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Sunday 17 March 2024

Good Health. If Conventional Medicine has failed, what is the alternative? A new NHS - a 'Natural Health Service'?

For over 100 years now most people have relied on Conventional or Pharmaceutical for their health care. Most people have become dependent upon it.

Most countries now have some form of subsidised health care service that dominates and controls the treatment we look to when we are sick. Today, most people rely entirely on conventional medicine because we believe it to be the best, if not the only system of medicine available to them.

Yet regular readers of this blog will realise that conventional medicine is failing, and failing badly, to meet the health needs of people around the world - for three main reasons. 

    (i) Conventional medicine costs the earth.

Spending on conventional medicine has risen, year by year, for decades now. And the demand for even more money and resources continues, year by year. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that health care costs are in the process of bankrupting the economies of many wealthy nations, and is already out of reach of many less affluent nations.

    (ii) Conventional medicine is ineffective.

Despite this epidemic of health spending, the rising levels of medical costs have not run parallel to improved health but to epidemic levels of chronic diseases, ranging from allergy, Alzheimer's disease, autism, autoimmune diseases, cancer, dementia, diabetes, epilepsy, heart, kidney, and liver disease, mental health complaints, and much more.

    (iii) Conventional medicine is dangerous.

Pharmaceutical medicine has also added to the national burden of sickness and disease through the 'adverse drug and vaccine reactions' known to be caused by pharmaceutical drugs. These adverse reactions are more than mere 'side effects', as they are usually described; they are often fully blown diseases, and they clearly contribute to growing levels of sickness, and to those epidemics of chronic disease.

So what is the alternative to conventional medicine?

Many more people are now realising this, especially since the health fiasco of the Covid-19 pandemic. For over a year conventional medicine had no treatment to offer us, except for the the ludicrously inadequate entreaty to hand wash, social distancing, face masks, lockdown, test and trace, et al. 

Thereafter we were pressured to take vaccines which we are now learning have caused such enormous patient harm.

So what do patients do now, when illness strikes, and we want to avoid the dangers of conventional  medicine? Our first thoughts are to consult a doctor, or go to hospital, with the almost inevitable outcome of being prescribed pharmaceutical drugs. If this is not a good idea, if it is no longer something we want to do, what are the alternatives? What can people do to get better, or maintain good health?

Fundamentally, for anyone who recognises the failure of conventional medicine, there is only two choices available: (i) to take the risk, and continue to trust the pharmaceutical medical establishment, or (ii) to start to trust your body again, and recognise the power of our natural immune system.

The Immune System

During the Covid-19 pandemic the pharmaceutical medical establishment (supported by government and the mainstream media) told us that only their vaccines could save us from the illness, that without it millions of people around the world would.

Strange that we have barely had vaccines for 200 years, with most being developed over the last 60 years. So the question arises. What previously 'saved us' prior to the introduction of vaccines?

The answer, of course, is natural immunity. Even during the gravest epidemics in human history most people survived! The 13th century Black Death is reputed to have killed 1/3rd of the population - which means that 2/3rd of the population survived! And it has always been thus, through the Great Plague, the multiplicity of 19th century epidemics, and the Spanish flu of 1918. During this time we did not understand how the immune system worked. This knowledge has only developed comparatively recently. Yet the pharmaceutical health services discounted this during the Covid-19 pandemic - only vaccines would work!

The science of immunology is comparatively young, starting really only during the 19th century. Our understanding is now more detailed. It is recognised that the immune system is an important branch of the medical science, that natural immunity protects us from infection and illness through many different lines of defence. Unfortunately, as has become so common within conventional medicine, immunology focuses more on the immune systems that is not functioning properly, rather than to study what can be done to ensure that natural immunity continues to function properly. In other words immunology has focused on why 1/3rd of people die, rather than why 2/3rd survive epidemics!

