Steroid Drugs: short-term benefits: long-term dangers

This blog has been reproduced from the Homeopathy World Community Website. http://www.homeopathyworldcommunity.com/forum/topics/corticosteroids-at-a-glance. It was originally part of a discussion about the use of corticosteroid drugs, and this excellent response by Gina Tyler, DHOM, is worthy of repetition here.

"Steroids are fast catching up with antibiotics as the most abused class of drugs in your doctor’s black bag. Steroids mimic the action of the adrenal glands, the body’s most powerful regulator of general metabolism. John Stirling, director of the vitamin company Biocare, credits a very short course (three injections) of steroids with jump-starting his failing adrenal system after anaphylactic shock and saving his life.

The problem is, like antibiotics, steroids appear to be a miracle ‘cure’. 

Patients with crippling arthritis or asthma seem to be instantly better on steroids.The wheeze, the swelling, the pain go away. So doctors turn to steroids as the first, rather than last, line of attack for their anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic effects.

These MD’s do not take into consideration the side effects,and what these steriods are actually doing to the “disease”/ symptom. Just because the pain goes away, the swelling stops, the skin clears up does NOT INDICATE the imbalance has been CURED. NO way!

In fact it will return with a vengeance, turning into complex / chronic / life altering health problems.

As with antibiotics, what was once reserved for the extreme emergency is now being used on the most trivial of conditions. Steroids are now handed out as readily as antibiotics, even to babies, at the first sign of inflammation of any sort.

The latest drug set to replace gripe water for babies with croup is a steroid (budesonide); hydrocortisone is included in the latest over-the-counter medication for piles. Steroids make up many OTC skin drugs, and are considered the drug of choice for asthma, eczema, arthritis, back problems, bowel problems like ulcerative colitis-indeed, for any and all inflammations or allergic reactions-and new uses are still being invented.

Far from being a wonder drug ‘cure all’, steroids cannot cure one single condition.

All they do is suppress your body’s ability to express a normal response. 

In a few instances, this type of suppression will give the body a chance to heal itself. But more often, the effect is immediate, devastating and permanent damage. And we are only now realizing just how quickly damage can occur. Despite what doctors say, that steroids only have side effects after many years of use, there is no such thing as a safe dose.

Studies show that steroids cause permanent, debilitating effects after a single dosage. With long term use, some of the more common side effects of steroids include changes in appearance, such as acne, development of a round or moon-shaped face and an increased appetite leading to eight gain. Steroids may also cause a redistribution of fat, leading to a swollen face and abdomen, but thin arms and legs. In some cases, the skin becomes more fragile, which leads to easy bruising. These take weeks to begin appearing.

Psychological side effects of steroids include irritability, agitation, euphoria or depression. Insomnia can also be a side effect. These changes in appearance and mood are often more apparent with high doses of steroids, and may begin within days. Injected Triamcinalone, or oral dexamethasone seem to cause these changes less, but as they stay in the body an undesirably long time, rendering them second choices.

An increase in susceptibility to infections may occur with very high doses of steroids. Prednisone may also aggravate diabetes, glaucoma, and high blood pressure, and often increases cholesterol and triglyceride levels in the blood. In children, steroids can suppress growth. These effects are reversed once the steroids are stopped.

Long-term damage: quick and dirty: Steroids don’t take years to damage your system, as doctors maintain. Permanent, crippling damage can occur weeks after you’ve begun treatment.

•     Osteoporosis can occur within a matter of months. Steroids cause 8 per cent reduction in bone mass after four months (Ann Int Med, November 15, 1993), the equivalent of the effect on your bones of having your ovaries removed. Even low doses of inhaled steroids (400 micrograms per day) reduce bone formation (The Lancet, July 6, 1991).
•     Low doses (10-15 mg prednisone) for a year can cause cataracts (Surv Ophthalmol, 1986; 31: 260-2).
•     Topical steroids may begin to cause eye damage or raise pressure after two weeks. Extensive visual loss can be caused by a 1 per cent hydrocortisone ointment, which is available OTC (BMJ, August 20-27, 1994).
•     Rub-on steroids have caused Cushing’s syndrome in children as soon as a month after treatment has begun (Arch Dis Child, 1982; 57: 204-7).
•     Inhaled steroids slowth growth in children after six weeks (Acta Ped, 1993; 82: 636-40. See also, The Lancet, December 14, 1991).
•     Bilateral cataracts and glaucoma induced by long term use of steroid eye drops

Side effects that may be caused by the long-term use of steroids include cataracts, muscle weakness, avascular necrosis of bone and osteoporosis. These usually do not occur with less than four weeks of treatment.

Avascular necrosis of bone, usually associated with high doses of prednisone over long periods of time, produces hip pain and an abnormal MRI scan. It occurs most often in the hip, but it can also affect the shoulders, knees and other joints. Caught early, the joint can be saved by “decompression” by an orthopedic surgeon. Once full developed, Avascular necrosis is painful and often requires surgical joint replacement for pain relief.

Steroids reduce calcium absorption through the gastrointestinal tract which may result in osteoporosis, or thinning of the bones. Osteoporosis can lead to bone fractures, especially compression fractures of the vertebrae, causing severe back pain. Calcium, at least 1500 mg of the calcium carbonate form or equivalent, should be taken.

There is also a relationship between steroids and premature arteriosclerosis, which is a narrowing of the blood vessels by fat (cholesterol) deposits. In general, there is a close relationship between the side effects of steroids and the dose and duration of their use. Thus, a high dose of steroids given over a long period of time is more likely to cause side effects than a lower dosage given over a shorter period of time.

Steroid treatments, Prednisone and Azathioprine, had completely destroyed my immune system and were the culprits that were not allowing my bodily systems to repair themselves.

