An Interview with Martin J. Walker: Dirty Medicine: Science, Big Business and the Assault on Natural Healthcare.

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An Interview with Martin J. Walker

by Louise McLean

 

 

When Martin Walker published his fifth book in 1993 -

Dirty Medicine: Science, Big Business and the Assault

on Natural Healthcare, it sent shock waves through the

natural healthcare industry. He set up Slingshot

Publications to publish this book and others for

writers having difficulties getting their books

published by mainstream publishing houses. Louise

McLean talks to Martin about his books, his views and

his writing.

 

Many people believe there is presently a worldwide

move through Codex Alimentarius to outlaw natural

therapies and remedies. The first phase of these has

been implemented through the EU Food Supplements

Directive, with the Herbal and Medicines Directives to

follow. In your book Dirty Medicine you outlined some

of the strategies used by the pharmaceutical industry

to discredit alternative medicine. What do you think

is going on at the moment?

 

When I was writing Dirty Medicine from 1988 to1993, I

don't think I realised the importance of the attack on

vitamins and mineral supplements. It's only recently

that I've understood that the people attached to the

Campaign Against Health Fraud (CAHF - now called

Health Watch) in the UK, the American National Council

Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) and Quackbusters in

America were only the first wave of a more organised,

powerful and centralised attempt to destroy vitamin

and mineral supplements. I tended at that time to view

the people I was writing about as rather quirky

individuals who were in favour of professional

medicine, biased towards scientific medicine and the

pharmaceutical companies, but not as people supported

by multinational agencies involved in a continuous

conflict over supplements and holistic health

therapies.

 

Of course now that the plan has been unveiled, I can

see that the organisation of CAHF and NCAHF was the

first stage in the battle. The techniques they were

using - the character assassination of alternative

practitioners and researchers, the commissioning and

planting of press stories, the linking up with more

formal agencies like the FDA and the MCA, raiding

premises, striking people off professional registers,

bringing people before disciplinary board hearings,

conducting bogus scientific trials, the undeclared

work with large corporations. All these things were

linked to a kind of regulatory ground-clearing

exercise. Now, a legislative battle is taking place on

a different level and involving whole groupings of

countries. The pharmaceutical cartel are losing money

worldwide to natural health care. They don't really

want people to get better by themselves when they

could be taking pharmaceutical medicine.

 

The chemical and pharmaceutical companies would like

to retain hegemony over the social structure of health

and medicine. It isn't that they want to do away with

vitamins and food supplements, it's that they want to

control production and distribution of these things to

maximise profit. The fact that they are campaigning to

end self-administration of vitamins, minerals and food

supplements would not stop them from putting them in

food, for instance. They want to control pre-packaged

distribution of vitamins and if they could put them in

foods, shirts, lipsticks or patches or whatever, they

will do that. They also want to end the confusion that

has arisen between nutrition and medicine and they

want to end any evident connection between nutrition

and health so that in the public perception, health is

dependent upon professional medicine and

pharmaceutical products.

 

Tell me more about the other books Slingshot has

published or is going to publish?

 

When I published Dirty Medicine in 1993 I set up

Slingshot Publications and it was my intention to

publish my own books. Dirty Medicine went out of print

in 1998 after selling 7, 000 copies mainly by mail

order.

 

In 1998 I published a small booklet about Loic Le

Ribault, an important French forensic scientist,

mercilessly denigrated by the French State and by

medical interests because he discovered the use of

organic silica as a medicine for arthritis. I wrote a

short booklet about him and he has since published his

own series of books about his struggles, culminating

in the recent publication of The Cost of A Discovery

(available from LLR-G5 Ltd., C/o Ross Post Office,

Castlebar, County Mayo, Republic of Ireland).