What is now understood is the damaged or compromised immune systems result not just in susceptibility to infection, but in diseases such as autoimmunity, allergy and cancer, and many of the other epidemics of chronic disease mentioned above, as well as many common disorders not traditionally recognised to be caused by immunity, including metabolic, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative conditions.

So in looking for a 'new' approach to medical care should be based on relying on the immune system, and in particular, why 2/3rds of the population survive. We need to return to a medicine whose purpose is to upon our own natural immunity, recognising that ill-health always strikes down those people whose natural immunity is weakest. It is not that germs kill us, it is more that germs seek out the weakest, the most vulnerable. It is people with weak, compromised or suppressed immune systems that become ill and die. It is the survival of the fittest.

Therefore, any successful medical system has to be able to do just one thing - to support and strengthen our natural immunity.

How do we support our Immune System?

We now know the principles of supporting and strengthen our immune systems. I have written in more detail about this before, here, basically outlining 4 fundamental strategies that are known to be important in supporting and strengthening our natural immunity.

  1. Diet and Nutrition
  2. Exercise
  3. Freedom from stress
  4. Refusal to take pharmaceutical drugs

Each of these components concern life-style, they are not dependent upon complicated or expensive medical interventions. But each requires a medical system that disseminates this knowledge, and provides professional guidance about life-style choices. It is this that would form the basis of any new, more successful medical system: not a National Health Service but a Natural Health Service.

Yet it is exactly this kind of medical advice and guidance that has not been available to people during the Covid-19 pandemic. If the NHS had offered this it would have been an alternative to face masks, social distancing, lockdowns, and test and trace, all of which depend upon identifying and "chasing" an invisible virus! And almost certainly this would have meant that we would not have had to endure the human tragedy, socially, economically, and in terms of health, that has resulted from the Covid-19 vaccines. 

Most people, apart from those people with a compromised immune system (usually the result of poor life-style choices, including the taking of pharmaceutical drugs) would have been able to continue leading their social and work lives quite normally. In turn this would have meant that the economy would have not been damaged. Our mental health would not have been harmed, And much, much more.

Natural Immunity as an individual strategy

The National Health Service will not transform into a Natural Health Service very soon! But the good news is that those people who are looking for an alternative to pharmaceutical medical care can adopt this strategy TODAY. We do not need to be advised to eat a better diet, or adopt a sensible exercise regime, to reduce the levels of stress (often the self-imposed stress) in our lives, and to stop taking pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. We can all learn about it, and do it NOW.

People with Compromised Immune Systems

People with a compromised immune systems would need more medical support that goes beyond advice and guidance on the immune system. Yet they do not need medical support from the medical system that prescribes harmful drugs and treatments that are known to compromise immunity. Indeed, they have even more reason to avoid the drugs and vaccines of pharmaceutical medicine. 

Immediately, they might need to be protected by strategies such as hand washing, social distancing, and lockdowns. They would need to be protected from the germ, whilst measures are put in place to strengthen their immunity. But other therapies are available, all of which are based on supporting and strengthening natural immunity.

Natural Medical Therapies

All natural medical therapies, from acupuncture, homeopathy, herbalism, naturopathy, aromatherapy, hypnotherapy, reflexology, yoga, et al., are based on the principle of supporting and strengthening natural immunity. Indeed, pharmaceutical medicine is the only medical system that does not (more interested in promoting drugs and vaccines).

Any Natural Health Service would gradually have to transfer its attention, and some of its resources, to these natural medical therapies. They are not as expensive as conventional medicine. They are all safer than conventional medicine as the 'adverse reactions' to treatments are limited, and certainly not disease-threatening, or life-threatening. And their effectiveness in terms of patient outcomes could easily be monitored, and compared with conventional medical outcomes.

Again, there is no need to wait for these therapies to be offered. They are all available right now, although not usually within a national health service, which means that the therapist would need to be paid directly. All the individual has to do is to learn about them, and initiate contact.