Topical corticosteroids are often prescribed intermittently for short-term reactive treatment of acute flares and supplemented by emollients. Reactive treatment with corticosteroids offers rapid and effective symptomatic relief for acute flares. However, there are considerable safety concerns associated with their use, particularly when they are applied continuously. Potential adverse events are primarily cutaneous (principally skin atrophy, but also telangiectasia, hypopigmentation, steroid acne, increased hair growth and rosacea-like eruptions), but there may be systemic effects (suppression of the hypothalamicpituitary- adrenal (HPA) axis, growth retardation, increased risk of glaucoma cataract and Cushing’s syndrome).

Sources
Hill CJ, Rosenberg A Jr. Adverse effects from topical steroids. Cutis 1978; 21: 624–8.

Ruiz-Maldonado R, Zapata G, Lourdes T, Robles C. Cushing’s syndrome after topical application of corticosteroids. Am J Dis Child 1982; 136: 274–5.

McLean CJ, Lobo RF, Brazier DJ. Cataracts glaucoma, and femoral avascular necrosis caused by topical corticosteroid ointment. Lancet 1995; 345: 330.

Bode HH. Dwarfism following long-term topical corticosteroid therapy. JAMA 1980; 244: 813–4.

Queille C, Pommarede R, Saurat JH. Efficacy versus systemic effects of six topical steroids in the treatment of atopic dermatitis of childhood. Pediatr Dermatol 1984; 1: 246–53.

BBC assume leading role in promoting new GSK malaria vaccine

There is a new vaccine about to be launched upon us. It is for Malaria. And the BBC are acting to promote it, on behalf of the drug manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

This article appeared on 8th October 2013. UK firm seeks to market world's first Malaria vaccine.

The BBC has been hyping up the benefits of this vaccine now for some years - as always, keen to provide us with 'good' news about drug and vaccine 'breakthroughs'. These are just a few of the BBC articles on the Malaria vaccine during the last two years.

In October 2011 the BBC reported that "Malaria vaccine trial results promising". 

On 8th August 2012 the BBC repeated the message, "Malaria vaccine shows early promise in clinical trials".

In January 2013, the BBC reported that there was "a faster path to a possible malaria vaccine".

So, all would appear to be well, then? Well, not really. As usual, this is a piece of BBC News reporting that does little more than parrot the 'good news' press releases of Big Pharma drug companies. The BBC seems content to act as the sales promoter of their vaccines and drugs - without the least attempt at seeking balance in their reporting.

Like everyone else, the BBC is aware that conventional drugs and vaccines have 'side-effects'. What they don't recognise is that the 'side-effects' to which they admit are actually much worse than this phrase suggests. Conventional drugs and vaccines regularly and routinely cause 'disease-inducing-effects', or DIEs.

So what about this new vaccine. Has there been any attempt at balance? Who undertook the study? Has there been any questioning of the validity of the study, or any concern about possible DIEs for the patients who will receive this vaccine? Will this vaccine be any safer, or any more effective for patients than other vaccines have proven to be?

If the 'promising' trial results are analysed there are already indications of early signs of over-hyping, and danger for patients. Heidi Stevenson did such an analysis in June 2013, and commented:

          "Before accepting claims of a vaccine’s efficacy, it’s wise to look at the study and who financed it. A new study for a malaria vaccine is a case in point. It was financed by the manufacturer and the lead researcher is a co-patent holder! It should come as no suprise that there are gaping flaws in the study, as discussed here".

So, the BBC is quite willing to report 'promising' trial results without bothering to tell us that the trials were funded and conducted by the drug company itself. A 72% efficacy rate? Wonderful. No question about it then, as far as the BBC thinks anyway. Perhaps they continue to believe that there are no 'vested interests' in such trials, and that drug companies are entirely honest in the way they conduct and interpret them! But Stevenson found much more to be concerned about, not least that the findings on the safety were 'wildly exaggerated'.

She found that many people who had received the vaccine developed a series of mild adverse reactions, including induration, pain, tenderness, swelling, erythema, hyperpigmentation, hyperemia, fever, and headache. But these were not considered to be a result of the vaccine. Stevenson asks the question - how can this exclusion be justified? A question notably not asked by the BBC.

The more serious adverse reactions identified were upper respiratory track infections, body tinea, rhinitis, vulvovaginal candidiasis, and gastrointestinal disease. The study shows that those who received the vaccine experienced more of these conditions than the control group, and this was Stevenson's analysis.

          "Apparently, the researchers didn’t consider this to be significant. However, when you consider the relatively small size of this study compared with the millions who would be vaccinated if (the vaccine)  were approved, the seriousness of these results becomes quite apparent.

          "Let’s say that one million children receive this vaccine. Then, if the adverse effects occur at the same rate, an extra 127,000 children would suffer from upper respiratory tract infections. Since the targeted population is poor, that means many would not be healthy enough to manage it, and some would likely die. Add to that the gastritis case that occurred in the trial, and you’d have more than 25,000 people who’d suffer severe gastritis.

Whether it is appropriate for a drug company, with vested interests in the commercial success of the vaccine, should be allowed to get away with this is one thing.

That a public broadcaster, like the BBC, should allow them to get away with it is quite another. 

The BBC, unlike most parts of the private media industry, does not have a vested interest in GSK, or any other drug company. But it does (or at least it should) have a vested interest in its licence payers, who are patients, and so potential users of this vaccine.

Stevenson's study also looks at the claimed efficacy rate of 72%, and finds that such claims, based on this study, cannot be substantiated. She comes to this conclusion:

"It should, therefore, come as no surprise that the following flaws exist:

• Efficacy, the primary point being hyped, was not the primary end-point of the study.
• The primary end-point, adverse effects, were significant, likely resulting in a very large percentage of subject developing serious health effects. Though the authors of the study toss off a claim that they were not related to the vaccine, looking at the numbers makes that claim appear quite doubtful.
• The section of the trial that that utilized children as test subjects failed to test them for prior exposure to malaria. This seems highly questionable and may be part of the reason that the efficacy results seem so good.
• The other reason for apparently good efficacy results may be that the post-trial study used a control group that was chosen at a different time than the rest of the subjects. Looking at the results would tend to suggest that this is the most significant factor in apparently good efficacy.

