PAINKILLING DRUGS. How is conventional medicine coping with the crisis arising from their failure?

I was writing about the failure of painkillers 2013, 7 years ago - on this very day! My blog, 'The Failure of Painkilling Drugs' arose after I read an article in the GP e-magazine, Pulse, in which a doctor asked an important  question - what have GP's been left with to treat patients with chronic pain?" The article stated:

          "... GP options for managing persistent pain in their patients have declined markedly over the past decade, but it seems we may have finally reached crisis point".

The story in 2013 was that all the main painkilling drugs were known to cause so much damage to patients, and had so many restrictions placed on prescribing them, doctors had nothing left to give patients suffering long-term pain.

So what has happened over the past 7 years? How has conventional medicine responded to this self-declared crisis? The answer can be found in this recent Pulse article, dated 28th August 2020, entitled "Proposed Ban on Opioids for chronic pain leaves GP's with scant options".

So the answer is clear - nothing has happened over the last 7 years!

The 2013 article had doctors expressing concern about the bare medicine cupboard. Since then there have been no new painkilling drugs. Sp doctors continue to prescribe the same old drugs, in full knowledge of their ineffectiveness, and their dangers to health. They have been prescribing more opioids, which has led to the disasters in the USA, Europe and elsewhere. But essentially, doctor continue to do what they have been told not to do for the last 7 years - and more. They remain in the same position.

The reason for the 2020 article in Pulse was that NICE (the National Institute of Clinical Excellence) reported that there was a lack of evidence for the effectiveness of opioids, along with evidence of long-term harm. It was this that had persuaded them to recommend against the prescription of opioid drugs for people in chronic pain. So they advised doctors to stop prescribing opioids. 

The guidance, however, went much further, stating that all the other main painkilling drugs were now considered too harmful to prescribe to patients:

               “Do not offer any of the following, by any route, to people aged 16 years and over to manage chronic primary pain; opioids; non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (SSRI) drugs; Benzodiazepines;anti-epileptic drugs including gabapentinoids; Paracetamol; Ketamine; Corticosteroids and antipsychotics” 

So what, we might ask, can doctors prescribe to people in long-term pain? In other words, what is the answer to the question doctors were already asking, 7 years ago? There is, of course, nothing. Conventional medicine has absolutely nothing to offer.

Earlier, Public Health England had undertaken a review into prescription drug addiction, revealing that about 1 in 4 adults (about 11 million people in England alone) had a prescription for antidepressants, opioids, gabapentinoids, benzodiazepines; and that admissions to rehabilitation facilities for prescription drug addiction had risen by about 40% in the last 18 months.

This encapsulates the performance of what we call our 'National Health Service', a 'service' on which we are being repeatedly being asked to spend more money, year by year - a health service that can offer people in pain only dangerous failed drugs.

Nice estimated that between one-third and half of the population may be affected by chronic pain while almost half of people with the condition have a diagnosis of depression and two-thirds are unable to work because of it.

The conventional medical establishment, which now operates a monopoly within the NHS, has no effective treatment capable of dealing with this ever-growing epidemic of long-term pain.

So what will the situation be in another 7 years time? I predict that doctors will still be prescribing the same old failed drugs, all mentioned above; that the epidemic of long-term pain will have increased; and that some conventional health body will again provide doctors with more guidance - they should not be prescribing these same drugs to patients. And that doctors will continue to ask, despairingly, what else can they do?

There is only one sensible answer - to move to natural medical therapies, to join an increasing (but still small) number of patients who are already doing so. And perhaps it is worth pointing out that no-one has to wait another 7 years in order to do so.

  

Ronald. A patient getting to the end of the long journey through pain and painkilling drugs, ending up in chronic pain and Tramadol

I wrote in general terms about the "long journey through pain and painkilling drugs" in July 2018. It is, of course, a very personal journey, and in recent days I have come face-to-face with two such journeys. I wrote about Janet's journey a few days ago. Ronald's long journey through pain was somewhat different to hers. Just as pharmaceutical drugs do not have a single side effect, individuals have their own personal side effects, their own personal route to ever more chronic, ever more untreatable pain.

Ronald was always a fit and active man. When he began to suffer some mild rheumatic pain he did what everyone does. He resorted to taking painkilling drugs.

The tragedy (yes the tragedy) was that they worked!

• The pain went. 
• The wonders of modern medicine. 
• The triumph of medical science.

The problem was that the pain came back. But this was really no problem, he could take some more, and whenever the pain returned he took more again. Like with most people suffering with pain it became routine. Pain, pop a pill. It always worked.

Trouble was that Ronald found himself popping a pill more frequently. Monthly, then weekly, then daily. Then more of them each time. One, became two, then the need for more.

No matter, the doctor was there to help. If over-the-counter pain killers did not work, there were strong drugs that he could prescribe. And they seemed to work too. Pain, a pill, and relief from pain. Temporary relief, by relief no less. And he trusted his doctor, he would not give him anything that was harmful. He knew best, and as he said, there was no alternative - until the pain was much worse than it was.

The pain did get worse, his hip became unbearable. It affected him mobility, his life. He had always been an active man, but now he undertook his activities in almost permanent pain. His doctor, though, was not phased. It was wear and tear. His body was wearing out. He needed a hip transplant, and soon he had one.

It worked! It was brilliant, and he soon recovered from him operation.

• The pain had gone.
• The wonders of modern medicine.
• The triumph of medical science.

Unfortunately the pain returned, not to the mechanical hip, but his other hip. More painkillers, more often, more of them, and increasing strength. They worked every time, but so did the pain. Don't worry, said the doctor - when it gets bad you can have another hip transplant.

And so he did. It worked! It was brilliant. He would soon recover from his operation. And he did. What marvellous things surgeons were able to do these days.

Trouble was that the pain soon returned. I was due to see him but his wife phoned. His doctor had given him more painkillers, and he had a terrible reaction to them. My eyes rolled. Being a homeopath is difficult sometimes, especially when good friends have such faith in conventional medicine. What had he taken? Tramadol came the answer.

Tramadol is an opiate painkiller, a narcotic. I checked it out. It has the most dreadful side effects, as the website Drugs.com outlines.

* Abnormal or decreased touch sensation

* blisters under the skin

* bloating

* blood in the urine

* blood pressure increased

* blurred vision

* change in walking and balance

* chest pain or discomfort

* chills

* darkened urine

* difficult urination

* dizziness, or lightheadedness, fainting

* fast heartbeat

* frequent urge to urinate

* gaseous abdominal or stomach pain

* indigestion

* irregular heartbeat

* loss of memory

* numbness and tingling of the face, fingers, or toes

* pain in the arms, legs, or lower back, especially pain in the calves or heels upon exertion

* pain or discomfort in the arms, jaw, back, or neck

* pains in the stomach, side, or abdomen, possibly radiating to the back

* pale, bluish-colored or cold hands or feet

* recurrent fever

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

* seizures

* severe cramping

* severe nausea

* severe redness, swelling, and itching of the skin

* stomach fullness

* sweating

* trembling and shaking of the hands or feet

* trouble performing routine tasks

* weak or absent pulses in the legs

* yellow eyes or skin

When I eventually saw Ronald we went through this dreadful list. He told me he had never felt as bad as he did. He felt 'out of it'. His consciousness had not so changed as disappeared, he was outside looking in, he was unaware of his whereabouts, he was lightheaded, almost unconscious, and was too tired to do anything. The experience had frightened him. His body was swollen up too, and he came out with a massive rash, around his neck and shoulders.

