The Epidemic Rise of Chronic Disease: and the Bonanza of Pharmaceutical Drug Taking: a Known Link?

We are sicker now than we have ever before. We are in the middle of a health crisis. In the 1930's 7.5% of people suffered from chronic disease in America. Today, 60% lives with one or more chronic conditions. Other 'developed' countries (countries with a high level of pharmaceutical drug consumption) show a similar trend. Life expectancy is also reducing, both for healthy life expectancy, and total life expectancy. This is where 80 years of pharmaceutical medicine has led us!

I found these figures on Twitter. They provide a general idea about the percentage increase in the incidence of chronic diseases since 1990, that is, during the last 30 years. I do not know who worked out the percentages, their absolute accuracy, or to which country, or countries they apply.

(PS April 2025. I have found the source in an article in the What Doctors Don't Tell You (WDDTY) magazine, March 2025. The increases are from 1990 - so they have happened within just over 30 years).

ADHD                     plus 819%
Alzheimer's             plus 299%
Autism                    plus 2,094%
Bipolar                    plus 10,833%
Celiac Disease        plus 1,111%
Chronic Fatigue      plus 11,027%
Depression              plus 280%
Diabetes                  plus 305%
Fibromyalgia          plus 7,272%
Hypothyroidism      plus 702%
Lupus                      plus 787%
Osteoarthritis          plus 449%
Sleep Apnea            plus 430%

Yet I do know, and we should all know from our own experience, that the figures are broadly accurate. Even the conventional medical establishment does not deny them (they just rarely talk about them). The rise and rise of chronic disease is rarely challenged, and never explained, by medical authorities.

This epidemic rise of chronic disease reflects the reality of our declining health. There has undoubtedly been an enormous increase in levels of illness in the last 30 years. Indeed, these figures would be far, far worse if the base year chosen had been 1950 - that is since the beginning of the consumption bonanza of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines began.

Moreover, many other chronic illnesses could have been included in this list which would have further underlined the problem in recent decades: for example, cancer, allergy, asthma, epilepsy, heart, liver, kidney, and lung disease, osteoporosis, and many others.

We are getting sicker and we should all be aware of this. There are lots of other ways of observing this trend, not least the growing pressure on health services in the drug-taking countries of the world, and the ongoing patient demands for medical treatment, and ever-increasing resources to provide them.

More and more money is now being spent on pharmaceutical medicine than ever before. So why are pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines not working? More and more of us are consuming more and more for longer and longer periods of time.

This blog has regularly pointed to the fact that there are regular announcements (through government and mainstream media outlets) of ‘medical breakthroughs’,  new 'wonder drugs' that will overcome this or that disease. So why are these ‘medical breakthroughs’ not bearing fruit, why are we not getting better?

Moreover, each new 'medical breakthrough' is costing more and more. National health services around the world, but especially in high drug-taking countries, are struggling to cope with the medical demands of increasingly sick patients. Many national health services are close to bankruptcy.

So why do we continue spending more and more on the provision of the same health services, year on year, only to discover, year by year, that all that happens is that we get sicker? For the last 20 years my suggestion has long been that it is time for us to put the two trends together!

That the increased consumption of pharmaceutical drugs/vaccines are directly linked with these massively increased levels of sickness.

However, they are rarely linked together. Increased sickness has invariably been accompanied by increased demands for, and the provision of, more £$billions to be spent on the same old (failed) medicine. So each time the vicious is replicated, more spending, and more ill-health.

So are the two trends directly linked? And if so, where is the evidence for such a link? 

The answer is simple. The link is easily and clearly explained by something that is widely known, and a matter of recrod - “drug side effects”, or “adverse drug/vaccine reactions”. Conventional medicine knows a lot about adverse drug reactions. This knowledge is published within conventional medical literature. It is readily available to anyone who wants to investigate and understand the link between ill-health and drugs. The problem is that the llink is not made by governments, or the mainstream media, or the conventional medical establishment. It is their silence on this matter that suggests that they have each become part and parcel of the pharmaceutical establishment. 

Indeed, the situation is worse than this. Government, the mainstream media, and conventional medicine are each promoting pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. They subliminally do much of the advertising for drug companies. And they usually refuse to inform patients about the link between known ‘side effects’ and increased levels of sickness.

In another recent blog I argued that when disease causation is discussed, most everything known to be, or thought to be causative of disease is mentioned; but pharmaceutical drugs are usually notably omitted. Whilst the blog focuses on dementia and Alzheimer's disease similar arguments can be made for most, if not all the other chronic diseases mentioned above. It is all there, in conventional medical literature.

