Pharmaceutical Drug "Side Effects:differentiating between symptoms of an illness and 'side effects' caused by drugs taken to treat illness.

The term “side effects” seems such an innocuous one, something quite minor, unimportant, nothing to worry about, a mere inconvenience. An alternative term “adverse drug effects” is little better at describing the seriousness of drug ‘side effects’.

So why do so many patients not realise that they suffer from drug ‘side effects’? Or that they can be serious? There are many reasons.

First, the medical profession does not tell patients about the ‘side effects’ of drugs they prescribe, certainly not the full extent of the harm they are known to cause, or the serious impact they can have on our health. Patient Information Leaflets usually stay, unread, within the packaging. Usually doctors tell their patients little more than that side effects are ‘minor’ or ‘rare’ or are ‘well-tolerated’.

Second, when patients develop ‘side effects’ they tend to dismiss them as just another sign of their original illness; the fact that they are unwell, and that any new health issue is merely another manifestation of being sick.

A third reason, perhaps not so well known, is that drug ‘side effects’ are often so similar to the illness for which were prescribed that it is difficult to differentiate the two. If so, an assumption is usually made that new symptoms are just an extension of the original illness which is getting worse. After all, they have been told that ‘side effects; are ‘minor’, ‘rare’ and ‘well tolerated’ and too often an assumption is made that their doctor would not give them anything that might be harmful.

So let’s see how this third factor works by looking at ADHD and the known ‘side effects’ of ADHD drugs.

ADHD, or Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder has been described by the NHS Inform website as “a group of behavioural symptoms that include difficulty concentrating and paying attention, hyperactivity and impulsiveness”. It describes the main symptoms of ADHD in children and teenagers as:

Inattentiveness: having a short attention span, being easily distracted, making careless mistakes, appearing forgetful, losing things, being unable to stick at tedious or time-consuming tasks, appearing to be unable to listen to or carry out instructions, constantly changing activity or task, having difficulty organising tasks

Hyperactivity and Impulsiveness: being unable to sit still, especially in quiet surroundings, constantly fidgeting, being unable to concentrate on tasks, excessive physical movement, excessive talking, being unable to wait their turn, acting without thinking, interrupting conversations, little or no sense of danger.

NHS Inform goes on to say that symptoms of ADHD “tend to be noticed at an early age” and that “they may become more noticeable when a child’s circumstances change, like when they start school”. Indeed, I (and many other people sceptical of conventional medicine) would say that sometimes many children who diagnosed with ADHD who are little more that normal, but active, inquisitive, perhaps mischievous youngsters (who often have a bad diet that contributes to the problem).

But then they are given ADHD drugs……

There has been an ever-increasing number of children who have been prescribed ADHD drugs, like Ritalin, Adderral, Concerta, Vyvanse, Strattera, Focalin (and many others). These drugs can, and often do, have serious ‘side effects’. (For a full list of the known/accepted ‘side effects’ of each of these ADHD drugs click on each of them above (although they all have ‘side effects’ that are remarkably similar).

Going through the horrendous ‘side effects’ of Ritalin, perhaps the best known and most used of all ADHD drugs, the following can be picked out as conditions quite similar to ADHD itself. The NHS website mentions side effects such as “struggling to get to sleep”, and “becoming irritable, aggressive, tearful, and depressed”.

• agitation

• talking or acting with excitement you cannot control

• uncontrolled vocal outbursts or tics (uncontrolled and repeated body movements)

• anxiety

• confusion as to time, place, or person

• false or unusual sense of well-being

• inability to speak

• loss of consciousness

• nervousness

• overactive reflexes

• seeing, hearing, or feeling things that are not there

• talking or acting with excitement you cannot control

• unusual excitement, nervousness, or restlessness

• Anger

• Fear

• Aggression

These ‘side effects’ can be confused with ADHD itself. In other words, Ritalin and other ADHD drugs are known to cause the same, or similar ‘side effects’ to the symptoms of the (so called) illness. But the ‘side effects’ are not recognised because nothing has changed, except that their condition has got gradually worse. So they need more of the drug, or the drug in a stronger potency.