His doctor had been brilliant. He immediately told him to stop taking the Tramadol, he had only taken a couple, and surmised that the drug just did not suit him. Instead the doctor put him a steroid drug, and he was now much better. No criticism - that he had given him such a drug with such dreadful side effects!

So I ask the same question as I did in Janet's case. What will happen to Ronald? And lots of people like Ronald? The pharmaceutical cupboard is desperately bare. It has never been very full of helpful drugs for treating pain. Perhaps his doctor will put it down to wear and tear, to his age. After all, this is the main explanation doctors give for all the epidemics of chronic disease we are suffering. Or maybe he will be subjected to limb transplantation - usually the final admission of conventional medical failure - an inabiity to keep our body healthy and functional.

 

Certainly, conventional medicine is unlikely to admit that these epidemics have all been caused, to one degree or another, by the pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines they have been prescribing to us for decades.

And my message is the same message as I gave in Janet's case. I urge everyone not to start on this long journey. See through the charm of doctors, the propaganda of drug companies, the idea that medical science is winning the battle against disease, and the silence of the mainstream media. Start looking at natural therapies, and try them, before it is too late.

Janet. A patient getting to the end of the long journey through pain and painkilling drugs, ending up in chronic pain, Amitriptyline - and dementia?

I wrote in general terms of the "long journey through pain and painkilling drugs" in July. It is, of course, a very personal journey, and in recent days I have come face-to-face with two such journeys. This deals with the first one.

Janet (not her real name) is now in her early 70's, and she has suffered from arthritis for many years. She said that she is getting increasingly forgetful, often confused, and her once good memory has become poor. This came to a head recently when she was out, driving her car. She was not far from home but she suddenly realised she did not know where she was. She realised that she did not know how to get home. As you can imagine this frightened her. Was this dementia? What else could it be? It would only get worse. And she knew there was no treatment.

I asked her what drugs she was taking? This is now the first question I ask anyone when they say they are unwell! Amitriptyline came the reply. I groaned. She smiled, knowing what I was going to tell her. She did not believe in homeopathy, and she knew my views on pharmaceutical drugs. She was someone, like so many others, who has always had great confidence in her doctor. Well, it's scientific medicine, isn't it!

Amitriptyline is an antidepressant. It is usually used to treat depression, but is also used for pain when painkillers no longer work. She took it, in desperation, so that she was able to get some sleep at night. A few days later, I heard, the doctor had discontinued the Amitriptyline.

Over the years Janet has gone a long way down that long journey through pain and painkilling drugs. They are the only treatment for arthritis that conventional medicine has. They have no treatment that deals with the cause of arthritis, just the pain. Doctors state that there is no cure. So once diagnosed Janet was given painkilling drugs, many years ago now. These drugs dulled the pain, but did nothing for the condition itself. Painkilling drugs, all of them, are highly toxic. They cause side effects, some quite horrible disease-inducing effects. And as time goes on painkillers become less effective. They may take the edge of the pain, temporarily, but in time more drug, in greater potency, have to be taken. So the patient is regularly taking the drugs, and suffering not only from arthritis but from the toxicity of the drugs.

As the years went by the effectiveness of painkillers for Janet's pain subsided. Pain was constant, and she could not sleep. So her doctor has to look for something else, anything he had left in their medicine chest. Hence Amitriptyline - an antidepressant - for pain. As far as I know the drug has never been tested or approved for the treatment of pain, but doctors don't have much else to use once patients are in so much pain they cannot sleep. It must be depressing! So maybe this is the reason for prescribing it.

Anyone who wants to see what a dangerous and harmful drug Amitriptyline is should have a look at the known (and accepted) side effects. Go to this Drug.com webpage to read the full horror story! The list is too long to include here, but it includes blood in urine or stools, blurred vision, changes in patterns and rhythms of speech, chest pain, cold sweats, coma, continuing ringing, buzzing, or other unexplained noise in ears, convulsions, difficulty in breathing, passing urine and speaking, irregular heartbeat, general feeling of tiredness or weakness, headache, hearing loss, high fever, high or low blood pressure, inability to speak, lack of coordination, lethargy, loss of balance control, loss of bladder control, loss of consciousness, lower back or side pain, mental depression or anxiety, muscle spasm or jerking of all extremities, nausea and vomiting, nightmares, poor coordination, seeing, hearing, or feeling things that are not there, seizures, sleeplessness, stiffness of limbs, swollen glands,
trouble in speaking, sleeping, breathing, unsteadiness, trembling, or other problems with muscle control or coordination, unusual tiredness or weakness. And much, much more.

The mental side effects that Janet suffered were all there too, of course. She did not have dementia, she was suffering from the side effects of the drug her doctor had prescribed.

• change in consciousness
• confusion
• confusion about identity, place, and time
• disturbed concentration
• stupor
• sudden loss of consciousness

She took them because she trusted her doctor, and the 'scientific' medicine he administered! But for Densise, and probably many millions of people suffering from dementia, this is where decades of taking painkillers had led. Her 'long journey' had led to a diagnosis of dementia.

Pharmaceutical drugs DO cause dementia, and Alzheimer's disease - and it is not just painkillers that are cause this epidemic!

This is one of the reasons why dementia is now running at unprecedented levels. This is why young and middle age people are now being diagnosed with dementia in increasing numbers.

What will happen to Janet now? And lots of people like Janet? The pharmaceutical cupboard is desperately bare. It has never been very full of helpful drugs for treating pain. Perhaps her doctor will put it down to her age. After all, this is the main explanation doctors give for all the epidemics of chronic disease we are suffering. Certainly, conventional medicine is unlikely to admit that these epidemics have all been caused, to one degree or another, by the pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines they have been prescribing to us for decades.

Or perhaps she will now see through the mirage of conventional medicine, and look for more effective and safe treatment.

So I urge everyone, don't start on this long journey. See through the charm of doctors, the propaganda of drug companies, the idea that medical science is winning the battle against disease, and the silence of the mainstream media. Start looking at natural therapies, and try them, before it is too late.

A LONG JOURNEY THROUGH PAIN AND PAINKILLING DRUGS TO SURGERY

The conventional medical treatment for pain is painkillers, such as Aspirin, Paracetamol, Ibuprofen, Opioids, and their many derivatives. Painkilling drugs take us on a very long journey through pain, introducing greater toxicity into an already stressed body, which in turn leads to greater pain, the need for stronger more toxic drugs, and onwards.

It's a familiar process, is it not? Painkilling drugs do exactly what they say the will do. They kill pain, temporarily, for as long as the drug remains within the body. They do NOT treat the source of the pain, so the pain returns. Perhaps painkillers are sufficient for the temporary relief of pain after a minor accident - but not much use when they are used to treat the pain that accompanies chronic illnesses, like arthritis and related conditions.

In arthritis the pain continues, and the need to take ever more, ever stronger painkilling drugs increases. For any patient who is trapped within conventional medical treatment this becomes a vicious, ongoing circle. First pain, then drugs, then more pain, then more drugs, and so on. The process continues until, eventually, the pain becomes so great, the diseased limb so painful, it has to be surgically removed.

