she would prefer to have a stroke, and this frightened her sufficiently to agree to take them.

I was immediately concerned, although Phyllis would never consult with a homeopath. She did not believe in that sort of thing! Earlier, in conversation, I had told my 'Arsenicum' friend that some people had higher blood pressure than others, that worrying about blood pressure was in itself a bad thing, and that she (and many other people) had probably lived with what conventional medicine believes to be 'high' blood pressure for most of her life!

When I heard that her doctor had given her Amiodipine, a calcium channel blocker used to treat high blood pressure (hypertension) to prevent stroke and heart attacks I commented that this was typical of the 'medicine by numbers' so often practised by conventional medicine, and that I doubted whether she needed it. Yet it is difficult to persuade an Arsenicum about anything that lies outside their own particular beliefs. So I warned her to be careful, to watch carefully for the well known side effects of the drug. These are many and varied. I told her what they were.

The next few months were difficult for all her friends. Initially she lost her appetite, she had a bad taste in her mouth, and her stomach was upset. So she returned to her doctor who prescribed Omeprozole, a proton pump inhibitor that decreases the amount of acid produced in the stomach.

I rolled my eyes, out loud! One drug leading to another drug to deal with the problems created by the first. I told her about the serious side effects proton inhibitor drugs were known to cause. They are many and varied! I told her what there were.

The situation became worse as the weeks progressed. She could not sleep, which of course she worried about. And eventually she became severely depressed. Actually, at times she became quite unbearable! She had always been eccentric, always very much her own person. Now, at times, she became intolerable, even her best friends despaired.

Phyllis returned to the doctor, who listened to what she said, and told her to stop taking the drugs. She did so, indeed she was happy to do so, and within a few days she soon returned to her normal self. Thank goodness! Or, perhaps, thank her doctor. Phyllis was fortunate, indeed, that she had a doctor who, rather than denying the link with pharmaceutical drugs, drew back from the multiple drug route that leads so often to serious ill-health and death. Phyllis would not have listened to anyone except for her doctor, who she trusted, implicitly.

Yet this is what happens to so many fit and health people. Although essentially well, they go to the doctor with a minor ailment, for which they are routinely prescribed a pharmaceutical drug. The side effects of the drug are experienced, in one way or another, and the association with the drug is either not recognised, or it is routinely denied. The conventional medical establishment is always in denial! So more pharmaceutical drugs are prescribed in order to deal with the side effects of other pharmaceutical drugs! Yet these new drugs also have serious side effects, and soon the patient is taking a cocktail of drugs, which proceed to cause a multitude of illnesses.

In a short time the patient becomes very unwell. For the patient this is seen as bad luck. For too many doctors it cannot be the drugs causing the problem, so it must be the natural consequence of old age!

If patients are ever to be safe, it is important that we all  begin to examine how our illnesses and diseases have been caused. It is rarely, if ever bad luck. It is often poor nutrition, and our diet generally. It is sometimes the result of our sedentary life style, and lack of exercise. It can be caused by many other lifestyle factors. It can certainly be caused by stress. Yet in this age of science and technology it is increasingly obvious that the petro-chemicals that now play an important part of our lives, and which pollute the environment we live in, are seriously implicated as a major cause of ill-health.

Foremost amongst these new technologies, which are known to cause sickness and disease, are pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. The more we have consumed them during the last 100 years, the more we have experienced epidemic levels of diseases, such as ADHD, allergy, dementia, arthritis, asthma, birth defects, cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, a whole multitude of autoimmune diseases, and mental health disorders; and so many 'new' diseases, such as autism, Crohns, chronic fatigue, Parkinsons, and many others.

If we want to understand why we are unwell, why we are sick and suffer from disease, we need to appreciate the role that pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines now play in creating ill-health and disease. It has become a major cause

For more specific information about how pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are known to cause illness and disease, go to this link, "The disease inducing effects of drugs and vaccines".