It is notable that the BBC failed to pick up any of this, or even sought to do so. The close link between this public broadcaster and Big Pharma companies appears to be more about the views and allegiences of their science and health correspondents, who seem to be willing to proclaim positive, pro-drug, pro-vaccine news; whilst at the same time discounting any negative evidence that these drugs and vaccines are actually doing harm to patients, and causing disease. 

Yet 'rogue employees' are no excuse. The BBC is responsible for the news it broadcasts, and how it is broadcasted. Its editorial guidelines are supposed to be committed to 'balance' and 'impartiality'. However, with regard to most matters relating to health it repeatedly, and consistently shows a disregard for both. It shows absolutely no interest in informing its licence holders of the potential damage conventional drugs and vaccines are known to cause.

The 'new malaria vaccine' is a developing story. Most conventional drugs and vaccines come to the market with similar fanfares about its efficacy and safety - only to be withdrawn and banned a few years later because of the damage they cause to patients. There is no reason to assume that this new vaccine will be any different, or that it will be any more successful in the prevention and treatment of Malaria than current conventional treatments - which have totally failed.

So I will keep a watching brief on this one, and report on the issue as they develops. My prediction?

• The testing has probably been done: it will not be seriously questioned. 
• Approval by the drug regulator will be the next step: and they usually rubber-stamp any new drug or vaccine, controlled as they are by Big Pharma placemen. 
• And then it will be our turn - we will be encouraged to receive the wonderful new vaccine by Government, the NHS and even our doctors. 
• When subsequently there are signs of serious DIEs the conventional medical establishment will deny them, or play them down.
• When the DIEs become undeniable, the vaccine will continue to be prescribed, but restricted in some minor way.
• Eventually, but usually not until there is another (if questionable) replacement drug or vaccine, the vaccine will be withdrawn or banned. But not until thousands, if not millions, are harmed by it.

My advice? As with any conventional drug or vaccine - just say - "No thanks" - and look into what Homeopathy, and other safer and more effective alternative therapies can offer.

POSTSCRIPT 2019
This blog was written in 2013. In the intervening years has anyone noticed any reduction in the incidence of malaria arising from the malaria vaccine, and/or the BBC's promotion of it?

As usual, the promotion of conventional medicine is more positive than its actual performance! 

"What Doctors Don't Tell You" magazine is under attack - because doctor's don't want you to know!

Please would you note the date this blog was originally published! 

October 2013! 

Nearly 10 years ago!

Amazingly, after all this time, Blogger has now seen fit to censor it! It contains, I was told today (16th March 2023) "sensitive material"!

Please read it, and see if there is anything written here that is untrue. The WDDTY magazine is still being published, but the campaign to remove it from the shelves of newsagents was eventually successful. Which makes the latter part of the blog out-of-date! Read through it to find any 'hate' speech - you won't find any in this blog, or any other blog that I have written since 2009!

WE LIVE IN AN AGE OF CENSORSHIP; a censorship community that Blogger has apparently now joined.

I am disappointed, but not entirely surprised. Pharmaceutical medicine is to powerful, too wealthy to criticise. Big Pharma controls the mainstream media, and no doubt Blogger is now dancing to their tune.

I will not, and cannot change the content of this blog.

Within 10 minutes of challenging this decision by Blogger, the post has been reinstated.

However, the entire incident confirms that no-one can, or should, have any confidence about anything appertaining the conventional/pharmaceutical medicine; and that media organisations are now quite willing to breach our freedom of speech, and freedom of information - given enough 'incentive' to do so by the pharmaceutical industry.

I thank Blogger for reinstating this post; but have to inform them that I no longer trust them, and can no longer believe that they can be trusted to allow the public to be informed about the harm being caused to patients by conventional medicine.

The magazine "What Doctors Don't Tell you is coming under attack - for daring to tell us things doctors are refusing to tell us!

To prevent a magazine being sold by pressurising distributors not to sell it is a major threat to our freedom of speech, and in particular, to our health freedom.

Please read the article - it shows just how 'nasty' the conventional medical establishment has become, how opposed it is to safe, natural treatment, and the steps they will take to ensure their medical monopoly is maintained.

AND WHEN YOU GET TO THE END, PLEASE WRITE IN SUPPORT OF THE DISTRIBUTORS, AS REQUESTED.

