A Health Debate: "disinformation", "anti-vaxxer", "conspiracy theorist"

Twelve years ago I wrote a series of 7 article that argued we needed a serious health debate. The problem in having such a debate, since then and before, has been that one side, the Pharmaceutical Medical Establishment (PME), has not wanted to take part in any such discussion. And since the so-called Covid-19 pandemic their refusal to engage has been considerably worse.

Instead the PME has done its best to close down all discussion on important health issues. One of its principle weapons to end debate has been the simple strategy of using certain dismissive words/phrases - such as "disinformation", "anti-vaxxer", "conspiracy theorist", et al.

All these terms are used to stand down discussion on the basis that the best form of defence is attack! The best way of avoiding discussion is to disparage and dismiss anyone, and everyone who disagrees with you.

Essentially, this position happens mainly when one side of an argument, usually the dominant side, but which, for whatever reason, is losing the argument. Why risk a discussion when it might risk undermining the power dynamic, the status quo? It happens regularly, for instance, when a politician, ahead in the polls, refuses to debate with an election rival. It happens when an employee asks an employer for a raise.

Yet it has become commonplace within the field of health, dominated by an immensely powerful pharmaceutical industry. Why should the medical establishment want to risk its dominance? Why should it waste time on anyone who has the audacity to suggest that their drugs and vaccines are neither "safe or effective"? Why should they engage with anyone who suggests that diet and exercise are more important than popping their pills? And there is certainly nothing to gain from speaking to anyone who believes in natural medical therapies, like homeopathy.

So shut down discussion by dismissing all such people who are spreading "disinformation", "anti-vaxxers", or "conspiracy theorists". End of argument, end of discussion.

One ongoing problems is that whilst these terms are used by an elite they are picked up by those who have a closed mind, or those who do not want to consider anything outside what they are being told. Conventional wisdom rules! Leave things as they are. We are busy people, we have other matters to deal with. Those in power must surely know best; they are the experts.

Perhaps the use of "conspiracy theory" is the worst of these repudiating terms. After all there are some very peculiar, even laughable conspiracy theories, ranging from the Flat Earth Society, to Holocaust denial, to fake moon landings, to the assassination of J.F. Kennedy, and the destruction of the twin towers in 9/11.

Yet if and when we come across any of these alleged conspiracy theories it is incumbent upon each of us to consider them, and make up our own minds about their validity. We should not dismiss any one of these, completely out of hand! We should examine the evidence, we should listen to both sides of the argument and reach our own conclusions. This is what intelligent, informed people do.

This is especially important when it comes to health issues. Whether the earth is flat, or the Holocaust did not happen, etc., etc., they are not relevant to our day-to-day lives. They may be interesting, but they are not of immediate concern to our future lives. Health is relevant to each one of us, right now, today, tomorrow - and the medical treatment that we are offered and accept can have a devastating affect on our future wellbeing.

The PME has been telling us for over 200 years that their drugs and vaccines are “safe and effective”, that they have overcome, even vanquished many former 'killer' diseases. Indeed, in the last 4-5 years we have been pummelled with these argument regarding the Covid-19 virus. It was a dangerous pandemic that would kill millions, only the vaccine could save us, and then only if we all took it. And no contrary view or argument being allowed to interfere with the pharmaceutical narrative.

So much of what most people believe and understand about health, and medical treatment, comes entirely from pharmaceutical promotion, and this system of medicine's very specific approach to health. Alternative views are not well known or understood, not least because neither government, conventional medicine, or the mainstream media, are prepared to discuss them with us.

For most people, the health debate is just not happening. The pharmaceutical message reigns supreme, largely unchallenged, dismissed as "misinformation". 

And this at a time when national health services, around the world, are being "broken" by unprecedented epidemics of chronic sickness and disease.

The result is that all our politicians can think of doing is to throw yet more money at the same, old, failed pharmaceutical medical treatment!

So you have heard Homeopathy does not work! It is too bad for anyone who believes that.

Whenever I write about the effectiveness and safety of homeopathy in this blog, on social media, or in one of my free E-Books, I often receive one of these routine response.

• Homeopathy does not work.
• Homeopathy is bogus.
  
• Homeopathy is just placebo.
  
• Medical science has proven that it does not work.

These statements are so often made that many people believe them, or have a vested interested in promoting conventional medicine, and as a result, do not use homeopathy for their health care.

My response to people who make these remarks is simple - so much the worse for you! They believe that conventional medical treatment is honest and scientific, and that any other form of treatment cannot work, and cannot be effective. I presume, when they are ill, they will resort to pharmaceutical drug treatment, and all its inherent dangers.

For everyone else, especially those who believe such completely unsupported (and often abusive) statements, is that it is unfortunate, not least when they become sick or unwell. What it means is that they overlook, or refusing to consider a natural medical therapy that is both more effective, and much safer, in treating all forms of illness and disease, than conventional medicine. They are not making an informed decision about their health.

A Health Debate?