But what is important to note is that ‘side effects’ such as anger, fear and aggression are not normally present in children who have been diagnosed with ADHD!

Vernon Coleman, a highly cynical (but honest) former doctor-GP, tells this apocryphal story that I fear many people could tell, if only they realised what was happening to them as the result of taking pharmaceutical drugs.

“I take the red pill to stop the indigestion,’ says a man. ‘I get the indigestion from the blue bill and I take the blue pill for the headaches I get with the green pill and I take the green pill to stop the itching the red pill causes’”

This is not an uncommon situation. In another place Coleman outlines his “1st Law of Medicine” which is as follows:

“If you are receiving treatment for an existing disease and you develop new symptoms then, until proved otherwise, you should assume that the new symptoms are caused by the treatment you are receiving”.

Good advice, perhaps, but most people would not be able to take it as they would not be inclined to differentiate between symptoms of the illness, and other symptoms that have contracted since taking the drugs they have been given for the original or first illness!

As a homeopath I have spoken to many patients where it was difficult to differentiate between the symptoms of an illness and a drug ‘side effect’. And if anyone asks their doctor, the message most patients would receive is that the new symptoms are not drug ‘side effects’ because the drug does not have ‘side effects’!

But when the patient decided to stop taking the offending drug, regardless of the condition, their health would invariably improve, and for many it was the start of them getting entirely well. The best medicine, sometimes, is no medicine - especially if it is pharmaceutical medicine!

What is a Safe Medicine? Seeking Conventional Medicine's concept of safety

The Conventional Medical Establishment (CME) is telling us all, through national governments, conventional doctors, national and international medical organisations, and the mainstream media (MSM) that the Covid-19 vaccines are safe, entirely safe, usually without any reservation or caveat.

At the same time there are a number of internet websites that are reporting serious adverse reactions, including deaths, which have been attributed to these same vaccines. Indeed, reports of vaccine harm are commonplace on the internet - here are just two of these.

501 Deaths + 10,748 other injuries reported to official CDC 'Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System' (VAERS).

This website has attempted to keep an ongoing record of all reports of serious adverse reactions to these vaccines.

So what is becoming increasingly clear is that these two narratives about the safety of Covid-19 vaccines are mutually inconsistent - they cannot both be true!

The central question is how the Conventional Medical Establishment (ConMed) can continue to make their unreserved claims that Covid-19 vaccines are safe refuting these reports. Do they know about these worldwide reports of patient harm? Are they ignoring them deliberately? Surely, if such reports are untrue, the CME would be refuting them?

Regular readers of this blog will know that there is a credibility gap between the efficacy claims of pharmaceutical medicine, and its actual performance. CME has always made claims about the safety of its drugs and vaccines, and their value for patient health. So the claims about Covid-19 vaccine safety, and their tenuous connection with reality, is not new. It is a well-used, well-rehearsed CME strategy. 

Proxy Advertising

In the advertising industry it is well known that if people/customers are told, frequently enough, that a product is effective and safe it will be believed, and the product will sell. So in order to sell drugs and vaccines it is important that drug companies state that they are safe. So, of course, they do. And every sector of society under the control of the CME, including national governments, world and national health agencies, and the mainstream media (MSM), fully support these assertion. 

Indeed, all the CME does more than merely support the pharmaceutical industry. They provide the advertising for the drug companies. When was the last time you heard the MSM being critical of a drug or vaccine? When was the last time you heard a spokesman from a drug company defending the safety of a drug or vaccine? The pharmaceutical industry is being provided with not only free advertising, but more credible promotion from a supposedly 'independent' source.

If a washing machine manufacturer told us their washing machines were safe and effective we might all say - "well, they would say that, wouldn't they?" We would be sceptical, we would check, we would compare. And we would also assume that if the claims being made were untrue we would be warned about it, by government agencies, consumer groups, the MSM, and the like.

With the pharmaceutical industry, and its drugs and vaccines, this is just not happening.

