Death by Medicine

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Death by Medicine
By Gary Null, PhD; Carolyn Dean MD, ND; Martin Feldman, MD; Debora Rasio, MD; and Dorothy Smith, PhD
http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/mar ... ath_02.htm

Something is wrong when regulatory agencies pretend that vitamins are dangerous, yet ignore published statistics showing that government-sanctioned medicine is the real hazard.
Until now, Life Extension could cite only isolated statistics to make its case about the dangers of conventional medicine. No one had ever analyzed and combined ALL of the published literature dealing with injuries and deaths caused by government-protected medicine. That has now changed.
A group of researchers meticulously reviewed the statistical evidence and their findings are absolutely shocking.4 These researchers have authored a paper titled “Death by Medicine” that presents compelling evidence that today’s system frequently causes more harm than good.
This fully referenced report shows the number of people having in-hospital, adverse reactions to prescribed drugs to be 2.2 million per year. The number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections is 20 million per year. The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million per year. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million per year.
The most stunning statistic, however, is that the total number of deaths caused by conventional medicine is an astounding 783,936 per year. It is now evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the US. (By contrast, the number of deaths attributable to heart disease in 2001 was 699,697, while the number of deaths attributable to cancer was 553,251.5)
We placed this article on our website to memorialize the failure of the American medical system. By exposing these gruesome statistics in painstaking detail, we provide a basis for competent and compassionate medical professionals to recognize the inadequacies of today’s system and at least attempt to institute meaningful reforms.
Natural medicine is under siege, as pharmaceutical company lobbyists urge lawmakers to deprive Americans of the benefits of dietary supplements. Drug-company front groups have launched slanderous media campaigns to discredit the value of healthy lifestyles. The FDA continues to interfere with those who offer natural products that compete with prescription drugs.
These attacks against natural medicine obscure a lethal problem that until now was buried in thousands of pages of scientific text. In response to these baseless challenges to natural medicine, the Nutrition Institute of America commissioned an independent review of the quality of “government-approved” medicine. The startling findings from this meticulous study indicate that conventional medicine is “the leading cause of death” in the United States .
The Nutrition Institute of America is a nonprofit organization that has sponsored independent research for the past 30 years. To support its bold claim that conventional medicine is America 's number-one killer, the Nutritional Institute of America mandated that every “count” in this “indictment” of US medicine be validated by published, peer-reviewed scientific studies.
What you are about to read is a stunning compilation of facts that documents that those who seek to abolish consumer access to natural therapies are misleading the public. Over 700,000 Americans die each year at the hands of government-sanctioned medicine, while the FDA and other government agencies pretend to protect the public by harassing those who offer safe alternatives.
A definitive review of medical peer-reviewed journals and government health statistics shows that American medicine frequently causes more harm than good.
Each year approximately 2.2 million US hospital patients experience adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to prescribed medications.(1) In 1995, Dr. Richard Besser of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections to be 20 million; in 2003, Dr. Besser spoke in terms of tens of millions of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually.(2, 2a) Approximately 7.5 million unnecessary medical and surgical procedures are performed annually in the US,(3) while approximately 8.9 million Americans are hospitalized unnecessarily.(4)
As shown in the following table, the estimated total number of iatrogenic deaths—that is, deaths induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures— in the US annually is 783,936. It is evident that the American medical system is itself the leading cause of death and injury in the US . By comparison, approximately 699,697 Americans died of heart in 2001, while 553,251 died of cancer.(5)
Table 1: Estimated Annual Mortality and Economic Cost of Medical Intervention
Condition
Deaths
Cost
Author
Adverse Drug Reactions
106,000
$12 billion
Lazarou(1), Suh (49)
Medical error
98,000
$2 billion
IOM(6)
Bedsores
115,000
$55 billion
Xakellis(7), Barczak (8)
Infection
88,000
$5 billion
Weinstein(9), MMWR (10)
Malnutrition
108,800
-----------
Nurses Coalition(11)
Outpatients
199,000
$77 billion
Starfield(12), Weingart(112)
Unnecessary Procedures
37,136
$122 billion
HCUP(3,13)
Surgery-Related
32,000
$9 billion
AHRQ(85)
Total
783,936
$282 billion
 

Using Leape's 1997 medical and drug error rate of 3 million(14) multiplied by the 14% fatality rate he used in 1994(16) produces an annual death rate of 420,000 for drug errors and medical errors combined. Using this number instead of Lazorou's 106,000 drug errors and the Institute of Medicine 's (IOM) estimated 98,000 annual medical errors would add another 216,000 deaths, for a total of 999,936 deaths annually.

Table 2: Estimated Annual Mortality and Economic Cost of Medical Intervention
Condition
Deaths
Cost
Author
ADR/med error
420,000
$200 billion
Leape(14)
Bedsores
115,000
$55 billion
Xakellis(7), Barczak (8)
Infection
88,000
$5 billion
Weinstein(9), MMWR (10)
Malnutrition
108,800
-----------
Nurses Coalition(11)
Outpatients
199,000
$77 billion
Starfield(12), Weingart(112)
Unnecessary Procedures
37,136
$122 billion
HCUP(3,13)
Surgery-Related
32,000
$9 billion
AHRQ(85)
Total
999,936
 
 

The enumerating of unnecessary medical events is very important in our analysis. Any invasive, unnecessary medical procedure must be considered as part of the larger iatrogenic picture. Unfortunately, cause and effect go unmonitored. The figures on unnecessary events represent people who are thrust into a dangerous health care system. Each of these 16.4 million lives is being affected in ways that could have fatal consequences. Simply entering a hospital could result in the following:
• In 16.4 million people, a 2.1% chance (affecting 186,000) of a serious adverse drug reaction(1)
• In 16.4 million people, a 5-6% chance (affecting 489,500) of acquiring a nosocomial infection(9)
• In16.4 million people, a 4-36% chance (affecting 1.78 million) of having an iatrogenic injury (medical error and adverse drug reactions).(16)
• In 16.4 million people, a 17% chance (affecting 1.3 million) of a procedure error.(40)

These statistics represent a one-year time span. Working with the most conservative figures from our statistics, we project the following 10-year death rates.
Table 3: Estimated 10-Year Death Rates from Medical Intervention
Condition
10-Year Deaths
Author
Adverse Drug Reaction
1.06 million
(1)
Medical error
0.98 million
(6)
Bedsores
1.15 million
(7,8)
Nosocomial Infection
0.88 million
(9,10)
Malnutrition
1.09 million
(11)
Outpatients
1.99 million
(12, 112)
Unnecessary Procedures
371,360
(3,13)
Surgery-related
320,000
(85)
Total
7,841,360
 

Our estimated 10-year total of 7.8 million iatrogenic deaths is more than all the casualties from all the wars fought by the US throughout its entire history.
Our projected figures for unnecessary medical events occurring over a 10-year period also are dramatic.
Table 4: Estimated 10-Year Unnecessary Medical Events
Unnecessary Events
10-year Number
Iatrogenic Events
Hospitalization
89 million(4)
17 million
Procedures
75 million(3)
15 million
Total
164 million
 

These figures show that an estimated 164 million people—more than half of the total US population—receive unneeded medical treatment over the course of a decade.
INTRODUCTION

Never before have the complete statistics on the multiple causes of iatrogenesis been combined in one article. Medical science amasses tens of thousands of papers annually, each representing a tiny fragment of the whole picture. To look at only one piece and try to understand the benefits and risks is like standing an inch away from an elephant and trying to describe everything about it. You have to step back to see the big picture, as we have done here. Each specialty, each division of medicine keeps its own records and data on morbidity and mortality. We have now completed the painstaking work of reviewing thousands of studies and putting pieces of the puzzle together.

Is American Medicine Working?

US health care spending reached $1.6 trillion in 2003, representing 14% of the nation's gross national product.(15) Considering this enormous expenditure, we should have the best medicine in the world. We should be preventing and reversing disease, and doing minimal harm. Careful and objective review, however, shows we are doing the opposite. Because of the extraordinarily narrow, technologically driven context in which contemporary medicine examines the human condition, we are completely missing the larger picture.

Medicine is not taking into consideration the following critically important aspects of a healthy human organism: (a) stress and how it adversely affects the immune system and life processes; (b) insufficient exercise; (c) excessive caloric intake; (d) highly processed and denatured foods grown in denatured and chemically damaged soil; and (e) exposure to tens of thousands of environmental toxins. Instead of minimizing these disease-causing factors, we cause more illness through medical technology, diagnostic testing, overuse of medical and surgical procedures, and overuse of pharmaceutical drugs. The huge disservice of this therapeutic strategy is the result of little effort or money being spent on preventing disease.

Underreporting of Iatrogenic Events

As few as 5% and no more than 20% of iatrogenic acts are ever reported.(16,24,25,33,34) This implies that if medical errors were completely and accurately reported, we would have an annual iatrogenic death toll much higher than 783,936. In 1994, Leape said his figure of 180,000 medical mistakes resulting in death annually was equivalent to three jumbo-jet crashes every two days.(16) Our considerably higher figure is equivalent to six jumbo jets are falling out of the sky each day.
What we must deduce from this report is that medicine is in need of complete and total reform—from the curriculum in medical schools to protecting patients from excessive medical intervention. It is obvious that we cannot change anything if we are not honest about what needs to be changed. This report simply shows the degree to which change is required.

We are fully aware of what stands in the way of change: powerful pharmaceutical and medical technology companies, along with other powerful groups with enormous vested interests in the business of medicine. They fund medical research, support medical schools and hospitals, and advertise in medical journals. With deep pockets, they entice scientists and academics to support their efforts. Such funding can sway the balance of opinion from professional caution to uncritical acceptance of new therapies and drugs. You have only to look at the people who make up the hospital, medical, and government health advisory boards to see conflicts of interest. The public is mostly unaware of these interlocking interests.

For example, a 2003 study found that nearly half of medical school faculty who serve on institutional review boards (IRB) to advise on clinical trial research also serve as consultants to the pharmaceutical industry.(17) The study authors were concerned that such representation could cause potential conflicts of interest. A news release by Dr. Erik Campbell, the lead author, said, "Our previous research with faculty has shown us that ties to industry can affect scientific behavior, leading to such things as trade secrecy and delays in publishing research. It's possible that similar relationships with companies could affect IRB members' activities and attitudes.”(18)

Medical Ethics and Conflict of Interest in Scientific Medicine

Jonathan Quick, director of essential drugs and medicines policy for the World Health Organization (WHO), wrote in a recent WHO bulletin: "If clinical trials become a commercial venture in which self-interest overrules public interest and desire overrules science, then the social contract which allows research on human subjects in return for medical advances is broken."(19)

As former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine , Dr. Marcia Angell struggled to bring greater attention to the problem of commercializing scientific research. In her outgoing editorial entitled “ Is Academic Medicine for Sale?” Angell said that growing conflicts of interest are tainting science and called for stronger restrictions on pharmaceutical stock ownership and other financial incentives for researchers:(20) “When the boundaries between industry and academic medicine become as blurred as they are now, the business goals of industry influence the mission of medical schools in multiple ways.” She did not discount the benefits of research but said a Faustian bargain now existed between medical schools and the pharmaceutical industry.

Angell left the New England Journal in June 2000. In June 2002, the New England Journal of Medicine announced that it would accept journalists who accept money from drug companies because it was too difficult to find ones who have no ties. Another former editor of the journal, Dr. Jerome Kassirer, said that was not the case and that plenty of researchers are available who do not work for drug companies.(21) According to an ABC news report, pharmaceutical companies spend over $2 billion a year on over 314,000 events attended by doctors.

The ABC news report also noted that a survey of clinical trials revealed that when a drug company funds a study, there is a 90% chance that the drug will be perceived as effective whereas a non-drug-company-funded study will show favorable results only 50% of the time. It appears that money can't buy you love but it can buy any "scientific" result desired.

Cynthia Crossen, a staffer for the Wall Street Journal, i n 1996 published Tainted Truth : The Manipulation of Fact in America , a book about the widespread practice of lying with statistics.(22) Commenting on the state of scientific research, she wrote: “The road to hell was paved with the flood of corporate research dollars that eagerly filled gaps left by slashed government research funding.” Her data on financial involvement showed that in l981 the drug industry “gave” $292 million to colleges and universities for research. By l991, this figure had risen to $2.1 billion.

