When pharmacists tell the truth (comic)

[Guest guest]

When pharmacists tell the truth (comic)

http://www.newstarget.com/021714.html

March 19, 2007 by Mike Adams, Dan Berger

Go to the website at the url below to see this cartoon, as well as

the whole group of them.

 

Ever wonder what would happen if pharmacists told you the truth about the

stuff they're selling?

 

 

Commentary by Mike Adams, the creator of this cartoon:

 

When it comes to pharmaceuticals, the term " side effects " is commonly used

and generally understood to indicate something undesirable. But what many people

don't realize is that all the effects are side effects. In other words, if

you ingest a foreign chemical (a medication), it's going to produce certain

biochemical effects in the body. Some of those effects are toxic and dangerous,

and they're typically called " side effects. " Other effects are considered " good "

(like chemically suffocating the liver so it doesn't produce cholesterol) and

they're called " therapeutic effects. " But in reality, they're all side

effects.

 

None of them are natural effects, and none of them are fundamentally

compatible with natural human biochemistry. Although there are some exceptions,

most

drugs work by hijacking the body's biochemistry, not by supporting it or

complementing it. Cholesterol lowering drugs, for example, work by artificially

shutting off cholesterol synthesis in the liver. But cholesterol isn't the enemy

here. It's actually necessary for the production of sex hormones and vitamin D,

and blocking cholesterol production directly interferes with the body's own

natural production of CoQ10 for cellular energy. That's why people who take

statin drugs often feel exhausted, depleted and near death's door. Sure, their

cholesterol number is lower. But at what cost to their health?

 

I find it amazing how quick consumers are to accept the damaging side effects

of prescription drugs, even when those drugs offer only a slight improvement

in some observable " therapeutic " effect that may not actually have any health

benefit anyway. To use the same example, statin drugs really do lower the

numbers representing cholesterol numbers in lab tests, but research shows that

artificially lowered cholesterol saves no lives and does nothing to reduce the

risk of heart attacks or strokes, especially in women. So, sure, the number is

lower, but the patient is no healthier because of it!

 

It's sort of like taking a group of low-IQ schoolchildren with failing math

scores and giving them all a 25% scoring bonus just to help them pass the

tests. They may end up with higher scores, but are they really any smarter? Of

course not. And people taking cholesterol drugs aren't any healthier, either.

 

 

Clever marketing gimmicks ensnare trusting consumers The marketing of

pharmaceuticals is based on exaggerating miniscule " benefits " of these patented

chemicals while minimizing their enormous risks. Through fraudulent science,

distorted advertising, corruption of regulators and a mainstream media happy to

promote any agenda that generates repeat advertising dollars, the pharmaceutical

industry is able to convince most Americans that synthetic chemicals are

actually good for their health! At the same time, these consumers are taught by

doctors that vitamins are dangerous, herbs are unproven and sunlight will kill

you.

 

No wonder so many people are confused. That's the whole point of all the

pro-pharma propaganda -- to confuse people into defaulting to the one authority

figure they think they can trust: their doctors. So Big Pharma targets doctors

with hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives, bribes and " consulting

fees, " and many doctors just cave in and write out prescriptions for harmful,

overpriced medications that ultimate serve no purpose other than the financial

enrichment of the drug companies.

 

The scary part is that, by and large, doctors are convinced they cannot be

influenced by drug reps or patients' requests for brand-name drugs. They think

they're immune to influence. But careful studies show that doctors are

surprisingly gullible, and their beliefs and opinions are easily swayed by any

salesperson who dangles the mantra of " evidence-based medicine " in front of

their

eyes. What they're never told, of course, is that the " evidence " is fictional

and

that doctors are really only considered glorified drug dispensing machines by

pharmaceutical firms. If doctors could be legally replaced with prescription

drug vending machines, drug companies would ditch the doctors in a second and

start promoting the vending machines. (Don't laugh... this may be coming soon

to a convenience store near you...)