Iatrogenic Death - are doctors now the biggest cause of death?

It has long been said that conventional medicine, more usually described as 'medical errors', is one of the biggest causes of disease and death.  Indeed, the statistics are there to prove it, and they are statistics gathered and published by conventional health officials. Yet they only refer to a small proportion of the disease, and the death caused by the conventional medical system.

"Medical Errors: STILL the Third Leading Cause of Death", published on 18th May 2016 on Mercola.com, is a recent attempt to calculate the size of the damage cause by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines.

Dr Mercola claims that he was the first person to publish the data, back in 2000. He did so after reading an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) stating that the  shocking data made it very clear that doctors were the third leading cause of death in the USA.

Dr. Barbara Starfield, the author of the 2000 JAMA study, showed that a staggering 225,000 Americans die from iatrogenic (doctor induced) causes. Mercola says that her statistics revealed that each year:

• 12,000 die from unnecessary surgery
• 7,000 die from medication errors in hospitals
• 20,000 die from other errors in hospitals
• 80,000 die from hospital-acquired infections
• 106,000 die from the negative side effects of drugs taken as prescribed

These numbers, had as they are, have increased during the last 16 years. Yet it is this latter figure that is probably a severe under-estimate of the real size of iatrogenic death. The reason is that these drug side effect statistics will use information gleaned from death certificates, and these death certificates are written by doctors who are trying to ascertain the cause of death, usually very quickly. It is not that death certificates are necessarily wrong, or that doctors intentionally hide any evidence that pharmaceutical drugs or vaccines have played an important part in causing death. 

It is the denial, rife within the conventional medical circles, that their drugs can cause any problems at all, leave alone that they are often the cause of death.

I have occasionally blogged on these situations before. For instance, a good friend of mine died of Alzheimer's Disease, after she had received a flu vaccination on several consecutive years. Conventional medical science has long denied the evidence linking consecutive flu vaccinations with dementia, with just denials, and little attempt to ascertain whether there is a link or not. So how many older people die of this vaccine alone?

There must be millions of similar examples. Another friend fell and banged her head one evening, and thinking no more of it, went to bed. The next morning she was dead. The doctor's death certificate stated that the cause of death was a brain haemorrhage. It made no mention that she was taking Warfarin, which would have undoubtedly have had some effect on the outcome!

So iatrogenic death, deaths caused by pharmaceutical drugs, are not usually recorded as such. There is no mention of the drugs and vaccines being taken by the patient. It is particularly likely to happen in circumstances where the conventional medical establishment, particularly the pharmaceutical companies, deny that there is any link between their drugs and a condition or a disease.

But it also happens when a patient has an existing disease. The disease may itself be caused by pharmaceutical drugs or vaccines. But the cause of death will usually be given as the existing disease, and not the pharmaceutical drugs the patient has taken to treat the disease. And this is so even when the drugs themselves are known to kill.

 The number of such cases, not just in the USA but throughout the world, must be huge. It almost certainly pushes iatrogenic death to the top of the list of the cause of death.

Parkinson's Disease. Is it caused by pharmaceutical drugs?

Parkinson’s disease is described on the NHS Choices website as a condition in which part of the brain become progressively damaged over many years. It describes the main symptoms as tremor, an involuntary shaking of particular parts of the body, slow movement, and stiff and inflexible muscles. It is often accompanied by other illnesses, like depression, constipation, insomnia, and memory problems.

What is the cause of Parkinson’s disease?

Conventional medicine does not know what causes Parkinson’s disease. The NHS Choices website gives a description of the disease, “the loss of nerve cells in the part of the brain called the substantia nigra”, but then goes on to say that it is not known why the loss of nerve cells occurs.

History and facts about Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson's disease been known about since ancient times. It was once known as ‘the shaking palsy’ by the physician Galen 175AD. In 1817 a London doctor, James Parkinson wrote a detailed medical essay was published on the disease which he wrote from his experience of six cases he had dealt with. This encouraged further study of the condition, and it acquired his name as a result.