The Credibility of Medical Science

Allegedly, the proof of the safety of pharmaceutical medicine is medical science. We are told all the time - conventional medicine works because it is based on science. The safety of Covid-19 vaccines are based on the scientific testing programmes to which they have been subjected, rushed maybe, but scientific, and therefore unchallengeable. Just mention the word - "science" - and it must be true - it cannot be questioned, leave alone challenged!

I have argued many times that medical science has become a scion of the pharmaceutical industry, part of the CME, a 'science' that has been bought and paid for, to deliver what its paymaster wants it to deliver - not least of which is that scientific testing has shown a drug, or a vaccine to be safe.

Drug Regulation and Medical Science - why conventional medicine is not scientific

The Credibility of Doctors

Doctors have become one of the most respected of all professions. Gone is the 19th century idea that "an apple a day keeps the doctor away", even though a fruit-rich diet would certainly have had more impact on Covid-19 than any treatment conventional medicine has had available to treat it! Doctors are the experts we see at our surgeries, they are paraded on our television night-after-night, their task to reassure us that a particular pharmaceutical drug or vaccine is safe. They are used by the CME to reinforce the safety message, in a variety of ways.

• The drug/vaccine has been proven to be "entirely safe" for patients. The drug/vaccine is "well tolerated" by patients.
  

Yet this routine reassurance is usually contradicted by the Patient Information Leaflet, which legally has to accompany each drug, and outline all the known adverse reactions the drug or vaccine is known to produce. In other words, what doctors tell us is invariably contradicted by CME's own medical literature.

• If the safety message is challenged, conventional medicine's spokespersons will usually tell us that the benefits of the drug/vaccine outweighs any possible dangers.
  

Suddenly, patient harm is admitted; but instantly discounted. The drug/vaccine is so effective we should not be concerned about the side effects. Who makes this judgement? Who does the 'cost/benefit' analysis? The CME, specifically medical science, of course. Where is it published? Nowhere. It is merely an assertion. This washing machine is safe - because we are telling you it is safe.

The effects of the 'safety' message

Doctors are expected to reassure their patients, just as washing machine salesmen are supposed to reassure their customers. It is safe, there is no need for concern, just don't worry. Listen to what you are being told. In medicine this safety message can, and often does, have consequences far beyond just taking the pill. 

    a) the patient suffers an adverse reaction to the drug/vaccine, but as (s)he had been assured by the doctor it was "entirely safe", it could not possibly have been a side effect. So the patient will often not bother to report the side effect to the doctor. The harm goes unrecognised, either by patient or doctor.

    b) A patient takes a drug/vaccine - and suffers an adverse reaction - and does report it to the doctor. Clearly the complain will cause some embarrassment. to the doctor. "You told me it was safe, you did not warn me it might do this". So the doctor finds it difficult to accept, or just won't accept, that his/her patient has been damaged by a prescribed drug/vaccine. So perhaps it wasn't really a side effect. Perhaps it was just coincidence, or part of the initial illness, nothing to do with the drug/vaccine. So the side effect is not reported, an easier position for the doctor to assume.

So the patient is reassured, it wasn't the drug, it must have been something else. How unfortunate, what bad luck!

Reporting Side Effects

Studies have regularly shown that less that 1% of drug/vaccine side effects are ever reported to drug regulators. It is the national drug regulator who examine reports of side effects, and in face of this under-reporting they can come to the conclusion that the drug/vaccine only affects a very small number of people, especially when compared to the number of people who have received the drug/vaccine. 

So the drug regulator publishes the side effects they have received, as they are legally required to do, but they can 'legitimately' describe them as 'uncommon' or 'rare'.

So in terms of the cost-benefit analysis, the benefits of the drug/vaccine, over-emphasised by a compliant medical science, are not outweighed by the disadvantages, the adverse reactions, which are under-emphasised by the reporting system.

So playing the game of Russian Roulette with adverse drug/vaccine reactions suddenly becomes more acceptable - to both the CME and the patient.

There is a vicious circularity about this situation. A drug/vaccine is safe; and because it is proclaimed as being safe its safety is never seriously questioned or investigated.