At his point patients usually forget the pain they have experienced, often over many years, and the failure of painkillers to provide any real solution. We praise the remarkable surgery that has replaced the limb. In most cases the operation leaves the patient pain-free - at least for a time. Unfortunately the disease, the cause of the pain, is still there - within the body. So what happens to the dis-ease? It moves on to another part of the body!

It's a familiar process, is it not? How many patients have a hip replacement to replace a painful limb only for tanother limb, previously unaffected, to become painful? Soon the other hip has to be replaced. Brilliant surgery indeed - but surgery necessary because of the failure conventional medicine to treat pain effectively over the long term.

Yet it is not just for arthritis that conventional medicine uses painkilling drugs. I became aware of the many diseases for which conventional medicine routinely prescribes painkillers whilst writing chapters for my 'Why Homeopathy? website. These include Menstrual problems, Chicken Pox, Chronic Fatigue, Earache, Endometriosis, Fibromyalgia, Gout, Haemorrhoids, Headaches and Migraines, Mastitis, ME, Motor Neurone disease, Mumps, PMT, PMS, Pneumonia, Prostatitis, Restless Legs, Sciatica, Shingles, Sinusitis, Sore Throats, Teething, Tonsillitis, and many others.

Painkillers do not treat any of these diseases. They just deal with the pain caused by the condition. Conventional medicine understands this very well, and painkillers are often prescribed because they have no other effective or relevant conventional treatment for the patient. As with arthritis they provide temporary relief, and introduce more toxicity into an already sick and ailing body.

So it is not just limbs that have to be replaced. Pharmaceutical drugs harm organs too, bringing on the need to more miraculous surgery - to replace kidneys, hearts, et al. Why do kidneys and hearts need replacing? Not just because conventional medicine has few effective treatments for kidney or heart failure, but because of the use and over use of painkillers to treat pain have worsened the disease.

It's a familiar process, is it not? Miraculous surgery once again comes to the rescue. We are in awe of the surgeon's skill (quite rightly) without ever recognising that his/her skill is necessary (in most instances) only because of the failure of conventional medicine.

And the journey does not end there. Replacement and transplantation surgery always requires that our immune system has to be compromised with what conventional medicine calls 'immunotherapy', the use of pharmaceutical drugs that stop our immune system getting rid of the transplanted organs and limbs, and thereby compromising the ability of the body to protect itself from attack from external infections, of all kinds - some of which can be painful.

But never mind, the doctor can always prescribe some more painkillers for these conditions too. They won't deal with the infection, but they will temporarily relieve the pain.

It's a familiar process, is it not?

Don't despair, as I was writing this blog I received this Natural News article, "Try these natural ways to reduce pain and stress". We don't have to be beholden to pharmaceutical drugs. And there is always homeopathy, always an effective therapy with a good matching remedy, always safe. Read this Homeopathy World Community website article, "Managing Pain with Homeopathy".

There is always a better way. 

No-one needs to rely on conventional medicine.

Or on (as-good-as-useless) pharmaceutical drugs. 

Start your personal search for solutions now.

Opioid Addiction. The disastrous failure of painkilling drugs

Opioid Addiction in the USA if rife, and there are concerns that a similar situation may arise in Britain, and other countries where conventional medicine, with its reliance on painkillers, dominates health care. The addiction kills - drug overdose, arising from addiction, is now a leading cause of 'accidental' death.

Opioids drugs are made from opium, and 'work' by stimulating the brain's opiate receptors. In other words, they trigger 'pleasure receptors' in the brain, which makes them drugs to which people can easily become addicted, and in time requiring more powerful drugs as the body begins to tolerate them.

In the US alone, 42,000 people have died from opioid addiction, and another 2.1 million became addicts, in 2016. Opioid drugs are prescribed by conventional medical doctors under names such as hydrocodone, oxycodone, buprenorphine, with more commonly as fentanyl, codeine, morphine, and tramadol.

Conventional medicine is dependent on these opioid drugs in palliative care, after major surgery, and serious accidents. But they are also used frequently for more common conditions - as painkillers for back pain and similar.

The problem for doctors is that whilst they might know how dangerous they are, they have nothing safer to prescribe They know that they should not be used on a long-term basis (for any more than a few days) but they do. Faced with a patient in chronic pain, when there is nothing else in their medicine cupboard, doctors feel obliged to prescribe them. Other painkilling drugs, like NSAIDs, are not so 'effective' in killing pain, and in any case they too come with serious side effects that patients are not told about. So doctors continue to prescribe them, and patients become addicted to them. Or alternatively, doctor's refuse to prescribe them and addicted patients go on to obtain heroin, illegally, on the black market.

Opioid prescription has soared in recent decades, and alongside this the rates of addiction and death by overdose have increased proportionately. The statistics coming out of the USA are devastating.  Overdose deaths caused by painkillers have risen by more than 300% since 1999, and it is estimated that more than 12 million Americans used prescription drugs for 'non-medical' reasons in 2010. In just three years, deaths from opioid drugs have risen from 3,000 to over 20,000 in just three years, and this carnage is expected to continue, devastating the lives of huge numbers of people and their families.

Whilst doctors have little else to offer, and in any case most of them are too busy attacking alternative medical therapies to find safer and more effective treatment, the evidence is that pharmaceutical companies have not only profited from selling them, but promoted them aggressively. They said that the addictive properties of opioid drugs were not really as bad as believed, so they could be used more widely, and for longer periods.

In other words, Big Pharma used their normal marketing strategy - minimising the risks of their drugs addiction - and exaggerating their benefits.

So we have the rather strange situation of a society that bemoans the use of 'illegal' drugs, and the human devastation caused, but allows drug companies to advertise, promote and profit from 'legal' drugs that are indistinguishable from them! Drug pushers who do not have a conventional  medical qualification are pursued and prosecuted, but pharmaceutical companies are allowed to push similar drugs because they are used for 'medical' purposes. The outcome of both is human tragedy.

Yet perhaps the tide is turning, there are now moves to prosecute the pharmaceutical pushers. One Natural News article states that "Settlement talks have begun in opioid lawsuits against Big Pharma with over 250 cases have been brought against multiple companies". This would certainly be well deserved, but the drug companies will probably pay their way out of this legal crisis - they usually do. We will see.

The conventional medical establishment is aware of the problem. An article in The Lancet, 24 February 2018, outlines the seriousness of the situation. Yet there is no proportionate response forthcoming. If road deaths, and accidents at work, were killing as many people as opioid drugs (as well as other pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines) health and safety measures would swing into effect. Decisive action would be expected, demanded, and the public authorities would be obliged to respond. But not in health, not if it affects the pharmaceutical industry. The Lancet article does not ask for action, there has been no call to ban these drugs, just their more responsible prescribing behaviour by doctors.

If the precautionary principle were to be applied to this situation pharmaceutical drugs would be immediately banned.

So will the USA opioid crisis be exported to Britain? The MIMS magazine clearly thinks so, in its article "Long-term opioid prescribing increasing despite questionable efficacy", which states that opioid prescribing in England increased from 2010 to 2014 despite these drugs have been shown, in a study published by the British Journal of General Practice, to be "ineffective in the treatment of chronic non-cancer pain". So the devastation caused by opioid drugs continues - even though doctors have been told that the drugs are of 'questionable efficacy'.

