Breast Cancer. And its links to Pharmaceutical Drugs

Data from the Office for National Statistics showed that between 1971 to 2004 the number of breast cancer cases rose by 81% to 36,939 cases - in England alone. It had become the most common form of cancer, and it was estimated that 1 in 9 women could expect to get breast cancer during their lifetime. In 1971 the incidence of the disease was 66.9 per 100,000 people. In 2004 this had risen to 120.8 per 100,000. It became, and remains, the disease most feared by women.

Nor is breast cancer a disease that only strikes older women. As with most other cancers it now affects people at any age, and an increased incidence has been recorded across all age groups. Among women aged 20 to 34, the disease increased by 50% between 1971 to 2001. Morever, several hundred men contract the disease each year now.

So why did the rates of breast cancer rise so steeply during that time? Conventional medicine has come up with a variety of explanations, mostly based on a range of 'lifestyle factors', such as diet, increased alcohol consumption, obesity, more women going out to work, earlier menstruation, reduced breast feeding, smaller families and later menopause. It has even been called the disease of prosperity!

Maybe. But 'prosperity' probably account for only a small part of the huge increase. The role of pharmaceutical drugs has to be considered. For instance, in a Guardian article, dated 8th August 2006, Sarah Boseley wrote this:

               "The daughters of the thousands of women who took an anti-miscarriage pill more than 40 years ago are at increased risk of breast cancer. The drug, known as DES (diethylstilbestrol), was commonly prescribed for pregnant women between the 1940s and 1960s if doctors thought they were at risk of miscarrying and sometimes also for morning sickness. There are no definite figures for the number of women who took it, but research suggests there may have been as many as 200,000 in the UK".

The article, written at a time when the mainstream media was prepared to be mildly critical of conventional medicine, described a study by scientists at Boston University, published in the Journal of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention. It found that the daughters of women who took DES had an almost double risk of breast cancer of their peers. And the more their mothers took of this now banned drug, the greater their chance of developing the disease. Concern about the side effects of DES started in the early 1970s when first it was discovered that 1 in 1,000 girls born to women who had taken the drug were likely to develop vaginal cancer. It was then found that the women who had taken it had an increased risk of breast cancer.

DES was withdrawn in the 1970’s and is no longer used in the developed world - except for prostate cancer (men beware)!

So it is well known that pharmaceutical drugs has been a important part in the rise of breast cancer figures. And if there were sufficient research done on the adverse reaction of pharmaceutical drugs, more evidence would almost certainly be found.

Another culprit is probably chest X-rays. A Times-on-Line article, dated 27th June 2006 outlined research on 1,600 women that indicated that women under-20 who had a chest X-ray had a 2.5 times greater chance of developing breast cancer before their 40th birthday, whilst women with a family history of breast cancer were 54% more likely to suffer the disease. The findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Calls were made for further research into the link between breast cancer and X-rays. They have not been done - conventional medicine does not go out of its way looking for 'bad' news about any of its treatments!

Yet for many years, the massive use of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) during the previous decades had been the drug most implicated in the rise and rise of breast cancer. So what happens when the prescription of a pharmaceutical drug, implicated in causing disease, is significantly reduced? If HRT was a significant cause of breast cancer, perhaps the increased incidence of the disease would also start to fall.

And this is exactly what has happened!

In July 2002, research indicated that HRT can increase the risk of breast cancer (and heart disease too), and the tests were halted as a result. Many thousands of women came off the drug as a result, at least 50%. In 2003 the University of Texas recorded a 7% drop in breast cancer rates, and a 12% drop in women aged 50 to 69. This was reported in USA Today, 14 December 2006; and New York Times, 15 December 2006). According to a BBC News report, 15th December 2006, UK researches also measured a drop in breast cancer cases. Professor Valerie Beral, director of Cancer Research UK's Cancer Epidemiology Unit, was reported as saying that there had also been a drop in breast cancer incidence in women aged 50-64 between 2003 and 2004.

So here is a very clear link between disease, breast cancer in this instance, and pharmaceutical drug treatment. Yet what happened following the virtual withdrawal of HRT, and the reduction in breast cancer rates, defies belief!

The conventional medical establishment put this evidence of reduced breast cancer as a victory! Our doctors told us that it indicated that conventional medicine was beginning to win the battle with cancer generally, and breast cancer was put forward to justify the claim! This was a brilliant piece of marketing!