CME - don't break ranks - or else

 The CME is powerful, but at its centre is the PME, the pharmaceutical drug companies that generate huge profits (it is by far the most profitable industry in the world) which are spent on controlling the different constituent parts of the CME.

Doctors owe their status and position to the ongoing success of the CME. To break ranks is taboo, and results in the severest of punishments. Medical staff who act as 'whistleblowers', anyone who questions the safety of pharmaceutical drugs/vaccines, is putting himself/herself in professional jeopardy. Dr Andrew Wakefield is perhaps the most notable case in recent years, when he questioned the safety of a vaccine, and had his mainstream medical career destroyed as a direct result.

In any Establishments members expected to close ranks, especially in adversity. This is why the secrecy and lack of transparency within Britain's National Health Service (NHS) has been regularly criticised when it has tried to cover up medical errors, bad practice, and is asked to explain the harm done to its patients. 

At the very heart of this medical secrecy are issues of patient safety, and the safety of the treatments they have been given. 

The routine denial of patient harm has become endemic within the NHS because of the need to defend the safety of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, the very backbone of conventional medical treatment.

But breaking ranks is not reserved for medical staff, it also applies to constituent parts of the CME most people would not think of being part of the CME.

National Governments

The CME needs government backing because they are vitally influential in providing health services to their populations. So they fund politicians and political campaigns. They lobby parliaments. They make huge investments within economies that depend on them. And in return CME expects to receive political support for their medical treatments. Many national governments have become as beholden to the future of the CME as any doctor.

The MSM

The mainstream media is also vitally important to the CME. The MSM controls what the public are told about health, and what they know and understand about medical treatment.

It would have been difficult for the CME is control the Covid-19 agenda without both the support of governments, and the MSM. Remember, it had no treatment, and no prevention to offer patients: yet the competence of conventional medicine has never been seriously questioned. 

Hand washing, masks, social distancing, lockdown have had devastating effects on our emotional, social, recreational and economic lives; but the adequacy and relevance of these policies have never been seriously examined or challenged, nor the immense harm it has done, and is doing to our emotional, social and economic life. 

The CME agenda for Covid-19 did not include any reference to natural immunity. The importance of the immune system has rarely been mentioned, and natural medical therapies have been totally excluded from any discussion.

None of this would have been possible had it not been for the compliant silence of both government and the MSM.

Yet the control of government and MSM has one further major benefit for the CME. Medical claims (perhaps more accurately called lies?) about the safety of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are further safeguarded. They are all safe because there is no-one left to tell us they are not safe.

Claims of Medical Safety

Government and MSM compliance to the pharmaceutical medical agenda reinforces the message about the safety of drugs and vaccines. Doctors and other medical staff are able to tell us they are "entirely safe" because they know they will never be challenged about the veracity of such claims. Doctors can parade these views directly with the MSM, and the main journalistic response is usually "that really is good news, thanks for reassuring us". Just as James Bond has a license to kill, doctors have a license to lie about the safety of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. There is no questioning, no investigation into what they actually mean by 'safe' and 'safety'.

And just as in the doctor-patient relationship, the government-citizen and MSM-public relationship has, as a result, become a hostage to fortune. 

• Government and MSM have repeatedly said that Covid vaccines would be our salvation; in much the same ways they have heralded each new 'wonder drug', or 'miracle cure', as something that would soon "win conventional medicine's war" against disease.
  
• Both have welcomed the arrival of Covid-19 vaccines as "good news, the best possible news", without reservation, without question or restraint; just as they have welcomed new conventional treatments that would "transform our experience" of a particular disease.
• At the same time both have ignored any issue that has been vaguely critical of conventional medicine; that pharmaceutical drugs/vaccines cause serious adverse reactions; the fraudulent activities of medical science; the prosecution of drug companies for serious criminal offences; et al.
• And they have even dutifully attacked the opposition, natural medical therapies, and removed them from any significant role within the NHS.
  

So how can they now admit that there are real safety issues with pharmaceutical medicine when they have supported and praised all their treatments over the decades? 