The WDDTY wars: why they don’t want you to read all about it Two days ago we woke up to find ourselves and our magazine What Doctors Don’t Tell You the subject of a national scandal. On Tuesday October 1, the Times ran with an article about how there was a ‘call to ban’ our journal What Doctors Don’t Tell You over ‘health scares’. The original Times article alleged that a group of ‘experts’, including ‘scientists, doctors and patients’ were ‘condemning’ shops for carrying our magazine, The article also said that we’d claimed that vitamin C ‘cures’ HIV, that homeopathy could treat cancer, that we’d implied the cervical cancer vaccines has killed ‘hundreds’ of girls and that we’d told parents in our latest (October 2013) issues not to immunize their children with the MMR. The Wright Stuff on channel 5 quickly followed suit with a television debate, flashing up a picture of me, Five Live followed up with a television debate about our magazine.  By Thursday, when the Press Gazette were onto it, the headlines had escalated to:  ‘Warning that claims in alternative health mag could prove fatal.’ In all of the furore, not one of the newspapers, radio shows or television stations bothered to contact us, even to solicit a comment – which is Journalism 101 when you intend to run a story on someone, pro or con. It’s also apparent from the information published in The Times and in all the media following that not one journalist or broadcaster has read one single word we’ve written, particularly on the homeopathy story, and for very good reason: the article and the magazine containing it in fact have not yet been published. Here is what the Times said, and here is what we actually published: The Times stated: we said vitamin C cures HIV.   We had written: “US internist Robert Cathcart…devised an experiment with around 250 inpatients who tested positive for HIV.  In a letter to the editor of The Lancet, he wrote that his regime of giving oral doses of vitamin C close to “bowel tolerance” had “slowed, stopped or sometimes reversed for several years” the depletion of an HIV patient’s CD4+ cells. The Times says we tell parents not to immunize their children with the MMR. We interviewed – and simply quoted – a medical doctor called Dr Jayne Donegan, who had carried out her own research into the MMR, and concluded that a child with a strong immune system shouldn’t have the vaccine.  This was the considered view of Dr Donegan, not us. We were simply quoting her. The Times says we said that we implied that the cervical cancer vaccine has killed ‘hundreds’ of girls’.  We had said that, up to 2011, the American Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System had received notification of 68 deaths and 18,727 adverse reactions to the vaccine. The figure has now risen to 27,023 events. The Times said we referred to a study in India in which girls had died following the vaccine but had not mentioned that one girl had drowned and one died from a snake bite. We said that seven children died and 120 suffered debilitating side effects so bad that the trial was stopped following protests from parents, doctors, public health organizations and health networks.  The Times also omitted to mention that, in 2010, an official Indian government report discovered huge lapses in the study’s design, which resulted in gross under-reporting of serious side effects. The Times said that we ‘suggest homeopathy could cure cancer’.  In the ‘Coming Next Month’ column in our October issue we wrote the following (and this is all we wrote: ‘The US government has carried out impressive studies into homeopathy as a treatment for cancer, and a clinic is India is actually using it. We report on their findings about homeopathy as a cancer treatment.’ The Times story - and all the stories that follow -  are entirely the work of Simon Singh, and his organization Sense About Science, a protracted skirmish that’s been going on for about a year, ever since we went launched our magazine in September 2013.  Singh, you may know, is the self-proclaimed guardian of all things ‘scientific’ with the pharmaceutically backed organization he fronts, ‘Sense About Science’. Singh contacted our distributor, and then all our outlets (like Smiths and the supermarkets) and tried to persuade them to stop carrying us (they refused).  He then relentlessly pestered the Advertising Standards Association with complaints about our advertisers, to try to prevent them from advertising. Singh is also associated with the Nightingale Collaboration, a ragtag group who meet in a pub of the same name, also allegedly wedded to ‘true’ science. After our launch, dozens of anonymous trolls began writing hateful and fairly libellous stuff on our Facebook pages. Last autumn the Guardian ran an online story claiming that our distributor was threatening to ‘sue’ Singh (they are not and never have threatened, nor have we).  We also got ‘interviewed’ by a Glaswegian doctor named Margaret McCartney, also associated with Singh, who writes for the BMJ. Recently, a doctor called Dr. Matthew Lam began contacting supermarkets, and informing them that he was calling for complaints to be made to customer service teams at all the supermarkets who carry us.  He said he was spearheading this campaign with Singh, McCartney and Alan Henness of the Nightingale Collaboration. Please allow me to join the dots. Sense About Science publishes online as its sponsors the British Pharmaceutical Association, the official trade body for the UK’s drug companies.  Another one of its sponsors is The Guardian. The next interesting aspect of this episode is the sheer hypocrisy of News International, which published the original story about us. That company, which owns The Times, is owned by the Murdoch organization. The Murdoch organization also owns HarperCollins.  HarperCollins published three of my books, including a book entitled What Doctors Don’t Tell You, a culmination of many years of research for WDDTY the newsletter. Harper liked the book so much they published it twice, first in 1996 after paying a team of lawyers at Carter-Ruck, the UK’s top libel firm, to spend hundreds of hours of legal time carefully sifting through all of the scientific evidence supporting statements I made in the book to ensure the material was rock solid. It was only published after they were satisfied that every last statement was correct. WDDTY was a bestseller for Harper – so much so that they asked me to update it and published the new version in 2006.  It’s also been an international bestseller, currently in some 20 languages around the world. At one point, I was also a columnist for the Times and ran a story highly critical of the MMR vaccine. Besides being a demonstration of how shoddy journalism has become, what interests me about this episode is that it offers evidence of the enormous shift that has occurred in the press’s notion of its role in society. The Times seems to be suggesting that their role is to ‘protect’ the public by censoring information that departs from standard medical line. Determining what is fit for public consumption, or indeed how its readers should treat their illnesses, is emphatically not a newspaper’s job – ours or anyone else’s. Our job as journalists is simply to inform – to report the facts, even when they are inconvenient truths, as they are so often in medicine, particularly with such things as vaccines or alternative cancer therapy. For despite all the grandstanding and pink ribbons and prettily turned phrases, the fact remains that the whole of modern medicine’s arsenal against cancer  is both blatantly unscientific and ineffective.  When not manipulated, the bald statistics reveal that chemo only works 2 per cent of the time .The War on Cancer from the orthodox perspective is decisively being lost. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of people are being cured by other methods of cancer treatment. Millions of others who have cancer or whose loved ones have cancer want to know ways to treat cancer that are less dangerous and more effective. That qualifies as news, and it’s our duty as the press to report that.  It’s my job to deliver well researched information, and that’s supposed to be the Times’ job too. Several months ago, I met Patricia Ellsberg, the wife of Daniel Ellsberg.  Back when I was a student, deciding whether or not to be a journalist, Ellsberg, an employee of the CIA, came across hundreds of pages of documents revealing America’s shameful role in the Vietnam war. Ellsberg felt this was news and it was his duty to leak these papers to the New York Times.  The Times felt it was their duty to publish these revelations, these inconvenient truths.  Then President Nixon attempted to censor these leaks by attempting a legal embargo on The Times – a blatant attempt at government censorship. The Ellsbergs (faced with life imprisonment – was anybody ever so brave?) turned on a photocopy machine, made multiple copies and leaked the documents to the Washington Post. And when Nixon went after the Post, the Ellsbergs smuggled the papers to 17 other newspapers.  Not one paper blinked.  Not one paper decided this information wasn’t fit to print – or that the public needed to be ‘protected’ from a lying presidency. But these days, the press – far less ‘free,’ now largely owned by huge corporations, including in the pharmaceutical industry (Murdoch’s son was on the board of one such drug company) – has now become the party with powerful vested interests to protect. Today the press is the Richard Nixon of the piece. Back when the NY Times was publishing The Pentagon Papers and the Washington Post published the Watergate disclosures, newspapers wouldn’t be caught dead being associated with some industry backed body, especially one with the track record of carnage enjoyed by Big Pharma, as the Guardian now is. But today newspapers are haemorrhaging money, and so have to have industry backing and its consequent influence. The public, which wants the truth, knows this and rejects this industry public relations by boycotting newspapers.  Presently, the Guardian is losing £100,000 a day, and the Times is losing £80,000 a day.  People don’t believe newspapers anymore. They know they have to go elsewhere for their news. That’s why they come to publications like ours. As Deep Throat once told Woodward and Bernstein, when they were investigating Watergate:  If you want to find out the truth, just follow the money. If you’d like to support WDDTY and a free press, and you haven’t yet voiced your support of the stores for stocking the title, let the following Customer Service departments know: WH Smith Customer.Relations@WHSmith.co.uk Sainsbury’s customerservice@sainsburys.co.uk Tesco customer.service@tesco.co.uk And with the weekend coming up, show your support by buying a copy.  It’s available in Tesco, Sainsbury’s, WH Smiths, and over 8000 independent retail outlets. And you can subscribe through www.wddtysubscribe.com