Any discussion about health has become a big problem around the world. There is no discussion within the mainstream media (MSM) which has given the floor exclusively to conventional medicine, and the naysayers of natural medicine. One journalist has recently explained the situation he is in, regarding the reporting of health information, blowing away any idea that we have a 'Free Media". The social media is going down the same road, censoring and banning information that is in any way critical of pharmaceutical medicine; or that suggests homeopathy, and other forms of natural medicine, is an alternative way of maintaining our health, and regaining it when we are sick.

The MSM, and the advertising industry, is even constructing rules that deny natural therapists the right to talk about what they do. We must not talk about treating illness and disease; we must not suggest that we can do so successfully; we cannot even provide the public with case examples of successfully treated patients.

George Orwell's 1984 has arrived! And just as with the society Orwell imagined, too many people have not yet realised what is happening to them. We are living in a medical version of Airstrip One. The 'Thought Police' are controlling what we can and cannot hear. Big Brother is the corporate world, representing the interests of Big Pharma. There a lots of 'Winston Smiths', democrats, opposing what is happening, in favour of informed choice in health treatment. Over 1 million people demonstrated recently in London - and event not mentioned by the MSM. But we remain a minority at the moment, there are not enough of us.

Yet as the incidence of chronic disease gets progressively worse, as it has done for decades now; as more people are being harmed by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines; as national health services fail to meet our health needs (and we have to protect health services by losing our freedoms); as we watch conventional medicine's damaging, hopeless and often ridiculous responses to Covid-19; and as we recognise that we are getting progressively sicker the more drugs and vaccines we take, more Winston Smiths' will gradually emerge.

In 20, 50, 100 years time we will be able look back at these times more dispassionately, we will be more able to see what a great disaster the dominance of conventional/pharmaceutical medicine has been to the human race. We will be able to see what a failure this dominant system of medicine has been. We will want to return to the days when people acted on the basis that "an apple a day kept the doctor away". In the meantime we are going to have to fight hard to preserve patient choice, and health freedom.

Robert F Kennedy. A politician prepared to speak the truth about vaccines.

Politicians are supposed to lead, to inform us about what is happening in our world, to warn us of potential or existing dangers, and to present the possibilities that exists for the future.

Yet as far as health is concerned this does happen. There is no health debate. There are few politicians willing to challenge the dominant assumption - that the pharmaceutical industry is winning the war against disease - that drugs and vaccines are entirely safe - and that natural medicines do not work, and should not be available within national health services.

There is one exception - Robert F Kennedy, Jr. He recently made a speech in Albany, New York, USA that brilliantly and concisely encapsulated the arguments against vaccines, arguments our doctors, and the mainstream media refuse to discuss, and which are increasingly being censored now on the social media.

You can watch the speech at this link (but do so before You Tube gets around to censoring it) or you can read the speech below. You will recognise the arguments. I have been making them on this blog for the last 10 years, although there is much additional and more detail information that will amaze you.

     "Thank you for coming on such a rainy day.  The pharmacist walked by and I don’t blame him for being angry because this is the biggest threat to their business plan.  The vaccine industry when I was a boy was $270 million dollars.  I got three vaccines and was fully compliant.  Today it is a $50 billion dollar industry and 20% of pharmaceutical revenues.

     "But that’s at the front end.

     "At the back end are all the chronic diseases that the FDA says they think are associated with vaccines.  A hundred and fifty diseases are now listed on the product inserts.  The reason they’re listed on the product inserts is because the FDA has made the determination that these injuries are more likely caused by a vaccine.

     "This is the chronic disease epidemic.

     "I have six kids.  I had eleven brothers and sisters.  I had over fifty cousins.  I didn’t know a single person with a peanut allergy.  Why do all my kids have food allergies?  Because they were born after 1989.

     "If you were born prior to 1989, your chance of having a chronic disease, according to HHS (Health and Human Services) is 12.8%.  If you are born after 1989, your chance of having a chronic disease is 54%.  And the FDA has said to the vaccine companies, you need to take a look at these diseases.

     "And what are these diseases?

     "They’re the neuro-developmental diseases, ADD, ADHD, language delays, speech delays, tics, Tourette Syndrome, ASD, and autism.  The auto-immune disorders, Guillan-Barre, multiple sclerosis, juvenile diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis.  The anyphylactic diseases, food allergies, rhinitis, asthma, and eczema.  All of these exploded in 1989.

     "Congress ordered the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) to find out which year this disease epidemic started.  And EPA did that study.  They said it started in 1989.  There are a lot of culprits.  Many new things.  We have cell-phones.  We have PFOA (perfluorooctanic acid).  We have ultra-sound.  We have glyphosate.  We have many other things.  Our kids are swimming in a toxic soup.

     "We’re not saying all of those illnesses came from vaccines.  But there is no intervention that is so exquisite and precisely timed as what happened when we went in 1989 and changed that vaccine schedule and raised the levels of aluminum and mercury, tripled and quintupled them.  We went from the 3 vaccines that I had, to the 72 my kids had, and to the 75 that kids are going to get next year.  And there are 273 new vaccines in the pipeline.

     "I went in and met with Adam Schiff.  I’ve been a democrat all my life.  What’s happening in the democratic party disturbs me greatly.  But I was astonished when one of the leading democrats in our country, Adam Schiff, went to the internet titans, to Facebook, to Google, which has a $668 million dollar partnership with GlaxoSmithKline, the biggest vaccine maker in the world.  They make drugs and mine your personal data so they can sell you more drugs.  Schiff went to Pintrest, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, all of them, and told them they need to start censoring information and complaints about a pharmaceutical product.