The Remnants of Conventional Medicine in a new NHS

The organisation of the NHS (from national to natural) would obviously be subject to enormous but gradual change, but it is important to understand that much medical care that is usually encompassed within the heading of "conventional medicine" would continue.

Drugs. The use of pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines would gradually be reduced by any medical health service that focused on supporting and strengthening the immune system. This is happening, and will happen anyway, as more people realise that drugs are one of the major causes of serious disease epidemics that we are experiencing now. 

Many more natural therapists would be needed, and many fewer doctors (whose expertise is necessarily dominated by a knowledge of pharmaceutical drugs) would be needed.

Testing. The ability to recognise what is going on within the body would continue to be required within a revamped NHS, albeit it a modified way. Much of the current testing would not be required, especially when therapies like homeopathy are used, as natural therapies do not necessarily need an illness to be diagnosed. For instance, in an viral epidemic, testing to prove the presence of a virus would less important than the ability to test the strength of an individual's immune system. So all testing would gradually be refocused on assessing and supporting the patient health rather than fighting unknown, and unseen pathogens, or similar.

Surgery. Most surgical activity would need to continue for those patients who require it. However, with patients taking fewer drugs, thus ingesting less toxicity, there would likely be a reduction in the need for operations such as organ and limb transplantation (which usually result from many years of failed pharmaceutical treatment).

Regarding health there appears to be three inexorable and inevitable processes going on

    First, people will always want to avoid being sick, and will look to the safest, and more effective medical system available to them. This has always been so.

    Second, people are realising that pharmaceutical medicine, after 70+ years of dominance, is no longer one of those medical systems that can guarantee wellness to anyone.

    Third, this leaves people have two choices; to continue to rely on pharmaceutical drugs; or to rely on our immune system, which we has always protected us (whether we knew it or not), which is understood better now, and which, ultimately, is the only thing we have that we can rely upon.


Monday 4 March 2024

An Asthma Drug Kills: so the Drug Regulator does another "Review". Is this enough?

Montelukast is an asthma drug, better known as Singulair. It has caused the death of patients who have taken it. This Guardian headline (3 March 2024) says that "a healthy kid dies and there has been no change": parents’ anger over lack of warnings for blockbuster asthma drug. Teenager Harry Miller took his own life two years after being prescribed montelukast. His family say they were not made aware of the reported psychiatric side-effects of the drug".

The parents were not told about the "side effects" of the drug? (And is death really a "side effect"). I am surprised that anyone should be surprised at this statement! Too many people trust their doctors, implicitly, and put their complete faith entirely and completely into the hands of a medical system that has always peddled dangerous drugs and vaccines. 

I checked to see what the NHS website now says about the "side effects" of this drug - 4 years after Harry's death. It highlights Diarrhoea, High Temperature, Headaches, stomach pain, feeling or being sick, and a mild rash. Then it goes on to mention, under 'serious side effects', that a doctor should be called if "you notice changes and you become depressed, aggressive or you're thinking of harming yourself".

This is presumably the doctor who prescribed the drug and omitted to tell the parents about the 'side effects' of aggression and self-harm (suicide) that it was known to cause. 

Yet what does my go-to website for pharmaceutical harm, Drug.com, say about Montelukask? It's all there, within a black box warning.

        "Warning: Serious Neuropsychiatric Events. Serious neuropsychiatric (NP) events have been reported in patients taking montelukast. The types of events reported were highly variable, and included, but were not limited to, agitation, aggression, depression, sleep disturbances, suicidal thoughts and behavior (including suicide). The mechanisms underlying NP events associated with montelukast use are currently not well understood. Because of the risk of NP events, the benefits of montelukast may not outweigh the risks in some patients, particularly when the symptoms of disease may be mild and adequately treated with alternative therapies."