 

What would really be funny (and honest) would be to require drug

advertisements to explain all the effects of the drugs using time segments

proportional to

their impact on patients. A typical 30-second drug ad for a weight loss

medication, for example, might spend fifteen seconds repeating DIARRHEA, ten

seconds screaming about NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCIES and only five seconds

mentioning

actual weight loss.

 

Cholesterol drugs, in the same way, might spend fifteen seconds talking about

FATIGUE, ten seconds explaining LOSS OF SEX DRIVE and only five seconds on

LOWER CHOLESTEROL NUMBERS (that won't make you any healthier anyway).

 

Drug companies work hard to hide the side effects in small print so that

patients and doctors won't notice them. And when one particular side effect

kills

enough patients to get noticed by somebody, the FDA takes to the podium and

announces that one particular side effect will now appear in, " Not so small

print " -- or, as they call it, a " black box warning. " Notice it's not a " large

red

warning " but rather a tiny " black box warning. " It's about the size of text

on an electronic toy that proclaims, " Batteries not included. "

 

That's about as urgent as the FDA ever gets about drug side effects warnings.

Raising too much alarm, they think, might scare patients away who could

" benefit " from the drugs. From the point of view of Big Pharma and the FDA, it's

better for everyone to remain ignorant of dangerous side effects than to lose a

few patients who might be honestly informed.

 

 

The origins of this cartoon The idea for this cartoon came about, by the way,

following a desperate trip to Walgreens trying to find some cottonballs and

rubbing alcohol for acupuncture. Wandering around near the back of the store

where they strategically position the pharmacy (so you have to walk through all

the aisles of junk food and beverage crap that gave you the diseases that

caused you to need medication in the first place), I overhead a pharmacist

reading

off a long list of alarming side effects to an older gentleman standing there

buying his medication. The list was downright jaw-dropping. I remember

thinking to myself, " How can you stand there listening to all these side effects

and

then eat those pills? "

 

Patients, apparently, no longer pay any attention to side effects. Which is

just as well, since doctors and drug companies don't either. Everybody just

pretends side effects don't exist, and when they become so obvious that they

cannot be ignored any longer, doctors simply label the symptoms a new disease

requiring yet another medication.

 

So, for example, if you are diagnosed with depression, you'll be given a

depression drug that causes diabetes. And when your diabetes becomes so obvious

that it can no longer be ignored, you'll be diagnosed as " diabetic " and given

diabetes drugs. When those drugs partially destroy your liver, you'll be given

drugs for liver disease. And the whole medicine game continues until your

kidneys, heart and brain are transformed into medication mush.

 

And this will all be conducted with a great degree of apparent seriousness

and scientific scrutiny by those professionals profiting from your voluntary

participation. The whole system has all the trappings of real medicine -- the

diplomas on the wall, the lab coats worn by doctors, the safety approval of

government regulators -- and yet it is nothing more than a grand profiteering

hoax

that operates under the illusion of health care. The people who profit from

our modern medical hoax vigorously defend the whole charade, often with

impressive insistence that they are somehow helping people. Those who know

better,

however, are escaping the chemical confines of conventional medicine and seeking

alternative or complementary health modalities.

 

Ultimately, conventional (western) medicine will collapse upon its own

blatant failures, to be replaced by a new age of medicine where disease

prevention

-- not treatment -- keeps people healthy, vibrant and productive without

bankrupting the nation in the process.

 

See the entire collection of CounterThink comics at:

http://www.newstarget.com/index-cartoons.html

 

You are hereby granted permission to re-publish this CounterThink cartoon on

any website or publication, royalty-free, through January 1, 2008. No written

permission required. Hi-res versions available upon request. Contact us for

details: http://www.newstarget.com/feedback.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Kind of a scary thought. . .

I'll deduce that it is probably why so many of us are here! (grin)

Best to All

Michael Phoenix Rising

 

, surpriseshan2

wrote:

>

> When pharmacists tell the truth (comic)

> http://www.newstarget.com/021714.html

> March 19, 2007 by Mike Adams, Dan Berger

> Go to the website at the url below to see this cartoon, as

well as

> the whole group of them.

>

> Ever wonder what would happen if pharmacists told you the truth

about the

> stuff they're selling?