MIMS Announces yet another Banned Drug. Ketoconazole.

Ketoconazole, or Nizoral is (or perhaps was?) an anti-fungal medication. Similar drugs are fluconazole (Diflucan), itraconazole (Sporanox), and miconazole (Micatin, Monistat). These drugs are supposed to prevent the growth of fungi by preventing production of the membranes that surround fungal cells. The FDA approved Ketoconazole in June 1981. So once again we have a drug, now known to be dangerous, being taken by patients for over 30 years - and only after all these decades have the Conventional Medical Establishment decided that it is unsafe or dangerous. The MIMs article states the following:

          "The antifungal ketoconazole (Nizoral) should no longer be prescribed as an oral treatment as the risks no longer outweigh the benefits, the MHRA has advised. The risk of hepatic injury with oral ketoconazole is thought to be higher than that associated with other available antifungal treatments".

The drug has been known to cause serious 'side-effects', or disease-inducing effects, for most of this time. This has been taken from the Drug.com website, which called them 'unwanted effects', and that they were 'rare'. Clearly they were not sufficient 'rare' to avoid the ban being imposed by the MHRA!

• Back, leg, or stomach pains
• black, tarry stools
• bleeding gums
• blood in the urine or stools
• blurred vision
• burning, crawling, itching, numbness, prickling, "pins and needles," or tingling feelings
• change in color vision
• change in the ability to see colors, especially blue or yellow
• chest pain
• chills
• confusion
• cough
• dark urine
• difficulty breathing
• difficulty seeing at night
• difficulty swallowing
• dizziness
• fast heartbeat
• fever
• general body swelling
• headache
• hives
• hoarseness
• increased sensitivity of the eyes to sunlight
• irritation
• itching
• joint pain, stiffness or swelling
• light-colored stools
• loss of appetite
• mood or mental changes
• nausea or vomiting, severe
• nosebleeds
• painful or difficult urination
• pale skin
• pinpoint red spots on the skin
• puffiness or swelling of the eyelids or around the eyes, face, lips or tongue
• redness of the skin
• shortness of breath
• skin rash
• sore throat
• sores, ulcers, or white spots on the lips or in the mouth
• swelling of the eyelids, face, lips, hands, or feet
• swollen glands
• tightness in the chest
• trouble sleeping
• troubled breathing or swallowing
• unusual bleeding or bruising
• unusual tiredness or weakness
• vision changes
• wheezing
• yellow eyes or skin
• Change in number of sperm and their ability to move
• decreased interest in sexual intercourse
• diarrhea
• hair loss or thinning of hair
• inability to have or keep an erection
• loss in sexual ability, desire, drive, or performance
• sleepiness or unusual drowsiness
• swelling of the breasts or breast soreness for both female and male

Quite a list of ailments in return for preventing the growth of fungi!

There is no indication in this list that the drug can also cause birth defects - but this website goes over the evidence for this.

I have no information that the drug has been banned anywhere else in the world, and on that basis, the drug companies will no doubt continue to sell it wherever they can, and deny, or play down the damage that the drug can cause to patients.

Click here for more information on Banned and Withdrawn Pharmaceutical drugs.

Conventional Drugs and Vaccines. The problem is a lack of honesty and transparency

Most people accept conventional drugs and vaccines because they believe them to effective for the purpose they are being taken, and also safe. By and large patients believe them to be safe because each drug, and each vaccine, has gone through a process that has found them to be effective and safe. The logic, for most patients, is simple:

          "We are not medically trained, so we trust what our doctors tell us. We trust them because they are assisted and guided by the NHS. And in turn, the NHS is funded by the Department of Health, and the Government. 

          "Surely, we reason, this is assurance enough that the medication we are given by our GP is both effective and safe".

We are further assured that conventional drugs and vaccines go through a process of testing and monitoring which is designed to ensure that they are suitable for us. In the main, it is on this basis that we, as patients, give our consent to conventional medical treatment.