• First, conventional medicine causes a disease. 
• Second, it withdraws the drug that has caused the disease. 
• Third, it claims the credit for reducing the disease, even though it caused it in the first place!

Good marketing perhaps, but little to do with the reality, and even less to do with honesty! And unfortunately what happened afterwards has little to do with patient safety. Conventional medicine has tried to rehabilitate HRT, which means that more women are taking the drug, and many of them will contract breast cancer as a result. I have written about this rehabilitation in two blogs.

Menopause Issues and NICE guidelines? HRT might cause cancer, heart problems and dementia, but what the hell, women should take it anyway!

HRT treatment causes cancer. Old news, but new news!

There is only one lesson that can be learnt from this sequence of events - conventional medicine cannot be trusted with our health. It creates illness with its drugs. It creates profit from our illness. And then our doctors do not tell us truth.

So one of the best ways to avoid breast cancer is to avoid pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines - at any cost!

Alzheimers Disease. How doctors treat people with Dementia

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I believe that Alzheimers, and other forms of dementia, are caused by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. Those drugs implicated include many vaccines, including the flu vaccine, Antidepressant and Antipsychotic drugs, Statins, PPI's, Benzodiazepines, Antihistamines, Anticholinergic drugs, H2 blockers, and many others. They are listed, and the evidence described on this website. Indeed, when you look at the known side effects of pharmaceutical drugs, most of them list 'confusion'.

So once conventional medicine has caused a disease, how does it then treat it? They use more pharmaceutical drugs, including drugs known to cause dementia - Antipsychotics. These have been known as the 'chemical cosh' - drugs that do not treat the illness but which keep people with dementia calm - manageable.

New evidence, revealed in UK's doctors e-magazine, Pulse on 15th December 2017, has estimated that nearly 43,000 dementia patients were prescribed antipsychotic drugs during a a six week period during the autumn. This represents 9.4% of the 458,461 on the dementia register in England. The research, undertaken by NHS Digital, also recorded the number of patients who did not have psychosis but were prescribed the drug, but the information was only available 'on request'.

So the chemical cosh is alive and well, and being used with our older friends and relatives throughout the land. Antipsychotic drugs do not treat Alzheimers, and doctors do not pretend that they do. One doctor says so, in a comment on the Pulse article.

               "Apart from Risperidone, which has a 6 week licence for BPSD in Alzheimer's type dementia all other drugs are OFF label."

It is fair to say that some other doctors recognise that prescribing antipsychotic drugs "is a bad thing because these drugs are being overprescribed in place of hands on care" and that "there is also robust evidence that antipyschotics can increase morbidity and mortality". Yet the figures show that doctors are still prescribing them, and it is clear in other comments that some doctors seek to defend their use with Alzheimer's patients.

               "Is this really such a bad thing? These drugs have been unfairly demonised by NICE because of their risks but the reality is that those with advanced dementia have palliative needs that we are simply not recognising. It can't be very nice to be chronically agitated, shouting, wandering around at night and lacking a sleep wake cycle. Its often unsafe and distressing for patients, fellow residents and also carers. Even the best EMI homes struggle with all this and many are sub-par. The reality is that low dose antipsychotics are often effective for a wide range of these symptoms. Evidence for other 'trendy' behaviour based intervention is woolly at best. Perhaps it's time to recognise the terminal nature of dementia and relax the dogma around the use of antipsychotics antil something better comes along?"

The reference to 'other trendy behaviour' is pertinent. Conventional medicine has no effective treatment for dementia. The pharmaceutical industry is coming up with several extraordinarily expensive drugs, for which the 'evidence' is certainly 'wooly', to say the least. But to say that doctors should 'recognise the terminal nature of dementia' misses one important consideration - that there are other alternative therapies, including homeopathy, that can treat dementia. These are neither 'wooly', nor do they resign themselves to dementia being 'terminal'.

The unfortunate fact is the people with dementia, a disease now being contracted by many younger people, cannot choose their treatment. And their carers too often accept what doctors tell them, that it is a terminal disease, and there is no treatment. The result is that very few dementia patients are ever offered homeopathic treatment, and very few have been treated with homeopathy. I outlined a number of homeopathic remedies that are known to treat the symptoms of dementia.