THE FIRST IATROGENIC STUDY
Dr. Lucian L. Leape opened medicine's Pandora's box in his 1994 paper, “Error in Medicine,” which appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).(16) He found that Schimmel reported in 1964 that 20% of hospital patients suffered iatrogenic injury, with a 20% fatality rate. In 1981 Steel reported that 36% of hospitalized patients experienced iatrogenesis with a 25% fatality rate, and adverse drug reactions were involved in 50% of the injuries. In 1991, Bedell reported that 64% of acute heart attacks in one hospital were preventable and were mostly due to adverse drug reactions.
Leape focused on the “Harvard Medical Practice Study” published in 1991, (16a) which found a 4% iatrogenic injury rate for patients, with a 14% fatality rate, in 1984 in New York State. From the 98,609 patients injured and the 14% fatality rate, he estimated that in the entire U.S. 180,000 people die each year partly as a result of iatrogenic injury.
Why Leape chose to use the much lower figure of 4% injury for his analysis remains in question. Using instead the average of the rates found in the three studies he cites (36%, 20%, and 4%) would have produced a 20% medical error rate. The number of iatrogenic deaths using an average rate of injury and his 14% fatality rate would be 1,189,576.
Leape acknowledged that the literature on medical errors is sparse and represents only the tip of the iceberg, noting that when errors are specifically sought out, reported rates are “distressingly high.” He cited several autopsy studies with rates as high as 35-40% of missed diagnoses causing death. He also noted that an intensive care unit reported an average of 1.7 errors per day per patient, and 29% of those errors were potentially serious or fatal.
Leape calculated the error rate in the intensive care unit study. First, he found that each patient had an average of 178 “activities” (staff/procedure/medical interactions) a day, of which 1.7 were errors, which means a 1% failure rate. This may not seem like much, but Leape cited industry standards showing that in aviation, a 0.1% failure rate would mean two unsafe plane landings per day at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport; in the US Postal Service, a 0.1% failure rate would mean 16,000 pieces of lost mail every hour; and in the banking industry, a 0.1% failure rate would mean 32,000 bank checks deducted from the wrong bank account.
In trying to determine why there are so many medical errors, Leape acknowledged the lack of reporting of medical errors. Medical errors occur in thousands of different locations and are perceived as isolated and unusual events. But the most important reason that the problem of medical errors is unrecognized and growing, according to Leape, is that doctors and nurses are unequipped to deal with human error because of the culture of medical training and practice. Doctors are taught that mistakes are unacceptable. Medical mistakes are therefore viewed as a failure of character and any error equals negligence. No one is taught what to do when medical errors do occur. Leape cites McIntyre and Popper, who said the “infallibility model” of medicine leads to intellectual dishonesty with a need to cover up mistakes rather than admit them. There are no Grand Rounds on medical errors, no sharing of failures among doctors, and no one to support them emotionally when their error harms a patient.
Leape hoped his paper would encourage medical practitioners “to fundamentally change the way they think about errors and why they occur.” It has been almost a decade since this groundbreaking work, but the mistakes continue to soar.
In 1995, a JAMA report noted, "Over a million patients are injured in US hospitals each year, and approximately 280,000 die annually as a result of these injuries. Therefore, the iatrogenic death rate dwarfs the annual automobile accident mortality rate of 45,000 and accounts for more deaths than all other accidents combined."(23)
At a 1997 press conference, Leape released a nationwide poll on patient iatrogenesis conducted by the National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF), which is sponsored by the American Medical Association (AMA). Leape is a founding member of NPSF. The survey found that more than 100 million Americans have been affected directly or indirectly by a medical mistake. Forty-two percent were affected directly and 84% personally knew of someone who had experienced a medical mistake.(14)
At this press conference, Leape updated his 1994 statistics, noting that as of 1997, medical errors in inpatient hospital settings nationwide could be as high as 3 million and could cost as much as $200 billion . Leape used a 14% fatality rate to determine a medical error death rate of 180,000 in 1994.(16) In 1997, using Leape's base number of 3 million errors, the annual death rate could be as high as 420,000 for hospital inpatients alone.
ONLY A FRACTION OF MEDICAL ERRORS ARE REPORTED
In 1994, Leape said he was well aware that medical errors were not being reported.(16) A study conducted in two obstetrical units in the UK found that only about one-quarter of adverse incidents were ever reported, to protect staff, preserve reputations, or for fear of reprisals, including lawsuits.(24). An analysis by Wald and Shojania found that only 1.5% of all adverse events result in an incident report, and only 6% of adverse drug events are identified properly. The authors learned that the American College of Surgeons estimates that surgical incident reports routinely capture only 5-30% of adverse events. In one study, only 20% of surgical complications resulted in discussion at morbidity and mortality rounds.(25) From these studies, it appears that all the statistics gathered on medical errors may substantially underestimate the number of adverse drug and medical therapy incidents. They also suggest that our statistics concerning mortality resulting from medical errors may be in fact be conservative figures.
An article in Psychiatric Times (April 2000) outlines the stakes involved in reporting medical errors.(26) The authors found that the public is fearful of suffering a fatal medical error, and doctors are afraid they will be sued if they report an error. This brings up the obvious question: who is reporting medical errors? Usually it is the patient or the patient's surviving family. If no one notices the error, it is never reported. Janet Heinrich, an associate director at the U.S. General Accounting Office responsible for health financing and public health issues, testified before a House subcommittee hearing on medical errors that "the full magnitude of their threat to the American public is unknown” and "gathering valid and useful information about adverse events is extremely difficult." She acknowledged that the fear of being blamed, and the potential for legal liability, played key roles in the underreporting of errors. The Psychiatric Times noted that the AMA strongly opposes mandatory reporting of medical errors.(26) If doctors are not reporting, what about nurses? A survey of nurses found that they also fail to report medical mistakes for fear of retaliation.(27)
Standard medical pharmacology texts admit that relatively few doctors ever report adverse drug reactions to the FDA.(28) The reasons range from not knowing such a reporting system exists to fear of being sued.(29) Yet the public depends on this tremendously flawed system of voluntary reporting by doctors to know whether a drug or a medical intervention is harmful.
Pharmacology texts also will tell doctors how hard it is to separate drug side effects from disease symptoms. Treatment failure is most often attributed to the disease and not the drug or doctor. Doctors are warned, “Probably nowhere else in professional life are mistakes so easily hidden, even from ourselves.”(30) It may be hard to accept, but it is not difficult to understand why only 1 in 20 side effects is reported to either hospital administrators or the FDA.(31, 31a)
If hospitals admitted to the actual number of errors for which they are responsible, which is about 20 times what is reported, they would come under intense scrutiny.(32) Jerry Phillips, associate director of the FDA's Office of Post Marketing Drug Risk Assessment, confirms this number. “In the broader area of adverse drug reaction data, the 250,000 reports received annually probably represent only 5% of the actual reactions that occur.”(33) Dr. Jay Cohen, who has extensively researched adverse drug reactions, notes that because only 5% of adverse drug reactions are reported, there are in fact 5 million medication reactions each year.(34)
A 2003 survey is all the more distressing because there seems to be no improvement in error reporting, even with all the attention given to this topic. Dr. Dorothea Wild surveyed medical residents at a community hospital in Connecticut and found that only half were aware that the hospital had a medical error-reporting system, and that the vast majority did not use it at all. Dr. Wild says this does not bode well for the future. If doctors don't learn error reporting in their training, they will never use it. Wild adds that error reporting is the first step in locating the gaps in the medical system and fixing them. Not even that first step has been taken to date.(35)
PUBLIC SUGGESTIONS ON IATROGENESIS
In a telephone survey, 1,207 adults ranked the effectiveness of the following measures in reducing preventable medical errors that result in serious harm.(36) (Following each measure is the percentage of respondents who ranked the measure as “very effective.”)
• giving doctors more time to spend with patients (78%)
• requiring hospitals to develop systems to avoid medical errors (74%)
• better training of health professionals (73%)
• using only doctors specially trained in intensive care medicine on intensive care units (73%)
• requiring hospitals to report all serious medical errors to a state agency (71%)
• increasing the number of hospital nurses (69%)
• reducing the work hours of doctors in training to avoid fatigue (66%)
• encouraging hospitals to voluntarily report serious medical errors to a state agency (62%).
•
DRUG IATROGENESIS
Prescription drugs constitute the major treatment modality of scientific medicine. With the discovery of the “germ theory,” medical scientists convinced the public that infectious organisms were the cause of illness. Finding the “cure” for these infections proved much harder than anyone imagined. From the beginning, chemical drugs promised much more than they delivered. But far beyond not working, the drugs also caused incalculable side effects. The drugs themselves, even when properly prescribed, have side effects that can be fatal, as Lazarou's study(1) showed. But human error can make the situation even worse.
Medication Errors
A survey of a 1992 national pharmacy database found a total of 429,827 medication errors from 1,081 hospitals. Medication errors occurred in 5.22% of patients admitted to these hospitals each year. The authors concluded that at least 90,895 patients annually were harmed by medication errors in the US as a whole.(37)
A 2002 study shows that 20% of hospital medications for patients had dosage errors. Nearly 40% of these errors were considered potentially harmful to the patient. In a typical 300-patient hospital, the number of errors per day was 40.(38)
Problems involving patients' medications were even higher the following year. The error rate intercepted by pharmacists in this study was 24%, making the potential minimum number of patients harmed by prescription drugs 417,908.(39)
Recent Adverse Drug Reactions

More-recent studies on adverse drug reactions show that the figures from 1994 published in Lazarou's 1998 JAMA article may be increasing. A 2003 study followed 400 patients after discharge from a tertiary care hospital setting (requiring highly specialized skills, technology, or support services). Seventy-six patients (19%) had adverse events. Adverse drug events were the most common, at 66% of all events. The next most common event was procedure-related injuries, at 17%.(40)
In a New England Journal of Medicine study, an alarming one in four patients suffered observable side effects from the more than 3.34 billion prescription drugs filled in 2002.(41) One of the doctors who produced the study was interviewed by Reuters and commented, "With these 10-minute appointments, it's hard for the doctor to get into whether the symptoms are bothering the patients."(42) William Tierney, who editorialized on the New England Journal study, said “… given the increasing number of powerful drugs available to care for the aging population, the problem will only get worse.” The drugs with the worst record of side effects were selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors ( SSRIs), nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), and calcium-channel blockers. Reuters also reported that prior research has suggested that nearly 5% of hospital admissions (over 1 million per year) are the result of drug side effects. But most of the cases are not documented as such. The study found that one of the reasons for this failure is that in nearly two-thirds of the cases, doctors could not diagnose drug side effects or the side effects persisted because the doctor failed to heed the warning signs.

Medicating Our Feelings

Patients seeking a more joyful existence and relief from worry, stress, and anxiety often fall victim to the messages endlessly displayed on TV and billboards. Often, instead of gaining relief, they fall victim to the myriad iatrogenic side effects of antidepressant medication.

Moreover, a whole generation of antidepressant users has been created from young people growing up on Ritalin. Medicating youth and modifying their emotions must have some impact on how they learn to deal with their feelings. They learn to equate coping with drugs rather than with their inner resources. As adults, these medicated youth reach for alcohol, drugs, or even street drugs to cope. According to JAMA , “Ritalin acts much like cocaine.”(43) Today's marketing of mood-modifying drugs such as Prozac and Zoloft ® makes them not only socially acceptable but almost a necessity in today's stressful world.

Television Diagnosis

To reach the widest audience possible, drug companies are no longer just targeting medical doctors with their marketing of antidepressants. By 1995, drug companies had tripled the amount of money allotted to direct advertising of prescription drugs to consumers. The majority of this money is spent on seductive television ads. From 1996 to 2000, spending rose from $791 million to nearly $2.5 billion.(44) This $2.5 billion represents only 15% of the total pharmaceutical advertising budget. While the drug companies maintain that direct-to-consumer advertising is educational, Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe of the Public Citizen Health Research Group in Washington, DC, argues that the public often is misinformed about these ads.(45) People want what they see on television and are told to go to their doctors for a prescription. Doctors in private practice either acquiesce to their patients' demands for these drugs or spend valuable time trying to talk patients out of unnecessary drugs. Dr. Wolfe remarks that one important study found that people mistakenly believe that the “FDA reviews all ads before they are released and allows only the safest and most effective drugs to be promoted directly to the public.”(46)