     "I said to Adam Schiff, “You know these are greedy companies.  You know they’re homicidal.”  Any democrat will tell you that.  The four companies that produce all 72 vaccines that are mandated for American children, every one of them is a convicted felon.  Since 2009, those four companies collectively have paid $35 billion dollars in criminal penalties and damages and fines for defrauding regulators, for falsifying science, for bribing doctors, for lying to the public, and for killing lots and lots of people.

     "Vioxx, a drug made by Merck, they knew it would cause heart attacks.  They sold it as a headache pill.  They didn’t tell people, you won’t have a headache, but you might have a heart attack.  Of course, if they had, not too many people would have bought it.

     "So, they decided to keep it a secret.  They killed a hundred and twenty thousand people minimum, probably five hundred thousand people.  So I said to Adam Schiff, “What kind of cognitive dissonance does it require, to believe that this company, which is lying and cheating and killing with every other pharmaceutical product it makes, has found Jesus when it comes to vaccines?”  Everybody knows you can’t sue a vaccine company.  That’s why we had this gold rush explosion of vaccines beginning in 1989.

     "They have no incentive to make their product safe, other than their moral scruples, of which we know they have none.

     "What most people don’t know is that vaccine companies have an even more important exemption.

     "They are exempt from safety testing their products.  It is the only medical product.  The reason is that it’s an artifact of the CDC’s legacy as the public health service, which was a quasi-military agency.  The CDC took it over in the late 1970s.  That’s why people at the CDC often have military rank, like the Surgeon General.  The vaccine program was initiated as a national security defense against biological attack.  Because of that they wanted to make sure we could get vaccines out to the public very quickly if Russia sent anthrax over here.  They wanted to remove all the regulatory impediments that would prevent the quick deployment of that product.

     "So, they said, if we call it a medicine, all medicines have to be safety-tested under the law, double-blind placebo, and follow-up for five years.  They said, we can’t do that.  We’re going to call them something different.  We’re going to call them “biologics.”  And we’re going to make it so they don’t have to be tested at all.

     "And when the industry exploded in 1989, they took advantage of this loophole when they brought all of these new products to market.  Not one of the 72 vaccines on the schedule mandated for our children, have been tested with a placebo.

     "That means that nobody can scientifically tell you what the risk profile of that product is.  Nobody can tell you that product is going to save more lives than it will take.  There is no scientific basis whatsoever.  How can we as a society, a government, a democratic party, be mandating products for our children when we cannot tell what the risk is of that product?

     "Now, all of the vaccines on the schedule, and all medical products, are required to list whatever safety testing they do.  Not one of these has ever used a placebo. But some of them do safety testing anyway, like the polio vaccine, for maybe 48 hours.

     "The hepatitis B vaccine that is given to every child in this country on the day it’s born, they observe for 5 days.  That means if a child dies on day 6, it never happened.  If a child has a seizure on day 6, it never happened.  If the baby gets food allergies and is diagnosed three years later, or autism or an auto-immune disease, it never happened.  That way they can say it’s safe.

     "The weird thing is that there was one vaccine, the MMR vaccine, that all of this hoopla is about, it’s the only vaccine that has no safety testing listed on the insert.  And for many years, Del [Bigtree] and I have been saying, “that’s weird.”  Do any exist?  What happened?  So we sued HHS.  We said, “where is it?”

     "Three weeks ago they gave us the safety testing.  There were 800 kids.  Normally you have 20,000 kids or subjects in one of these.  There were 800 kids in 8 different categories.  For a drug they are going to give to billions of people.  The testing lasted only 42 days.

     "But 50% of the kids who were involved in that study had gastro-intestinal illnesses, serious ones, some of them for the full 42 days.  50% had respiratory illnesses, some of them for 42 days.  This is a product that is worse, according to its own record, than the illness it’s pretending to prevent.

     "Maybe there are people here who are anti-vaxx.  I am not anti-vaxx.  I just want safe vaccines.  And I want robust science.  And I want transparency in government.  And I want independent regulators who are not owned by pharma.

     "At the FDA, which is supposed to protect us against these products, receives 75% of its budget from the industry.  The World Health Organization (WHO) receives 50% of its budget from pharma.  The CDC is a pharmaceutical company.  It has about $5 billion dollars a year that it buys and sells vaccines.  And individuals within HHS who worked on those vaccines at taxpayer expense, if they worked on them, they’re allowed to get royalty payments.

     "Every vial of Gardasil that’s sold, there are people within HHS, high-level individuals, who are collecting $150,000 a year in royalties. And HHS and NIH own part of that patent and are collecting money every year.  These are not regulatory agencies.  They are appendages of the industry.

     "They don’t want to hear about this.  The reason they call you and me anti-vaxx is it’s a way of shutting us up.  So they don’t have to debate these very serious issues about vaccine safety.  So they don’t have to debate the science.