Patient Harm without any corresponding Patient Benefit!

Yet there is worse. Pharmaceutical companies have actually been paying (bribing) doctors to prescribe opioid drugs. This was reported by CNN, a USA news agency that is usually very friendly towards conventional medicine. Alongside Harvard University they found that opioid manufacturers, the drug companies, have been paying doctors huge sums of money to prescribe the drugs, and the more opioids a doctor prescribed, the more money he or she makes!

               "In 2014 and 2015, opioid manufacturers paid hundreds of doctors across the country six-figure sums for speaking, consulting and other services. Thousands of other doctors were paid over $25,000 during that time. Physicians who prescribed particularly large amounts of the drugs were the most likely to get paid."

In a What Doctors Don't Tell You (WDDTY) article another suggestion is made, that the opioid epidemic has been fuelled by doctors "who have forgotten just how many prescriptions they have written out to patients"! It states that around 65% of doctors working in hospital emergency units are under-estimating the number of prescriptions they are writing, that emergency unit doctors write up to 10% of all opioid prescriptions, and researchers think a similar under-estimation could be seen among other doctors as well. These findings cam from a year-long survey whose lead researcher is quoted as say that
               "Most believe they are doing the right thing, but we need to directly address this thinking to be sure they are not part of the problem"

So we are left with a conundrum. 

Do doctors know what they are doing and get paid for doing it? Or are they just rather forgetful? 

Either way, as usual, it is the patient who submits to conventional medicine who suffers!

The failure of pharmaceutical drugs, but patients are kept in the dark.

The failure of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines should have been quite apparent to everyone now: except, of course, for the equally disgraceful failure of the conventional news media to report on the evidence for it! Evidence about the ineffectiveness of drugs, and their dangers, emerge regularly. Doctors and the conventional medical establishment does not tell us. And they are rarely publicised in the national media.

Three recent studies demonstrate how patients are being kept in the dark. All three point to the ineffectiveness and dangerousness of prescription drugs, all three have largely been published without patients being given to opportunity to know about them.

Useless Medicine
The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has published an article that discussed the issue of 'useless' conventional medical treatment. It is called "Choosing Wisely in the UK: the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges’ initiative to reduce the harms of too much medicine". BMJ 2015;350:h2308.

The article indicates that it is not just the effectiveness of pharmaceutical drugs that is being discussed, but also the cost and the value to patients of the treatment, and its dangers. However, the conclusion it reaches is, to say the least, a mild one, merely that we are being offered too much of it! The article says that dozens of common medical treatments and procedures, routinely given to patients by doctors, are effectively pointless". The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AMRC) says that "scores of treatments which can be given to patients for various ailments ranging from grazes to cancer frequently do little more or the same as doing nothing at all, while also potentially incurring side effects".

It has been estimated that in Britain alone, the NHS is spending £2 billion on what are, in effect, "useless or harmful treatment”.

Harmful Medicine
Another study, published in May 2017 by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 2017; doi: 10.1001, has been reported by WDDTY. It looked at what has happened to FDA approved drugs since their approval. Remarkably, it found that one third of all FDA approved drugs subsequently turned out to have serious safety problems!

               "The dangers of the new drugs often don't come to light until four years after they have been licensed, which means that many thousands of patients may have been affected. But in every case, doctors and patients believed the drugs were safe because they had passed all the usual tests for safety and effectiveness."

So much for the ability of drug regulators to keep us all free from unsafe and dangerous medical drugs and vaccines!

NSAID Painkillers
Yet the situation is actually far worse even than this! It can take much more than 4 years for the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs to become known, and then accepted - a a lot longer for patients to be told!

For instance, conventional medicine has been feeding us painkilling drugs, in huge quantities, for over 100 years now. Ibuprofen is one of the 'younger' ones, and has become one of the stawlwarts of conventional medicine. It has been known about since the 1950's, its history summarised here and taken from the Prezi website.

     1958 First clinical trial of ibupeofen - it was found to be no better than aspirin!

     1961 A patent is filed for ibuprofen, and in 1964 Ibuprofen is selected for further development.

     1966 Clinical trials of ibuprofen take place at the Northern General Hospital in Edinburgh and show its anti-inflammatory effect in patients.

     1969 Ibuprofen launched in the UK on prescription only.

     1983 Because of its safety record, ibuprofen is made available without prescription.

So after such a long period of time, it might have been expected the conventional medicine were fully aware of the dangers of this type of painkiller. But this is not so!

A recent analysis, by a team at Bern University, evaluated 31 studies, involving over 116,000 patient,s who had taken the painkillers regularly, mostly for arthritis pain. Its findings were published in the British Medical Journal. As well as ibuprofen, naproxen, diclofenac, celecoxib, etoricoxib, rofecoxib or Vioxx, and lumiracoxib were also implicated in the findings.

               "It was found that compared with placebo, rofecoxib and lumiracoxib were associated with twice the risk of heart attack, while ibuprofen was associated with more than three times the risk of stroke. Etoricoxib and diclofenac were associated a fourfold risk of death from a heart attack or stroke."

Indeed, the study found that these painkillers could significantly increase the chances of having a heart attack within a week or a month, especially if high doses were taken. The research team found that more than 90% of all painkillers assessed were tied to a significant increased risk of heart attack.

Will Patients be told?
Yet it is unlikely that patients will be told about any of this, either by their doctors, or by the mainstream media. The ineffectiveness and dangers of conventional drugs have been frequently discovered in studies, but the information never seems to reach anyone outside a small group of academics. Certainly, the dangers of painkillers has been known about for decades. There are considerable constraints placed on doctors prescribing painkillers because of their known dangers. But patients are not told.

If doctors told patients about these dangers, if the mainstream media were prepared to publicise the dangers, patients would make their own decisions, an informed choice, about taking them and risking the serious dangers.

But patients are not told. Studies about the ineffectiveness of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines come and go without any impact on what doctors prescribe to to. Ask people about painkillers, and what they know about the dangers, and most would declare that they are fairly safe! After all, their doctors can prescribe them; anyone can buy them, openly, over-the-counter, without a doctor's prescription. And taking painkillers is something they, and their parents and grand-parents have done for years.

Medical science is a game without outcome, without consequence. Pharmaceutical drugs may be useless. They may be dangerous. If might not even be known how useless or dangerous they are! But patients are told only about the 'positive' science: the new 'wonder' drugs. The negative stuff remains an insiders secret, something doctors dare not tell us, and the mainstream will not tell us!

Painkillers may not kill pain very well. But they still have serious side effects

New research has found that NSAID painkillers have no more effect than placebo in the treatment of back pain, but continue to cause patient harm.

The study, entitled "Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for spinal pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis" examined 35 randomised controlled trials, covering over 6,000 patients, that compared the efficacy of painkilling drugs with placebo control groups. It found that the drugs did reduce pain for a short period, but that overall "the effect was not clinically important", and that those on placebo control groups did equally well.

               "In summary, compared with placebo, NSAIDs do not provide a clinically important effect on spinal pain, and six patients must be treated with NSAIDs for one patient to achieve a clinically important benefit in the short term."