How Do We Know Drugs Are Safe?
Another aspect of scientific medicine that the public takes for granted is the testing of new drugs. Drugs generally are tested on individuals who are fairly healthy and not on other medications that could interfere with findings. But when these new drugs are declared “safe” and enter the drug prescription books, they are naturally going to be used by people who are on a variety of other medications and have a lot of other health problems. Then a new phase of drug testing called “post-approval” comes into play, which is the documentation of side effects once drugs hit the market. In one very telling report, the federal government's General Accounting Office "found that of the 198 drugs approved by the FDA between 1976 and 1985... 102 (or 51.5%) had serious post-approval risks... the serious post-approval risks (included) heart failure, myocardial infarction, anaphylaxis, respiratory depression and arrest, seizures, kidney and liver failure, severe blood disorders, birth defects and fetal toxicity, and blindness."(47)
NBC Television's investigative show “Dateline” wondered if your doctor is moonlighting as a drug company representative. After a yearlong investigation, NBC reported that because doctors can legally prescribe any drug to any patient for any condition, drug companies heavily promote "off label" and frequently inappropriate and untested uses of these medications, even though these drugs are approved only for the specific indications for which they have been tested.(48)
The leading causes of adverse drug reactions are antibiotics (17%), cardiovascular drugs (17%), chemotherapy (15%), and analgesics and anti-inflammatory agents (15%).(49)
Specific Drug Iatrogenesis: Antibiotics
According to William Agger, MD, director of microbiology and chief of infectious disease at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center in La Crosse, WI, 30 million pounds of antibiotics are used in America each year.(50) Of this amount, 25 million pounds are used in animal husbandry, and 23 million pounds are used to try to prevent disease and the stress of shipping, as well as to promote growth. Only 2 million pounds are given for specific animal infections. Dr. Agger reminds us that low concentrations of antibiotics are measurable in many of our foods and in various waterways around the world, much of it seeping in from animal farms.
Agger contends that overuse of antibiotics results in food-borne infections resistant to antibiotics. Salmonella is found in 20% of ground meat, but the constant exposure of cattle to antibiotics has made 84% of salmonella resistant to at least one anti-salmonella antibiotic. Diseased animal food accounts for 80% of salmonellosis in humans, or 1.4 million cases per year. The conventional approach to countering this epidemic is to radiate food to try to kill all organisms while continuing to use the antibiotics that created the problem in the first place. Approximately 20% of chickens are contaminated with Campylobacter jejuni, an organism that causes 2.4 million cases of illness annually. Fifty-four percent of these organisms are resistant to at least one anti-campylobacter antimicrobial agent.
Denmark banned growth-promoting antibiotics beginning in 1999, which cut their use by more than half within a year, from 453,200 to 195,800 pounds. A report from Scandinavia found that removing antibiotic growth promoters had no or minimal effect on food production costs. Agger warns that the current crowded, unsanitary methods of animal farming in the US support constant stress and infection, and are geared toward high antibiotic use.
In the US, over 3 million pounds of antibiotics are used every year on humans. With a population of 284 million Americans, this amount is enough to give every man, woman, and child 10 teaspoons of pure antibiotics per year. Agger says that exposure to a steady stream of antibiotics has altered pathogens such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staplococcus aureus, and entercocci, to name a few.
Almost half of patients with upper respiratory tract infections in the U.S. still receive antibiotics from their doctor.(51) According to the CDC, 90% of upper respiratory infections are viral and should not be treated with antibiotics. In Germany, the prevalence of systemic antibiotic use in children aged 0-6 years was 42.9%.(52)
Data obtained from nine US health insurers on antibiotic use in 25,000 children from 1996 to 2000 found that rates of antibiotic use decreased. Antibiotic use in children aged three months to under 3 years decreased 24%, from 2.46 to 1.89 antibiotic prescriptions per patient per year. For children aged 3 to under 6 years, there was a 25% reduction from 1.47 to 1.09 antibiotic prescriptions per patient per year. And for children aged 6 to under 18 years, there was a 16% reduction from 0.85 to 0.69 antibiotic prescriptions per patient per year.(53) Despite these reductions, the data indicate that on average every child in America receives 1.22 antibiotic prescriptions annually.
Group A beta-hemolytic streptococci is the only common cause of sore throat that requires antibiotics, with penicillin and erythromycin the only recommended treatment. Ninety percent of sore-throat cases, however, are viral. Antibiotics were used in 73% of the estimated 6.7 million adult annual visits for sore throat in the US between 1989 and 1999. Furthermore, patients treated with antibiotics were prescribed non-recommended broad-spectrum antibiotics in 68% of visits. This period saw a significant increase in the use of newer, more expensive broad-spectrum antibiotics and a decrease in use of the recommended antibiotics penicillin and erythromycin.(54) A ntibiotics being prescribed in 73% of sore-throat cases instead of the recommended 10% resulted in a total of 4.2 million unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions from 1989 to 1999.
The Problem with Antibiotics
In September 2003, the CDC re-launched a program started in 1995 called “Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work.”(55) This $1.6 million campaign is designed to educate patients about the overuse and inappropriate use of antibiotics. Most people involved with alternative medicine have known about the dangers of antibiotic overuse for decades. Finally the government is focusing on the problem, yet it is spending only a miniscule amount of money on an iatrogenic epidemic that is costing billions of dollars and thousands of lives. The CDC warns that 90% of upper respiratory infections, including children's ear infections, are viral and that antibiotics do not treat viral infection. More than 40% of about 50 million prescriptions for antibiotics written each year in physicians' offices are inappropriate.(2) U sing antibiotics when not needed can lead to the development of deadly strains of bacteria that are resistant to drugs and cause more than 88,000 deaths due to hospital-acquired infections.(9) The CDC, however, seems to be blaming patients for misusing antibiotics even though they are available only by prescription from physicians. According to Dr. Richard Besser, head of “Get Smart”: "Programs that have just targeted physicians have not worked. Direct-to-consumer advertising of drugs is to blame in some cases.” Besser says the program “teaches patients and the general public that antibiotics are precious resources that must be used correctly if we want to have them around when we need them. Hopefully, as a result of this campaign, patients will feel more comfortable asking their doctors for the best care for their illnesses, rather than asking for antibiotics."(56)
What constitutes the “best care”? The CDC does not elaborate and ignores the latest research on the dozens of nutraceuticals that have been scientifically proven to treat viral infections and boost immune-system function. Will doctors recommend vitamin C, echinacea, elderberry, vitamin A, zinc, or homeopathic oscillococcinum? Probably not. The CDC's common-sense recommendations that most people follow anyway include getting proper rest, drinking plenty of fluids, and using a humidifier.
The pharmaceutical industry claims it supports limiting the use of antibiotics. The drug company Bayer sponsors a program called “Operation Clean Hands” through an organization called LIBRA.(57) The CDC also is involved in trying to minimize antibiotic resistance, but nowhere in its publications is there any reference to the role of nutraceuticals in boosting the immune system, nor to the thousands of journal articles that support this approach. This tunnel vision and refusal to recommend the available non-drug alternatives is unfortunate when the CDC is desperately trying to curb the overuse of antibiotics.
Drugs Pollute Our Water Supply
We have reached the point of saturation with prescription drugs. Every body of water tested contains measurable drug residues. The tons of antibiotics used in animal farming, which run off into the water table and surrounding bodies of water, are conferring antibiotic resistance to germs in sewage, and these germs also are found in our water supply. Flushed down our toilets are tons of drugs and drug metabolites that also find their way into our water supply. We have no way to know the long-term health consequences of ingesting a mixture of drugs and drug-breakdown products. These drugs represent another level of iatrogenic disease that we are unable to completely measure.(58-67)
Specific Drug Iatrogenesis: NSAIDs
It's not just the US that is plagued by iatrogenesis. A survey of more than 1,000 French general practitioners (GPs) tested their basic pharmacological knowledge and practice in prescribing NSAIDs, which rank first among commonly prescribed drugs for serious adverse reactions. The study results suggest that GPs do not have adequate knowledge of these drugs and are unable to effectively manage adverse reactions.(68)
A cross-sectional survey of 125 patients attending specialty pain clinics in South London found that possible iatrogenic factors such as “over-investigation, inappropriate information, and advice given to patients as well as misdiagnosis, over-treatment, and inappropriate prescription of medication were common.”(69)
Specific Drug Iatrogenesis: Cancer Chemotherapy
In 1989, German biostatistician Ulrich Abel, PhD, wrote a monograph entitled “Chemotherapy of Advanced Epithelial Cancer.” It was later published in shorter form in a peer-reviewed medical journal.(70) Abel presented a comprehensive analysis of clinical trials and publications representing over 3,000 articles examining the value of cytotoxic chemotherapy on advanced epithelial cancer. Epithelial cancer is the type of cancer with which we are most familiar, arising from epithelium found in the lining of body organs such as the breast, prostate, lung, stomach, and bowel. From these sites, cancer usually infiltrates adjacent tissue and spreads to the bone, liver, lung, or brain. With his exhaustive review, Abel concluded there is no direct evidence that chemotherapy prolongs survival in patients with advanced carcinoma; in small-cell lung cancer and perhaps ovarian cancer, the therapeutic benefit is only slight. According to Abel, “Many oncologists take it for granted that response to therapy prolongs survival, an opinion which is based on a fallacy and which is not supported by clinical studies.”
Over a decade after Abel's exhaustive review of chemotherapy, there seems no decrease in its use for advanced carcinoma. For example, when conventional chemotherapy and radiation have not worked to prevent metastases in breast cancer, high-dose chemotherapy (HDC) along with stem-cell transplant (SCT) is the treatment of choice. In March 2000, however, results from the largest multi-center randomized controlled trial conducted thus far showed that, compared to a prolonged course of monthly conventional-dose chemotherapy, HDC and SCT were of no benefit, (71) with even a slightly lower survival rate for the HDC/SCT group. Serious adverse effects occurred more often in the HDC group than the standard-dose group. One treatment-related death (within 100 days of therapy) was recorded in the HDC group, but none was recorded in the conventional chemotherapy group. The women in this trial were highly selected as having the best chance to respond.
Unfortunately, no all-encompassing follow-up study such as Dr. Abel's exists to indicate whether there has been any improvement in cancer-survival statistics since 1989. In fact, research should be conducted to determine whether chemotherapy itself is responsible for secondary cancers instead of progression of the original disease. We continue to question why well-researched alternative cancer treatments are not used.
Drug Companies Fined
Periodically, the FDA fines a drug manufacturer when its abuses are too glaring and impossible to cover up. In May 2002, The Washington Post reported that Schering-Plough Corp., the maker of Claritin, was to pay a $500 million dollar fine to the FDA for quality-control problems at four of its factories.(72) The indictment came after the Public Citizen Health Research Group, led by Dr. Sidney Wolfe, called for a criminal investigation of Schering-Plough, charging that the company distributed albuterol asthma inhalers even though it knew the units were missing the active ingredient.
The FDA tabulated infractions involving 125 products, or 90% of the drugs made by Schering-Plough since 1998. Besides paying the fine, the company was forced to halt the manufacture of 73 drugs or suffer another $175 million fine. Schering-Plough's news releases told another story, assuring consumers that they should still feel confident in the company's products.
This large settlement served as a warning to the drug industry about maintaining strict manufacturing practices and has given the FDA more clout in dealing with drug company compliance. According to The Washington Post article, a federal appeals court ruled in 1999 that the FDA could seize the profits of companies that violate "good manufacturing practices." Since that time, Abbott Laboratories has paid a $100 million fine for failing to meet quality standards in the production of medical test kits, while Wyeth Laboratories paid $30 million in 2000 to settle accusations of poor manufacturing practices.
UNNECESSARY SURGICAL PROCEDURES
In 1974, 2.4 million unnecessary surgeries were performed, resulting in 11,900 deaths at a cost of $3.9 billion.(73,74) In 2001, 7.5 million unnecessary surgical procedures were performed, resulting in 37,136 deaths at a cost of $122 billion (using 1974 dollars).(3)
It is very difficult to obtain accurate statistics when studying unnecessary surgery. In 1989, Leape wrote that perhaps 30% of controversial surgeries—which include cesarean section, tonsillectomy, appendectomy, hysterectomy, gastrectomy for obesity, breast implants, and elective breast implants(74)— are unnecessary. In 1974, the Congressional Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce held hearings on unnecessary surgery. It found that 17.6% of recommendations for surgery were not confirmed by a second opinion. The House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations extrapolated these figures and estimated that, on a nationwide basis, there were 2.4 million unnecessary surgeries performed annually, resulting in 11,900 deaths at an annual cost of $3.9 billion.(73)
According to the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project within the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality(13), in 2001 the 50 most common medical and surgical procedures were performed approximately 41.8 million times in the US. Using the 1974 House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations' figure of 17.6% as the percentage of unnecessary surgical procedures, and extrapolating from the death rate in 1974, produces nearly 7.5 million (7,489,718) unnecessary procedures and a death rate of 37,136, at a cost of $122 billion (using 1974 dollars).
In 1995, researchers conducted a similar analysis of back surgery procedures, using the 1974 “unnecessary surgery percentage” of 17.6. Testifying before the Department of Veterans Affairs, they estimated that of the 250,000 back surgeries performed annually in the US at a hospital cost of $11,000 per patient, the total number of unnecessary back surgeries approaches 44,000, costing as much as $484 million.(75)
Like prescription drug use driven by television advertising, unnecessary surgeries are escalating. Media-driven surgery such as gastric bypass for obesity “modeled” by Hollywood celebrities seduces obese people to think this route is safe and sexy. Unnecessary surgeries have even been marketed on the Internet.(76) A study in Spain declares that 20-25% of total surgical practice represents unnecessary operations.(77)
According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics for 1979 to 1984, the total number of surgical procedures increased 9% while the number of surgeons grew 20%. The study notes that the large increase in the number of surgeons was not accompanied by a parallel increase in the number of surgeries performed, and expressed concern about an excess of surgeons to handle the surgical caseload.(78)
From 1983 to 1994, however, the incidence of the 10 most commonly performed surgical procedures jumped 38%, to 7,929,000 from 5,731,000 cases. By 1994, cataract surgery was the most common procedure with more than 2 million operations, followed by cesarean section (858,000 procedures) and inguinal hernia operations (689,000 procedures). Knee arthroscopy procedures increased 153% while prostate surgery declined 29%.(79)
The list of iatrogenic complications from surgery is as long as the list of procedures themselves. One study examined catheters that were inserted to deliver anesthetic into the epidural space around the spinal nerves for lower cesarean section, abdominal surgery, or prostate surgery. In some cases, non-sterile technique during catheter insertion resulted in serious infections, even leading to limb paralysis.(80)
In one review of the literature, the authors found “a significant rate of overutilization of coronary angiography, coronary artery surgery, cardiac pacemaker insertion, upper gastrointestinal endoscopies, carotid endarterectomies, back surgery, and pain-relieving procedures.”(81)
A 1987 JAMA study found the following significant levels of inappropriate surgery: 17% of coronary angiography procedures, 32% of carotid endarterectomy procedures, and 17% of upper gastrointestinal tract endoscopy procedures.(82) Based on the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) statistics provided by the government for 2001, 697,675 upper gastrointestinal endoscopies (usually entailing biopsy) were performed, as were 142,401 endarterectomies and 719,949 coronary angiographies.(13) Extrapolating the JAMA study's inappropriate surgery rates to 2001 produces 118,604 unnecessary endoscopy procedures, 45,568 unnecessary endarterectomies, and 122,391 unnecessary coronary angiographies. These are all forms of medical iatrogenesis.
MEDICAL AND SURGICAL PROCEDURES

It is instructive to know the mortality rates associated with various medical and surgical procedures. Although we must sign release forms when we undergo any procedure, many of us are in denial about the true risks involved; because medical and surgical procedures are so commonplace, they often are seen as both necessary and safe. Unfortunately, allopathic medicine itself is a leading cause of death, as well as the most expensive way to die.