So Alzheimer's Disease, and dementia generally, should represent a perfect opportunity for conventional doctors. They are only too aware that they have no effective treatment, and most recognise that antipsychotic drugs do more harm than good to their patients. So why not try homeopathy? How effective are the remedies that I outlined in my 'Why Homeopathy?' website? Many will dismiss the suggestion, out of hand, saying that 'there is no evidence'. Yet there is no evidence for the use of antipsychotic drugs in dementia, but they clearly use them!

If it wanted to do so, the NHS could discuss the use of homeopathy in the treatment of dementia, and set up a pilot study. It won't do so. Indeed, it is doing the very opposite, currently seeking to stop all expenditure on homeopathic treatment!

It would appear that dementia is another one of those illnesses that the conventional medical establishment would rather patients DIE than be offered more effective, safer alternative medical treatment!

Mumps. A benign disease that turns nasty - although only after the MMR vaccine is introduced!

Mumps was always considered to be a relatively benign disease. It was described in 1982 as follows in the MacMillan Guide to Family Health.

               "A fairly common risk of mumps is the swelling of testes in a boy or the ovaries in a girl. This is much more common in an adult. Invariably the swelling goes down after a few days leaving no ill effects. It is excessively rare for the swelling to cause sterility. A rare complication is acute pancreatitis which passes within a few days. Mumps is generally a mild disease. The usual outcome is complete recovery within about 10 days".

It would seem that there was little to worry about, and this had always been the situation. But by this time the MMR (Mumps, Measles and Rubella) vaccine had been introduced, and the pharmaceutical industry were eager to promote it. This is more difficult if it is protecting children from an acute illness with such a benign prognosis.

So mumps suddenly became more serious. Compare the above description to the one that appeared in  the British Medical Association "Complete Family Health Encyclopaedia" published in 1995.

               "Mumps is an acute viral illness mainly of childhood. Serious complications are uncommon. However, in teenage and adult males, mumps can be a highly uncomfortable illness in which one of both testes become inflamed and swollen. Most infections are acquired at school or from infected family members. In the US, where many states required proof of mumps vaccination for school entry, the incidence has dropped markedly over the last 20 years. In the U.K. by contrast, before routine immunisation was introduced in 1988, mumps affected a large proportion of the population at sometime in their lives, usually between the ages of 5 and 10. An occasional complication of mumps is meningitis. A less common complication of mumps is pancreatitis which causes abdominal pain and vomiting. In males after puberty, orchitis (inflammation of the testes) develops in about a quarter of the cases. Subsequently the affected testis may shrink to smaller than normal size. In rare cases, mumps orchitis affects both testes leading to infertility".

The book also contains strong warnings about the consequences of older people coming into contact with people infected with mumps. Yet other than the financial incentive to promote the MMR vaccine, it is tempting to ask what had occurred during the intervening 13 years to transform mumps. As always, the answer is to 'follow the money'! There are profits to be made!

Mumps is not the only disease that conventional medicine has used in this way to promote the use of drugs and vaccines. It is easier to sell them if patients (in this case parents) are made to feel afraid. Fear leads to looking for prevention, or treatment. It can make customers of all of us!

Yet there is an easier, safer and more effective way of dealing with mumps. I have outlined several key remedies that deal with the disease in one of my "Why Homeopathy?" pages, which compares conventional and homeopathic treatment of mumps.

Iatrogenic Disease. The disease and death inducing effects (DIE's) of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines

This article was is published in the e-book, "DIE's: The 'Disease-Inducing-Effects' of Pharmaceutical Drugs and Vaccines".

Pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are the primary weaponry of conventional medicine for the treatment of all illness and disease, yet frequently they actually cause disease!

Although the conventional medical establishment accepts that all their drugs and vaccines cause ‘side-effects’ or ‘adverse reactions’ they always underplay or discount their real seriousness. Indeed to describe the harm caused some of these drugs as 'side-effects' or ‘adverse reactions’ is an understatement of enormous proportions.

The term 'side effects' does not adequately describe the damage that pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines can cause, and grossly underestimates the harm they can do to patients.

People take pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines because our doctors tell us they will make us better, help us overcome illness, and conquer disease. Unfortunately this is not the reality. People's lives can be fundamentally changed, sometimes destroyed, by the serious ill-health that can be caused as a direct consequence of taking pharmaceutial drugs and vaccines.

Pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines can create new diseases, often diseases far worse and more life-threatening, than the original condition for which they were given. And they can kill too! For instance:

Beta blocker drugs may lower blood pressure;mbut they are also known to cause diabetes, and increase the risk of death.

Statin drugs are said to protect against heart disease, and we have regularly been told that they are ‘entirely safe’. But this is just not true. They are now known to cause mental and neurological problems, kidney failure, Parkinson’s disease, myoopathy, a muscle wasting disease called rhabdomyolysis, dementia and death.

Painkillers may temporarily deaden pain. But they are also now known to cause gastro-intestinal bleeding, renal failure, and heart failure, and they can cause death.

Antidepressant drugs are given to treat depression. But they are also known to cause severe birth defects if taken during pregnancy, they harm the immune system, they can cause liver failure, and diseases such as diabetes. Bizarrly, they are also known to cause mental health problems such as anxiety, mania, agitation, even violence, and they increase the risk of suicide, especially in children and young people.

So the 'side effects' of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are much more serious than the term implies. Even the term 'adverse drug effects' is not sufficient to describe the damage they can do to our health. No pharmaceutical drug or vaccine in safe. Most are known to be harmful to both human and animal health. For this reason we need a new, more accurate way of describing the real outcome and consequences of taking pharmaceutical drugs, a description that illustrates realistically what they can do to us. We need a description that encapsulates what drugs and vaccines do, a description that are more apt, more accurate:

Disease-Inducing-Effects... 
    Incapacity-Inducing-Effects... 
             Addiction-Producing-Effects... 
                  Quality-of-Life Destroying-Effects...
                           Death Inducing Effects too.

This e-book replaces the terms 'side-effect' and 'adverse reaction' with the concept of DIEs, or Disease Inducing Effects, as the 'D' can be used interchangeably for both 'disease' and 'death'!

Many patients, who take a pharmaceutical drug for one illness, often discover that they contract a new, often a much more serious disease, soon afterwards. Too often we do not associate the new disease with the taking of medical drugs and vaccines. Too often, doctors deny that there is any such connection. Instead it is assumed that the new disease is an unfortunate event, a misfortune without cause, an chance encounter with some bacteria or virus!

Then, of course, the new disease needs to be treated. So conventional doctors then give us yet more drugs, which have more DIEs, and so places us in greater danger of contracting yet more new and serious diseases.

And so it continues - one illness, leading to to drug, which leads to a new disease, leading to another drug and another disease, in the end  leading to a very sick individual.

Is the illness you suffer from the result of pharmaceutical drugs or vaccines?

Medicine and Informed Consent. Patients take drugs and vaccines because they are kept ignorant of the harm they do to our health

How many people will see their doctor today? How many will start taking drugs and vaccines as a result? Throughout the world the numbers run into many millions. And those many millions will do so because they are ignorant of their dangers. They do not realise that they are putting their health on line in a dangerous game of Russian Roulette.

Why do they not realise? They are not told. Surely, their doctors would not give them something that is harmful to their health? Surely medical science, and drug regulation would ensure that harmful drugs are banned. Surely national health services would not allow patients to be given dangerous drugs and vaccines. If pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines did cause patient harm, our newspapers would tell us about it.

This blog (and my 'Failure of Conventional Medicine' e-book) has featured many examples of this over the last 8 years. But let's look at two current pieces of press censorship, things we should be told about, news about pharmaceutical drugs that patients need to know - but we have just not been told.

The Flu Vaccine
Everyone living in the northern hemisphere are being urged to have the flu vaccination. Yet the flu season has already happened in the southern hemisphere, and a study has concluded the vaccine being used has very low effectiveness. As has happened regularly over the last few years the virus being used does not match the virus which is causing flu this year! The estimate is that it is only about 10% effective. What that means is that the flu vaccine is of limited value, it offers minimal protection.

And, of course, the vaccination still have all the serious side effects that have been so often outlined on this blog. (Do a search, "flu vaccine", on the upper left hand side of this page).

But this information has not been made available to us in the mainstream media. And the conventional medical establishment, who must know about the vaccines ineffectiveness, as well as its dangers, continue to urge that we get vaccinated!

The Dengue Fever Vaccine
The conventional medical establishment insists that all their vaccines are entirely safe. The second situation has arisen in the Philippines and the dengue fever vaccine. This vaccine has been heavily promoted by the drug giant, Sanofi. But the government have recently stopped the national vaccination campaign, although only after thousands of children had been vaccinated - and suffered harm as a direct result.