However, the team from the University of Sydney in Australia also found that the patients taking NSAID painkillers s were 2.5 times more likely to suffer from the well known adverse reactions to the drugs, notably adverse gastrointestinal complications than those taking placebo.

So whilst these pharmaceutical drugs are of little of no benefit, they continue to be a major threat to our health because of their harmful and damaging side effects!

Another noteworthy feature of the study was that it compared this finding with the current guidelines of NICE, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence in Britain. These guidelines were only recently updated, and made NSAID painkillers the 'first choice treatment' for low back pain. This advice followed similar findings about the ineffectiveness of Paracetamol (Acetamorfen in the USA), and the dangers of opioid painkillers.

So NICE does have a difficult task! What are they supposed to do? The three main groups of painkilling drugs available for conventional doctors don't work! But they do damage to patients. So perhaps their clinical guidelines should now be rewritten again, admitting that there are no safe painkillers, and no effective painkillers. At least this would be a more honest assessment of the situation conventional medicine now finds itself.

Yet NICE could be more positive. It could advise us all to look towards alternative medical therapies, like Homeopathy and Acupuncture, in recognition that if they are truly to pursue their objective of  'clinical excellence' the pharmaceutical industry no longer has anything to offer.

I have noticed several comments from doctors about this situation. One reflected sadly that "instead of everyone falling over themselves to say what we can't use, how about what we CAN use?" Clearly, the doctors cupboard is bare! The solution for conventional doctors is the same. They need to recognise that there are no safe or effective painkillers, and instead, they need to refer their patients to alternative medical therapies. In this way they will find that their patients are treated more effectively, and more safely.

Indeed, the lack of side effects of alternative medical treatment might also mean that patients do not have to  keep returning to the surgery, and doctors will not find themselves so stretched, and the NHS not in such a crisis!

Painkillers. Doctors told they are not safe for patients. But will patients be told?

Our doctors have been bemoaning the fact that painkillers do too much harm to prescribe safely. One doctor wrote honestly about "the vanishing option for chronic pain' in the GP e-magaizine, Pulse, in September last year.

          "... GP options for managing persistent pain in their patients have declined markedly over the past decade, but it seems we may have finally reached crisis point".

NICE, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, has now confirmed this position, issuing new guidance for the prescription of painkilling drugs. Pulse has reported on this in it article 'NICE dramatically reduces drug options for low back pain', (24 March 2016).

          "The draft guidelines – which now also cover sciatica – said that GPs should offer NSAIDs as first-line for pain relief, and should offer paracetamol only alongside a weak opioid."

Although this is a clear indication that conventional medicine is failing, disastrously, NICE cannot avoid taking a swipe at traditional medicine, this time Acupuncture, saying that GPs "should avoid acupuncture altogether - which ..... is no better than sham treatment". Well, perhaps patients should be allowed to make their minds up about this, although it has to be recognised that NICE is firmly part of the conventional medical establishment, and supporters of the pharmaceutical industry.

Instead NICE recommends exercise, such as stretching, strengthening, aerobics or yoga "to be the first step to help patients manage their condition". Clearly, the drugs cabinet of conventional medicine is becoming increasingly bare!

Yet it is the comments on the Pulse article that is perhaps most interesting. As far as doctors are concerned, the response varies from despair to denial. Yet one feature of GP comments appear to show some misunderstanding of what is actually happening. There is some sense that NICE are making their life difficult for them, that the new guidance is either misguided or incorrect. One comment reminds us that all the painkillers doctors can no longer freely prescribe can be purchased at chemists at a cost far lower than a prescription.

All this misses the essential truth behind the new guidance. NICE have recognised that conventional painkilling drugs are not safe. They are harmful. They are dangerous.

Nowhere can I see significant concern for patient health. Nowhere can I see doctors asking how they can protect patients, or whether they should stop prescribing or recommending painkillers. Nowhere is the question asked - 'if painkillers are too dangerous for doctors to prescribe, why are the still on sale at chemist shops?"

As might be expected, the 'medical fundamentalists' have entered the argument, but they only to focus on the attack on Acupuncture, and do not mention the dangers of conventional painkilling drugs.

• Andy Lewis appears to think that acupuncture has not been used for for thousands of years (which makes me wonder where he has been for all that time)! His claim is refuted by Tony Gu, who correctly says that "it has a fairly reasonable evidence base"! Yes, indeed it has! An evidence base that stretches back thousands of years!
• David Colquhoun states that "the results of more than 3000 trials of acupuncture ... have consistently shown that (acupuncture) is indistinguishable from various sorts of sham, yet some people still advocate it".  These trial are, of course, 'randomised controlled tests', and RCTs are the tests that told us initially that painkilling drugs were safe and effective.
• In another post Colquhoun says he is 'heartened' by the new guidance because "the fact is that none of the treatments works very well and that has led to clutching at straws". So this conventional medical fundamentalist professor is heartened that we are 'clutching at straws' - a dispiriting and defeatist comment indeed.

 At least Colquhoun is correct here. It is a dispiriting time for supporters of conventional medicine, on which society has placed so much trust, and spent enormous resources, during the last 70 years and more. It is dispiriting for patients. And it must be dispiriting for professors, sitting in their university faculties, largely funded by the pharmaceutical industry.

Patients are needing some positive guidance, and this will not come from the conventional medical establishment. It will come from traditional therapies, including acupuncture, osteopathy, chiropractic, homeopathy,  and many others. At least these treatments are not dangerous. And patients will increasingly seek and use these therapies because their doctors have nothing to offer. And they will find that they do work - just as millions of patients throughout the world over centuries have told us!

Doctors and dangerous drugs. Is their medicine cupboard bare?

The doctor's magazine, Pulse, recently published an article "50% hike in antidepressant use in UK children". (9th March 2016).  The increased use of antidepressant drugs for children, 'according to an international study' was actually 54%, and this rise took place between 2005 and 2012.

The Pulse article said that the World Health Organisation (WHO) was ‘very concerned’ by the rise in use of these drugs in children .... which it said was ‘not justified’.

However, this increased use of antidepressant drugs is not confined to Britain. Similar increases (60% in Denmark, 49% in Germany, 26& in USA, 17% in Holland) were recorded over the same period.

The Pulse article tried to defend GP's by pointing out that the increased prescriptions were made by 'secondary care specialists', but also added that that there was rising pressure on mental health services which led to British doctors being forced to prescribe.

Yet doctors have known about the dangers of prescribing these drugs to children for many years now. In 2005 I wrote this about antidepressant drugs.

          "In the UK nearly all antidepressants were banned for children in 2004, due to the increased risk of suicidal ideation. The USA however, still allows children to take these deadly, mind-altering drugs."

So even when conventional doctors are told that pharmaceutical drugs are dangerous they continue to prescribe them! Why do they do this? Do they not know that the drugs are dangerous? Do they forget the instructions given to them by drug regulators? Do they not care about the damage caused to patients?

Or could it be that the pharmaceutical cupboard getting bare?

There are signs of increasing desperation in the activities of the conventional medical establishment. If doctors cannot use antidepressant drugs, what can they do? If talking therapies are not available in sufficient quantity, owing to demand, do they have anything else to offer?

So is the mental health epidemic now so large that it is forcing our doctors to prescribe drugs that they know can be harmful to patient health?