Perhaps the words “health care” confer the illusion that medicine is about health. Allopathic medicine is not a purveyor of health care but of disease care. The HCUP figures are instructive,(13) but the computer program that calculates annual mortality statistics for all US hospital discharges is only as good as the codes entered into the system. In email correspondence, HCUP indicated that the mortality rates for each procedure indicated only that someone undergoing that procedure died either from the procedure or from some other cause.

Thus there is no way of knowing exactly how many people die from a particular procedure. While codes for “poisoning & toxic effects of drugs” and “complications of treatment” do exist, the mortality figures registered in these categories are very low and do not correlate with what is known from research such as the 1998 JAMA study(1) that estimated an average of 106,000 prescription medication deaths per year. No codes exist for adverse drug side effects, surgical mishaps, or other types of medical error. Until such codes exist, the true mortality rates tied to of medical error will remain buried in the general statistics.
AN HONEST LOOK AT US HEALTH CARE
In 1978, the US Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) reported: “Only 10-20% of all procedures currently used in medical practice have been shown to be efficacious by controlled trial."(83) In 1995, the OTA compared medical technology in eight countries ( Australia , Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, and the US ) and again noted that few medical procedures in the US have been subjected to clinical trial. It also reported that US infant mortality was high and life expectancy low compared to other developed countries.(84)
Although almost 10 years old, much of what was written in the OTA report holds true today. The report blames the high cost of American medicine on the medical free-enterprise system and failure to create a national health care policy. It attributes the government's failure to control health care costs to market incentives and profit motives inherent in the current financing and organization of health care, which includes such interests as private health insurers, hospital systems, physicians, and the drug and medical-device industries. “Health Care Technology and Its Assessment in Eight Countries” is the last report prepared by the OTA, which was disbanded in 1995. It also is perhaps the US government's last honest, detailed examination of the nation's health care system. An appendix summarizing this 60-page report follows this article.
SURGICAL ERRORS FINALLY REPORTED
An October 2003 JAMA study from the US government's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) documented 32,000 mostly surgery-related deaths costing $9 billion and accounting for 2.4 million extra hospital days in 2000.(85) Data from 20% of the nation's hospitals were analyzed for 18 different surgical complications, including postoperative infections, foreign objects left in wounds, surgical wounds reopening, and post-operative bleeding.

In a press release accompanying the study, AHRQ director Carolyn M. Clancy, MD, noted: “This study gives us the first direct evidence that medical injuries pose a real threat to the American public and increase the costs of health care.”(86) According to the study's authors, “The findings greatly underestimate the problem, since many other complications happen that are not listed in hospital administrative data.” They added: "The message here is that medical injuries can have a devastating impact on the health care system. We need more research to identify why these injuries occur and find ways to prevent them from happening." The study authors said that improved medical practices, including an emphasis on better hand washing, might help reduce morbidity and mortality rates. In an accompanying JAMA editorial, health-risk researcher Dr. Saul Weingart of Harvard's Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center wrote, “Given their staggering magnitude, these estimates are clearly sobering.”(87)

UNNECESSARY X-RAYS
When x-rays were discovered, no one knew the long-term effects of ionizing radiation. In the 1950s, monthly fluoroscopic exams at the doctor's office were routine, and you could even walk into most shoe stores and see x-rays of your foot bones. We still do not know the ultimate outcome of our initial fascination with x-rays.
In those days, it was common practice to x-ray pregnant women to measure their pelvises and make a diagnosis of twins. Finally, a study of 700,000 children born between 1947 and 1964 in 37 major maternity hospitals compared the children of mothers who had received pelvic x-rays during pregnancy to those of mothers who did not. It found that cancer mortality was 40% higher among children whose mothers had been x-rayed.(88)
In present-day medicine, coronary angiography is an invasive surgical procedure that involves snaking a tube through a blood vessel in the groin up to the heart. To obtain useful information, X-rays are taken almost continuously, with minimum dosages ranging from 460 to 1,580 mrem. The minimum radiation from a routine chest x-ray is 2 mrem. X-ray radiation accumulates in the body, and ionizing radiation used in X-ray procedures has been shown to cause gene mutation. The health impact of this high level of radiation is unknown, and often obscured in statistical jargon such as, “The risk for lifetime fatal cancer due to radiation exposure is estimated to be 4 in one million per 1,000 mrem.”(89)
Dr. John Gofman has studied the effects of radiation on human health for 45 years. A medical doctor with a PhD in nuclear and physical chemistry, Gofman worked on the Manhattan Project, discovered uranium-233, and was the first person to isolate plutonium. In five scientifically documented books, Gofman provides strong evidence that medical technology—specifically x-rays, CT scans, and mammography and fluoroscopy devices—are a contributing factor to 75% of new cancers. In a nearly 700-page report updated in 2000, “Radiation from Medical Procedures in the Pathogenesis of Cancer and Ischemic Heart Disease: Dose-Response Studies with Physicians per 100,000 Population,”(90) Gofman shows that as the number of physicians increases in a geographical area along with an increase in the number of x-ray diagnostic tests performed, the rate of cancer and ischemic heart disease also increases. Gofman elaborates that it is not x-rays alone that cause the damage but a combination of health risk factors that include poor diet, smoking, abortions, and the use of birth control pills. Dr. Gofman predicts that ionizing radiation will be responsible for 100 million premature deaths over the next decade.
In his book, “Preventing Breast Cancer,” Dr. Gofman notes that breast cancer is the leading cause of death among American women between the ages of 44 and 55. Because breast tissue is highly sensitive to radiation, mammograms can cause cancer. The danger can be heightened other factors including a woman's genetic makeup, preexisting benign breast disease, artificial menopause, obesity, and hormonal imbalance.(91)
Even x-rays for back pain can lead someone into crippling surgery. Dr. John E. Sarno, a well-known New York orthopedic surgeon, found that there is not necessarily any association between back pain and spinal x-ray abnormality. He cites studies of normal people without a trace of back pain whose x-rays indicate spinal abnormalities and of people with back pain whose spines appear to be normal on x-ray.(92) People who happen to have back pain and show an abnormality on x-ray may be treated surgically, sometimes with no change in back pain, worsening of back pain, or even permanent disability. Moreover, doctors often order x-rays as protection against malpractice claims, to give the impression of leaving no stone unturned. It appears that doctors are putting their own fears before the interests of their patients.
UNNECESSARY HOSPITALIZATION
Nearly 9 million (8,925,033) people were hospitalized unnecessarily in 2001.(4) In a study of inappropriate hospitalization, two doctors reviewed 1,132 medical records. They concluded that 23% of all admissions were inappropriate and an additional 17% could have been handled in outpatient clinics. Thirty-four percent of all hospital days were deemed inappropriate and could have been avoided.(93) The rate of inappropriate hospital admissions in 1990 was 23.5%.(94) In 1999, another study also found an inappropriate admissions rate of 24%, indicating a consistent pattern from 1986 to 1999.(95) The HCUP database indicates that the total number of patient discharges from US hospitals in 2001 was 37,187,641,(13) meaning that almost 9 million people were exposed to unnecessary medical intervention in hospitals and therefore represent almost 9 million potential iatrogenic episodes.(4)
WOMEN'S EXPERIENCE IN MEDICINE
Dr. Martin Charcot (1825-1893) was world-renowned, the most celebrated doctor of his time. He practiced in the Paris hospital La Salpetriere. He became an expert in hysteria, diagnosing an average of 10 hysterical women each day, transforming them into “iatrogenic monsters” and turning simple “neurosis” into hysteria.(96) The number of women diagnosed with hysteria and hospitalized rose from 1% in 1841 to 17% in 1883. Hysteria is derived from the Latin “hystera” meaning uterus. According to Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, US medicine has a tradition of excessive medical and surgical interventions on women. Only 100 years ago, male doctors believed that female psychological imbalance originated in the uterus. When surgery to remove the uterus was perfected, it became the “cure” for mental instability, effecting a physical and psychological castration. Fugh-Berman notes that US doctors eventually disabused themselves of that notion but have continued to treat women very differently than they treat men.(97) She cites the following statistics:
1. Thousands of prophylactic mastectomies are performed annually.
2. One-third of US women have had a hysterectomy before menopause.
3. Women are prescribed drugs more frequently than are men.
4. Women are given potent drugs for disease prevention, which results in disease substitution due to side effects.
5. Fetal monitoring is unsupported by studies and not recommended by the CDC.(98) It confines women to a hospital bed and may result in a higher incidence of cesarean section.(99)
6. Normal processes such as menopause and childbirth have been heavily “medicalized.”
7. Synthetic hormone replacement therapy (HRT) does not prevent heart disease or dementia, but does increase the risk of breast cancer, heart disease, stroke, and gall bladder attack.(100)
8.
As many as one-third of postmenopausal women use HRT.(101,102) This number is important in light of the much-publicized Women's Health Initiative Study, which was halted before its completion because of a higher death rate in the synthetic estrogen-progestin (HRT) group.(103)
Cesarean Section
In 1983, 809,000 cesarean sections (21% of live births) were performed in the US, making it the nation's most common obstetric-gynecologic (OB/GYN) surgical procedure. The second most common OB/GYN operation was hysterectomy (673,000), followed by diagnostic dilation and curettage of the uterus (632,000). In 1983, OB/GYN procedures represented 23% of all surgery completed in the US.(104)
In 2001, cesarean section is still the most common OB/GYN surgical procedure. Approximately 4 million births occur annually, with 24% (960,000) delivered by cesarean section. In the Netherlands, only 8% of births are delivered by cesarean section. This suggests 640,000 unnecessary cesarean sections—entailing three to four times higher mortality and 20 times greater morbidity than vaginal delivery(105)—are performed annually in the US.
The US cesarean rate rose from just 4.5% in 1965 to 24.1% in 1986. Sakala contends that an “uncontrolled pandemic of medically unnecessary cesarean births is occurring.”(106) VanHam reported a cesarean section postpartum hemorrhage rate of 7%, a hematoma formation rate of 3.5%, a urinary tract infection rate of 3%, and a combined postoperative morbidity rate of 35.7% in a high-risk population undergoing cesarean section.(107)
NEVER ENOUGH STUDIES

Scientists claimed there were never enough studies revealing the dangers of DDT and other dangerous pesticides to ban them. They also used this argument for tobacco, claiming that more studies were needed before they could be certain that tobacco really caused lung cancer. Even the American Medical Association (AMA) was complicit in suppressing the results of tobacco research. In 1964, when the Surgeon General's report condemned smoking, the AMA refused to endorse it, claiming a need for more research. What they really wanted was more money, which they received from a consortium of tobacco companies that paid the AMA $18 million over the next nine years during which the AMA said nothing about the dangers of smoking.(108)

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), "after careful consideration of the extent to which cigarettes were used by physicians in practice," began accepting tobacco advertisements and money in 1933. State journals such as the New York State Journal of Medicine also began to run advertisements for Chesterfield cigarettes that claimed cigarettes are "Just as pure as the water you drink… and practically untouched by human hands." In 1948, JAMA argued "more can be said in behalf of smoking as a form of escape from tension than against it… there does not seem to be any preponderance of evidence that would indicate the abolition of the use of tobacco as a substance contrary to the public health."(109) Today, scientists continue to use the excuse that more studies are needed before they will support restricting the inordinate use of drugs.

ADVERSE DRUG REACTIONS

The Lazarou study(1) analyzed records for prescribed medications for 33 million US hospital admissions in 1994. It discovered 2.2 million serious injuries due to prescribed drugs; 2.1% of inpatients experienced a serious adverse drug reaction, 4.7% of all hospital admissions were due to a serious adverse drug reaction, and fatal adverse drug reactions occurred in 0.19% of inpatients and 0.13% of admissions. The authors estimated that 106,000 deaths occur annually due to adverse drug reactions.

Using a cost analysis from a 2000 study in which the increase in hospitalization costs per patient suffering an adverse drug reaction was $5,483, costs for the Lazarou study's 2.2 million patients with serious dr

[DaleSVP]

"the drug industry is freely killing Americans.."

Psychotherapeutic drugs, like antidepressants and sedatives, nearly doubled from 671 deaths to 1,300.

Age-wise, the biggest jump was among people aged 15 to 24, which the CDC report says relates to recreational prescription drug use and a jump in cocaine use.

However, all other age groups except the elderly over-75 group saw increases of more than 35 percent on a per 100,000 scale in prescription drug deaths – including a nearly 90 percent jump for the late Baby Boomer generation (ages 45 to 54) and a more than 90 percent for people aged 55 to 64. Mike Adams, a consumer health advocate and outspoken critic of pharmaceutical companies, said that the drug industry is freely killing Americans.

"The entire drug industry, including the monopolistic drug giants and their FDA co-conspirator, has clearly become the single greatest threat to the health and safety of the American people," Adams said. "And yet the FDA continues to push more drugs onto more Americans than ever before, all while pretending these drugs are safe and effective when, in reality, they are neither. Today's pharmaceutical industry is a massive fraud being perpetrated against the American people, propped up by illegal trade practices, monopolistic behavior and outright criminal behavior on the part of the FDA."

http://www.newstarget.com/021635.html

[G-Man]

Here is another reason to be thankful for the internet. The last few times I have visited my doctor I would not pick up any prescriptions without first checking on the internet about what the drug does and the side effects. You can Google the specific drug or just type in Health and you will come up with a plethora of websites. You need to be smart and trust yourself!

