Pharmaceuticals/Politics and 'Words'

[Guest guest]

Another article on drugs being promoted as " good "

for you while supplements may be bad *if not

regulated by the government.

 

" It's all about words " (below)is a good way to

summary what is happpening to politics too in

general, those few second sound bits on

politicians and policies before Congress (like

medicare reform)played OVER AND OVER again.

Slick marketing practices coming out of Harvard

and Wharton being used on television not only

selling Ivory soap but also now selling the

President, our Congresspeople and the legislation

they want to pass, promoting it directly to The

People, via television, as a paid-for ad, hoping

The People will in turn press the issue with

their Congressman, and they do.

 

There is legislation right now before Congress

and also in Europe to bann our access to vitamin

supplements through regulating industry through

FDA. Problem is the FDA hasn't been doing a good

job for the *public with drugs, allowing Serzone,

which has killed teens causing liver failure and

other lapses of judgement.

 

Words

 

By Mary Starrett

July 2, 2004

NewsWithViews.com

" Words are, of course, the most powerful drug

used by mankind " --

Rudyard Kipling

 

Listen closely. Read between the lines. You are

being convinced,

slowly and deliberately that vitamin supplements

are dangerous and

that pharmaceutical drugs are always your best

bet.

 

Perhaps you've become aware of this upside-down

logic. If not, I

offer you a few examples of how the masses are

being systematically

brain-washed. Keep these examples in mind , it

won't be long before

you're noticing some yourself.

 

Recently ABC News ran a rather lengthy piece

about how " dangerous "

certain common herbal supplements are. The case

in point was woman

who'd had a kidney transplant. She took an herbal

 

supplement

containing the age-old Black Cohosh root and

whammo! She became

deathly ill. What ABC didn't discuss was that

people who've had an

organ transplant have compromised systems that

even too much water or

table salt plays havoc with. Never mind that. The

 

not -so-subtle

point the network was making was this: Be afraid,

 

be very afraid of

anything the pharmaceutical companies don't make

a profit from!

 

This past week The Wall Street Journal screamed

out headlines: " Watch

Out For Serious Interactions When Taking Drugs,

and Herbs " .

 

The story reported " a wave of recent studies is

sparking concern

about the dangers of taking herbal supplements "

The article went on

to list the dangers of combining common herbal

supplements with

prescription drugs. Instead of pointing out that

pharmaceuticals

cause the deaths each year of over 100,000

people, media attention

focuses on the " dangers " of herbs people have

been taking to help

heal their bodies for centuries.

 

What is perhaps most telling about why these

types of stories are

hitting print and broadcast with greater

frequency is simply this:

Vitamins and herbal supplements bring in well

over $20 billion

dollars a year (my inclusion: explosive since

people have been swapping stories about being

helped by then over the internet). The drug

companies want a piece

of the action (in insertion: it is taking money

out away from drug companies because people are

switching from their high prices drugs to herbs

as an alternative).

Therefore, expect to see more and more attention

focused on

the " danger " ' of vitamins. The next logical step

will be the

prescribing of these natural substances to better

 

" protect " the

consumer. Once this happens, as it has in several

 

other countries,

what were once easily-available non-prescription,

 

age-old healing

substances like Ginko Biloba or St. John's Wort

or even Vitamin C

will then become available only if a doctor

prescribes them. Since

the vast majority of medical doctors in the

United States hold little

store by the less-invasive natural remedies this

does not bode well

for those of us who to the belief that

the body can and

will heal itself if given the right nutritional

support.

 

The Wall Street Journal story said " the growing

interest in herb-drug

interactions comes as more Americans are popping

herbal

medications. " " Popping. "

 

That's an interesting choice of words. In an era

where we are

encouraged to take a pill ( " pop " one, if you

will) for everything

from heartburn ( " esophageal reflux disease " ) to

shyness ( " social

anxiety disorder " ) to normal childhood energy

levels ( " attention

deficit hyperactivity disorder " ) it seems odd

that taking SUPPLEMENTS

should be referred to as " popping. " Why is it

that term is never used

to describe the taking of prescription drugs?