It was not until the 1960s that that the chemical differences in the brains of Parkinson's patients were identified. This concerned the low levels of dopamine in the parts of the brain that was degenerating, and led to the development of the drug Levodopa.

The Parkinson’s UK website says that in Britain 1 in 500 people now has Parkinson’s, estimating this to be about 127,000 people. It says that it is largely a disease of people over 50 years old, but notes that younger people are now getting the disease too.

The MedTV website says that about 50,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson's disease each year, with more than half a million Americans affected at any given time. It also says that the assumption that Parkinson’s is the result of normal ageing is no longer correct, that whilst it is often a disease that develops in late middle age, there are now more cases of  "early-onset" and that an estimated 5-10% of Parkinson’s disease are people under the age of 40.

So it would seem that Dr Parkinson would now discover more than 6 cases if he was to return to practice!

Pharmaceutical drugs that can cause Parkinson’s disease

The magazine WDDTY reported in July 2010 that people who suffer from Parkinson’s disease, who often display the typical symptoms of shaking and sudden involuntary movements, and that scientists are now “beginning to wonder if the drugs are the cause”.

Indeed, the Alzheimer’s Society website has discussed the concept of ‘drug induced Parkinson’s’. This is a concept that is known by the Parkinson’s Disease Society, who have written an information sheet on the subject. This states that “about 7% of people with parkinsonism have developed their symptoms following treatment with particular medications”. The information sheet says that 

“… any drug that blocks the action of dopamine, dopamine antagonists, is likely to cause parkinsonism. Drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders such as behaviour disturbances in people with dementia (known as neuroleptic drugs) are possibly the major cause of drug-induced parkinsonism worldwide. Parkinsonism can occur from the use of any of the various classes of neuroleptics”.

The Parkinson’s Association of Ireland also recognises ‘drug-induced Parkinsons’. So here are some of the drugs mention by these two organisations.

Antipsychotic drugs

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has said that certain antipsychotics can cause Parkinson-like symptoms, and that these side effects arise because the drugs interfere with dopamine in the brain. Several antipsychotic drugs cause this, notably Clozapine (Clozaril), Quetiapine (Seroquel), Olanzapine (Zyprexa) and Risperidone (Risperdal).

Antipsychotic drugs are regularly used for people who are suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

Calcium Blocker Drugs

Calcium channel blocking drugs, used to treat high blood pressure, abnormal heart rhythm, angina pectoris, panic attacks, manic depression and migraine may, are known to cause drug-induced Parkinsonism. According to the Parkinson’s Disease Society, the most well-documented of these drugs are Cinnarizine (Stugeron) and Flunarizine (Sibelium). 

However, any internet search will demonstrate that there is lots of ‘scientific’ evidence about the link between these drugs and Parkinson’s, split almost exactly between those saying they are helpful, and those who say they can cause the disease!

This is often the case with research into the harm caused by pharmaceutical drugs. Should the precautionary principle apply. Or should we believe what the conventional medical establishment tells us - that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? It is, of course, a personal choice.

Statin Drugs

The role of Statins in causing Parkinson’s was mentioned in a WDDTY article in January 2007, “The safe drug that might cause Parkinson’s disease”.

“Statins reduce levels of the ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol – and the new study, from the University of North Carolina, believes these lowered levels may trigger Parkinson’s.  Sufferers can have levels of LDL cholesterol that are three times below the average”.

In April 2015, the Daily Express article, “Parkinson’s link to Statins: calls to end widespread use of the drug” suggests that nothing much happened about this research during the 8 intervening years! The article referred to Parkinson’s research, carried out over 20 years, and involving nearly 16,000 people, which found that cholesterol (which Statin drugs seek to reduce) may have a vital role in protecting the brain and nervous system. Details of the research to which they refer can be found in the Movement Disorders website.