[DaleSVP]

Keely and His Discoveries
Chapter VII, Part IV
One Phase of Keely's Discovery in its Relations to the Cure of Disease.


I know medicine is called a science. It is nothing like a science. It is a great humbug! Doctors are mere empirics when they are not charlatans. We are as ignorant as men can be. Who knows anything in the world about medicine? Gentlemen, you have done me the honour to come here to attend my lectures, and I must tell you now, frankly, in the beginning, that I know nothing about medicine, nor do I know anyone who does know anything about it. Nature does a great deal, imagination does a great deal, doctors do devilish little when they do not do harm. Sick people always feel they are neglected, unless they are well drugged, les imbeciles! - Professor Magendie (before the students of his class in "The Allophatic College of Paris").

In the year 1871, the writer was sent to Paris to Schwalbach, by Dr. Beylard, and recommended to the care of Dr. Adolph Genth. She said to the physician, "I wish for your opinion and your advice, if you can give it to me without giving me any medicine." He replied, "With all my heart, madam; and I wish to God there were more women like you, but we should soon lose most of our patients if we did not dose them."

This is a terrible excuse for the use of those agencies which Dr. John Good says have sent more human beings to their graves than war, pestilence and famine combined. Keely holds the opinion that Nature works under the one law of Compensation and Equilibrium - the law of Harmony; and that when disease indicates the disturbance of this law Nature at once seeks to banish the disease by restoring equilibrium, He seeks to render assistance on the same plan; replacing grossly material agencies by the finer forces of nature; as has been so successfully done by Dr. Pancoast and Dr. Babbitt in America.

"Nature," says Dr. Pancoast, author of The True Science of Light, "works by antagonism in all her operations: when one of her force over does its work, disease, or at least a local disorder, is the immediate consequence; now, if we attack this force, and overcome it, the opposite force has a clear field and may re-assert its rights - thus equilibrium is restored, and Equilibrium is health. The Sympathetic System, instead of attacking the stronger force, sends recruits to the weaker one, and enables it to recover its powers; or, if the disorder be the result of excessive of Nerves or Ganglia, a negative remedy may be employed to reduce the tension. Thus, too, equilibrium is restored."

Dr. Hartmann writes:-

Mr. Keely is perfectly right in saying that 'all disease is a disturbance of the equilibrium between positive and negative forces.' In my opinion, no doctor ever cured any disease. All he can possibly do is to establish conditions under which the patient (or nature) may cure himself.

If you enter the field of therapeutics and medicine, we find a decided fermentation of new ideas; not among the fossil specimens of antediluvian quackery, but among those who are called "irregulars," because they have the courage to depart from the tracks trodden out by their predecessor. The more intelligent classes of physicians have long ago realized the fact that drugs and medicines are perfectly useless, excepting in cases where diseases can be traced to some mechanical obstruction, in some organ that may be reached by mechanical action. In all other cases our best physicians have become agnostics, leaving nature to have her own way, observing the expectative method, which, in fact, is no method of cure at all, but merely consists in doing no harm to the patient. Recently, however, light, electricity, and magnetism have been employed; so that even in the medical guild the finer forces of nature are taking the place of grossly material, and therefore injurious substances. The time is probably near when these finer forces will be employed universally. Everybody knows that a note struck upon an instrument will produce sound in a correspondingly attuned instrument in its vicinity. If connected with a tuning fork, it will produce a corresponding sound in the latter; and if connected with a thousand such tuning forks, it will make all the thousand sound, and produce a noise far greater than the original sound, without the latter becoming any weaker for it. Here, then, is an augmentation or multiplication of power. If we had any means to transform sound again into mechanical motion, we would have a thousand-fold multiplication of mechanical motion. It would be presumptuous to say that it will not be as easy for the scientists of the future to transform sound into mechanical motion, as it is for the scientist of the present to transform heat into electricity. Perhaps Mr. Keely has already solved the problem. There is a fair prospect that in the very near future, we shall have, in his ethereal force, a power far surpassing that of steam or electricity. Nor does the idea seem to be Utopian if we remember that modern science heretofore only knew the law of the conservation of energy; while to the scientist of the future the law of the augmentation of energy will be unveiled. . . . . As the age which has passed away has been the age of steam, the coming era will be the age of induction. There will be universal rising up of lower vibrations into higher ones, in the realm of motion. Mr. Keely will, perhaps, transform sound into mechanical motion by applying the law of augmentation and multiplication of force." . . .

Keely, writing on brain disturbance, says, In considering the mental forces as associated with the physical, I find, by my past researches, that the convolutions which exist in the cerebral field are entirely governed by the sympathetic conditions that surround them.

The question arises, what are these aggregations and what do they represent, as being linked with physical impulses? They are simply vibrometric resonators, thoroughly subservient to sympathetic acoustic impulses given to them by their atomic sympathetic surrounding media, all the sympathetic impulses that so entirely govern the physical in their many and perfect impulses (we are now discussing purity of conditions) are not emanations properly inherent in their own composition. They are only media - the acoustic media - for transferring from their vibratory surroundings the conditions necessary to the pure connective link for vitalizing and bringing into action the varied impulses of the physical.

All abnormal discordant aggregations in these resonating convolutions produce differentiation to concordant transmission; and, according as these differentiations exist in volume so the transmission are discordantly transferred, producing antagonism to pure physical action.

Thus, in Motor Ataxy a differentiation of the minor thirds of the posterior parietal lobule produces the same condition between the retractors and extensors of the leg and foot; and thus the control of the proper movements is lost through this differentiation. The same truth can be universally applied to any of the cerebral convolutions that are in a state of differential harmony to the mass of immediate cerebral surroundings. Taking the cerebral condition of the whole mass as one, it is subservient to one general head centre, although as many neutrals are represented as there are convolutions.

The introductory minors are controlled by the molecular; the next progressive third by the atomic; and the high third by the Etheric. All these progressive links have their positive, negative, and neutral position. When we take into consideration the structural condition of the human brain, we ought not to be bewildered by the infinite variety of its sympathetic impulses; inasmuch as it unerringly proves the true philosophy that the mass chords of such structures are governed by vibratory etheric flows - the very material which composes them. There is no structure whatever, animal, vegetable, mineral, that is not built up from the universal cosmic ether. Certain orders of attractive vibration produce certain orders or structure; thus, the infinite variety of effects - more especially in the cerebral organs. The bar of iron or the mass of steel, have, in each, all the qualifications necessary, under certain vibratory impulses, to evolve all the conditions that govern that animal organism - the brain; and it is as possible to differentiate the molecular conditions of a mass of metal of any shape so as to produce what you may express as a crazy piece of iron or a crazy piece of steel; or vice versa, an intelligent condition in the same.

I find in my researches, as to the condition of molecules under vibration, that discordance cannot exist in the molecule proper; and that it is the highest and most perfect structural condition that exists; providing that all the progressive orders are the same. Discordance in any mass is the result of differentiated groups, induced by antagonistic chords, and the flight or motions of such, when intensified by sound, are very tortuous and zig-zag; but when free of this differentiation are in straight lines. Tortuous lines denote discord, or pain; straight lines denote harmony, or pleasure. Any differentiated mass can be brought to a condition of harmony, or equation, by proper chord media, and an equated sympathy produced.

There is good reason for believing that insanity is simply a condition of differentiation in the mass chords of the cerebral convolutions, which creates an antagonistic molecular bombardment towards the neutral or attractive centres of such convolutions; which, in turn, produce a morbid irritation in the cortical sensory centres in the substance of ideation; accompanied, as a general thing, by sensory hallucinations, ushered in by subjective sensations; such as flashes of light and colour, or confused sounds and disagreeable odours, etc., etc.

There is no condition of the human brain that ought not to be sympathetically coincident to that order of atomic flow to which its position, in the cerebral field, is fitted. Any differentiation in that special organ, or, more plainly, any discordant grouping tends to produce a discordant bombardment - an antagonistic conflict; which means the same disturbance transferred to the physical, producing inharmonious disaster to that portion of the physical field which is controlled by that especial convolution. This unstable aggregation may be compared to a knot on a violin string. As long as this knot remains it is impossible to elicit, from its sympathetic surroundings, the condition which transfers pure concordance to its resonating body. Discordant conditions, i. e., differentiation of mass, produce negatization to coincident action.

The question now arises, What condition is it necessary to bring about in order to bring back normality, or to produce stable equilibrium in the sympathetic centres?

The normal brain is like a harp of many strings strung to perfect harmony. The transmitting conditions being perfect, are ready, at any impulse, to induce pure sympathetic assimilation. The different strings represent the different ventricles and convolutions. The differentiations of any one from its true setting is fatal, to a certain degree, to the harmony of the whole combination.

If the sympathetic condition of any physical organism carries a positive flow of 80 per cent on its whole combination, and a negative one of 20 per cent., it is the medium of perfect assimilation to one of the same ratio, if it is distributed under the same conditions to the mass of the other. If two masses of metal, of any shape whatever, are brought under perfect assimilation, to one another, their unition, when brought into contact, will be instant. If we live in a sympathetic field we become sympathetic, and a tendency from the abnormal to the normal presents itself by an evolution of a purely sympathetic flow towards its attractive centres. It is only under these conditions that differentiation can be broken up, and a pure equation established. The only condition under which equation can never be established is when a differential disaster has taken place, of 66 2/3 against the 100 pure, taking the full volume as one. If the 66 2/3 or even 100 exists in one organ alone, and the surrounding ones are normal, then a condition can be easily brought about to establish the concordant harmony or equation to that organ. It is as rare to find a negative condition of 66 2/3 against the volume of the whole cerebral mass, as it is to find a coincident between differentiation; or, more plainly, between two individuals under a state of negative influence. Under this new system it is as possible to induce negations alike as it is to induce positives alike.

Pure sympathetic concordants are as antagonistic to negative discordants as the negative is to the positive; but the vast volume the sympathetic holds over the non-sympathetic, in ethereal space, makes is at once the ruling medium and re-adjuster of all opposing conditions if properly brought to bear upon them.

Until Keely's "Theoretical Expose" is given to science, there are few who will fathom the full meaning of these views.

His discoveries embrace, the manner or way of obtaining the keynote, or "chord of mass," of mineral vegetable, and animal substances; therefore, the construction of instruments, or machines, by which this law can be utilized in mechanics, in arts, and in restoration of equilibrium in disease, is only a question of the full understanding of the operation of this law.

Keely estimates that, after the introductory impulse is given on the harmonic thirds, molecular vibration is increased from 20,000 per second to 1000,000,000.

On the enharmonic sixths, that the vibration of the intermolecule is increased to 300,000,000.
On the diatonic ninths, that atomic vibration reaches 900,000,000; on the dominant etheric sixths, 8,100,000,000; and on the inter-etheric ninths, 24,300,000,000; all of which can be demonstrated by sound colours.

In such fields of research, Mr. Keely finds little leisure. Those who accuse him of "dilly-dallying," of idleness, of "always going to do and never doing," of "visionary plans," etc., etc., know nothing of the infinite patience, the persistent energy which for a quarter of a century has upheld him in his struggle to attain this end. Still less, if possible, is he understood by those who think he is seeking self-aggrandizement, fame, fortune, or glory.

The time is approaching when all who have sought to defame this discoverer and inventor, all who have stabbed him with unmerited accusations, all who have denounced him as "a bogus inventor," "a fraud," "an impostor," "a charlatan," "a modern Cagliostro," will be forced to acknowledge that he has done a giant's work for true science, even though he should not live to attain commercial success. But history will not forget that, in the nineteenth century, the story of Prometheus has been repeated, and that the greatest mind of the age, seeking to scale the heavens to bring down the light of truth for mankind, met with Prometheus's reward.

Note. - Dr. Hartmann, in a report, or condensed statement, in reference to Keely's discovery, writes as follows: "He will never invent a machine by which the equilibrium of the living forces a disordered brain can be restored."

As such a statement would lead the reader of the report to fancy that Keely expected to invent such an instrument, it is better to correct the error that Dr. Hartmann has fallen into. Keely has never dreamed of inventing such an instrument. He hopes, however, to perfect one that he is now at work upon, which will enable the operator to localize the seat of disturbance in the brain in mental disorders. If he succeeds, this will greatly simplify the work of "re-adjusting opposing conditions"; and will also enable the physician to decide whether the "differential disaster" has taken place which prevents the possibility of establishing the equation that is necessary to a cure.

According to Keely's theories it is that form of energy known as magnetism - not electricity - which is to be the curative agent of the future, thus reviving a mode of treatment handed down from the time of the earliest records, and made known to the Royal Society of London more than fifty years since by Professor Keil, of Jena, who demonstrated the susceptibility of the nervous system to the influence of the natural magnet, and its efficacy in the cure of certain infirmities.

As Cheston Morris, M.D., has well said in his paper on "Vital Molecular Vibrations," "We are entering upon a new field in biology, pathology, and of course, therapeutics, whose limits are at present far beyond our ken."

"The adaptability of drugs," says Dr. Henry Wood, "to heal disease is becoming a matter of doubt, even among many who have not yet studied deeper causation. Materia Medica lacks the exact elements of a science. The just-preponderance, for good or ill, of any drug upon the human system is an unsolved problem, and will so remain. . . . After centuries of professional research, in order to perfect "the art of healing," diseases have steadily grown more subtle and more numerous. . . . Only when internal, divine forces come to be relied upon, rather than outside reinforcement, will deterioration cease. Said Plato, 'You ought not to attempt to cure the body without the soul.' "

[G-Man]

Wow that is a bunch of information in a few paragraphs. How in the heck can you remember all of this info? I am still reading the "Physics of Love" and it makes my head spin. I have to read paragrahs 4 or 5 times to get any rational meaning from them. I am going to keep trying because I really believe it is one of the things that I need to continue on my personal path of growth. Thanks again for all you do!