 

Around 1999 or so, I thought that I would actually

like to publish other people's work as well. In

December 2002 Slingshot published A Cat in Hell's

Chance, a campaigners view of the battle to close Hill

Grove Farm in Oxfordshire, which bred cats for

vivisection. During its production I came to

understand more than I had previously about the link

between vivisection and medicine and therefore

people's health. There are no good aspects of

vivisection or chemical testing and they have to be

absolutely abolished, they cannot be reformed. SHAC,

the campaign against Huntington Life Sciences is the

way forward, attacking companies and the industry on

every front possible and trying to cut off their

financial backing and destroy their economic

infrastructure.

 

One of the things that has always been of interest to

me is the generational continuity of ideas, especially

political ideas. So I thought it would be a good idea

to publish some of the original texts which had a

great impact on people. I offered to reprint an

English language edition of Hans Ruesch's

ground-breaking and seminal anti-vivisection book

Slaughter of the Innocent. This book has just come

out.

 

Although it was first published over 20 years ago in

1979, it still gives you a sense of direction today.

It was very difficult to do, we had to create an

electronic manuscript for it which meant copying every

page with data recognition technology. Then it all had

to be typeset again in the original form, so that

there was continuity of the references.

 

Despite the fact that testing on a tiny mouse or rat

cannot have any real bearing on how a drug will affect

a human and can lead to adverse reactions when given

to humans, there are apparently more animals being

experimented on today than ever before, even though

New Labour promised in their manifesto to cut down.

 

The New Labour government has reneged on its

anti-vivisectionist vote-catching rhetoric because

they are so heavily indebted to and entrenched with

the pharmaceutical multinationals. They can't back

down from the position the chemical and pharmaceutical

companies demand and that is why millions of animals

continue to be slaughtered every year.

 

Testing of chemicals on animals is growing in Britain

and America. When it comes to the questioning of a

particular chemical, which has been known to be

carcinogenic for a long time, the solution that has

occurred to the chemical companies is to get

full-scale massive animal testing trials for that

chemical. This means that they can put off making

decisions for at least 5 or 6 years, which gives them

another 5 or 6 years' profit and another 5 or 6 years'

unaccountable deaths, while we wait for these massive

animal slaughtering exercises to be carried out. Then

of course there is another 5 or 6 years in

implementing any reforming regulations.

 

Buying time?

 

If the tests prove to be unequivocally against the

chemical, no doubt the chemical companies will come up

with bizarre arguments such as: 'Oh well, you can't

rely on animal testing, can you? It's not the same as

human physiology'. Which is what they have said in the

past. Then you get another 5 years of: 'How can we

test chemicals on humans?' or 'How can we collate

anecdotal stories of the effect of chemicals on

humans?' and 'Let's have a think about this and find

some way of doing it'. Then there's another 5 years

and it just goes on indefinitely.

 

Talking of chemicals, I believe you wrote a paper

about the epidemiologist, Sir Richard Doll and his

work on the (lack of a) link between cancer and the

vinyl chloride industry, while he was a consultant for

Monsanto, at that time one of the major producers of

vinyl chloride?

 

I don't want to go into the details of that particular

paper, its one of two papers I wrote over the last

couple of years about the contemporary role of medical

epidemiologists. I am very interested in writing about

the connection between the life of the professional

and those larger agencies in society which have power

and which determine power and the direction of

society. One of the best works on asbestos for

example, is the book by Geoffrey Tweedale, called From

Magic Mineral to Killer Dust. It isn't just about the

company that manufactured asbestos or about the

scientists who agreed the toxic and regulatory levels

for asbestos fibre. It's about a whole nexus of

social, scientific and economic factors. In important

writings about health, one has got to take account of

a whole series of social and political ideas, not just

write about one particular avenue.

 

There is a real problem with much contemporary writing

about health, in that it is over-simplistic, written

by people who are trying to push a particular theory

or aspect of health. Sociologically or in relation to

campaigns, such books are useless because they don't

take into account the whole of the social structure

that surrounds that illness or therapy.