     "And they’ve bought off the press.  They put $25 billion dollars a year into advertising.  We’re the only nation in the world, other than New Zealand, that allows pharmaceutical advertising on television.  And they’ve been able to buy the press in this country.  They’re not only selling ads for their drugs, but they’re also dictating content.

     "Now they’re telling us they’re going to censor Facebook because they want to get rid of misinformation about vaccines.  We’re just talking about science.  We’re giving them peer-review.  You’ll never hear peer-review from a vaccine proponent.  What you’ll hear are appeals to authority. What does that mean?  It means that vaccines are safe because CDC or WHO says they’re safe.

     "But do you know who the ultimate authority is?  It’s the Institute of Medicine.  That is why Congress named the Institute of Medicine to be the ultimate authority on vaccine safety.  And do you know what the Institute of Medicine says?  It says there are 150 diseases that they think are caused by vaccines, and the CDC has been directed to study them.  They said that in 1994.  CDC refused.  They said it again in 1998.  CDC refused. They said it again in 2011.  They say it every year.

     "The Institute of Medicine says we have no idea whether these vaccines are causing this huge chronic disease epidemic.  That is the ultimate authority.  Not WHO.  Not CDC.  And the only way they can deal with these arguments is by shutting us up.

     "The vaccine misinformation is not coming from us, it’s coming from them.  How many of you have heard the networks report that 80,000 people died of flu last year?  You know what CDC’s data said? And CDC told the networks that number.  I don’t blame them, but the press is supposed to check.  My father told me, people in power lie.  And you’re supposed to check on it.  You know what CDC’s own data said? 2300 people died of flu, not 80,000.

     "How many of you have heard that the death rate for measles is 1 in 1,000?  CDC told them that.  CDC’s own data says that it’s 1 in 10,000 people and 1 in 500,000 Americans.  That’s what CDC’s data says.  But that’s not what you’ll hear from the networks.

     "Any of you who watched NBC the other night saw Lester Holt.  All of the news shows have become advertisements and they’re all part of this orchestrated frenzy that we’re terrified of measles.  And we’ve got to get this vaccine and we’ve got to pass this mandate.  Lester Holt is sponsored by Merck, which makes the vaccine.  Lester Holt showed a frightening picture on his show of a baby that was afflicted by these terrible measles bumps.  It turns out it was fake.  He had to fake it.  He’s never apologized.  NBC never apologized.  That is misinformation.

     "And Lester Holt is sitting there saying we’ve got to shut down this misinformation about vaccines while he is the primary promoter of that information.

     "This industry has been able to disable all of the institutions of our democracy that stand between a greedy corporation and a vulnerable child.  As Del pointed out, they are the biggest lobbyists on Capitol Hill.  There are more lobbyists than Congressmen and Senators combined.  They give double the amount of oil and gas.  They give four times what defense and aerospace give.

     "They own Congress.  That’s why Congress will not subpoena Bill Thompson, the chief scientist at CDC who says they’ve been lying to us for all these years.  They’ve been destroying data.  And they won’t call him in and question him.

     "They have been able to disable the regulatory agencies through capture.  Those agencies are now sock-puppets for the industries they’re supposed to regulate.  They’ve been able to neutralize the lawyers by making it illegal to sue a vaccine company.  The lawyers and the courts are gone.

     "They’ve been able to neutralize the press, all press scrutiny.  Now, they’re neutralizing the internet.  They’re shutting us down so we cannot speak.  So that nobody has to listen to the truth.  So that nobody has to read the peer-reviewed science.  So nobody has to listen to the questions.

     "The last thing standing between the corporation and that little baby is the mom and the dad.  And this greedy industry cannot stand that mother who is going to stop her little baby from being vaccinated.  From buying their product and then being hooked for the rest of their lives on Adderal, Epi-Pens, Ritalin, the anti-seizure medications, and the Prozac they get at the back end of this insane industry.

     "And what do the democrats say?  Well, there is no such thing as vaccine injury.  It’s all an illusion and these women are hysterical.  And they’re so easily deluded.  But these women know what happened to their child.

     "I would say it’s time for the Democratic party to start listening to women.  And what happened to the central, fundamental plank of the democratic party?  My body, my choice!

     "And why is our party advocating censorship?

     "And why is our party in bed with one of the dirtiest industries in the history of mankind?

     "We need to take our children back.  We need to take our country back.  We need to take our democracy back.  Thank you.

• No, thank you Robert F Kennedy! 
• Thank you for being a politician prepared to tell us the truth about vaccines.
• Thank you for exposing the power and control of the pharmaceutical companies.

When will the conventional medical establishment provide some answers to the questions he has raised instead of trying to censor criticism, and force pharmaceutical drugs and vaccine  on us?

"An epidemic of misinformed doctors and patients"

"A complete healthcare system failure"

These are the words of Dr Aseem Malhotra, an NHS cardiologist. His criticism of conventional medicine can be seen in this Daily Mail article, and he could be heard on BBC Radio 4' 'Today' programme today (24th February 2014).

I must admit to being surprised to hear the BBC interview with Dr Malhotra this morning, first because a senior doctor has seen fit to make such statements, and second, the BBC actually featuring anything that is the least critical of pharmaceutical medicine!