So if YOU suffer from a chronic disease, what pharmaceutical drugs have you taken that might have caused your illness?

I have done the work for you! Have a look in my e-book, "Iatrogenic Disease: the disease-inducing-effects (DIEs) of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines". You will see here that over 70 of the most common chronic diseases are covered, and some of the drugs and vaccines known to cause them as "a side effect".

Yet you do not have to take my word for it. Everyone can do their own research. If you are taking pharmaceutical drugs for any illness, have a look at the 'Patient Information Leaflets' (PILs) that come with each drug packet, and with each vaccine. They all outline most (although not all) the known side effects of that drug.

The solution might be to stop taking pharmaceutical drugs. Yet do not stop taking them without consulting your doctor. Although taking them may well be causing serious illness and disease, to stop taking them suddenly can also be a problem. Drug taking is a no-win situation for the patient!

The prospect of contracting chronic disease might be terrifying. But it is time conventional medicine began to acknowledge that the drugs/vaccines they use are a significant part of the problem, and reducing drug taking is part of the solution.

And for those people who want to stop or reduce their consumption of drugs, they would do well to do what many people are now doing (and I did over 50 years ago) - to look at the role of alternative medical therapies, like homeopathy, which are invariably safer, and more effective medical therapies.

 

The 'Normalisation' of Chronic Disease Epidemics: how Conventional Medicine ignores them

There has been an ongoing epidemic of all chronic disease (eg., arthritis, autism, autoimmune disease, cancer, dementia, diabetes, heart/liver/kidney disease, and many more) for over 70 years. Indeed it is difficult to name a chronic disease whose incidence has not risen exponentially during this time anywhere in the world in which pharmaceutical medicine reigns supreme. The data is often shared with us, information about how the disease is out-of-control, but when it is the purpose is usually to make an urgent case for yet more resources to be found for yet more conventional medical treatment. The rise and rise of chronic disease, however, is rarely considered in a broader, more general context.

    Invariably, conventional medical treatment is being, and has been used, but we are never told why this treatment has not been successful in dealing with the disease, and why despite treatment the disease is getting more common?

    The fact is that in the last 75 years chronic disease epidemics have all been running parallel to enormous and increasing resources being ploughed into conventional, drug-based medicine, but the treatment has not been able to stem the tide of chronic disease. Indeed, in most cases epidemic levels of disease continue to increase.

It is therefore logical to assume that if pharmaceutical medicine was able to treat these illnesses and diseases successfully there would be no ongoing epidemic. Certainly the incidence of the disease would not be expected to rise, often exponentially! And in fairness, the conventional medical establishment is probably well aware of this, even though it is particularly difficult for it to explain this to us, other than pleading that they need more money, for more of the same treatment. 

Yet whenever additional resources are ploughed into medical provision, the epidemics seem only to increase in size, and even in matters of health there has surely to be a time-limit on how long they are given to redeem their promise of effective treatment!

For instance, Cancer Research UK has been using the slogan "Together we are beating cancer....." for as long as I can remember! And they continue to use it. Their latest campaign is to raise more money for cancer research to avoid the annual number of cancer deaths from rising to 20,000 by 2040. One might ask how much further we will be asked to run, swim, cycle in order to raise yet more money for the charity! Cancer Research UK has roots going back to 1902, and the slogan might be nearly that old!

Other charities have similar slogans, full of hope and optimism. The British Heart Foundation uses the similar slogan, Together, we can beat heartbreak forever....". And there are many, many more similar slogans calling us to provide drug companies with more funding for drug/vaccine research.

The problem for the conventional medicine is that there is another explanation, one that does not involve the need for more money and greater resources, but questions the efficacy of the medical system on which most countries have built their health services for the last 70 years - pharmaceutical medicine. Conventional medicine know this, and it knows that it needs to justify itself, and increasingly they have devised strategies to do so.

1. See no evil, hear no evil

If you don't look for something you won't find anything. If you don't hear criticism, you won't have to respond to it. The pharmaceutical industry know this, and have used this time-honoured strategy whenever it has been confronted with questions about the chronic disease epidemics.

The failure to look for evidence of iatrogenic (medically-caused) patient harm, especially if that evidence might implicate pharmaceutical treatment (or the selling of drugs) has been going on for many years. Silence will often mean that the original question will not be heard. A lack of dialogue means that nothing will be heard. If nothing is said, especially when faced with an awkward question, no debate will ensue.