The failure of conventional medicine is manifesting itself in many ways, but two in particular are worthy of note here.

• Disease epidemics are stretching conventional health services, not only in mental health, but for conditions such as autism, arthritis, ADHD, allergy, cancer, diabetes, dementia, and many other diseases (all of them, by the way, caused at least in part by pharmaceutical drugs).
• The failure and ineffectiveness of pharmaceutical drugs, such as antidepressants, and the paucity of any viable alternative for conventional doctors.

Most of the drugs that conventional doctors have relied upon for years are now no longer available to them, including two of their old stalwarts, antibiotics and painkillers.

Antibiotic drugs

Just as doctors are now prescribing antidepressants drugs to children when they should not be doing so, they have done the same with antibiotics drugs for decades. One by one resistance has built up rendering them useless, and now there are only a handful that are still known will work. For decades doctors have prescribed them. For decades, drug regulators have told them not to do so. But conventional doctors have had nothing else to offer patients, nothing else that worked. Conventional medicine is in a state of panic about the imminent total demise of antibiotics.

Painkilling drugs

Similarly with painkillers. In September 2013 I reported on 'The Failure of Painkilling Drugs'. This blog was triggered by another 'Pulse' article, written by a doctor who said that GP options for managing persistent pain had declined markedly over the past decade, but that crisis point had been reached. As I commented at the time, 

          "The GP goes on to talk about the rise of fall of co-proxamol, selective Cox-2 inhibitors, and traditional NSAIDs. And now, she bemoaned "the safety of yet another analgesic called into question, especially the one most often prescribed". She refers, of course, to Paracetamol."

The sad fact is that conventional pharmaceutical drugs either do not work, or they no longer work safely. And the sooner we realise this, the better it will be for all of us.

So what do doctors do, when faced with sick patients? They give them whatever they have, and increasingly they are drugs they know full well to be not only ineffective, but unsafe, harmful to our health.

The saddest fact, however, is that the conventional medical establishment cannot be honest with us. Instead of our doctors saying to us, "Sorry, I have nothing to give you, our drugs no longer work, or they are dangerous" they prefer to continue giving us ineffective and/or dangerous drugs.

It is a sad reflection of the medical profession, who are still thought to be, by many people, the most honest and trusted of all professional groups.

Are NSAID painkillers killing us? Are we to be warned?

The history of painkillers have demonstrated three important things about pharmaceutical drugs. The first is that they are important element in the credibility of conventional medicine. The second is that many millions of people take them routinely and regularly on the basis that they are (at least relatively) safe. The third is that painkilling drugs are a profitable product for the drug companies.

It is the second element, the safety of these painkilling drugs that is the issue. I have written about the dangers of NSAID painkillers regularly, this article putting together information about the harm they do to patients, mainly information that has been known for decades.

Other websites have done the same on a regular basis. In 2011, Agora Health's 'Daily Health' bulletin outlined how widely used non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), like ibuprofen, naproxen and fenoprofen were, and that they increased our risk of a second heart attack by as much as 45%. More recently Agora Health have said this.

"These popular painkillers have also been associated with a 66 % chance of developing dementia, and a 57% chance of developing Alzheimer's disease. Last year (2014) another study found using NSAID pain relievers increase your risk of atrial fibrillation, a potentially deadly heart rhythm, by a whopping 84%. 

Yet despite the increasing evidence against these painkillers, which has built up over the years, patients have not been informed. Instead there has been a deafening silence from the conventional medical establishment, seemingly content to maintain their credibility with the public against the growing evidence of harm they were causing, and to maintain their profitability regardless of the damage they must have known it was doing to patients.

Now, the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally admitted that the evidence against NSAIDs is too overwhelming to ignore, and is now demanding that these painkillers carry a label warning about their heart attack and stroke risks. (But presumably, no mention of the risk of dementia). Moreover, the idea that you had to take lots of painkillers, over a long period before suffering the dreadful, disease-inducing consequences has been laid to rest. The FDA has admitted, at last, the NSAID painkillers increase the risk of heart disease and stroke from the very first dose.

• Remember, NSAID drugs, like Paracetamol and Ibuprofen, are readily available, over-the-counter drugs, that can be purchased without prescription, and without any medical oversight.
• Remember that these same NSAID drugs will still be available in the USA, but with a warning on the label.
• Remember that these same painkilling drugs will still be available in India, Britain, and the rest of Europe, Australia, Canada, and elsewhere, even without a warning label.

And listen. Can you hear anything from our mainstream media about this? Is the BBC, our 'public services broadcaster' informing us? No! The deafening silence continues.

Instead, listen to Agora Health, who tell us that after years of ignoring adverse reports about NSAID painkillers that the FDA finally agreed to look again at the science behind these drugs, and what they discovered.

• NSAID drugs can increase your risk of heart failure
• Our chance of having a heart attack or stroke increases quickly from the first time we take them
• But the longer we take them, and the higher the dose, the greater the danger becomes
• Even occasional users have an increased risk of heart attack or stroke, even people with healthy hearts
• And patients given NSAID's following a first heart attack were more likely to die within a year compared to those who did not take them

The conventional medical establishment must be the last industry that runs its industry on the basis that safety is secondary, that harm has to be proven, beyond all reasonable doubt, before any action is taken to protect the public. There is a pattern that seems to fit all conventional pharmaceutical drugs, including not just painkillers, but Statins, Anti-depressants, Beta Blockers, Anti-biotics - the list is endless!

     * Unsafe drugs come on to the market.
          * People take them, with doctors telling us that they are safe.
               * Only then, as we get ill, do serious side effects become clear.
                    * The reported dangers, (heart disease, dementia), are ignored, often for decades.
                         * Increasing numbers of people, usually many millions, are harmed by the drug.
                              * Drug Regulators do nothing, for as long as they can.
                                  * Warnings may then be placed on the drug labels, that few people read.
                                      * But the Media remains quiet, the public largely uninformed.
                                 
AND THE DRUGS, HOWEVER DANGEROUS THEY MIGHT BE, CONTINUE TO BE SOLD, READILY AVAILABLE FOR ANY UNSUSPECTING PERSON TO TAKE.

AND THE PUBLIC REMAIN LARGELY UNINFORMED, CONTINUING TO BELIEVE THAT THE DRUGS THEY BUY ARE 'SAFE', JUST AS THEY WERE TOLD, MANY YEARS EARLIER.

What other industry is, or would be allowed to carry on in this way? And why is it that the conventional health industry is allowed to continue to do so?

History of the Vioxx Drug Scandal. How can we ever trust conventional medicine again?

Vioxx was a NSAID painkiller and anti-inflammatory drug. It was one of the new, Cox-2 inhibitor drugs, developed by Merck, and approved as scientifically safe and effective by the FDA in May 1999. It was also marketed as Ceoxx and Ceeoxx. It quickly gained wide acceptance as a safe way of treating patients with arthritis, menstrual pain, and acute pain generally. When it was first marketed Vioxx was said to be a "wonder drug", safer and more effective than other NSAID's such as Aspirin and Ibuprofen. 

The conventional medical establishment told us that, unlike earlier NSAID drugs, Vioxx (and other Cox-2 inhibitors) relieved pain and inflammation without interfering with the protective stomach lining, a well-known DIE in the older drugs. 