 

Bayer (the pharmaceutical company now in the

midst of trying to

settle unprecedented numbers of wildly expensive

lawsuits over deaths

related to its cholesterol-lowering drug Baycol)

now labels its

(potentially toxic) antibiotic Cipro with

cautions against pairing

the drug with calcium-fortified orange juice! It

would seem the

public would be better served all around with

honest assessments of

the dangers inherent in these drugs themselves-

with or without the

juice chaser!

 

While anything paired with anything (grapefruit

juice and certain

heart medications) can be dangerous, the big

picture is that all of a

sudden " studies " showing the danger of things

like Vitamin C

(recently debunked) and Ginseng are substantively

 

disingenuous.

 

What is at the core of these misleading " studies "

 

and the media

frenzies that inevitably follow is a commission

established 40 years

ago by the World Health Organization to set

" upper limits " of

supplements. In other words a world-wide goon

squad is now working on

determining just how much Vitamin C you should be

 

allowed to take.

The Codex Alimentarius gang isn't working on

getting the word out

about how damaging (FDA approved!) food additives

 

like Aspartame and

MSG areno! Neither are they alerting consumers

to the horrific side

effects of mercury-containing vaccines, or the

very real possibility

of having a stroke while taking Hormone

Replacement Therapy. Codex is

working on making sure you won't have access to

too much Vitamin

Cwithout a prescription.

 

The Dear Abby advice column (now written by

Jeanne Philips, daughter

of the late columnist Abigail Van Buren) today

printed a letter from

a reader (uh huh) that went like this:

 

" Dear Abby, Our marriage was wonderful until my

wife cut back on her

Premarinnow her libido is shot. I'm really

sufferingis there an

alternative to splitting up? "

 

It was signed: " Desperate in Arizona " Dear Abby,

like Peter Jennings,

like countless other media sock puppets are

nothing more than

mouthpieces for a highly-propagandizing

pharmaceutical industry. This

wasn't even a disguised attempt at spin- damage

control for a drug

(manufactured from PRE(gnant) MA(re) u RIN(e).

That's right , the

drug Premarin ( a hormone replacement drug in a

class of drugs shown

to cause serious risk of stroke in menopausal

women) is in fact made

from horse urine.

 

The reason this little " letter " made it into an

advice column with

wide readership? It's elementary. Recently the

drug companies

suffered a major setback when news of the

life-threatening side

effects associated with HRT came out.

 

You may also have seen similar damage control

stories on the network

news which purported to " debunk " studies showing

dangers of suicide

and suicide ideation among those who take

antidepressants.

 

It's all about protecting the billions the drug

giants make by lying

to consumers. It starts to make even more sense

when you read about

President George Bush's initiative to " screen "

Americans for mental

illness .Called New Frontiers, the object of the

game here is to give

the pharmaceutical companies more market share.

In a most unholy

political-pharmaceutical alliance, the drug

companies have been

highly-connected to the Bush family for 3

generations. The elder Bush

served on the board of Eli Lily and President

Bush appointed an Eli

Lily CEO (Sidney Taurel) to the Department of

Homeland Security. How

the initiative works is simply to convince more

people they need to

be on psychiatric medication. The well-

documented dangers inherent

with these types of drugs, for obvious reasons,

aren't being

discussed in The Wall Street Journal or on ABC

News.

 

It shouldn't surprise you to note that the

television networks and

newspapers running stories about ' killer' herbs

and vitamins are

chock-full of ads for prescription drugs.

 

Rudyard Kipling was right Words are, indeed the

most powerful drug

used by mankind Add newspeak to the mix and what

 

was healthful has

now become " dangerous " what is inherently toxic

has now become good

for you.

 

And it's all about the $20 billion.

 

2004 Mary Starrett -

 

 

There is legislation now pending in both Europe

and the US to put vitamin/mineral/herbal

supplements under the control of the FDA. If you

get a chance, write to your Congressperson and

tell them that you don't want these supplements

put under FDA control.