What is the evidence of harm? Sanofi itself raised the warning, that the vaccine can cause more serious infections in those who had no previous exposure to the virus. Now, the Philippino government  has begun an investigation, with possible legal action to follow. The dangers of this vaccine has been known for some time - but of cause these warning were never publicised!

These are just two current situations concerning the dangers and ineffectiveness of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. They happen all the time but the conventional medical establishment pay little or no heed to any of them, continuing to insist that all vaccines are safe and effective. And our compliant media, supported as they are by pharmaceutical advertising, refuse to inform us. Their viability is at stake!

So what happens is that people will be going to see their doctor today, and they will accept the drugs or the vaccines that are offered because they have not heard about the ineffectiveness of the flu vaccine, or the dangers of the dengue fever vaccine. Nor will they have heard that the medical science that proved there was no connection between the MMR vaccine and Autism was fraudulent (see the following blogs).

               MMR Vaccine, Autism, and the silence and culpability of the Political, Medical and Media Establishment

               Autism IS caused by MMR vaccine. Evidence of 'no connection' was fraudulent medical science

               The MMR-Autism Controversy, and the dishonesty of Medical 'Science'

               The Vaccine - Autism Cover-up

               Autism, the MMR Vaccine, and Media Censorship

Anyone reading this information, undeniable as it is, unreported as it has been for the last 3 years, has to be amazed, or upset, or angry. The only possible conclusion is that patients cannot exercise an 'informed choice' about medical treatment because they are just not informed. Why are we not being informed.

The reason is simple. If patients did know about the serious side effects that harm patients, cause illness and disease, they would choose not to accept it. Conventional medicine, based as it is on dangerous pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, just would not exist. The future of the mighty pharmaceutical industry depends on our ignorance. And they are fully aware of this!

Does Conventional Medicine prefer patients to die rather than refer them to Homeopathy?

Does conventional medicine prefer patients to die rather than refer them to Homeopathy?

Does conventional medicine prefer patients to suffer rather than offer them another treatment?

This might appear to be an extreme question, perhaps even a silly one to some people. Yet any cursory examination of conventional medical practice has to answer with a clear and definite "Yes".

So let's examine the evidence. During the past few months I have been writing my Why Homeopathy? e-book, which seeks to compare conventional with homeopathic treatment of a variety of illnesses and diseases. Although when setting out on the project I knew that conventional medicine had little to offer when compared with homeopathy, I did not expect to find, time and time again, illness after illness, that conventional medicine frequently and openly states

• that it does not know what causes a particular illness or disease
• and that they have no treatment for so many of these!

On each page of the book I always use the NHS Choices website to ascertain what conventional treatment is for each of the illnesses I research. This is a highly reputable agency within the UK's conventional medical establishment so its descriptions are authentic, definitive statements.

• ADHD. "there is no cure for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder".
• Ankylosing Spondylitis. “There is no cure for ankylosing spondylitis..."
• Arthritis. "Osteoarthritis cannot be cured...."
• Autism. "There is no cure for the condition...."
• Blepharitis. "The condition cannot usually be cured...."

And so it continues, for an amazing number of illnesses that have now been covered in 'Why Homeopathy?'. All conventional medicine can claim to do for so many of these conditions is to enable the patient to live with it, or to treat specific symptoms, or to provide pharmaceutical drugs, with all their inherent dangers, for the rest of our lives.

Given that homeopathy can treat and cure almost any condition I was surprised to discover the extent of this failure. But then I began to wonder about more deadly diseases, ones that ended, inevitably, in the death of the patient? I cast my mind back to a situation that occurred soon after I had qualified as a homeopath. A man had contracted Rabies, and this made national news headlines. This is what I wrote about the situation soon afterwards.

A Case of Rabies

I remember in about 2002 listening to news story about the man in Dundee who contracted Rabies from a bat. He was treated in hospital, presumably by conventional medicine, and it was reported that 'there was no cure' for this condition, but they were making him "as comfortable as possible".

I wrote to the Department of Health asking whether anyone within the health service in Dundee had bothered to see whether there was any traditional therapy for the condition, and in particular, whether they had contacted a homeopath in the area. I pointed out that homeopathy treats 'like with like' using substances in high dilution/potency, and that the remedy Lyssinum was made from the saliva of a rabid dog.  I said that, if asked, any homeopath could have tried this remedy, or indeed several others used by homeopaths for the treatment of this disease.