Other drugs

This is not an exhaustive list of the Big Pharma drugs known to cause Parkinson’s disease, but it is hopefully sufficient for anyone taking, or planning to take any pharmaceutical drug to undertake a thorough web search for possible associations.

It is also known that standard drug for Parkinsons, Levodopa, can develop the common ‘side effect’ of dyskinesia, which is the medical term for jerky and unpredictable movement.

The Parkinson’s Association of Ireland says this about other drugs that might cause the disease.

“A number of other agents have been reported to cause drug-induced parkinsonism, but clear proof of cause and effect is often lacking. Amiodarone, used to treat heart problems, causes tremor and some people have been reported to develop Parkinson’s-like symptoms. Sodium valproate, used to treat epilepsy, and lithium, used in depression, both commonly cause tremor which may be mistaken for Parkinson’s”. 

(My emphasis, the proof is probably lacking because of a lack of research, and the difference between ‘the disease’ and something ‘mistaken for the disease’ may be a marginal distinction for sufferers!)

The Parkinson’s Disease Society mentions some other drugs thought to cause the disease.

“These include some older drugs used to treat high blood pressure such as methyldopa (Aldomet); medications for dizziness and nausea such as prochlorperazine (Stemetil); and metoclopromide (Maxolon), which is used to stop sickness and in the treatment of indigestion”.

Cancer, its causes and treatment

What causes cancer, and how has the incidence grown in recent years? I came across this piece on the internet recently, written by Dr Tim O'Shea (http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/cancer/To-the-Cancer-Patient/) who listed these causes.


          "The traditional cover story is that we don’t know what causes cancer so therefore we have to keep spending $100 billion per year to look for the cause. In reality the opposite is true. The true causes of cancer are well known, well documented and have been for decades.

          What alters normal DNA? How do normal cells become persistent mutant cells, which grow tumors?

          There are thousands of everyday DNA-altering, carcinogenic situations, well researched. Let’s list just a few:

• 60,000 chemicals in our air, food, and water
• vaccines
• processed foods
• Genetically Modified foods
• prescription drugs
• over-the-counter medications
• tobacco
• air pollution
• fluoridated water
• pesticides on produce
• herbicides on produce
• chlorine
• other contaminants in our water

All these things, he said, poisons our blood, and alters our DNA. He includes pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines in his list, and singles out vaccines as a particular problem.

          "With vaccines, it’s deliberate cell invasion: attenuated or mutated antigens injected into the child’s blood. Sixty-eight vaccines before age 18.

Yet even more striking are the statistics Dr O'Shea used in his piece, looking at the developing incidence of mortality from cancer in the USA.

"In 1900, cancer was practically unheard of in this country. By 1950, there were about 150 cases of cancer per 100,000 population.

Dr O'Shea then produced these statistics, looking at deaths from cancer per 100,000 of population. In 1967 they had risen to 157.2 cancer deaths per 100,000, and it climbed rapidly from there. 

1970— 162.9
1982— 187.3
1987— 198.2
1988— 198.4
1989— 201.0
1990— 203.2
1991— 204.1
1992— 204.1
Source: Vital Statistics of the United States vol.II 1967-1992 [26]

Independent analysis by the CA Journal for Cancer Clinicians, Jan 97, [16] put the 1993 death rate at 220 per 100,000. Jumping ahead now to 2000, the overall rate had climbed to 321 per 100,000 (OECD Health Data 2010).

And why, he asks, does nobody know this? Because, he says, it is forbidden to discuss such things in the mainstream media. 

So Dr O'Shea's arguments mirror my own, often outlined on this blog. The statistics he uses are damning, the rise in cancer mortality corresponding, as they do, to the years when research into cancer, drugs to treat cancer (and drugs that cause cancer) have grown exponentially.

The article is full of other useful information too, although I know nothing about the treatment programmes he is suggesting. What I do know, and have highlighted in past blogs, is that many people with cancer have turned to homeopathy, and with some success.