So the problems of this asthma drug are known by conventional medical authorities. Yet the drug has been prescribed in most countries since 1998, over 25 years! And as the Guardian article intimated, until recently it was a 'blockbuster' drug. In 2020, two years after Harry's death, Montelukask-Singulaire was still the 14th most commonly prescribed drug, and therefore, highly profitable for the drug company.

Montelukask-Singulaire is yet another example of the dishonesty of the pharmaceutical industry, another medical tragedy waiting to be made public. Informing patients about serious adverse drug reactions means that they will be more cautious about taking it, thus harming the attractiveness and profitability of the drug. Yet Merck, the drug company, knew that its asthma drug could lead to suicide. Indeed, a group of parents have been trying to sue the company for many years, but as this Children's Health Defense link said, in June 2023, the legal action was unsuccessful, “stymied by an effective corporate liability shield: the doctrine of federal pre-emption”

What this means is that drug companies are prepared to harm us for profit! They have, after all, been doing so for many decades, with many other pharmaceutical drugs, and if you believe this is an over-statement of the situation I have listed some of the more serious medical scandals that demonstrate the assertion at this link. And, of course, there have been literally hundreds of pharmaceutical drugs that have been banned or withdrawn over the last 70 years, and more; I have listed many of these at this link.

Yet such is the parlous state of drug regulation now it would seem that pharmaceutical drugs that harm patients are no longer banned or withdrawn. As with Montelukask-Singulaire they are "placed under review", and doctors are restricted to when, and to whom, they can be prescribed! But what this means is that highly profitable drugs continue to be prescribed. This asthma drug was highly profitable: which, of course, is probably the main reason for it not being banned, or withdrawn. And why people like Harry are dying.

Drug Regulation around the world is now dominated, under the firm control, of pharmaceutical interests. Originally, the main purpose of drug regulators like the MHRA in the UK, the FDA in the USA, and the EMA in Europe, was to protect patients. They now fail to do so. In the UK this possibility has, at last, been recognised by a small group of MP's in the UK Parliament, where an all-party group have stated that the MHRA were aware of heart and clotting issues arising from the Covid-19 vaccines were known about as early as February 2021, but did not highlight the problems for several months

The result of this concern, perhaps coincidentally, has been that the Chief Executive of the MHRA has suddenly announced her resignation from the post! This was reported in the Telegraph 0n 27 February 2024. The MP's have also warned that the MHRA's Yellow Card reporting system, which encourages patients and doctors to report their concerns about adverse drug reaction, "grossly underestimates" the size of the problem of patient harm by pharmaceutical drugs, in some instances picking up just 1 in 180 cases of the harm drugs have caused.

I have been writing about the problem of pharmaceutical drug regulation, and the patient harm caused by these drugs, for many years. Perhaps, now, at long last, something will be done, although this issue too will probably have to be 'reviewed' many times before any effective action is taken! Perhaps it will make parents, like Harry's, more aware that pharmaceutical drugs are dangerous, and that no-one within the NHS will protect them. 

And during these interminable drug reviews there will undoubtedly be many more "Harry's", people who pay the ultimate price for the mayhem being caused by pharmaceutical medicine.

 

Thursday 15 February 2024

Health Freedom: a vital principle we need to fully understand and defend with passion

Health freedom is under serious attack, mainly by the conventional medical profession, which thinks it knows best, and politicians who believe they know what we all need to protect ourselves. The Covid-19 Pandemic was, of course, the most recent and most serious attempt to undermine our right to choose how we treat ourselves when unwell. The pharmaceutical medical establishment tried to mandate (force) vaccines on people who wished to remain vaccine free.

The pandemic campaign to impose vaccines us all (when we were not ill) was tragically successful, perhaps not with those who had good reasons to support their view that they did not want the vaccine, but with those who were less certain. After all, we were all told to take the vaccine, we were not given any good reasons for refusing it. The Covid-19 narrative, repeated ad nauseam by government and mainstream media for over two years, gave us no reason to assume the vaccines were anything other than "safe and effective".