The response I received was that was a matter of patient confidentiality, and the could not give me the information I required.

The man’s death was announced a few days later.

It is extremely unlikely that any homeopathic treatment was requested or tried in this case, despite the fact that homeopathy is used regularly to treat rabies in Eastern Europe, and elsewhere in the world.

The only assumption I could draw then, and now, was that when people contract illnesses that conventional medicine cannot cure, absolutely no effort is made to check with other medical therapies about whether they are able to treat the condition – even when, as in this case, death was the outcome!

There are probably not many people in Britain who die of rabies, but there are many serious illnesses and diseases that do kill patients, many of them conditions for which conventional medicine has no successful treatment.

• Cholera, where treatment is limited to oral rehydration.
• Haemophilia. "There is no cure for haemophilia..."
• and many others.

In addition, there are many other deadly conditions that are only treated with antibiotic drugs, resistance to which is rapidly becoming total. Or treated with drugs with dangerous side effects. When this happens, the conventional medical establishment just throw in the towel.

• Doctors tell us that an illness is 'terminal', that the patient will die. 
• There is nothing further that can be done for them.

As I have often said, such statements mean only that there is nothing further conventional medicine can do for the patient. So when this happens, do conventional doctors refer patients on to other medical therapies, such as homeopathy? Never. As with the man who contracted rabies and died, patients with terminal illness are left to die. There is an assumption that if conventional medicine cannot cure an illness, no-one else can!

This is lethal medical arrogance! They might be correct, after all we all die, eventually, of something. And no medical therapy can save everyone from everything at all times. Yet homeopathy has the distinct advantage of recognising the principle of 'treating like with like'. So to make a homeopathic remedy with the saliva of a rabid dog is a potential cure for rabies. But apparently it is not one that conventional medicine is prepared to offer its patients.

In fact, there are several remedies that homeopaths have used for the treatment of rabies, and some of these remedies are outlined in the Dr Makkar Family Clinic website.

For any doctor, or any medical system, to claim that they have a monopoly on effective medical treatment, for any illness, is unacceptable. For anyone to do so, especially when they realise that they have nothing else to offer a patient, especially when that patient will die, is inexcusable. 

Nor is it just death. It is also conditions that cause constant, permanent discomfort and pain. It is conditions that patients have to suffer from, for a lifetime, without the prospect of relief. Maybe there is nothing further that conventional medicine can offer for these patients, but quite clearly it is not prepared to offer anything else, even when that 'something else' might be more successful.

Perhaps especially if that 'something else' might be more successful. Conventional medicine never offers itself up for comparison. It has a dominant role in most health services around the world. If homeopathy did, actually, cure a case of rabies, when conventional medicine couldn't what would this tell people? It is best that people are allowed to die!

Yet this is what conventional medicine does, throughout the world. They tell us that their medical system is the only one based on 'science'. They tell us they are winning the 'war' against disease. They announce new wonder drugs, miracle cures, almost every week. It is as if conventional medicine cannot admit failure, or even take a chance that another medical therapy might be able to do something they cannot do! So patients suffer and die without any thought of referring them on.

Viagra. Now on sale without a doctors prescription

Many people believe that when pharmaceutical drugs are on sale without a doctor's prescription they are safe. Well, now the UK's drug regulator, the MHRA has decided the make Viagra, the male impotence, or erectile dysfunction drug available 'over-the-counter'.

I wrote a blog about Viagra in November 2014, "Viagra? An erection at any cost to our health?" in which I outlined the quite horrendous number of serious side effects of this drug. So if any man is about to rush to the local chemist to buy it perhaps should read about these side effects first.

Amongst much else, the drug is known to cause

• confusion (the precursor to dementia)?
• convulsions and seizures (the precursor to epilepsy)?
• deafness and hearing loss
• vision impairment, even blindness

Your doctor won't tell you about any of this (and won't even need to keep it from you now). All pharmaceutical drugs are dangerous, whether doctors prescribe them or not. They exist to make the drug companies rich, not for our health, and should all be avoided at all costs.

It would also appear that our drug regulator has no interest in patient safety, which in fact is the only reason for their existence. It would appear that there is no-one out there interested in protecting us from the pharmaceutical industry!