Basically, Dr Malhotra is one of six senior doctors, including Sir Richard Thompson, formerly the Queen's former physician, who have criticised the influence of pharmaceutical companies on the NHS. They are calling for a Public Enquiry into the effectiveness of pharmaceutical drugs, and their safety. They are complaining about several matters

• the prescription of too much medicine
• the biased funding of medical research (on drugs likely to be profitable rather than useful)
• commercial conflicts of interest
• biased reporting in medical journals
• biased reporting in the media

I have been making these criticism for over ten years now (I published the original version of 'The Failure of Conventional Medicine' in 2007). I have been asking the BBC, as a public service broadcaster, why they have ignored (censored) this information during all that time, and hitherto I have been studiously ignored!

Patients have faced a news blackout on the dangers and ineffectiveness of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. We have had an embargo on informing the public about the fraudulent activities of drug companies. We have not been informed about the commercial conflicts of interests that clearly exist in the running of drug regulation agencies throughout the world, including the UK's MHRA, and NICE.

Today, the six senior conventional doctors are calling for a 'health debate', something I wholeheartedly support, and have been asking for in a series of blogs in 2012.

In his interview this morning on BBC Radio 4, Dr Malhotra gave some figures from FDA (the USA drug regulator) who estimate that 120,000 people died in 2014 from the adverse reactions to drugs, which was a tripling of these deaths in the last 10 years. He also referred to research which estimated that there were about 1/2 million deaths caused by pharmaceutical drugs in the USA and the European Union together.

Michal Husain, the interviewer, tried to keep to the BBC's traditional line, in support of the pharmaceutical industry.

          "These are sweeping allegation, what is your evidence..?
          "There are always going to be links between doctors and drug companies... that this their work"
          "Drug companies and others would say there was always risks when you take medication"

Yet the figures of deaths given by Dr Malhotra are clearly an underestimate of the damage caused by conventional medical drugs and vaccines. He did not, for instance, speak about the illness and disease they caused, which are routinely dismissed as 'side effects' but which really underlay the epidemics of disease we are currently experiencing. And the death figures cited will not include all those people who have died, but their death have not been associated with pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines on death certificates. There must be literally millions more deaths caused by conventional medication which goes unrecorded. I spoke of one case in my blog "Alzheimer's Disease and the 'Flu vaccine', where a woman died of 'dementia', according to the death certificate, but had received a serious of 'flu vaccinations prior to this.

Is this going to be the start of a new openness in discussion conventional medicine? Will the Government and the NHS pick up on these concerns, and call for a public enquiry? Or will these doctors be ostracised, their reputations attacked, and their careers curtailed? (Andrew Wakefield springs to mind).

And will the media pick up on the request for a health debate? Or will all go quiet again? Will the BBC continue to herald new 'medical breakthroughs', as they have always done, for instance, with Statin drugs? And will they continue to ignore the dangers of conventional treatment, as they have always done, notably with Statin drugs? Dr Malhotra raised the issue of Statins, to illustrate his arguments this morning. On his twitter account, I have noted that several people have asked to learn more about his criticism of these drugs. Will it happen? Will the BBC pick this up? After all, Dr Malhotra is a cardiologist!

We will have to wait and see. But at least it is clear that there are a few doctors within the conventional medical establishment who are willing to present their fears - about 'an epidemic of misinformed doctors and patients', and a 'complete healthcare system failure'.

BBC News. A sudden conversion to honesty?

The BBC Today programme this morning featured a piece on GlaxoSmithKline's recent $3 billion fine for fraud in the USA.  


So is this a sudden (and welcome) conversion to honesty for the BBC when reporting on health matters? Or was this news just too big for them to ignore, and brush under the carpet? (which is what the BBC normally does when it deal with the Big Pharma industry).

The questioning in two interviews by John Humphrys would have appeared to be direct, and indeed quite critical - for anyone who was not aware of 'the health debate', but as this series of articles explains, journalist's like Humphrys are not really conversant with this debate. Certainly, the interviews he conducted made it clear that he believed, or wanted to believe, this was a 'one-off' situation, and he seemed relatively happy to accept the re-assurances that 'this situation was all in the past'. The interviews certainly failed to to bring out the full seriousness of the fraud that GSK has now admitted too.

Nor did it highlight the several other important court cases in the USA, involving several Big Pharma companies, in recent years. These have all been studiously ignored by our mainstream Media, just as they were this morning by BBC News.

* Eli Lilly, in January 2009, fined $1.42 billion for mis-selling its drug Zyprexa.
* Pfizer, in September 2009, fined $2.3 billion for defrauding and misleading promotion of its painkilling drug, Bextra (which was later withdrawn from the market for safety reasons).
* Astra Zeneca, in April 2010, fined $520 million for illegally promoting the anti-psychotic drug, Seroquel.
* Merck, in November 2011, fined $950 million for illegally promoting its painkiller, Vioxx, another drug that had to be withdrawn from the market for safety reasons.
* Abbott, in May 2012, fined $1.5 billion for its illegal promotion of its anti-psychotic drug, Depakote.

So the GSK incident is only the latest of a number of scandals - all ignored by the BBC, and other Media sources. And these stories are, of course, only the tip of an iceberg of fraud and corruption that have been perpetrated by Big Pharma companies on patients over the last 50-60 years.