 

Can you tell us about companies and organisations that

are set up to allay the fears of the public on health

and environmental issues but are really working for

the benefit of chemical and pharmaceutical industries?

 

Up until the end of the '80s, if a company wanted to

deflect public criticism, in the area of health, it

would set up its own propaganda arm, creating an

institute or some kind of lobby organisation that was

probably part of a PR company. Towards the mid-1990s,

a lot of critics, commentators and journalists began

to see these organisations for what they were. You

couldn't just run a fake institute that published good

news about your industry without somebody finding out

the financial links between the industry and that

institute.

 

So in the mid-1980s, a number of companies came into

being which were problem-solving companies. A part of

these companies' briefs entailed finding technical,

scientific or mechanical solutions to industry or

company problems. Another part of their work however,

involved solving problems of 'consumer perception'

faced by a particular industry, company or product. So

if the waste disposal industry had a problem with the

public perception of Dioxin, for example, then the

'problem solving' company would take this on.

 

Their role is clearly similar to the one taken by PR

companies in the past. The difference is that their

approach is more integrated. These companies have

their own epidemiologists, their own scientists, their

own smaller agency companies. They have managed to

integrate all of these areas into government

structures as well. They receive government grants for

various projects and are represented on peer review

panels, etc. They carry on a more authoritative and

aggressive protection of harmful products and a more

determined attack on consumer and citizens' lobbies.

These organisations are much more dangerous in terms

of their defence of bad health products because you

can't track them down easily.

 

Let's move on to another Slingshot book due out next

year, 'The Gatekeepers', which deals with alternative

cancer healers.

 

The Gatekeepers is a book which I started by accident.

When I finished Dirty Medicine, I was doing a lot of

research into chemicals and cancer and I came across a

particular naturopath, who had been a cancer healer in

England. I followed and researched his work and looked

at his methods in some detail. I found that the

British Ministry of Health as it was then and the

organs of orthodox medicine, had waged a campaign

against him. I had only previously read about American

cancer therapists and the way the American government,

American industry and American professional medicine

had attacked them.

 

I studied the work of this naturopath and uncovered

the things that happened to him. I went on to look at

others and decided to write The Gatekeepers, about the

struggle between natural cancer curers, orthodox

medicine and the British government from 1850 to the

present day. It's not a book about alternative cancer

cures or a book about cancer. It's a book about the

power of professional medicine - dirty tricks and

strategies that are used by people in power to deny

other people a competitive place in the market. It

deals with just three or four people and looks at

their cases in depth, as individuals and therapists in

an attempt to describe them in rounded terms and not

just at their cancer cures.

 

I've tried to look at these people, at their therapies

and philosophy as an aspect of their life and then

I've looked at the people who are attacking them in

the same way - although it's quite difficult. For

instance in the case of this particular naturopath,

somebody in the Ministry of Health set the police on

him. It's difficult to understand the consciousness of

police officers trying to track down and bring to

trial an alternative medical practitioner. We can

understand the police arresting a criminal doing

obvious harm to property or to a person but we are not

quite sure how to describe the social environment of a

police officer involved in a campaign on behalf of the

State against an alternative medical practitioner.

 

This obviously has something to do with the common

view about medicine, the honesty of the medical

profession and the implied lack of competence of

'untrained' practitioners. There is clearly a view,

very often projected in the press, that whereas

doctors have only one motive which is to cure people,

alternative practitioners have pecuniary motives and

can be responsible for harming people.

 

Yes, this is clearly the case when you think about it

and of course there is the contact with the

pharmaceutical industry which affects much

professional medicine. The Gatekeepers is going to be

an interesting book to finish because I've been

working on it now for nearly 10 years on and off. I

spent 2 years in 2001 and 2002 trying to help look

after my mother who died of cancer and that brought me

into conflict with a lot of things I questioned in the

NHS.