In order to do so they would have to admit they had been wrong? They had both failed to ask relevant questions. They had failed to investigate the claims of the CME. Their politics were corrupt. Their journalism incompetent. For decades, both had misled the people to whom they had both a duty of care, and a responsibility to inform and protect.

Safe is what we tell you is safe!

So the concept of safety within convention medicine is very different to the kind of safety most people would recognise as 'safe'. Crossing a motorway on foot might be described as 'safe' in the context of the concept of medical safety! You are safe because we would get away with it much of the time, but not all the time. In much the same way conventional medicine can say their drugs and vaccines are safe. 

• The CME might know they cause serious adverse reactions, that they harm patients. It is, after all, in the medical literature, available to doctors, governments and the MSM. But the CME won't openly and transparently admit to it; and there is no-one to tell patients unless the patients look for themselves.
• Government agencies might regularly pay out large sums of money for those patients who have been able to prove they have been harmed by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines; but responsibility for the damage caused is not formally recognised, and certainly not connected or compared with the CME's 'vaccines are safe' mantra.
  

First do no harm

Since Hippocrates, in 4th century bce Greece, this principle is supposed to underlie all medical practice.  The CME is certainly aware of the the principle, but its concept of safety allows it to deny it is causing harm to patients. So the CME is in trouble; and the more people who recognise that pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines cause harm, the more trouble it will be in. This is why reports of patient harm caused by its new Covid-19 vaccines are so important to ignore, discount and deny.

The future of pharmaceutical medicine depends on its ability 

to maintain its concept of medical safety.

 

DIE's. The Disease Inducing Effects of Pharmaceutical Drugs and Vaccines

For a broader, more direct insight into how pharmaceutical drug and vaccine treatment causes patient harm (and are therefore not safe by any normal definition of safety) this E-Book links the drugs and vaccines that are known to be associated with a wide variety of illnesses and diseases.

PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS IN SHORT SUPPLY. But as they are harmful why should this be a problem?

In recent months the mainstream news media have been telling everyone that there are shortages of pharmaceutical drugs. For many people, like myself, who have no use for them this was not the frightening news that it was made out to be. They are dangerous. They harm us. We are better off, healthier, without them.

But it introduces new dangers.  

• GPs have voted for pharmacists to be given powers to dispense an equivalent preparation or dosing regime when the prescribed medication is unavailable, without returning the prescription to the GP.
•  Prescribers are being advised to prioritise supplies of certain medications and to consider switching patients to unlicensed alternatives in some cases, as more than 100 drugs remain out of stock.

Yet to my surprise I have discovered that some doctors agree with my assessment. In Pulse, the GP's e-magazine, one GP wrote this in an article entitled "The drugs don't work, so why worry about shortages?"

               "Call me weird, but I reckon there’s a positive spin to the acute on chronic medicine shortage debacle..... It’s true that we’re reaching the point that shortages are even affecting the alternatives, and when there’s no alternative, there’s no drug. But actually, for me, that’s the positive. Because, frankly, I think we doctors prescribe far too many drugs"

I could not agree more, which is rare for me, agreeing with a doctor about the value of pharmaceutical drugs! He does not mention the harm caused by pharmaceutical drugs but goes on...

               "Assuming shortages continue, and extrapolating this effect, hopefully loads of patients will stop loads of drugs. When the drug unavailability issue whips the therapeutic rug from under patients’ feet, they don’t keel over. A few might suffer, but I’d argue a net benefit on the basis that many won’t notice any difference, and a significant number will probably feel better."

I wondered whether he would receive a hostile response from his colleague, so look at the foot of the article, and found comments that agreed with what he had written. One said, quite simply "Well said", another that it would not last, but another said this ....

               "Marvellous opportunity to discuss stopping HRT with the elderly users who have not yet succumbed to breast cancer and stroke".

A doctor admitting a link between Hormone Replacement Therapy and breast cancer and stroke?

It shows that some doctors do understand that pharmaceutical drugs are causing harm to their patients. It shows that doctor-morale is low, that confidence in pharmaceutical drugs is limited, even amongst doctors who spend most of their working day prescribing them. 