Conventional drugs have created disease, in epidemic proportion. And they have caused death, and has done for decades, on an unprecedented scale.

This article, by Child Health Safety, states that Big Pharma drugs are now the 4th biggest killer in the USA (if the British media were honest enough to report these issues, perhaps we would know how it was ranked in the UK). But it should not be the task of small, internet based organisations like this one to inform the public, and patients in particular, about the dangers of Conventional Medicine. Patients should not have to turn to the internet to learn the truth about Big Pharma's drugs.

BBC News, in its public service broadcasting role, should be at the forefront of investigating the dangers of Conventional Medicine. It is not there yet.

But at least this morning's brief flirtation with honesty on the Today Programme might just be a start for BBC News, and if so, it is a welcome, if long-overdue conversion to open reporting on health matters.

We are currently in a time when the morality of large multinational companies is being brought into serious question. The Murdoch press has plumbed the very depths of corruption. The Banking industry is under very serious review. But do Media organisations, or Banks, really cause the same amount of pain, suffering and death to the general public as Big Pharma companies?

* Is phone-hacking worse than causing disease through drug 'side-effects'?
* Does financial impropriety, however corrupt or serious, kill more people that pharmaceutical drugs?

Unlikely! And this is what makes it even more important that BBC News, and other mainstream media organisations, to begin reporting honestly to us about health news issues.

The Health Debate (7). Patient Choice and the Conventional Medical Monopoly in the NHS

It was never the intention that the British NHS became a monopoly supplier of just one type of medicine. 

Nonetheless, this is virtually the position as it exists today. All British citizens are all entitled to NHS treatment,"Free at the point of need". But when anyone asks for treatment, we are routinely and unquestioningly given one type of medicine - conventional, drug based medicine. 

What this usually means is that patients are prescribed pharmaceutical drugs and vaccine, which are are often either useless or dangerous, or both. There are a growing number of people who realise the, and if they are able to do so, seek to avoid it.

So what should the mainstream media be asking questions about this situation? These are just some of the questions they might ask, if they were doing their job, challenging the conventional medical establishment, and engaging us in "the Health Debate".

• Why does conventional medical treatment dominate the NHS so completely? Why are patients not offered information about, and access to different medical therapies for treating their illnesses?

• Why does conventional medicine seek to stop any spending, even small amounts, on homeopathy and other natural medical therapies?

• Why is the NHS not researching natural, non-drug therapies, like homeopathy, acupuncture, herbal medicine, reflexology, and others? How does patient outcomes of such therapies compere with the outcome of conventional medicine?

• Why is conventional medicine trying to restrict and refuse patients access to natural therapies, what is their justification for doing so, and are they pursuing and supporting their own vested self interests in doing so?

• Why, when patients are entitled to, and have paid for medical treatment on the NHS, are they being routinely denied access to the therapy of their choice?

• Should each patients not have the right to make an informed decision about the medical therapy they wish to use to treat their illness?

• Why does the media allow conventional medical spokespersons to says that certain illnesses and diseases are 'untreatable' when they are treatable using natural medical therapies?

Every British political party now speaks about ‘patient choice’. Yet for patients to be able to make real informed choice, and for any patient to give real informed consent to treatment, they need access to information about all medical therapies, not just one.

The NHS, and national health services around the world, are currently failing to provide adequate information about natural medical therapies, and to give patients proper, unfettered access to them.

But equally important, the media, in failing to ask these questions, or provide discussion on all these issues. It is failing lamentably in its duty to its readers, listeners and viewers. 

Instead there is a tacit assumption within all mainstream media outlets that conventional medicine is the 'best' medicine for everyone, when for an increasing number of us this is most certainly not the case. More people are now looking for non-drug treatment, and turning to natural medical therapies. Despite this, the media continues to be content to su;port conventional medicine, and to give them exclusive access to news and current affairs. The media demonstrates regularly that it is afraid to question it, fearful of challenging it, and so considers it to be the sole source of medical expertise. Natural therapists are rarely interviewed.

For real patient choice patients have to be properly and fully informed. This is not just the responsibility of national health services, it is a media duty. Deep-seated hostility towards homeopathy, naturopath, acupuncture, herbal medicine, osteopathy, reflexology, and other medical therapies is failing to give patients the information patients need to make an informed choice.

This is the final part of this series of blogs. If you would like to see them all, these are the links.

THE HEALTH DEBATE 
(1) WHY DOES THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA REFUSE TO TAKE PART?

(2) HOW EFFECTIVE ARE PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS?

(3) THE SAFETY OF CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE

(4) THE COST OF CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE

(5) THE EPIDEMIC RISE OF CHRONIC DISEASE

(6) WHY DOES MEDICAL SCIENCE, DRUG TESTING & REGULATION, FAIL PATIENTS?

(7) HEALTH FREEDOM, PATIENT CHOICE & THE CONVENTIONAL MEDICAL MONOPOLY

These issues are discussed at greater length here, in my E-Book, "The Failure of Conventional Medicine".

If you would like to be part of the Health Debate, why not 'follow' this blog, and be informed when new blogs are published.