After its introduction in 1999, Vioxx was withdrawn from the market, worldwide, in September 2004, after it was implicated in several fatalities, involving heart attacks and strokes. It has been estimated to have caused up to 140,000 cases of serious heart disease, and that up to 40% of these could have been fatal. Other serious DIEs included kidney insufficiency or failure, seizures, high blood pressure and peripheral edema. kidney and liver damage, pregnancy complications, birth defects, and high blood pressure.

Yet, for that short period Vioxx quickly became is one of the most prescribed, and most profitable pharmaceutical drug ever to be given to patients. When it was withdrawn from the market it was being prescribed to over 80 million people, and was a massive money earner for Merck, estimated to have been about $2.5 billion. So when it was withdrawn, after its short, but too long lifespan, it became the most profitable drug ever to be banned!

Yet the history of Vioxx is more significant than just another pharmaceutical drug that was found to be far too dangerous to give patients. 

It quickly involved Merck in massive litigation in the USA, and showed just how devious and criminal the Big Pharma industry can be when they are pushing dangerous drugs, and keeping the truth from the general public, and in this case, from conventional doctors too.

By 2007, Merck, was facing some 7,000 outstanding lawsuits in the USA, and experts estimated that the drug companies potential liabilities might be over $5bn (BBC News, 12 March 2007). Merck's legal and compensation costs have been estimated at about $6 billion, which probably meant that the company still profited from the sale of Vioxx!

Again, rather late in the day, medical scientists found that Vioxx (and drugs similar ro Vioxx) could cause heart attacks and strokes because they stop an enzyme producing blood-thinning agents, thereby leading to a greater chance of blood clotting. This highlighted the total and absolute failure of pharmaceutical drug testing, the incompetence and inability of medical ‘science’, and drug regulation, to protect patients from highly dangerous drugs.

As so often happens, it was not until many thousands of people had  been prescribed the drug, and suffered and died because of it, that its dangers became apparent to the conventional medical estabishmen, and were deemed to dangerous to continue giving it to patients!

Vioxx therefore demonstrates many aspects of the almost routine dangerousness of conventional medical drugs:

          • Vioxx was presented to us as a new 'wonder' drug. 

          • We were told that it had been 'scientifically' tested, and proven to be an effective and safe drug. 

          • But within a few years on the market it was found to be dangerous, a 'killer' drug. 

But the Vioxx scandal also demonstrated much more.

          • That medical 'science', that supportedearly claims regarding  the efficacy and safety of this drug, was not only wrong, but totally condemned by its total inaccuracy, its direct obfuscation of the facts, its blatent failure to disclose evidence, and what amounted to the criminal falsification of drug test results. 

          • That the drugs industry was based, not just on 'failed' medical science, but that it is based on a vast conspiracy of industrial, commercial and medical dishonesty too. 

During the court hearings it was revealed that Merck had known about the risks associated with Vioxx as early as 2000. Its response was to try to bury the heart disease risks of the drug. The Wall Street Journal revealed that Merck had been trying to bury the serious health risks of Vioxx as far back as March 2000.  The company was accused by the New England Journal of Medicine of 'manipulating' a study that claimed, incorrectly, that the cardiovascular risks did not arise until 18 months of use. Further, two medical professionals testified that they were pressured by Merck not to publish test results that showed increased rates of cardiovascular disease. By early 2005 a study calculated that Vioxx had caused between 88,000 and 140,000 cases of heart disease in the US, and thousands of deaths.

Dr Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet, summed all this up when he wrote: 

          "The licensing of Vioxx and its continued use in the face of unambiguous evidence of harm have been public health catastrophes."

Yet whilst Merck was eventually forced to pay large sums of money in compensation to its victims in the USA, the drugs industry can still demonstrate that it has a powerful influence within the court processes - at least in the UK. 

Vioxx victims in the UK, who also suffered heart attacks or strokes, were not compensated owing to the protection accorded to the drug companies. The Guardian report (29th November 2005) said that Lord Brennan, one of Britain's leading QCs, had warned of a "serious risk" that people injured by faulty drugs will no longer be able to mount compensation claims in the British courts. It said that more than 500 people who had suffered strokes or heart attacks following Vioxx treatment had lost an appeal for legal aid. Another QC said that the failure to get funding for the case spelled "the end of litigation against drug companies in the UK".  He added that British people may end up with no justice, no recompense, whereas in the USA Merck would probably settle the cases.

Merck has certainly done so. As with all drug companies, they cause mayhem, disease and death, pay victims compensation when they are forced to do so, then carry on plying their drugs to us as though nothing had happened!

The scandal of Vioxx was reported in the mainstream media, but not at any level commensurate with the damage to health, the disease, the deaths caused by the drug. As usual, the public were 'proteccted' from learning about the behaviour of the drug companies by their friends in the press! However, it is well reported on the internet, so for further details of the enormity of the Vioxx scandal, information can be obtained there.

Perhaps this should be the concluding thought about Vioxx. If the conventional medical establishment can prove itself to be so incompetent, devious and corrupt in relation to this drug, what evidence is there that it is any more competent, straightforward and honest about the claims it makes for drugs they are prescribing to patients today? 

Aspirin and the Media (BBC News)

Once again this morning (6th August 2014) I awoke to more ‘good news’ from the conventional medical establishment, forwarded by their most trusted supporter - BBC News! We were all told that another study (no doubt funded by Big Pharma) has shown that regular Aspirin was good for our health!

This blog has regularly reported on the Media’s failure to inform the public (their readers, listeners, viewers) of the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs. Yet whilst most media is dependent on advertising revenues (of which Big Pharma, and related industries are a major source), and so unlikely to ‘bite the hand’ of their main supporter), the BBC is a public broadcaster, funded by the licence payers. It should not be beholden to the drug companies in the way it seems to be. It should be able to provide us with news that does not focus on ‘good news’ and ignores ‘bad’ news. 

BBC News should be providing the public with a balanced and unbiased view on health issues - but is routinely failing to do so.

The BBC does know that Aspirin is not the ‘wonder drug’ that it so often tells us it is. In the past they have published articles stating the problems associated with Aspirin, and indeed other painkillers.

‘Routine Aspirin may cause harm’ (9 January 2012).

‘Routine Aspirin benefits queried’ (28 May 2009).

Even as recently as June this year the BBC published this article.

‘Aspirin not best for preventing heart disease (18th June 2014).

Yet the BBC does not focus on these problems. And when they do discuss them they go to the only people they consider to be ‘experts’ - conventional medical practitioners - the people who are giving us pharmaceutical drugs and so cannot be expected to question their use, or their value.

Instead, the BBC parrots, usually without question, the ‘good news’ about Aspirin. This morning the feature did mention gasto-intestinal bleeding (but does not mention that this can cause death) - but this is not the only major problem that Aspirin, and other similar NSAID painkillers represent to our health.