But I wondered how many doctors have been quite as transparently honest - when talking to their patients?

ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE. A new wonder drug for dementia? What is the truth behind the media hype?

There is news today 23 October 2019) of a new wonder drug that can treat Alzheimer's disease. It's called aducanumab. It has hit the headlines in BBC News ('First drug that can slow Alzheimer's dementia'), the Times ('Alzheimer's drug suggests our research billions were not for naught'), the Telegraph ('New drug that halts mental decline is 'best news for dementia in 25 years'), and no doubt the rest of the mainstream media too. You do not need to read all these accounts as they are all virtually identical. The source material will undoubtedly be a press release by the drug company, Biogen, which is seeking regulatory approval in the USA for this 'groundbreaking" drug.

The news will encourage, and raise the expectations, of millions of people who suffer from, or have loved one's who suffer from, dementia. The pharmaceutical industry has done it again! It has come up with yet another wonder drug that will transform our health! Or so they are led to  believe.

The truth is rather more uncertain than the media coverage, who as usual have meekly accepted what the drug company has told them, without investigating any of the downsides. So what is the truth about aducanumab? What is known about it that we are not supposed to know?

• In March 2015, Biogen presented 'positive interim results' of a study.
• In March 2019, just four years later, Biogen discontinued all trials into the drug.

Why was this? We are told that an "independent data monitoring committee advises aducanumab unlikely to meet primary endpoints", although we were also told that "the recommendation to stop the studies was not based on safety concerns". So what was it based on? Presumably it was found not to be effective!

But what about the safety of aducanumab? Conventional medicine frequently dismisses any safety concerns that are known about drugs, both old and new. This is the warning statement about aducanumab on the Drugs.com website.

               "Patients treated with adalimumab are at increased risk of infection, some of which may become serious and lead to hospitalization or death. These infections have included TB, invasive fungal infections, bacterial, viral, and those caused by opportunistic pathogens including Legionella and Listeria." (my emphasis).

For conventional medicine (and the Drugs.com website is owned by pharmaeutical interests) such safety concerns do not warrant any more than a warning, however drastic that warning might be! And, of course, the trials abandoned in March 2019 had nothing to do with 'safety' concerns! Instead, doctors are advised to take care about how the drug is used.

               "The risks and benefits of therapy should be carefully considered prior to treatment initiation in patients with chronic or recurrent infection. Evaluate for latent TB and treat if necessary prior to initiating therapy. Monitor patients closely for signs and symptoms of infection during and after treatment, including the possible development of TB in patients who tested negative prior to treatment. Consider empirical antifungal therapy in at-risk patients who develop severe systemic illness. Lymphoma and other malignancies, some fatal, have been reported in pediatric and adolescent patients treated with tumor necrosis factor (TNF) blockers such as adalimumab. Postmarketing cases of hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma (HSTCL), usually fatal, have been reported in patients treated with TNF blockers including adalimumab, primarily in adolescent and young adult males with Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis." (my emphasis).


Clearly, the concept of 'first do not harm", and the precautionary principle" do not apply to conventional medical practice.

Nor does it appear to be a concern for the mainstream media. I did not have to struggle to find this informaton. It is not hidden. Nor is it information that comes from anywhere else but conventional medical literature. But the mainstream media does not bother to inform us. And the drug companies are, as sure as hell, will not do so!

What guides the BBC, the Telegraph, the Times, et al., is what drug companies want us to know; not what we need to know about these 'wonder drugs' before we begin to consume them.

This is not unusual. Whenever we face an epidemic of chronic disease, such as dementia, but also allergy, arthritis, autism, diabetes, and so many more, the first questions asked by the conventional medical establishment is "how can we respond?" "What treatments (usually what drug) do we have to combat this epidemic?"

The first question that should be asked, both by doctors and patients, is - "what has caused this epidemic?" Why are the numbers of older people, and even young adults and children, now suffering from dementia increasing so rapidly?"

