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Phooey on Big Phat Pharma

"For a long time now, has not the news been nothing but doom? Do you think that just happens? Electric power lines cause cancer! But of course, they don't. Most everything you eat will kill you, and this pesticide and that chemical! But of course, people lead longer and healthier lives decade by decade. Fear is a hammer, and when the people are beaten finally to the conviction that their existence hangs by a frayed thread, they will be led where they need to go." The Good Guy by Dean Koontz.

By quoting the above Koontz copy, I am of course, referring obliquely to Big Pharma, but I feel that have to explain myself a bit more regarding my love-hate relationship with Big Pharma. By the way, I don't consider myself a conspiracy theorist: I listen, I read a lot of alternative literature and, although there is that provocative grain of truth, I take most of that imaginative nonsense with a grain of salt, and no, I don't think that a solar storm will decimate North America.

Here is the "hate" side first: I truly believe that Big Oil/ the Saudis/ the Illuminati and Big Pharma rule the world economy. The corporate heads and the businesses themselves are parasitical, manipulative and dishonest. These two corporate forces drive their people to lie, to cheat and to suppress valuable information both about alternative energy sources and alternative healing sources. You can't believe ANYTHING in the media about ANYTHING, but esp. that which is written about medicine.

Even the medical journals, like the New England Journal of Medicine and Journal of the American Medical Association quoted by the media with the reverence due only to scripture have been found to be infested by researcher-writers who are bought and sold by Big Pharma. The media too is bought and sold by Big Pharma, except for PBS and NPR. If you can stand the boredom component of Jim Lehrer et al, theirs is the only news to be believed. I just don't listen to any news anymore and read only the New York Times and that with a grain of salt.

The way a new drug is promoted by Big Pharma is criminal. Yes, they have a huge bottom line and yes, they spend millions in the development of new drugs, and yes, they are a "business", but they are downright shameful in their manipulation of the manipulatable millions out there. That includes the MD's too. I know this is sweeping, so you can take me with that grain of salt, too, but most MD's still think that statins are the best invention since penicillin, and if one pill isn't working, then they try another on top of that one, and they routinely give antibiotics for a viral infections - all the while scoffing and pointing accusatory fingers at natural medicine from their high and quickly crumbling perch.

So, why the scoffing? Because natural medicine is not "evidence based." What the heck does that mean? It means typically that pharmaceuticals have "published studies" behind them before they are deemed suitable by the FDA (The FDA is useless and bought.). This means studies which use the "scientific method" - you know, words like double blind, placebo, controlled, large targeted group studies.

But you and I both know that these "scientific studies" are now not credible because they are bought and paid for by Big Pharma. So it is heinously non-useful to read anything in print from anywhere about the efficacy or, more to the point, the dangers of any drug! It's like the snake eating its own tail, trying to find the truth of its own existence.

Let's take the example of PremPro, the horse urine derivative of estrogen plus the petrochemical synthetic of progesterone, that women in droves were strongly told by their trusted MD's to take upon reaching menopause for prevention of hot flashes, heart disease and myriad other magical things. Thousands of MD's wrote millions of scripts for this drug and Wyeth made out big time. (Wyeth is now pressing the FDA to ban bio-identical hormones. Transparently vindictive? You bet.) Then, as we all know, PremPro was hastily taken off the market after it was found that it never prevented heart attacks, caused breast cancer and actually did not do much of anything good at all except for Wyeth's bottom line. PremPro was "evidence based", gold stamped by the FDA and written about extensively in Journals by supportive researcher MD's and PhD's. But how could this very dangerous drug be on the market for so long?

Well, now, I'm going to tell you about the medical "ghost-writer." It is a doctor hired by Big Pharma to write about studies s/he did not actually participate in as if s/he were the actual researcher. In most cases, the drug company does the "science" and pays the doctor to write up the "evidence-based" findings and put his/her name on it. The more famous the doctor, the better, too. This "ghost-writing practice is egregiously crooked and Congress is now looking into medical ghost-writing. What do you want to bet that nothing will be done about it?

"There is very little science to medicine these days. There is mostly scandal." Robert Jay Rowen, M.D., Second Opinion, July, 2009. Yes, it is sort of depressing. Nowadays, it seems that you can't really trust who you think you should be able to trust and we - those of us who think about stuff and read between the lines and question authority - are becoming a small yet growing cadre of activist cynics.

I would rather dispense my naturally derived-from-God nutrition, suggest simple life-style changes, encourage you to exercise, sleep well and meditate and to think good thoughts and love one another as best you can. I will adhere to the part of the Hippocratic Oath that says, "Do no Harm" and I will be - I am - very happy with my extremely powerful kind of medicine which will never, ever do you any harm.

Oh, yeah. The "love" part of the "love-hate" relationship I have with Big Pharma? Let's see, it's ALL emergency driven, like antibiotics for a pneumonia that is about to kill me, X-rays and a cast for a broken leg, and even a hip replacement if I just can't walk any more without excruciating pain, and after I have tried everything I could get my hands on in the natural realm of medicine. And that's it, folks.

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