 

I have tried to introduce personal anecdotal narrative

into the book because I became very involved in my

investigation into the naturopath. I wanted as well to

write about the process of investigating because I

think it is important to people. Writers as a

professional body tend to keep their methodologies to

themselves. We should really try to explain how we

research a subject and put information together, just

so the reader can more fully understand where we are

coming from. In The Gatekeepers, I talk about my

investigations, and how you look at people and their

past.

 

An idea that has come into focus for me recently, is

to do with the intrusion of the State and medicine

into the life of the family. I want to write more

about this. The State and the medical profession these

days seem to be taking great leaps and bounds into the

previously accepted private area of the family.

Ironically a direction which the British Conservative

establishment was accusing communists, socialists and

Labour followers of in the early part of the last

century.

 

Are you referring to situations like the Shaken Baby

Syndrome and MMR court cases?

 

Yes, and for example the HIV baby test case about

whether the baby should be tested for HIV. And of

course the whole trend in North America of legislating

for pre-birth or even pre-pregnancy testing for

possible hereditary illnesses. At the end of this

continuum there is the overshadowing question of

legislating for various kinds of genetic testing.

 

There are examples too in another of my books, SKEWED,

regarding ME and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Cases are

described where psychiatrists put children with ME in

closed mental hospital facilities. In some cases the

parents are arrested and in one case imprisoned

because they were said to be inflicting false illness

beliefs on their children. Some of the mothers were

accused of having Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy.

 

It appears that we are entering an area where abuse

becomes defined by doctors, not simply in criminal

terms or in terms of violence or even mental cruelty

but on the grounds that the parent disagrees with

orthodox medicine. This is going in the wrong

direction and appears to be part of a much larger plan

for the medical profession, science and pharmaceutical

interests to gain a greater hegemony over the family.

 

Let's talk about your book 'Skewed'. Nowadays many

people are becoming ill from 'hidden' causes such as

air pollution, pesticides in food, prescription drugs,

vaccinations, radiation from mobile phones and

computers. They become tired and weak. This book deals

with the fact that these people, who are diagnosed

with ME or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, are frequently

referred to psychiatrists. Since no concrete physical

diagnosis can be found, these sufferers are told that

'it is all in their minds', that it's psychosomatic.

 

Skewed came out at the end of October 2003 and it's a

book about the way that a small group of psychiatrists

have tried to control and redefine the illness of ME.

 

What this particular group of psychiatrists has done

is to erase ME and subsume it into a whole category of

illnesses which they have termed Chronic Fatigue. What

was once a very specific illness, with very specific

signs and aetiology, has now been incorporated into a

massive group of symptoms with one set of treatments

being given to all sufferers. A moratorium has been

called on diagnostic testing so that there is going to

be no further research, in Britain anyway, into what

actually caused ME or what ME is. One of the

treatments now prescribed for CFS is graded exercise

therapy to get people fit and out of their fatigue.

 

Surely that would make them tireder?

 

If you are suffering from fatigue, and especially if

you are one of the 25% immobilised sufferers, in

considerable pain, why would you want to get involved

in graded exercise? Some psychiatrists say that

fatigue is all in the mind and the patient has got to

be able to conquer it. They prescribe GE along with

'cognitive behaviour therapy'. The idea is to get the

patient to understand their symptoms, to get rid of

false illness beliefs.

 

What about the drugs they prescribe?

 

Both these therapies go along with the prescription of

anti-depressant drugs.

 

Which are very addictive.

 

And they don't solve the problem. What the

psychiatrists say is that depression and the

psychiatric condition are primary in these cases.

Other people say yes, of course if you've got an

illness like ME, you're going to be depressed, you

can't get out of bed, you can't do the things you used

to, you may be in considerable pain and you have

probably had to stop work.