[DaleSVP]

Visit this animation about the Town of Allopath

http://www.mercola.com/townofallopath/index.htm

[DaleSVP]

From: chrisgupta@alumni.uwaterloo.ca
Subject: 1953 Fitzgerald Report - Suppressed Cancer Treatments
Date: April 4, 2007 9:39:28 PM MDT

"In the 1950’s, Congressman Charles Tobey enlisted Benedict Fitzgerald, an investigator for the Interstate Commerce Commission, to investigate allegations of conspiracy* and monopolistic practices on the part of orthodox medicine. This came about as the result of the son of Senator Tobey who developed cancer and was given less than two years to live by orthodox medicine. However, Tobey Jr., discovered options in the alternative field, received alternative treatment and fully recovered from his cancerous condition! That is when he learned of alleged conspiratorial practices on the part of orthodox medicine. He passed the word to his father, Senator Charles Tobey, who initiated an investigation. The final report clearly indicated there was indeed a conspiracy to monopolize the medical and drug industry and to eliminate alternative options.

The "Fitzgerald Report" was submitted into the Congressional Record Appendix August 3, 1953.
*We are conditioned to think that conspiracies are only conjectures and the domain of the lunatic fringe - when a conspiracy is nothing but another name for cartels, monopolies, cabals, combines etc.. This is simply another bait and switch tactic to confuse us from seeing the truth. CG

One issue modern, orthodox medicine still fails to accept or take seriously, is "cause" and "maintenance". That is to deal not just with surgery of sick tissue; but to deal with the cause of the problem, to try to prevent it in the first place; and, further, to try to prevent it from recurring!"
Extracted from: **"Royal R. Rife" by Gerald F. Foye ISBN 0-9659613-3-8

**The Tortoise Shell's Science of Health Newsletter
Instead of acting on the report to resolve the serious shortcomings found in mainstream medicine The Fitzgerald Report was suppressed for 53 years. "Suggest you read the report below, then try to obtain a copy through regular channels."

"My investigation to date should convince this committee that a conspiracy does exist to stop the free flow and use of drugs in interstate commerce which allegedly has solid therapeutic value. Public and private funds have been thrown around like confetti at a country fair to close up and destroy clinics, hospitals, and scientific research laboratories which do not conform to the viewpoint of medical associations."

Benedict F. Fitzgerald, Jr., Special Counsel, US Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 1953 [1]
1. Hon. William Langer, Congressional Record, August 3, 1953, p. A 5352.

Thanks to the tireless work of Dr. Stan Monteith who unearthed this seminal work. See his January 2007 newsletter for most enlightening comments.

Here, yet again is another manifestation of power and privilege of a few at the expense of the many! This at worst is an apt description of democracy - while at best - it is mob rule where the many smother the few. Like the sickness industry billed as health care, democracy is billed as an utopian system. A system, which is supposed to defend our freedoms when itself it is anything but free.... And has often been classic stepping stone to fascism.

I should hasten to add, that the following comments are in no way to belittle the work of many thousands of hard working doctors and associated health care professionals, who in the main, like the public, are themselves manipulated to conform to our current medical system. Those brave, courageous and heroic souls who do try to improve matters and/or buck the system are swiftly dealt with as per the said report. There clearly, are those who have different agendas as so aptly outlined in Dr. Stan Monteith's newsletter above.

This report is a hard hitting and deserved condemnation of the medical system with names, organizations and all, that has not changed to this day but has only become worse hence, this disclosure is even more credible today then it was in its own day - Reading it will drive home the reality of the situation we face. The transcript below is embellished with appropriate links. It will remove any doubts as to the dismal lack of safety and efficacy of mainstream cancer treatments to this day. Treatments themselves that are known to be carcinogenic. The most dangerous aspect about this, particularly to the unsuspecting, is the delay time, that can range from a few months to over 20 years, for cancer to manifest from the exposure to such primitive and mindless treatments. Furthermore, it is abundantly clear, as shown in the vaccine shenanigans, that there is in fact no intention to cure disease when common sense measures such as prevention, cause, wether nutritional and/or environmental are intentionally ignored.

Chris Gupta
http://tinyurl.com/yr9eo9

Note:
Due the importance of this find I have created and uploaded an excellent 35 minute computer generated audio of the report here, while the original photo copy of the report is here. Unfortunately, many transcripts, indices are not available at this time hopefully these can be found at a later date. However, many of the treatments discussed in this report can be found in the excellent book: Politics in Healing : The Suppression & Manipulation of American Medicine
----------------------------------------

A Report by Special Counsel for a United States Senate Investigating Committee ...
?Making a Fact Finding Study of a Conspiracy against the Health of the American people.

THE UNDERSIGNED, as Special Counsel to the Senate Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, was directed to supervise a study of the following:

1. All those individuals, organizations, foundations, hospitals and clinics, throughout the United States, which have an effect upon interstate commerce and which have been conducting researches, investigations, experiments and demonstrations relating to the cause, prevention, and methods of diagnosis and treatment of the disease cancer, to determine the interstate ramifications of their operations, their financial structures, including their fund-raising methods, and the amounts expended for clinical research as distinguished from administrative expenditures, and to ascertain the extent of the therapeutic value claimed by each in the use of its particular therapy.

2. The facts involving the discovery of, the imports from a foreign country of, the researches upon, and the interstate experiments, demonstrations, and use of the various drugs, preparations, and remedies for the treatment of the disease cancer, such drugs to include the so-called wonder drug Krebiozen, Glyoxylide, Mucorhicin and others.

3. The facts involving the interstate conspiracy, if any, engaged in by any individuals, organizations, corporations, associations, and combines of any kind whatsoever, to hinder, suppress, or restrict the free flow or transmission of Krebiozen, Glyoxylide, and Mucorhicin, and other drugs, preparations and remedies, and information, researches, investigations, experiments and demonstrations relating to the cause, prevention and methods of diagnosis and treatment of the disease cancer.

4. The facts involving the operations of voluntary cooperative prepaid medical plans and the organizations sponsoring said plans which are engaged in interstate commerce and which include in their programs medical treatment for the disease cancer, to determine the extent of their interstate insurance operations, the identity of their originators and sponsors, and the resistance, if any, that each insurer has experienced from any individuals, organizations, corporations, associations, or combines, in their attempts to offer protection to those who are afflicted with the disease cancer.

5. The facts involving the inequality of opportunity, if any, that exists with regard to race, creed or color, in connection with the admission of students, researchers, and patients to institutions throughout the United States engaged in cancer therapy

Activity Report
Pursuant to the above, the undersigned commenced a collection and study of material covering the operations of foundations, hospitals, clinics, and government sponsored organizations specializing in cancer problems, including the following:

American Cancer Society
American Medical Association
Anne Fuller Fund, New Haven, Connecticut
Babe Ruth Foundation
Black, Stevenson Cancer Foundation, Hattiesburg, Mississippi
Bondy Fund, New York
Jonathan Bowman Fund, Madison, Wisconsin
Crocker Cancer Research Fund, New York
Damon Runyon Cancer Fund
Phllip L. Drosnes and the Drosnes-Lazenbey Clinic, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Dr. F. M. Eugene, Blass Clinic, Long Valley, New Jersey
Government Organizations:
The Department of Health, Education and Welfare?a. Food and Drug Administration
b. Federal Trade Commission
Dr. Gregory Clinic, Pasadena, California
Hoxsey Cancer Clinic, 4507 Gaston Avenue, Dallas, Texas
C. P. Huntington Fund, New York
International Cancer Research Foundation, Philadelphia, Pa.
John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md.
Dr. Waldo Jones, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Dr. William F. Koch and Rev. Sam Swain Clinic, also known as the Christian Medical Research League, Detroit, Michigan and Brazil, South America
Lakeland Foundation, Chicago, Illinois
Lincoln Foundation, Medford, Mass.
Memorial Hospital, New York
Dr. K. F. Murphy and Dr. Charles Lyman Lofler Clinic, 25 E. Washington Street, Chicago, Illinois
New York Skin and Cancer Hospital, New York
Radium Institute of New York
Henry Rutherford Fund, New York
Charles F. Spang Foundation, Pittsburgh, Pa.
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois

Thereafter, the undersigned travelled to Illinois to investigate the so-called Krebiozen controversy, and on July 2, 1953, wrote a report on his findings which is attached hereto and marked "Exhibit A." Included in this report was the evaluation:

"The controversy is involved and requires further research and development. There is reason to believe that the AMA has been hasty, capricious, arbitrary, and outright dishonest, and of course if the doctrine of 'respondeat superior' is to be observed, the alleged machinations of Dr. J. J. Moore (for the past ten years the treasurer of the AMA) could involve the AMA and others in an interstate conspiracy of alarming proportions.

"The principal witnesses who tell of Dr. Moore's rascality are Alberto Barreira, Argentine cabinet member, and his secretary, Anna D. Schmidt."

Thereafter, the undersigned visited other areas, interrogating medical men, and on July 14, 1953, wrote a further report. Included in this was the evaluation:

"Being vitally interested and having tried to listen and observe closely, it is my profound conviction that this substance Krebiozen is one of the most promising materials yet isolated for the management of cancer. It is biologically active. I have gone over the records of 530 cases, most of them conducted at a distance from Chicago, by unbiased cancer experts and clinics. In reaching my conclusions I have of course discounted my own lay observations and relied mostly on the opinions of qualified cancer research workers and ordinary experienced physicians.

"I have concluded that in the value of present cancer research, this substance and the theory behind it deserves the most full and complete and scientific study. Its value in the management of the cancer patient has been demonstrated in a sufficient number and percentage of cases to demand further work.

"Behind and over all this is the weirdest conglomeration of corrupt motives, intrigue, selfishness, jealousy, obstruction and conspiracy that I have ever seen.

"Dr. Andrew C. Ivy, who has been conducting research upon this drug, is absolutely honest intellectually, scientifically, and in every other way. Moreover, he appears to be one of the most competent and unbiased cancer experts that I have ever come in contact with, having served on the board of the American Cancer Society and the American Medical Association and in that capacity having been called upon to evaluate various types of cancer therapy. Dr. George G. Stoddard, President of the University of Illinois, in assisting in the cessation of Dr. Ivy's research on cancer at the University of Illinois, and in recommending the abolishment of the latter's post as Vice President of that institution, has in my opinion shown attributes of intolerance for scientific research in general."

It is a matter of common knowledge that the entire subject matter is highly controversial and thus further and additional research and development would entail more time. A controversy among renowned Surgeons, Pathologists, Cancerologists and Radiologists should not deter or silence this Committee from carrying out the mandate contemplated and expressly directed by the late Chairman of your Committee, Senator Charles W. Tobey, by virtue of the resolution passed by the Senate.

Now, passing on to another institution, I have very carefully studied the court records of three cases tried in the Federal and State Courts of Dallas, Texas. A running fight has been going on between officials, especially Dr. Morris Fishbein of the American Medical Association through the Journal of that organization, and the Hoxsey Cancer Clinic. Dr. Fishbein contended that the medicines employed by the Hoxsey Cancer Clinic had no therapeutic value; that it was run by a quack and a charlatan. (This clinic is manned by a staff of over 30 employees, including nurses and physicians). Reprints and circulation of several million copies of articles so prepared resulted in litigation. The Government thereafter intervened and sought an injunction to prevent the transmission in interstate commerce of certain medicines. It is interesting to note that in the Trial Court, before Judge Atwell, who had an opportunity to hear the witnesses in two different trials, it was held that the so-called Hoxsey. method of treating cancer was in some respects superior to that of x-ray, radium and surgery and did have therapeutic value. The Circuit Court of Appeals of the 5th Circuit decided otherwise. This decision was handed down during the trial of a libel suit in the District Court of Dallas, Texas, by Hoxsey against Morris Fishbein, who admitted that he had never practiced medicine one day in his life and had never had a private patient, which resulted in a verdict for Hoxsey and against Morris Fishbein. The defense admitted that Hoxsey could cure external cancer but contended that his medicines for internal cancer had no therapeutic value. The jury, after listening to leading Pathologists, Radiologists, Physicians, Surgeons and scores of witnesses, a great number of whom had never been treated by any Physician or Surgeon except the treatment received at the Hoxsey Cancer Clinic, concluded that Dr. Fishbein was wrong; that his published statements were false, and that the Hoxsey method of treating cancer did have therapeutic value.

In this litigation the Government of the United States, as well as Dr. Fishbein, brought to the Court the leading medical scientists, including Pathologists and others skilled in the treatment of cancer. They came from all parts of the country. It is significant to note that a great number of these doctors admitted that x-ray therapy could cause cancer. This view is supported by medical publications, including the magazine entitled "CANCER" published by the American Cancer Society. May issue of 1948.

I am herewith including the names and addresses of some of the witnesses who testified in the State and Federal Court. It has been determined by pathology, in a great many instances by laboratories wholly disconnected from the Hoxsey Cancer Clinic, that they were suffering from different types of cancer, both internal and external, and following treatment they testified they were cured.