THE HEALTH DEBATE 
These are the links to other blogs in this series

(1) WHY DOES THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA REFUSE TO TAKE PART?

(2) HOW EFFECTIVE ARE PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS?

(3) THE SAFETY OF CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE

(4) THE COST OF CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE

(5) THE EPIDEMIC RISE OF CHRONIC DISEASE

(6) WHY DOES MEDICAL SCIENCE, DRUG TESTING & REGULATION, FAIL PATIENTS?

(7) HEALTH FREEDOM, PATIENT CHOICE & THE CONVENTIONAL MEDICAL MONOPOLY

The Health Debate (6). Why pharmaceutical drug testing & regulation fails to protect us

Both Drug Testing, and Drug Regulation regimes have been established around the world now for many decades, introduced to protect patients from pharmaceutical drugs that were a threat to our health - drugs like Thalidomide, which caused such havoc to the lives of so many families in the late 1960s, early 1970s.

Both Testing and Regulatory regimes came into being in recognition of the simple, and undeniable fact that conventional medicine, and pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, in particular, were inherently unsafe, and that the public needed to be safeguarded from them.

However, one notable feature of both Testing and Regulatory regimes over the last 40 years and more, and throughout the world, has been their apparent inability and failure to protect us from useless and dangerous drugs, vaccines and other treatments.

Drug testing has allowed new drugs to be introduced to patients on a regular basis, pronouncing each one to be both effective and safe, often proclaiming them to be 'wonder drugs' , or 'magic bullets. They are marketed, prescribed to patients for many years, usually producing enormous profits for the pharmaceutical drug companies, but one-by-one these same drugs have been found to be dangerous, or ineffective, or both, and they have had to be progressively restricted in their use before eventually being withdrawn or banned.

Drug Regulation was established to verify that new drugs have been properly tested for both safety and effectiveness, prior to giving them approval for use with patients. After this, drug regulatory agencies were supposed to monitor the performance of drugs when patients use them, monitoring side effects and adverse drug reactions. However, in far too many instances, drug regulators have allowed pharmaceutical drugs to be used many years, long after they were found to be unsafe or dangerous.

The Health Debate should concern itself with these issues. It should investigate the performance, and even the basic integrity and honesty of both these processes. Indeed, if the mainstream media had any compassion for their readers, listeners or viewers, all of whom are also patients and consumers of these drugs, they would have been asking several key questions many, many years ago - questions that could have saved lives.

• Why is medical science unable to ensure that all pharmaceutical drugs are safe and effective, and why can't they do so before, rather than after, they have been given to patients, causing serious, detrimental and even lethal effects on our health?

• Why does drug testing regularly fail to reflect the later outcomes - when pharmaceutical drugs are prescribed to patients - and found to be useless or dangerous or both?

• Is the process of drug testing sufficiently independent from the influence of the pharmaceutical companies? When drug companies fund medical science to test their drugs is this not a conflict of interest? And if not, why not?

• Are 'negative' drug trial results routinely publicised, and made available to the drug regulatory agencies? Are key conventional medical bodies routinely made aware of negative testing results, and if so, do they inform doctors or patients?

• Why does drug regulation fail to pick up the regular and ongoing inadequacy of the drug testing of medical science? Why do they continue to approve drugs that are ineffective and unsafe?

• Why do drug regulatory agencies fail to monitoring the performance of pharmaceutical drugs, and pick up and take action when their serious adverse reactions, and disease-inducing effects (DIEs) become apparent?

• Are drug regulatory agencies around the world sufficiently independent from the influence of the pharmaceutical industry? And if not, why not?

• Why is it that only an estimated 10% of the 'side effects' and 'adverse reactions' to pharmaceutical drugs ever reported by patients through their doctors? And does this minimal reporting mean that these drugs are 10 times more harmful than we are told?

• Why are drug regulators so slow to restrict and ban pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines? Why do they ignore problems with drugs when they first become known, and wait, sometimes for decades, before taking action against them?

• Does the precautionary principle not apply to matters relating to health?

• Does the hippocratic principle of 'First do no harm' not apply to conventional medicine?

• Why are pharmaceutical drugs banned in one country, by one regulator, still allowed to be sold in another country by another regulator? Why, for instance, are drugs banned in the USA, but are still allowed to be sold in this country? And vice versa?

• Is drug testing, and drug regulation failing because conventional medicine is an inherently dangerous and ineffective medical system?

• And are there safer, more effective medical therapies available to patients that do not afflicted with such serious dangers?

Statistics are readily available about the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs, for instance, the number of hospital admissions arising from taking them, and the number of fatalities known to be caused by taking them. These statistics demonstrate clearly that medical science, drug testing, and drug regulation is failing. Unfortunately, these statistic are routinely ignored by the mainstream media.

The seventh part of this series concerns the issue of Patient Choice, and the monopoly of conventional medical treatment within the NHS, and most national health services around the world.

If you would like to join the health debate you can follow this blog, and receive email notification of new issues, as they arise.

THE HEALTH DEBATE 
These are the links to other blogs in this series

(1) WHY DOES THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA REFUSE TO TAKE PART?

(2) HOW EFFECTIVE ARE PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS?