Yet is this trust well placed? Is the conventional medical establishment one that can be trusted with our health, and our lives? Can we rely on it to protect us from dangerous drugs and vaccines?

Or has the conventional medical establishment placed itself entirely in the hands of the big, profitable and highly influential drug companies? Have financial and economic interests perverted conventional health care, and removed the central focus from patient safety to the viability of Big Pharma?

Lucija Tomljenovic, in her paper, "The vaccination policy and the Code of Practice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI): are they at odds?" certainly suggests that our trust is misplaced. In summary, the transcripts of the JCVI/DH meetings from the period from 1983 to 2010 appear to show that:

• Instead of reacting appropriately by re-examining existing vaccination policies when safety concerns over specific vaccines were identified by their own investigations, the JCVI either a) took no action, b) skewed or selectively removed unfavourable safety data from public reports and c) made intensive efforts to reassure both the public and the authorities in the safety of respective vaccines;

• Significantly restricted contraindication to vaccination criteria in order to increase vaccination rates despite outstanding and unresolved safety issues;

• On multiple occasions requested from vaccine manufacturers to make specific amendments to their data sheets, when these were in conflict with JCVI’s official advices on immunisations; 

• Persistently relied on methodologically dubious studies, while dismissing independent research, to promote vaccine policies; 

• Persistently and categorically downplayed safety concerns while over-inflating vaccine benefits; 

• Promoted and elaborated a plan for introducing new vaccines of questionable efficacy and safety into the routine paediatric schedule, on the assumption that the licenses would eventually be granted; 

• Actively discouraged research on vaccine safety issues; 

• Deliberately took advantage of parents’ trust and lack of relevant knowledge on vaccinations in order to promote a scientifically unsupported immunisation program which could put certain children at risk of severe long-term neurological damage; 

Notably, all of these actions appear to violate the JCVI’s own Code of Practice 

http:// www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@ab/documents/digitalasset/ dh_115363.pdf

But this should come as no surprise, as drug after drug, vaccine after vaccine, passes through testing, through drug regulation, as medication that is safe and effective. Then, in time, each of these drugs and vaccines are found to be not only unsafe, but ineffective.

Why this consistent failure?

Why this ongoing acceptance of consistent failure

Time after time, drug companies are taken to court, and fined heavily for not testing drugs properly, for not releasing key drug information, for the harm and damage drugs have caused patients. And each time the fine is paid, and the drug companies continue 'business as normal', and we are either not told about it, or we assume it is a one-off error.

There is something rotten within the Conventional Medical Edifice. 

The rot is harming and killing us. 

And we have to begin to demand more honesty, and more transparency.

And we have to insist on safer medicine.

Flu Vaccine. Is it worth the serious risks involved?

Should you have the flu vaccine this Autumn?

Many people, young and old, healthy or not, will be under pressure to have the flu vaccine. It happens every Autumn. Conventional health authorities, including our own trusted GP's, will imply that the vaccine is effective, and they will tell us that it is safe. Other organisations, even your church, may also join in the promotion! So what is the evidence?

First
How serious is influenza? And do we really need protection from it?
Influenza used to be a killer disease, particularly in times when poor housing and poverty reduced our resistance to it. The Conventional Medical Establishment still believes that the flu is a major killer, particularly when they want us to have the flu vaccine!  So the dangers of influenza are massaged: we are subjected to a kind of 'dodgy dossier', Iraq style!

Influenza Deaths: The Hype vs. the Evidence. This article outlines how selling big flu mortality numbers assist in selling the vaccine. It asks whether there are 200,000 or just 30,000 hospitalisations in the USA through flu. It shows how flu deaths are inflated by including many other conditions in the figures. And it shows how deaths through influenza have been dropping for many decades now.

This article examines similar information - and concludes that the threat of influenza is not as real as the conventional medical establishment wants you to think! The CDC, accused of lying here, is the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, based in the USA. This is what they say about themselves.

          "For over 60 years, CDC has been dedicated to protecting health and promoting quality of life through the prevention and control of disease, injury, and disability. We are committed to programs that reduce the health and economic consequences of the leading causes of death and disability, thereby ensuring a long, productive, healthy life for all people.

Noble aims indeed, but 'lying' about the seriousness of influenza is not mentioned as part of their task. So if they have, why have they done so? The CDC are just one of those supposedly 'independent' health organisations that actually speak with, alongside, and always in harmony, with the Big Pharma companies, and promote their values and objectives.

What official government, and supposedly independent health bodies say, therefore, cannot be trusted. We first need to know their links with Big Pharma, both in financial and personnel terms.

Second
Is the flu vaccine effective?
Even if the threat of influenza is not as serious as we are usually told, it is still an unpleasant disease. So does the vaccine reduce the risk of suffering serious influenza? It would appear that only the Conventional Medical Establishment believes this. Most evidence points in quite another direction!

This study published in the Cochrane Library found no evidence of benefit for influenza vaccinations. It also damns the quality of flu vaccine studies by saying that the vast majority of trials were inadequate.

This study refers to 'authoritative reviews' that reveal there is a 'conspicuous absence of conclusive evidence' about effectiveness of influenza vaccines in the following groups: 

• children under 2, 
• healthy adults, 
• the elderly, 
• and healthcare workers who care for the elderly.

The flu vaccine is worthless. This article brings together a large number of statistics, studies and observations about the lack of effectiveness of the flu vaccine. It also looks at some of the dangers of the flu vaccines.

What is probably equally alarming is that the Medical industry has admitted that current flu shots are useless - so despite their sales pitch promoting it, at least parts of the industry itself, perhaps the more honest parts, admit that the flu shot is useless. The article states that the flu vaccines currently used "do not actually promote natural immunity", and asks the important question: "if current flu shots do not boost the immune response, then what, exactly, are they good for"?