 

However, SKEWED is not a book about ME or Chronic

Fatigue Syndrome, about their causes or even about

their treatment. I've tried to trace the arguments

used by psychiatric doctors since World War II - they

believe that people who suffer from ME and certain

chemically induced illnesses are suffering from mental

rather than physical illness. I've tried to suggest

where this argument comes from, how it has been used

since the 1950s by chemical companies and the

government to dismiss anybody who has an illness which

isn't easily identifiable, doesn't have a

characteristic symptomatology and doesn't have any

clear treatment. The last thing the chemical companies

in Britain or America want to do is admit such a thing

as chemical illness because it means a massive

liability. SKEWED deals with ME, Chronic Fatigue

Syndrome, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and Gulf War

Syndrome. It uses them all as examples of how the

psychiatric argument is used to cloak any research

into organic aetiology.

 

Can you tell me more about your plans for Slingshot?

 

We are concentrating at the moment on getting an

Associate Membership scheme working, where people pay

£50 to receive all the books published by Slingshot

over the first year they join, in the following year

they get a year's books at perhaps half the membership

price, somewhere around £25. If we could get a good

turnover and large enrolment of Associate Members, we

would be well on the way to financing the books. The

message of the books are the important thing.

 

I would be grateful if anybody can help Slingshot to

distribute these books, get more Associate Members or

help with publicity. We just want to produce books

which are integral to campaigns that can be sold on

the ground to people involved or interested in these

campaigns. We try to sell our books either by mail

order or by campaigning groups in the community. We

are trying very hard to create a situation whereby we

can offload hundreds of books to organisations at very

low prices, so that they can then sell them at cover

price to make money for their campaigns. I want this

to be an organic thing that gets books to people

cheaply. We don't have significant problems selling

our books but we are always undercapitalised when

going to the printers with a new book. Obviously we

are never going to be a multinational with significant

amounts of money in reserve but if we could find some

way of being assured of borrowing up-front printing

costs of each book it would be a great relief.

 

Although you have a major interest in politics, I

believe your true profession was that of an artist?

 

I have been involved in politics since I was at

Hornsey College of Art in 1968. I try to keep the

'art' side of things going. For many years I designed

and printed political posters and for the last five

years or so I have been doing ceramics, mainly tile

design, which I am very committed to.

 

I'm of the generation of 1968. I was expelled from

Hornsey for my part in the occupation of the college

during those months around May 68, when occupations

and demonstrations swept through Europe. Then,

politics was so organic, so much ingrained in our

lives. For my generation of activists, politics was a

part of everything you did. I did political posters as

a part of a poster collective in the seventies, and

between 1974 and 1994, I was consistently part of

community campaigns of different kinds.

 

Between the 60's and the 80's, politics appeared

relatively straightforward. Then for a variety of

reasons, the climate changed. In my case, the vacuum

began to be filled with questions about health. Even

though sometimes I'm tempted to think this isn't real

politics, it is. Even in the 1960s, the politics of

mental, sexual and physical health was at the

forefront of the agenda.

 

I've always wanted my writing to grow out of my

actions. I think the struggle to understand your own

health is part of the struggle to understand your own

identity in a complex world. It's to do with an

ongoing internal movement to find a way of living that

is in tune with the environment that you want to live

in.

 

People tend not to link the older forms of politics

with newer ideas. Current ideas in relation to

nutrition are a good example of this. Nothing is more

political than the production and consumption of food.

People should be as expansively political about

attacking multinational food companies, about setting

up food cooperatives, about boxed deliveries of

organic food, about setting up well women clinics in

their areas, as they are about campaigning, say,

against the arms trade.

 

People are constantly treating what they consider to

be newer ideas about nutrition or health therapies as

personal, rather than political. Of course the two

things are intimately involved. We need a political

collective or a community response to ideas about

health. Our thinking, for instance, should not just be

against drugs, it should be for good nutrition. It

should be against pharmaceutical drugs but for new

health care practices based in the community.

Martin Walker,

Slingshot Publications,

BM BOX 8314

London WC1N 3XX