Name              Address                              Type
J. A. Johnson Ranger, Tex. Squamous Cell No. 2
Mrs. R. J. Hickman 1225 E. Allen St. Ft. Worth, Tex Melanocarcinoma
Robt. Thane Avoca, Tex. Myxoliposarcoma
Mrs. H. H. Johnson Denton, Texas. Adenocarcinoma
Mrs. Elmer Smith Wellington, Tex. Malignant melanoma
Mildred Rager 2101 Stovall St., Dallas Texas Melanoma
A. G. Burgess 2416 Wyman St., Dallas Texas Basal Cell Carcinoma
Ira Poston 5322 Victor St., Dallas Texas Basal Cell Carcinoma
W. E. Harmon Grapevine, Tex. Prickle Cell Carcinoma
Mrs. J. A. Robb Weatherford, Tex Basal Cell Carcinoma
Mrs. Lessie Hester Lubbock, Tex Adenocarcinoma of Uterus
Mrs. Lora Barnett Peniel, Texas Adenocarcinoma of Uterus
Mrs. E. E. Hockett Farmersville, Texas, RFD Prickle Cell Carcinoma
T. E. Truman Waco, Texas Epidermoid Carcinoma
Fritz Trojan Waco, Texas Squamous Cell type
Mr. C. W. Malone Brownwood, Tex. Basal Cell type
Val Seurer Hinton, Okla. Malignant Carcinoma
Jo Parelll Sportotorium, Dallas, Texas Malignant Carcinoma
Mrs. R. M. Hoffman c-o J. B. Baird Co.. Shreveport, La. Spindle Cell Carcinoma
Tom Coates Merkel, Texas Basal Cell Carcinoma
J. L. Renfro Merkel, Texas Malignant Carcinoma
Mrs. J. D. Douglas Ft. Worth. Tex. Duct-cell Carcinoma
Mrs. R. S. Turner Carcinoma Grade 3 Squamous Cell
Mrs. C. E. Mallory Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Mrs.Herman Thomas 5222 Merrimac St., Dallas, Texas Melanocarcinoma
Clifton H. Smith 5637 Hiram St., Ft. Worth, Tex Malignant Carcinoma
Rev.Horace W. Irwin West Warwick, Rhode Island Malignant Carcinoma

I have had access to literature by leading scientists in the field of medicine. The attention of the Committee is invited to the hearings held during the 79th Congress, in July 1946; Senate Bill 1875 being under consideration, wherewith it appears, as follows:

"Dr. George Miley was born in Chicago, 1907, graduated from Chicago Latin School, 1923, graduated with B.A. from Yale University in 1927, from Northwestern Medical School, 1932, interned at Chicago Memorial Hospital in 1932 and 1933, University of Vienna Postgraduate Medical School, 1933, 1934, following which he visited the hospitals in India, China and Japan. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He holds a national board certificate and since 1945 he has been medical director of the Gotham Hospital, New York.
"Report of Dr. Miley of a survey made by Dr. Stanley Reimann (in charge of Tumor Research and Pathology, Gotham Hospital) before Senator Pepper's Committee on Senate Bill 1875, a bill to authorize expenditure of one hundred million dollars in cancer research.

"Dr. Reimann's report on cancer cases in Pennsylvania over a long period of time showed that those who received no treatment lived a longer period than those that received surgery, radium or x-ray. The exceptions were those patients who had received electro-surgery. The survey also showed that following the use of radium and x-ray much more harm than good was done to the average cancer patient."

"Dr. William Seaman Bainbridge, A.M., Sc.D., M.D., CM., F.I.C.S. (Hon.) was the recipient of six honorary degrees from various institutions, the most recent being the degree of Doctor Honoris Cause from the University of San Marcos, Peru. He has been surgeon at the New York Skin and Cancer Hos­pital, Surgical Director of New York City Children's Hospital and of Manhattan State Hospital, Ward's Island, and consulting surgeon and gynecologist to various hospitals in the New York metropolitan and suburban areas.

"While there are some who still believe in the efficacy of radiation as a cure, my skepticism with regard to its value is being increasingly substantiated. But even with the best technic of today, its curative effect in real cancer is questionable. In 1939 the great British physiologist, Sir Leonard Hill, wrote: 'Large doses (of gamma and hard x-ray) produced destruction of normal tissues such as marrow and lymphoid tissue, leukocytes and epithelial linings, and death ensues ... The nation would, I think, be little the worse off if all the radium in the country now buried for security from bombing in deep holes, remains therein.'

"A neoplasm should never be incised for diagnostic purposes, for one cannot tell at what split moment the cancer cells may be disseminated and the patient doomed. Aspirating the neoplasm to draw out the cells by suction. This, too, is a very questionable procedure, for what of the cancer cells that may be present below the puncture point and around the needle which have been set free? It must be realized that while cancer cannot be transplanted from man to man, it can be transplanted in the same host.*" (See index)

* Although now we know that can in fact be transplanted from man to man. See:

Brain tumor linked to liver transplant

"There is a report from another source in which Doctor Feinblatt, for six years Pathologist of the Memorial Hospital, New York, reported that the Memorial Hospital had originally given x-ray and radium treatment before and after radical operations for breast malignancy. These patients did not long survive, so x-ray and radium were given after surgery only. These patients lived a brief time only and after omitting all radiation, patients lived the longest of all." (See index)

Doctors Warned To Be Wary In Use Of X-Rays In Disease Treatment, by Howard W. Blakeslee, Associated Press Science Editor.

"New York, July 6, 1948 ­ X-rays and gamma rays can cause bone cancer is warning issued in 'Cancer,' a new medical journal started by the American Cancer Society. The bone cancer warning, covering more than twenty pages, is by Doctors William G Cahan. Helen Q. Woodward, Norman L. Higgin-botham. Fred W. Steward and Bradlev I. Coley, all of New York City.

"One of the most dangerous things about this kind of bone cancer, the report states, is the very long delay between the use of the rays and the appearance of the cancers. The delay time in the eleven cases ranged from six to twenty-two years."

"Doctor Herman Joseph Muller, Nobel Prize Winner, a world renowned scientist, has stated the Medical Profession is permanently damaging the American life stream through the unwise use of x-rays. There is no dosage of x-ray so low as to be without risk of producing harmful mutations." (See index)

See also:
Avoid X-Rays Especially To Children
X-Rays and Cancers
The Depths of Deceit Mammography

The attention of the Committee is invited to the request made by Senator Elmer Thomas following an investigation made by the Senator of the Hoxsey Cancer Clinic under date of February 25th, 1947, and addressed to the Surgeon General, Public Health Department, Washington, D.C., wherein he sought to enlist the support of the Federal Government to make an investigation and report. No such investigation was made. In fact, every effort was made to avoid and evade the investigation by the Surgeon General's office. The record will reveal that this clinic did furnish 62 complete case histories, including pathology, names of hospitals, physicians, etc., in 1945. Again in June, 1950, 77 case histories, which included the names of the patients, pathological reports in many instances, and in the absence thereof, the names of the Pathologists, hospitals and physicians who had treated these patients before being treated at the Hoxsey Cancer Clinic. The Council of National Cancer Institute, without investigation, in October 1950, refused to order an investigation. The record in the Federal Court discloses that this agency of the Federal Government took sides and sought in every way to hinder, suppress and restrict this institution in their treatment of cancer. (See testimony Dr. Gilcin Meadors, Pages 1125-1139 Transcript of Records, Case No. 13645, U.S.C.A.)

Among the numerous foundations and clinics which profess to possess a remedy for the treatment of cancer is the Lincoln Foundation of Medford, Massachusetts, which has been the particular target of the AMA. I have not had an opportunity to sufficiently explore the particular type of therapy employed by this institution. However, I understand it involves a unique theory of inhalant therapy and the transmission of bacteria-phage. In passing it is important to note that this technique was the subject of particular interest to the late Chairman who was a trustee of the Lincoln Foundation following a successful treatment of his son Charles W. Tobey, Jr. This remedy has been tried by hundreds of patients and it is alleged that these treatments have been proven beneficial.

Another institution which claims to have made some progress in the treatment of cancer is the Drosnes-Lazenbey Cancer Clinic of Pittsburgh, Pa. The reports would indicate that this institution is likewise entitled to a hearing before this Committee. The heavy toll of life being taken by cancer requires a searching investigation. The methods employed, as I understand it, is a substance known as Mucorhicin, which is reported to be of therapeutic value.

Under the fourth assignment concerning voluntary cooperative prepaid medical plans and any resistance encountered from organizations, associations or combines, it is a matter of public record in the Federal and State Court that medical associations have put up a road block whenever or wherever this is attempted.

The Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, through its Sub-Committee on Health, submitted the results of a study of health insurance plans in the United States, in a report issued in May 1951, 82nd Congress. This was accomplished under the direction of Dr. Dean H. Clark, now the Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital. This appears to be the first objective and impartial study of the scope, benefits and effectiveness of voluntary health insurance plans. It shows that one-half of the population at that time had some form of protection against the cost of hospital care, but three million had what can be called comprehensive protection against the cost of hospital and medical care. Specifically with reference to cancer, it would appear that an opportunity would be afforded members of this sort of a health program to periodic checkups to determine whether they had cancer. This subject was discussed at length between Kenneth Meiklejohn, Staff Director of the Sub-Committee on Health, and Senator Tobey two years ago. Correspondence between the two is available. The reports, of course, are available to the members of this Committee.

From a strictly legal as well as ethical approach, if one individual has the right to select his own physician or hospital, why cannot 10,000 individuals and their families determine that they intend to invest directly, or indirectly, in the construction and maintenance of a hospital, employ a staff of competent physicians, surgeons, technicians, laboratory experts, nurses, interns, et cetera, to look after their health problems? This is not so-called socialized medicine. It is purely voluntary. Here, as elsewhere stated in this report, the jurisdiction of the Committee may be limited. It may properly belong to the States and their legislators and courts to determine this problem. However, the general welfare clause of the Constitution may be the answer. If the Committee should determine that it has jurisdiction, I am of the opinion that competent legal evidence can be presented which will aid and assist the Committee in its final judgment.

With reference to the fifth assignment, you are advised that time did not permit me to ascertain the number of students or the increase thereof in the various medical schools through­out the country. It has been suggested that a studied effort has been made by certain groups to keep the number of students enrolling in medical schools at a low figure. I do not assert this to be the fact and I doubt if the Committee would have jurisdiction to go into that question. This would properly belong to the States. If this is a fact, then the various State legislatures of the country should, of course, take necessary steps, consistent with the public welfare, to see that every opportunity is given to any boy or girl who possesses the necessary qualifications to be permitted to enter medical schools. If, on the other hand, this Committee believes that it has jurisdiction under the Gen­eral Welfare Clause of the Constitution to go forward, then certainly it would be a proper and timely matter of inquiry. In any event, you do have jurisdiction and should complete the in­vestigation in so far as cancer is concerned by those engaged in the research field.

A careful study of the subject matter embraced in the di­rection of the late Chairman will disclose the tremendous importance of the investigation undertaken and the consideration of the results by the members of this Committee.

We have long since passed the age of witch hunting. We are, notwithstanding, living in an era of hysteria. Investigation seems to be the order of the day. Crude thinking results in hysterical action. Perhaps the converse is true. The beginning of hysteria is the end of sound thinking. Proceeding, therefore, to the end result sought by all, we recognize the value of our goal in striving for a sound, vigorous and healthful Nation at minimum costs. Money, however, lavishly spent to stamp out a dreadful scourge is sound public economy.

I have approached this problem with an open mind. Recognizing the importance of men skilled in the science of medicine, who are best informed, if not qualified, on the question of cancer, its causes and treatment, I directed my attention to the propaganda by the American Medical Association and the American Cancer Society to the effect: namely, "that radium, x-ray therapy and surgery are the only recognized treatments for cancer."

Is there any dispute among recognized medical scientists in America and elsewhere in the world on the use of radium and x-ray therapy in the treatment of cancer. The answer is definitely "Yes" there is a division of opinion on the use of radium and x-ray. Both agencies are destructive, not constructive. In the alleged destruction of the abnormal, outlaw or cancer cells both x-ray therapy and radium destroy normal tissue and normal cells. Recognized medical authorities in America and elsewhere state positively that x-ray therapy can cause cancer in and of itself. Documented cases are available.

This is true for Chemotherapy as well... CG??Chemotherapy is incapable of extending in any appreciable way the lives of patients afflicted with the most common cancers-and even the palliative effect of these toxic drugs, which supposedly improve the quality of life, "rests on scientifically shaky ground." That was the conclusion of West German cancer biostatistician Ulrich Abel, Ph.D., in the most comprehensive study ever undertaken on cancer chemotherapy. In his 1990 book Dr. Abel wrote, "There is no evidence for the vast majority of cancers that treatment with these drugs exerts any positive influence on survival or quality of life in patients with advanced disease." The advanced cancers to which Dr. Abel is referring are those malignancies responsible for over 80 percent of the cancer deaths in the Western industrial countries. "Among others, they include nearly all malignant tumors of trachea, bronchus, lung, stomach, colon, rectum, esophagus, breast, bladder, pancreas, ovary, cervix and corpus uteri, head and neck, and liver.. . . Tumors are called advanced if they are recurrent, disseminated, or not radically resectable."

Extracted from: Options by Richard Walters

The increased number of cancer patients in America of all ages and the apparent failure to presently cope with this dreaded disease indicates the necessity of a sustained effort of private and Federal agencies to continue research in the field of cancer; its causes and treatment.