          "Not much, according to a recent study published in The Lancet. Though the mainstream media widely reported that the study's findings showed an effectiveness rate of 60 percent for flu shots, actual data in the study reveal that flu shots help about 1.5 out of every 100 adults. This, of course, translates into a measly 1.5 percent effectiveness rate".

Yet there is another issue. The value of flu vaccines is not just a matter of whether they are effective, but do they actually make matters worse!

Does the annual flu vaccine increase your chances of getting flu? This article actually examines this question. It found that the vaccines actually compromised natural immunity, and can double the chance of actually contracting 'another type of flu'.

This article confirms this finding, Flu Vaccine INCREASES Risk of Serious Pandemic Flu Illness, focusing on information from the Canadian media. This article, Study finds flu shot really did make people sicker, goes over similar information.

And finally, when there is an epidemic of flu, this study indicates that it is those people who have been vaccinated who are struck down by it! In what they call 'the dirty little secret of the vaccine industry', "most people getting the flu right now are the same people who were vaccinated with the flu shot".

          "The CDC refuses to release any statistics on this, of course, because then the total hoax of the flu shot would be exposed. But I've been making phone calls to a large network of friends and professional contacts, and they're all telling me the same thing: Of the people they know who are getting sick, about two-thirds routinely get flu shots!

Reading all this evidence together strongly suggests that the flu vaccine is, indeed, useless. Yet, if the vaccines were just useless that would be bad enough. However, what is becoming increasingly clear is that they are also extremely harmful to our health.

They can, and do, cause serious disease.

Third
What diseases can the influenza vaccines cause?
The conventional medical establishment will not tell us about any of this. Take a look at the NHS Choices website on Influenza, which, quite remarkably, does not say anything about the side-effects, or adverse reactions to the vaccine! Yet, as the following articles indicate, the flu vaccines appear to be one of the most dangerous being offered to us.

Children’s flu vaccine weakens immune system. Our immune system is central to the maintenance of our health. Even conventional medics know this - but here they are promoting a vaccine that has been linked to weakening it - thus leaving us more vulnerable to all kinds of illnesses and diseases.

This article outlines a study that found that the flu vaccines triples rates of hospitalisation of children in the USA.

This article covers research that found the Flu Vaccine caused 5.5 times more respiratory infections - yet was still able to find that the vaccine was effective!

Narcolepsy: I have recently dealt with the problem with the disease - already admitted by our government, and announced in the British Medical Journal. Narcolepsy is becoming a serious problem, which looks likely to produce a serious epidemic of this previously rare disease, if the vaccines are not withdrawn or banned soon.

This article focuses on a study that found that flu vaccines can damage your heart, as well as fetus' and infants, and asks whether the "theoretical benefits really outweigh the known harms".

This article says that Americans who had flu vaccine ran risk of developing 'paralysis disorders'. This refers mainly to Guillain-Barre Syndrome, or GBS - widely and increasingly linked to vaccines.

           ".... researchers found that among the 23 million people who were vaccinated during the scare, an additional 1.6 cases of GBS were observed per one million people vaccinated".


Febrile convulsions have also been linked to one flu vaccine in Australia.

"The rate of febrile seizures following Flavax ..... was estimated at approximately 1 per 100 doses administered among children aged six months through four years old."


As a result of this amazing rate of harm, the Australian government (who in recent years have supported mandatory medication) withdrew the vaccine - although only for children under 5 years old!

Yet older people have equal reason for avoid the flu vaccine. They are linked with dementia and Alzheimer's disease, especially when they have been taken for several years in succession.

Fourth
Death!
There appears to be little doubt that flu vaccines can cause death, and indeed, it can almost certainly cause death to a greater degree than influenza itself!

This article sets the scene about the 'deadly risks of the flu vaccine. Flu shots are medical procedures that come with deadly risks.

          "In searching the year 2011 on the CDC Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System website - (http://vaers.hhs.gov/index) - it was found that 51 deaths were caused by the flu vaccines, along with 232 life threatening events, 116 permanent disabilities, 739 hospitalizations, 109 prolonged hospitalizations, 4,039 ER visits, and 6,221 "not serious" reports. According to the National Vaccine Information Center, fewer than one percent of all adverse vaccine reactions are ever reported. If this is true, you can add two zeros to any of the above figures to be closer to actual numbers..... Flu shots kill and maim. As stated above, 30% of flu vaccinations come with adverse reactions, and about 6% of all adverse reactions bring with them serious health events - including death". 

Yet rather than making this a matter of stark and impersonal statistics, these following examples demonstrate the more human aspects of these 'deadly risks'.

Death by Flu Shot. 7 Year-Old Receives Flu Vaccine; Dies 4 Days Later. Here is an alarming story, and a deep family tragedy from the USA.

Healthy 7 Year Old Girl Dies in Mother’s Arms After Flu Shot.

Three deaths linked to flu vaccines in Ireland

But perhaps the most frightening statistic relating to deaths caused by the flu vaccines is the 4,250% increase in fetal deaths reported to VAERS after the Flu Vaccine was given to pregnant women. You will see that on the NHS Choices website there is some mention of pregnant women. But they do not make any mention this awful statistic.

The duplicity of doctors and other health professionals.
So have you made up your mind? Do you think having the flu vaccine is something worth doing?

Well, doctors and other health professionals appear to have made up their minds - and most of them, two-thirds, are actually refusing the vaccine - despite frantic efforts to 'encourage' and cajole them into doing so. Most UK medics refusing flu vaccines - Medical Officer resorts to bullying.

So doctor's the very people who are encouraging us to have the vaccine, are not prepared to have it themselves. You may ask why this is!

Perhaps they know something they are not telling us!

Except, of course, you have now read about some of the evidence that suggests it is not a good idea. You can make a properly informed choice.