Initially you don't even deny allegations. Silence reigns supreme. For instance, even if it's alleged that a pharmaceutical drug has been used intentionally to kill sick patients, the accusation remains unanswered. The silence is only broken when an issue or problem refuses to go away. Then denial becomes necessary. But denial should never be too vociferous for fear that too many people become aware of the issue. No publicity is the best publicity for an industry seeking to defend itself from bad news.

Yet when denial becomes necessary the pharmaceutical knows that it can minimise any damage by doing several things.

• To get 'medical science' on your side, not difficult as you provide science companies with the major part of their income.
• To get government on your side, not difficult if you are able to entice their support with promise of industrial investment.
• To get the mainstream media on your side, not difficult when your advertising means survival to news organisations, and news companies can be infiltrated and controlled.
• To ensure that health charities and patient support groups on your side, not difficult if you provide them with both funding, and personnel.

And even if medical science fails to comply with supportive research, stop the research. This happens regularly, most recently when the journal Cureus retracted a peer-reviewed paper that called for a global moratorium on the Covid-19 vaccines following an investigation into vaccine trial data, and post-injection injuries suggested that they were not "safe and effective". Or if the research cannot be stopped, at least ensure that harm is minimised, like when a study of adverse Covid-19 vaccine reactions was studied, serious patient harm was found, but they were adjudged to have been "very rare".

The strategy is all about damage limitation to the industry. The pharmaceutical industry is not alone in adopting the strategy, as demonstrated by this research concerning the dangers of cellphone radiation which was cancelled after safety risks were uncovered. If an industry has enough wealth, power and influence, it can ensure that evidence that is "bad for business" does not reach the eyes of the world.

But such are the current difficulties of the pharmaceutical industry they are having to move beyond silence, denial, and the financial control of information sources. It seems that they are developing new, more subtle strategies.

2. Munchausen's Syndrome

This BBC television programme explains one such justification. This suggests that patients are not really sick at all, they are faking their illness/disease in order to get attention! Munchausen's syndrome was originally explained as a rare form of child abuse (Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy), where a parent or carer exaggerates. or deliberately causes symptoms of illness in a child. In this context, the illness has been fabricated, or induced, to draw attention to himself/herself.

This new form of Munchausen's syndrome appears to suggest that people are feigning sickness rather than being sick. Perhaps Conventional medicine sees this a a new form of defence against criticism, a way of explaining away the rise and rise of so many chronic diseases?

3. The Normalisation of Disease

The normalisation of disease is yet another strategy Conventional Medicine seems to be using to discount and minimise the spiralling levels of illness and disease. Illness and disease is just something that happens, bad luck perhaps, an unexpected, surprise attack by a some virulent virus or germ. No matter. Let's get on with life. Let's not worry ourselves about the cause the disease. Never mind if there is no effective or safe treatment. 

Mental health conditions have been particularly subject to this normalisation (and I have written about the normalisation of disease with regard to Autism recently).

But cancer, once described as a disease of old age, is now affecting babies, children, young people, and adults of all ages; and this spreading  of cancer through the age groups has been accepted as quite 'normal' now. This article, for instance, decries the attempt to dismiss cancer as "a natural disease of ageing", that we should be actively getting rid of the toxic exposures that are known to cause cancer rather than normalising the disease.  

And of course, this 'toxic exposure' should include exposure to the many pharmaceutical drugs that are known to cause cancer! But this is something that the drug companies wish to avoid!

Similarly, dementia was once thought to be a disease of old age, but describing younger adults as suffering from "early onset" dementia seems to have become a sufficient and satisfactory explanation for the extension of dementia to people in their 30's, 40's and 50's. The disease has just happened a few years earlier than it should have done, nothing usual, all quite normal - or so we are wanted to believe. 

And again it is certainly not necessary to look at the toxicity of pharmaceutical that drugs that are known to cause dementia!

4. Neurodiversity: living with and accepting illness

Neurodiversity is a further extension of the 'normalising' of disease, and has been especially used to justify the epidemic of autism. We should accept the disease, embrace it, and positively celebrate our differences. So we are asked to ignore the illness, we should not worry that something has made him or her 'different' to other people, or worry about the culpability of iatrogenic origins of the disease, and conventional medicine's their inability to do anything to treat it effectively. We are being asked to look at the individual, not his/her incapacity or disability, and just to get on looking after him/her properly!

So the pharmaceutical conventional medical establishment is asking us to accept illness and disease as a 'normal' part of life; accept it and just get on with living. Don't worry about the absence of effective treatment. And certainly don't worry about causation.

So don't be fooled into this malaise. We are dealing here with a medical system that not only fails to treat illness and disease effectively, but one that secretly (deep down) must accept at least partial responsibility for creating these epidemics of illness and disease.