Unfortunately it is a question that conventional medicine, and the drug companies that controls it, do not want us to ask. The cause of these epidemic levels of chronic disease are pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines - at least in large measure. They are certainly known to cause dementia, and although doctors know this (it's in their medical literature) they certainly do not want us to know!

Asking such a question does not fit in with the business plan of the pharmaceutical industry, which is to treat illness with drugs that cause other illnesses through side effects, and then treat these illnesses with other drugs, which also cause side effects............. and so on.

So investigating the CAUSE of Alzheimer's is not part of conventional medical strategy. Finding new, and every more harmful (and profitable) drugs to treat it, most certainly is! And our mainstream media is complicit in this.

Postscript (7th June 2021)

This awful drug, Aducanumab, has raised its ugly head again. 18 months after this free advertising of a nasty drug the mainstream media is at it again.

 

"US approves first new Alzheimer's drug in 20 years" is the BBC's headline. It is good, free advertising, although this time the BBC does mention the "uncertainty" about the drug trial results; but of course this  is not reflected in the headline.

And it's more than just 'uncertainty'. Members of the FDA (the USA drug regulator) have resigned "amid backlash over controversial drug approval". Even members of the pharmaceutical medical establishment will take action to prevent patient harm by such an approval. Perhaps all is not well within conventional medicine!

The Under-Reporting of Drug Side Effects. Doctors say they are 'rare' but only between 10% & 1% of adverse reactions are ever reported. So they are not as 'rare' as we are told.

The conventional medical establishment routinely ignores the harm caused to patients by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines.

A study, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, (2006; 296: 1086-93), found that although prescribing doctors should report side effects and adverse reactions experienced by their patients many do not do so. In fact, the actual rate of reporting was found to be alarmingly low, about 10 times below the optimum level set by the World Health Organization. The study reported on procedures amongst doctors in Portugal, where 26 adverse reactions were reported per 1 million population, whereas WHO say that this should be closer to 300 report per million people.

The researchers said that this under-reporting was not restricted to Portugal, and that the USA, Canada, Italy, Sweden and the UK, also have very low reporting rates.

Commenting on this study, the magazine What Doctors Don't Tell You said that if the WHO targets were reached, the whole drug industry would 'grind to a halt'. In the Guardian, on 12th May 2006, Sarah Bosely wrote that the BMA had said the Yellow Card scheme (the UK system of reporting drug side effects) was not being used enough. The article quoted BMA figures that found at least 250,000 people went to hospital each year because of the damaging side-effects of medication, and that about 5,000 people die as a result. The BMA urged doctors to be 'more vigilant', and to report any and every suspected side-effects their patients experience. They said that only an estimated 10% of adverse drug reactions were reported through the "yellow card" scheme to the MHRA, and a BMA spokesperson commented:

          "Doctors have a professional duty to report all adverse drug reactions, especially if children or the elderly are involved. Unfortunately too many health professionals are confused about reporting procedures. Doctors must make sure they report any suspected [adverse drug reactions] and at the same time increase awareness among their patients about the reporting process."

Another BMA spokesman said that not all side-effects could be picked up in clinical trials before drugs are licensed and prescribed which meant that greater vigilance was needed by doctors, pharmacists and nurses. In the same article the MHRA (Britain's drug regulator urged healthcare professionals to use the yellow card scheme, stating:

          "There is no need to prove that the medicine caused the adverse reaction, just the suspicion is good enough." 

The article concludes by saying that it has long been known that doctors do not report all the suspected side-effects their patients tell them about, and that 10 years earlier (1996?) the BMA had issued similar guidance to doctors, but with little effect. Sadly, in the decade and more that has passed since this was written, nothing has changed!

So what does this under-reporting of drug side effects mean, in practical terms?

It means that if only 10% of known adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs and vaccine are reported they are all 10 times more dangerous than conventional medicine accepts or admits!

It means that there has been a circular argument going on for over 20 years, and no doubt much longer. The side effects of drugs are under-reported by doctors - which means in turn that the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are not fully appreciated. This, in turn, means that drugs are being prescribed on the basis that they are safer than they are.