Fifth
Homeopathy, an alternative, safer treatment?
If you would like to compare conventional prevention and treatment of influenza with safer, and more effective homeopathic treatment - including suggestions about taking very simple remedies during the Autumn and Winter, click on this link to the 'Why Homeopathy?' website.

The Flu Vaccine that causes Narcolepsy? Pandemrix.

It is strange to see a Pulse article (a GP internet magazine) stating that whilst the government has at last agreed that the Pandemrix flu vaccine causes Narcolepsy, the drug manufacturer, GSK, says that "its causes are not yet fully understood". So the cause is admitted. But then they are not understood! The full quote is:

          "Patient safety is our number one priority and we are actively researching how narcolepsy is triggered and how this vaccine might have interacted with other risk factors in affected individuals. We hope these ongoing research efforts will enable us to provide more answers".

Ahhh! So the flu vaccine is not the whole story! It has 'interacted with other risk factors'! They continue:

          "Narcolepsy is a complex disease and its causes are not yet fully understood but it is generally considered to be associated with genetic and environmental factors, including infections. We remain committed to pursuing additional research to understand the association between Pandemrix and narcolepsy and continue to support the research of others who are investigating reported cases".

Well that sounds better. Doesn't it? The disease is associated with infections, and genetic and environmental factors. And the nice drug company is doing research in order to understand what is happening, no doubt on our behalf.

Meanwhile, I must assume, GSK (and the manufacturers of other flu vaccines) will continue to promote and sell, and doctors will continue to prescribe Pandemrix to patients until such time that no further prevarication can be accepted!

It is always the same. A drug or vaccine is found to cause a serious disease, usually worse than the disease it is supposed to be treating, but the Conventional Medical Establishment seeks to defend and to justify itself, and the Media is happy to relay the ConMed apologies for the damage they do, regularly, consistently, routinely.

See, for example, this BBC apology for the harm caused by the MMR vaccine. This article dates back to August 2010, when compensation was paid to a family after a long campaign following the damage done to their son - a normal child prior to the vaccination, but now, as a teenager, subject to

          "frequent epileptic fits, is unable to talk, stand unaided or feed himself, but is not autistic".

And interesting, unsolicited comment that last one - "but is not autistic". He probably didn't have diabetes, heart disease, dementia, and a variety of other diseases - but we are specifically told - he did not have autism!

But look at the rest of the article, written in defence of the MMR vaccine (seen so often in BBC journalism, and mainstream journalism generally) - totally compliant with the interests of the Big Pharma drug companies, and the opinions of the Conventional Medical Establishment.

So despite the risks, the MMR vaccine is still imposed on us.

And the BBC continues to do so, as this article from 25 September 2013 demonstrates. It reports that Antidepressant drugs have been 'linked' with type-2 diabetes', but spends most of the time emphasising that "there was no proof that one necessarily caused the other".

          "It may be that people taking anti-depressants put on weight which, in turn, increases their diabetes risk, the team told Diabetes Care journal".

Or it might be that the drug may interfere with blood sugar control! But whilst this intellectual discussion continues, unresolved, antidepressants are still be given out to children (and adults) like sweeties!

What is clear is that there is no 'fail-safe' mechanism at work with conventional medicine.

Drugs and vaccines are prescribed to us. Reports and warnings about the adverse reactions, and the creation of diseases they cause, come along - but they continue to be prescribed, regardless of the consequences to patients. Medical 'science' has to prove the link first, and whilst this might take years, even decades, in the meantime, the patient suffers.

If we suspect that a car, or a washing machine, or any other sort of product is unsafe, they are recalled. Or modifications are made. Or parts are changed. SOMETHING is done.

When conventional medicine puts our health at risk NOTHING is done. Patients suffer, they contract serious disease, often they die. But the drug or vaccine continues to be given to patients, and is withdrawn or banned only when the cause is absolutely proven, and can no longer be doubted.

So what about Narcolepsy? It is a disease that has been known about for some time, so vaccines are certainly not the only cause. But once it was an extremely rare disease. Now, it is one of those diseases that is becoming more prevalent - like dementia, diabetes, arthritis, and a host of other diseases that are now at epidemic proportions.

Conventional drugs and vaccines have almost certainly played an important role in creating these epidemics of once uncommon diseases.

So if flu vaccines are triggering a new epidemic this should be good enough to produce a response from the regulatory agencies. It almost certainly will not be! This is not a new insight into the consequences of these vaccines. It has been reported time and time again, and still nothing has happened - except that our government, and the NHS, and our doctors, continue to promote them, without telling us about the evidence against them.

Risk of narcolepsy in children and young people receiving AS03 adjuvanted pandemic A/H1N1 2009 influenza vaccine: retrospective analysis - indicating the the British Medical Journal is aware of the problem, and has reported it.

Over 700 children develop Narcolepsy after flu vaccination - to indicate the number involved.

Flu vaccine causes 1400 percent increased risk of Narcolepsy - to indicate the likelihood of another major epidemic, caused by conventional medicine, if something is not done to withdraw or ban this vaccine.

Evidence grows for narcolepsy link to GSK swine flu shot - an article that says more than 30 million people in 47 countries during 2009-2010 received Pandemrix, and 795 people in Europe reported Narcolepsy. It also states that it has not been used in the USA.

Flu vaccine linked to high risk of narcolepsy in those under 30 - indicating that it is not only children who are at risk.

Formerly healthy, energetic boy still suffers from extreme narcolepsy two years after getting swine flu vaccine - to demonstrate the personal and family tragedies cause by the flu vaccine.

The flu vaccine is linked with many other problems too, which will be dealt with in a later blog

And, as we have seen, if we are waiting to hear the truth about Pandemrix, and flu vaccines generally, from our mainstream media, including the BBC, we are likely to be waiting in vain!