If radium, x-ray or surgery or either of them is the complete answer, then the greatest hoax of the age is being perpetrated upon the people by the continued appeal for funds for further research. If neither x-ray, radium or- surgery is the complete answer to this dreaded disease, and I submit that it is not, then what is the plain duty of society? Should we stand still? Should we sit idly by and count the number of physicians, surgeons and cancerologists who are not only divided but who, because of fear or favor, are forced to line up with the so-called accepted view of the American Medical Association, or should this Committee make a full scale investigation of the organized effort to hinder, suppress and restrict the free flow of drugs which allegedly have proven successful in cases where clinical records, case history, pathological reports and x-ray photograph­ic proof, together with the alleged cured patients, are available.

Accordingly, we should determine whether existing agencies, both public and private, are engaged and have pursued a policy of harassment, ridicule, slander and libelous attacks on others sincerely engaged in stamping out this curse of mankind. Have medical associations, through their officers, agents, servants and employees engaged in this practice? My investigation to date should convince this Committee that a conspiracy does exist to stop the free flow and use of drugs in interstate commerce which allegedly has solid therapeutic value. Public and private funds have been thrown around like confetti at a country fair to close up and destroy clinics, hospitals and scientific research laboratories which do not conform to the viewpoint of medical associations.

How long will the American people take this? To illustrate the stranglehold of the American Medical Association on legislation which in turn affects every household in America, let us look at a small 25 cent tube of penicillin ointment. Is it dangerous to have around the house for a cut or small bruise on your body? Rat poison can be bought without a doctor's prescription. The sale of arsenic must have a doctor's prescription. The sale of arsenic and rat poisons is small but not penicillin. Accordingly we must have a doctor's prescription in America to buy a 25 cent tube of ointment. In Canada, however, the Medical Association has not yet discovered THE GREAT DANGER of a small tube of penicillin ointment and, accordingly the people are able to buy it without paying a doctor for a prescription. To say that it is dangerous, is silly. To assert, rather, that it is but another manifestation of power and privilege of a few at the expense of the many would be more consistent with truth and wholly accurate.

What is the duty of this Committee and the members thereof? Your first duty, of course, is to do right. Properly considered, that is your only duty. In doing right, however, you owe a duty to the American people. In upholding the law and enacting legislation for the people of America, we look first to the instrument of our creation as a representative form of Government. Those powers not specifically conferred upon the Federal Government and denied to the States, are reserved either to the States or to the people. Thus the founding fathers very wisely created an area of freedom in which free men shall function. It is in this area set aside by the fathers of our Republic that people have the right to own property, transact business, build up a system of free enterprise without hindrance, harass­ment or abuse of either the Government, State or Federal, or of other citizens, however powerful, so long as the people so engaged do not trespass upon the rights of others. This is the basic concept of liberty functioning in America. It may be said to be a reservoir of freedom. In this area we have mingled our money and blood with the races of mankind. We have demonstrated our ability to live together peacefully and happily, although we represent most of the races, most of the colors and most of the creeds. This was an innovation and a new experiment to the peoples of the old world. Out of and from this area has sprung the noblest dreams and saintliest purposes of mankind, purposes so strong and vital that it has become the envy and admiration of a waiting world. People look longingly to the shores of America and desire to make this their asylum of escape and hope for the future. It is more than a dream. It is a reality. While we have not solved all the problems of mankind, we have at least provided a sanctuary and the instruments of government, if properly guarded against the abuse of selfish men and organiza­tions who would bend it to suit their purposes, which could live for centuries to come. In this connection this Committee should investigate the advertising agency which controls all advertis­ing in the Journal of the American Medical Association as well as the various State Journals. Why is the stamp of approval, by the so-called nutrition expert and their Council on Foods, placed on certain foodstuffs, denied to others, and others condemned, without a reasonable investigation? Is there any relationship between approval by these experts and the operation of the advertising agency in the offices of the American Medical Association?

May I, with propriety, call your attention to the tragedy which has invaded the United States Senate. Four great Americans, all of them, Senator McMahon, Senator Wherry, Senator Vandenberg and Senator Bob Taft were all stricken down with this dreaded disease. We are under a compelling moral obligation to the memory of these great public servants and to the untold millions of cancer sufferers throughout the world to carry on this investigation. We cannot do otherwise.

Respectfully submitted,
Benedict F. FitzGerald
Special Counsel

To subscribe / unsubscribe:  chrisgupta@alumni.uwaterloo.ca?List information is at: http://tinyurl.com/2xohw ?ARCHIVES: http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/a ... .htm?Share The Wealth: http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/ ?Communication Agents: http://www.communicationagents.com/ ?Council Member: Friends of Freedom - http://www.friendsoffreedom.org

[DaleSVP]

This oughta wake even the dead up....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPI7zdGdqo4

[Sunshinemaker]

Look what I found while surfing.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20825107/

http://www.crosswalk.com/news/11557221/

[DaleSVP]

Vaccine Ingredients
scary stuff

http://www.informedchoice.info/cocktail.html

[DaleSVP]

* * * PRESS RELEASE * * *

November 19, 2007

Ojai, CA -- On January 29, 2001, Jock Doubleday offered $20,000 to the first U.S.-licensed medical doctor or pharmaceutical company CEO to publicly drink a mixture of standard vaccine additive ingredients:

http://www.mercola.com/2001/feb/10/vaccine_offer.htm

The offer had no takers.

On August 1, 2006, Doubleday increased the $20,000 offer to $75,000:

http://www.vaclib.org/links/jockslinks.htm#press

The new $75,000 offer had no takers.

THEREFORE . . .

On June 1, 2007, the offer was increased to $80,000.
On July 1, 2007, the offer was increased to $85,000.
On August 1, 2007, the offer was increased to $90,000.
On September 1, 2007, the offer was increased to $95,000.
On October 1, 2007, the offer was increased to $100,000.
On November 1, 2007, the offer was increased to $105,000.

The offer will continued to increase $5,000 per month, in perpetuity, until an M.D. or pharmaceutical company CEO, or any of the 14 relevant members of the ACIP (see below), agrees to drink a body-weight calibrated dose of the poisonous vaccine additives that M.D.s routinely inject into children in the name of health.

As of December 1, 2007, the offer will increase to $110,000.
As of January 1, 2008, the offer will increase to $115,000. . . . etc.

This offer has no expiration date unless superceded by a similar offer of higher remuneration.

http://spontaneouscreation.org/SC/$75,0 ... eOffer.htm

[Sunshinemaker]

This stunning censored interview conducted by medical historian Edward Shorter for WGBH public television (Boston) and Blackwell Science was cut from The Health Century due to its huge liability--the admission that Merck drug company vaccines have traditionally been injecting cancer viruses (SV40 and others) in people worldwide.

This segment of In Lies We Trust: The CIA, Hollywood & Bioterrorism, produced and freely contributed by consumer protector and public health expert, Dr. Leonard Horowitz, features the world's leading vaccine expert, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, who explains why Merck's vaccines have spread AIDS, leukemia, and other horrific plagues worldwide.

Please forward this clip (link) to everyone you know who thinks vaccines are "safe and effective."

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=327_1195303011

[DaleSVP]

All states provide exceptions allowing parents to oppose mandated vaccines.

For further information on vaccine regulations, visist your state law library. You may also acquire a copy of your exact state law and a sample exception letter by using the following web site: www.thinktwice.com/laws.htm
This extensive resource contains valuable information regarding vaccines.

Despite signing these waivers, some parents have been charged with child abuse for not vaccinating their children and were hustled into court with the threat of losing custody of their loved ones. Court officals, social workers, and even fostoer parents have tried to force injections on the children. Ironically, some parents who did vaccinate their children have lost custody of them, and were accused of child abuse--"shaking baby syndrome" --when their babies had seizure, went into a coma, or died, following their shots.

Authorities also argue that parents should vaccinate their children to protect society as a whole from epidemics. But if the vaccines offered true immunity only the unvaccinated would become ill. Therefore, decisions that effect your child's health should not be forced upon you by so-called experts who are neither willing nor able to take responsibility for their actions.

VACCINES are they really safe and effective?

Neil Z. Miller
2002 over 100,000 copies sold

[DaleSVP]

Recreational Drugs FAR Less Likely to Kill You than Prescribed Drugs!

By Christopher Kent, D.C., J.D.

Recreational drugs, including cocaine and heroin, are responsible for an estimated 10,000-20,000 American deaths per year [1,2]. While this represents a serious public health problem, it is a "smokescreen" for America's real drug problem. America's "war on drugs" is directed at the wrong enemy. It is obvious that interdiction, stiff mandatory sentences, and more vigorous enforcement of drug laws have failed.

The reason is simple. Cause and effect have been reversed.

The desire to solve problems by taking drugs is a product of our culture. When a child is taught by loving parents that the appropriate response to pain or discomfort is taking a pill, it is obvious that such a child, when faced with the challenges of adolescence, will seek comfort by taking drugs.

Drugs are Dangerous Whether Pushed or Prescribed

While approximately 10,000 per year die from the effects of illegal drugs, an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported that an estimated 106,000 hospitalized patients die each year from drugs which, by medical standards, are properly prescribed and properly administered. More than two million suffer serious side effects. [3] An article in Newsweek [4] put this into perspective. Adverse drug reactions, from "properly" prescribed drugs, are the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. According to this article, only heart disease, cancer, and stroke kill more Americans than drugs prescribed by medical doctors. Reactions to prescription drugs kill more than twice as many Americans as HIV/AIDS or suicide. Fewer die from accidents or diabetes than adverse drug reactions. It is important to point out the limitations of this study. It did not include outpatients, cases of malpractice, or instances where the drugs were not taken as directed.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic ... drugs.aspx

So how much did you pay for that pharmacology degree?

[Sunshinemaker]

Posted: February 28, 2008
6:43 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=57629

The federal government continues to deny a link between vaccines and autism, but the U.S. Court of Federal Claims has ruled in favor of a child alleged to have regressed into autism as a result of vaccinations.

Several of the vaccinations included the controversial mercury-based preservative thimerosal, points out the National Autism Association, which sees the ruling as confirmation of the claims of many parents.

"This case echoes the stories of thousands of children across the country," said NAA President Wendy Fournier. "With almost 5,000 similar cases pending in vaccine court, we are confident that this is just the first of many that will confirm what we have believed for so long – vaccines can and do cause children to regress into autism."

Fournier called on the Centers for Disease Control "to acknowledge that the current vaccine schedule is not safe for every child and as with the administration of any medicine, individual risks and susceptibilities must be considered for each patient."

(Story continues below)

The government's unprecedented concession – filed Nov. 9 and sealed to protect the plaintiff's identity – was obtained through individuals unrelated to the case, said David Kirby, author of "Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and The Autism Epidemic, A Medical Controversy."

The concession was made by U.S. Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler and other Justice Department officials on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services, the defendant in all vaccine court cases.

A CDC panel, meanwhile, voted unanimously Wednesday to recommend flu shots for all school-age children. The move would compel private insurers to cover the costs and require the CDC to make the vaccine available to anyone who can't afford it.

The NAA criticized the CDC decision, noting thimerosal is still found in flu shots recommended for children and pregnant women.

Thimerosal in vaccines is suspected of causing brain damage and weakening the immune system, making some children susceptible later to infection from measles, mumps and rubella shots.

Kirby, writing for the Huffington Post, reported the government's written concession said the child had a pre-existing mitochondrial disorder that was "aggravated" by her shots and ultimately resulted in a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, or ASD.

"This statement is good news for the girl and her family, who will now be compensated for the lifetime of care she will require," Kirby writes. "But its implications for the larger vaccine-autism debate, and for public health policy in general, are not as certain."

The government's concession, he says, seems to raise more questions than it answers.

The Department of Health and Human Services said its Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation, or DVIC, "has reviewed the scientific information concerning the allegation that vaccines cause autism and has found no credible evidence to support the claim. Accordingly, in every case under the Vaccine Act, DVIC has maintained the position that vaccines do not cause autism, and has never concluded in any case that autism was caused by vaccination."

Kirby said that for most affected families, the fine distinction between claiming that vaccines did not "cause" autism but instead aggravated a condition to "manifest" as autism is a fine distinction that is not so important.

While it's too early to tell, he said, "this concession could conceivably make it more difficult for some officials to continue insisting there is 'absolutely no link' between vaccines and autism."

It also puts the federal government's vaccine court defense strategy somewhat into jeopardy, he said.

"DOJ lawyers and witnesses have argued that autism is genetic, with no evidence to support an environmental component," he pointed out. "And, they insist, it's simply impossible to construct a chain of events linking immunizations to the disorder. Government officials may need to rethink their legal strategy, as well as their public relations campaigns, given their own slightly contradictory concession in this case."

The bottom line, he said, is that the public will demand to know what is going on inside the U.S. federal health establishment.

"The significance of this concession will unfortunately be fought over in the usual, vitriolic way – and I fully expect to be slammed for even raising these questions," Kirby writes. "Despite that, the language of this concession cannot be changed, or swept away."

The key words contained in the concession, he says, are "aggravated" and "manifested."

"Without the aggravation of the vaccines, it is uncertain that the manifestation would have occurred at all," Kirby argues.

"When a kid with peanut allergy eats a peanut and dies, we don't say 'his underlying metabolic condition was significantly aggravated to the extent of manifesting as an anaphylactic shock with features of death,'" he continues. "No, we say the peanut killed the poor boy. Remove the peanut from the equation, and he would still be with us today."

Whatever the government's further explanation, says Kirby, "they cannot change the fundamental facts of this extraordinary case: The United State government is compensating at least one child for vaccine injuries that resulted in a diagnosis of autism. And that is big news, no matter how you want to say it."