Yet the under-reporting of drug side effects may be worse than this, perhaps as low as 1%, particularly (but not exclusively) with regard to vaccine damage. This 1% figure comes from USA government reports. In 1986 the USA government relieved vaccine manufacturers of all liability for vaccine injury. They created the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) in 1990 which was supposed to collect and analyse the adverse effects of vaccines. The system has has been criticised every since. To address the weaknesses, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) gave Harvard Medical School $1 million dollars to track VAERS reporting, and create an automated reporting system overhaul the VAERS reporting system. It successfully transformed the system from a 'passive' to an 'active' one.

The report showed that vaccine injury reports through VAERS were less than 1% of the actual number, that whilst the CDC showed only about 30,000 adverse events in the USA annually, the Harvard study showed about 35,570 adverse events - just in the population of Massachusetts. It calculated that there was an adverse event in 2.6% of vaccinations - hardly the 'rare' event that we are told about by doctors. So, with typical honesty, the CDC buried the study!

               “Unfortunately, there was never an opportunity to perform system performance assessments because the necessary CDC contacts were no longer available and the CDC consultants responsible for receiving data were no longer responsive to our multiple requests to proceed with testing and evaluation.”

It is clear from this that whatever the conventional medical establishment tells us about the safety of vaccines, and pharmaceutical drugs generally, they are not telling us the whole truth. If only 1% of drug and vaccine damage is being reported it means that they are 100 times more dangerous than they admit.

Yet there is another issue - are doctors prepared to tell us the truth when it is they who have prescribed harmful and dangerous drugs to their patients.

In an Observer article, published on 20th January 2008, Dennis Campbell reported that Steve Walker, chief executive of the NHS Litigation Authority, said that doctors must own up to the mistakes they make in order to reduce compensation claims that were totalling £613 million annually at that time. He called for "a new culture of honesty and openness". We are no to this now then we were in 2008!

Cambell continued. Negligence lawyers said the main reason victims take legal action is to obtain more information, so what doctors had to do was simple, to report any error or mistake, more than this, doctors should feel under an obligation to tell patients, to apologise and explain.

          "The explanation bit is really important to many, many claimants. It doesn't matter if it heads off a claim or encourages a claim, people as human beings and patients are entitled to this and they should be getting it. Some patients are dissatisfied by not getting this information already. Some patients and patients' relatives feel short-changed by the system. They believe there's a lack of honesty, of frankness and of candour."

Walker wanted doctors to 'sympathise with the patient or the patient's relatives' and to 'express sorrow or regret' at any death or injury that followed 'substandard care' with pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines.

          "I feel ..... very strongly that people are entitled to know when something has gone wrong; entitled to an apology if something has gone wrong; entitled to an explanation of what went wrong and why, in words that they will understand; and entitled to the opportunity to ask questions about what happened and why," 

This kind of transparency is not a feature of the conventional medical establishment. Since 2008 medical negligence cases have dramatically increased. This is usually explained within the context of doctors, or some other medical staff, making a mistake or an error. This ignores the fact that every pharmaceutical drug and vaccine used by conventional doctors are inherently dangerous! Defending dangerous drugs and vaccines by blaming the resulting problems on the doctors who prescribe them is fundamentally wrong. The blame needs to be placed within a medical system that supports and encourages their use, and then denies the existance of problems until those problems can no longer be denied!

The article first appeared in my E-Book, "DIE's: the disease-inducing-effects of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines". This e-book shows that it is the dangerous pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines being prescribed, and their side effects, that are causing sickness and diseases at unprecedented levels. And that within the conventional medical establishment there is little honesty about the harm that is routinely caused by these drugs and vaccines.

Many people have read this book and found it hard to believe how common illnesses and diseases, many now at epidemic proportions, some never known before the present era, are known to be caused by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. There surprise is understandable.

No-one has ever told them before!

 

Postscript February 2022

A German health insurance company has recently discovered that the adverse reactions to the Covid-19 vaccines were seriously under-reported in official government data - an 'independent' corroboration of the above article.