‘Painkillers cause life-threatening kidney damage in children’

‘Just-in-case Aspirin may do as much harm as good, say researchers’

‘NSAID painkillers found to deplete vitamin B-6 levels’

‘Soluble painkillers increase high blood pressure risk seven-fold’

‘Patients with atrial fibrillation ‘at risk’ from outdated Aspirin prescribing practice’

If the BBC were aware, or if they were prepared to feature anything about conventional health which was not ‘good’ news, they might be discussing the major problem that painkilling drugs now present to the conventional medical establishment. Doctors are fully aware that they are rapidly losing their battle against pain, as all their painkillers are now deeply implicated in causing serious disease, dependency and death. Painkillers are known to be extremely harmful to our health. What is more, if the BBC is not aware of this, are doctors are! Our doctors are debating this very the problem amongst themselves, although not, of course, with patients!

But as with the failure of Antibiotic drugs, the failure of Painkilling drugs is not being debated my our media, and certainly not by the BBC!

Patients are being left in the dark. The government does not inform us because of Big Pharma investment in our economy. The NHS does not inform us because they are dominated by Big Pharma, and Big Pharma interests. Our doctors do not inform us because they would be castigated and probably struck off if they dared break ranks.

Our mainstream media does not tell us because they are dependent on their advertisers.

BBC News does not tell us because ………??

The End of Conventional Medicine

The end of conventional medicine is getting ever closer. The time is rapidly coming when the conventional drugs and vaccines that we have all become used to, and considered for so long to be ‘life saving’, will no longer be available. They will all have been deemed ineffective, or just too dangerous.

So have you decided yet what you will do when your doctor tells you that all his/her drugs are not fit for purpose, that they are too dangerous to our health, that their medicine cupboard is bare?

Painkillers.

I have already blogged about doctors who are asking what painkillers than can use for patients with chronic pain, because all the one’s they use, and have been using for years, are becoming too dangerous to prescribe. Click this link to see how doctors are now discussing what they can do for patients who are experiencing significant pain.

Antibiotics

The World Health Organisation (WHO) have been telling us for some time that these drugs are reaching the end of their useful life, and that no new ones are in the pipeline. Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), admitted recently that antibiotics have been so over-used that they are now almost completely useless against 'super strains' of bacterial infection. Superbugs are the result, and conventional medicine has no answer to these.

The same warning have come from Sally Davies, the UK's Chief Medical Officer, who said:

“... the rise in antibiotic-resistant diseases could trigger a national emergency comparable to a catastrophic terrorist attack, pandemic flu or major coastal flooding."

When such stalwarts of the Conventional Medical Establishment (who usually stick together, and deny such problems when they are raised) begin to announce these imminent disasters we can all be assured that something is going disastrously wrong with the drug-based medicine, that has dominated health care for the last century and more. 

So what does this mean - for anyone who is not already searching for safer, and more effective medical treatment?

It means, in effect, that operations now considered as ‘routine’ will become impossible to carry out, and minor cuts and grazes will become potentially life-threatening. 

Infections are becoming immune to antibiotics. And antibiotics have, in any case, nurtured a whole array of new ‘superbugs’ which are already resistant to them. 

And it is worth noting that no new antibiotic has been developed for 50 years, and there are non in the pipeline. 

It would appear that drug companies are not interested in developing new antibiotics. Big Pharma have calculated that they make more money by developing new drugs for diseases that are now reaching epidemic proportions - like drugs for diabetes, for cancer, for heart disease, for dementia and for lowering cholesterol.

Drug companies, after all, are in the business for making money. Making us better has never been their priority!

That is why they are always keen to hide from us, from patients particularly, the potentially lethal “side-effects” of their drugs and vaccines. David Healy, Professor in Psychological Medicine at the Cardiff University School of Medicine, has commented on this, and the fact that drug companies often simply refuse to publish the full science that (supposedly) supports their use, both in terms of safety and effectiveness.

And drug regulators, as we too often see, are doing little about this situation. Set up to protect patients from dangerous drugs, they appear to be more intent on protecting the Big Pharma from losing profitable drugs. 

For example, one patient in the US was recently awarded $9 billion compensation after he developed bladder cancer from taking the diabetes drug, Actos. Apparently, the drug company knew about the link between this diabetes drug and bladder cancer, but had withheld the information from patients, and indeed, from doctors too. In the interests of sales and profits, they expect patients to add cancer to diabetes to their list of diseases.

France has banned Actos as it causes bladder cancer. Does this mean that French people are more susceptible to the drug than people in the rest of the world? No! It means that other drug regulators apparently do not care that the drug causes bladder cancer!

And the mainstream media companies, whose job it is to tell us about such things, do likewise. This is because our ‘Free’ Press, and even public service broadcasters, like the BBC, are not telling us about what is happening within the conventional medical system, or what their treatments are doing to our health:

• even when, as in this case, the evidence comes out through the public courts
• even when a drug company is found guilty of deceit
• even when they are fined a massive amount of money. 

And our media certainly does not investigate the issues when they do arise (or cannot be hidden). All they do is to invite conventional medical ‘experts’ to pour balm of the problem, and to tell us that we do not have to worry, that all is well.

So, the Media is failing to tell us that conventional medicine is failing. As a result, the imminence of it’s downfall is likely to be an immense surprise for most people.

In short, we all going to need to come up with alternatives to conventional drugs and vaccines. The reason is not just that the drugs and vaccines we now rely on have been proven to be either ineffective, or too dangerous to use. It is because there are alternatives available, and these alternatives are both safer, and more effective. The result is a public that is not well informed. 

• They are not asked, by doctors, by the NHS, by drug regulators, by the media, by government, to question the adverse reactions of drugs and vaccines, and whether they wish to put themselves at risk by taking them. 
• Too many people are outside the privileged few who know about safer, scientifically proven, natural cures and preventative treatments that will protect from disease, and treat it successful.
• To many people simply taking the drugs and vaccines, and succumb to chronic disease; becoming a statistic in the epidemic rise of diseases like ADHD, Cancer, Autism, Alzheimers, Diabetes, Heart Disease, et al.

And have you noticed that the Big Pharma industry is being ‘re-organised’? Pfizer has been proposing to take over AstraZemica? Other drug companies are busy exchanging parts of their business in order to ‘focus’ on a particular area of health care. 

Does this mean an expansion of a successful business? No, we are watching the travails of a declining, contracting industry, an industry whose drugs and vaccines are failing, and have been failing for decades. And an industry which has no safe or effective drugs or vaccines to take their place. 

When Big Pharma lose their industrial and financial muscle (which at the moment is considerable), they lose their ability to bribe our doctors, to infiltrate drug regulation agencies, to control the mainstream media, and to hold our governments to ransom. 

Then, and only then, Big Pharma will become a part of our past, and we will look back at the latter half of the 20th Century, and the first part of the 21st Century, and wonder why we were so foolish as to go down this rather unsuccessful and dangerous aberration in health care, that significantly harmed humanity. 

Yet today, the demise of conventional medicine is going to come as a shock to many people. Soon we will all have to look for alternative medical therapies. When we do, we will all discover just how dangerous our commitment to conventional drugs and vaccines has been, especially over the last 50-60 years of ‘free’ NHS medicine. 

We will have to learn quickly that we must no longer place our trust and confidence in medicine that fights against the natural immunity of our body, but find therapies that seek to support it.

Ultimately, placing our reliance on our natural immunity, and medical therapies that supports it, is the only path to living our lives in a healthy manner, free from the chronic disease epidemics that now dominate health care, and has been the major outcome of the conventional, drug-vaccine based healthcare of the last 50-60 years.