Pharmaceutical companies want their money back

[Guest guest]

Dear All:

 

I thought I would forward this interesting article to everyone:

 

Pix

 

---------=

 

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, 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.

The drug companies want a piece of the action. 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 suppor t.

 

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 are…no!

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 C…without 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

Premarin…now her libido is shot…. I'm really suffering…is 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 - All Rights