(3) THE SAFETY OF CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE

(4) THE COST OF CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE

(5) THE EPIDEMIC RISE OF CHRONIC DISEASE

(6) WHY DOES MEDICAL SCIENCE, DRUG TESTING & REGULATION, FAIL PATIENTS?

(7) HEALTH FREEDOM, PATIENT CHOICE & THE CONVENTIONAL MEDICAL MONOPOLY

The Health Debate? (1) Why the mainstream media is refusing to take part

     “I am taking this pharmaceutical drug for my condition. It is working really well, and has been now for some years. I feel really healthy, indeed back to my old self. So I am quite happy taking the drug as I am sure it is doing me no harm. Indeed, I am happy to take it for the rest of my life.”

Well, when was the last time you heard anyone taking pharmaceutical drugs saying this with any conviction? Most people have become weary of the serious side effects, or 'disease-inducing-effects' (DIEs) of most conventional medical drugs. 

There is a growing realisation amongst patients that whilst these drugs may appear to be effective over a short period of time, the underlying condition or illness is rarely, if ever, treated effectively. Many patients have to take drugs for a lifetime, thereby increasing the likelihood of developing serious side effects, illness and disease. Many patients have to take multiple drugs, often to deal with the side effects created by earlier ones. And as drug effectiveness tends to decline with time, or when the patient becomes dependent or addicted to the drug, the underlying illness is not being addressed.

So patients don't feel well, and they don't get well. Indeed, their illness or illnesses just go on getting progressively worse.

So it's perhaps not surprising that there are a significant, and growing number of people who no longer have confidence in what conventional medicine (doctors, the NHS, governments, and the pharmaceutical industry) are telling us. Instead, they beginning to look for safer, more effective, drug-free medical treatment for their illnesses.

This is what constitutes "the health debate". It is going on within families throughout Britain, indeed throughout the entire western world - anywhere where health treatment is dominated by the Big Pharma drugs. 

Unfortunately, it is a very quiet debate as it is almost impossible to get any open discussion, or transparent information into the mainstream media about what is really going on within health services. So for those people who are looking for safer, more effective, drug-free treatments for their illness, it is a ‘debate’ that is just not happening.  

One problem is that the 'alternative' medical community, such as homeopathy, has only a tiny voice, and it is a voice that is often marginalised and neglected by the mainstream media. 

And of course, the voices raised against this small community are loud and powerful, voices that seek to undermine and belittle the health debate, and people's search for safe medical therapies. 

Foremost amongst these voices are the pharmaceutical drug companies. Their power, influence and wealth is quite extraordinary. They have achieved almost total dominance within national health services throughout the world. In is now difficult to obtain any other form of treatment within our health services.

And the mainstream media appears to believe conventional medical doctors are the only health experts that exist! 

The Conventional Medical Establishment have powerful contacts within politics, parliament and successive governments. The pharmaceutical industry, after all, is an important contributor to the UK economy, and most western countries, a major employer, and investor in industry and commerce. The story they want to project is that we are all healthier now than we have ever been, and that we are living longer - because of the success of conventional medical treatment.

Our so-called ‘Free’ press and media go along with this. They seem to be quite unable, and perhaps unwilling to question or criticise conventional medicine. Why? Perhaps because of the size of pharmaceutical drug advertising! Perhaps because those in charge of 'Big Corp' in other sectors stick together, and support each other. Certainly, the social social influence of the pharmaceutical industry seems to have much to do with its profitability and wealth, and what (and perhaps who) that money can buy to support their business. Indeed, the drugs industry seems to have very little to do with the ability to provide us with effective, safe or cost-effective medicine!

Even the BBC, who are not dependent on advertising revenues, are quite unable or unwilling to speak out - or even to allow ‘the health debate’ to happen.

Yet despite this deafening silence from the mainstream media, interest in ‘non-drug’ therapies is increasing. People are moving away from conventional medicine, either through bitter personal experience, or gleaning information from the dribs and drabs of information that the media cannot prevent reporting. Most important, people are turning to the internet, and to blogs like this one, to find more information about health. 

So despite the reluctance of the mainstream media to engage in "the health debate", information about the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, and the people who have been damaged by them, is increasingly out here. The result is that people are now less inclined to believe in conventional medicine's claims of ‘miracle cures’, 'wonder drugs', and the media's slavish adherence to them. People are becoming aware that much of the illness, disease and death seen today, often at epidemic levels, has actually been caused by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines.

So what are the components of "the health debate". What should the Media be discussing, but are choosing to ignore? I will deal with this in the second part of this series.

If you would like to be informed about the health debate, why not become a 'follower' this blog, and join the Health Debate.

THE HEALTH DEBATE 
These are the links to other blogs in this series
(1) WHY DOES THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA REFUSE TO TAKE PART?

(2) HOW EFFECTIVE ARE PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS?

(3) THE SAFETY OF CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE

(4) THE COST OF CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE

(5) THE EPIDEMIC RISE OF CHRONIC DISEASE

(6) WHY DOES MEDICAL SCIENCE, DRUG TESTING & REGULATION, FAIL PATIENTS?

(7) HEALTH FREEDOM, PATIENT CHOICE & THE CONVENTIONAL MEDICAL MONOPOLY