Whenever a Political Establishment wants to impose something on its citizens there is always a government willing to force it on them. The pharmaceutical industry, and powerful player in the politial establishment, wanted to force their vaccines on the entire population in order to maximise sales. They had sufficient influence and control within government, and politicians willingly gave their willing, unquestioning and active support. The mainstream media went along with it all, meekly accepting the imposition and enforcement of mass vaccination without demur.

History should teach us that this has always been so. Even in times when the political establishment was headed by war lords, or kings, or emperors, or an aristocracy, or an industrial elite, remaining “in power” has meant that the wishes of the rich and powerful had to be enacted. Today, governments around the world are dominated and controlled by immensely rich and powerful global corporations; and of these there is none more powerful as the Pharmaceutical Industry.

The Covid-19 pandemic, and the forced medication that was permitted, has demonstrated that the pharmaceutical establishment controls governments, conventional medicine, and the mainstream media. During the last 3–4 years it has been able to convince us (frighten us) that there was a pandemic, so awful, so deadly, that only the vaccines could save us, and that people just had to be forced into taking one of these untested, experimental vaccines. So as far as implementing vaccine mandates were concerned, most governments were quite prepared to put the necessary legislation into effect.

Yet the governments of the rich and powerful have their problems. There has always been a small but significant part of the population who are able to think for themselves, and recognise that what is being imposed (forced) on them is not in their best interest. Not even the strongest war lords survived forever; not even the most powerful empires and kingdoms. In time they have all fallen, usually through their own incompetence, privilege and arrogance.

Imposing drugs and vaccines seems always to have been attractive to autocracies (whether a real autocracy, or one masquerading as a democracy). Perhaps one of the earliest, and best examples of this can be seen in the history of the smallpox vaccination in the mid 19th century - click on this link to read an outline of this history, rarely told. Your will see that, as with Covid-19, smallpox was a frightening disease; people were scared; conventional medicine, even then, was arrogant enough to believe it had the solution; and the governments of the day were willing to pass the necessary legislation to enable the imposition of a vaccine mandate. 

However, as with Covid-19 vaccines, the smallpox vaccine caused so much patient harm that eventually the population rebelled against it, refused to take it, to the extent that within just a few years the first mandatory vaccine was quietly dropped (although conventional medicine did not drop the propaganda that the failed and harmful vaccine had been successful in eradicating the disease!)

Similarly, more people are now realising that the Covid-19 vaccines have caused serious patient harm. This will only increase, not least when we are all told that the much lauded Oxford University, AstraZeneca vaccine is now effectively banned around the world. People will resist again. They are already doing so; the drug companies cannot sell the vaccines as they had hoped, and their profits are falling. 

People have always, and will always resist ‘medical mandate’ imposed on them, and with good reason.

Imposing health mandates is attractive to drug companies. It enhances their profits. They have the power to influence and control politicians and governments, conventional medical authorities, and the mainstream media. But in promoting forced drugging it goes completely against the concept of health freedom, which has long and distinguished roots in human history. Here are just a few of the many sources.

Hippocrates Oath (460-377bce)
    “I will not give anyone poison, if asked, nor take the initiative of such a suggestion”

Code of Medical Ethics
Article 36: article R4127-36 of the Public Health Code
    “The consent of the person examined or treated must be sought in all cases. When the patient, in a state of expressing his will, refuses the investigation or treatment proposed, the doctors must respect this refusal after informing the patient of his consequences”.

Nuremberg Code (1947)
    “The consent of the human subject is absolutely essential, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights resumed this ban against unintentional experimentation, in its 1966 test, which states:
    “No one may be subjected without his consent to medical or scientific experiment”.

Geneva Statement for Doctors (1948)
    “I will respect the autonomy and dignity of my patient. I will not use my medical knowledge to infringe human right and civil liberties, even under force. I will keep absolute respect for human life, from conception. I will consider my patient’s health as my first concern”.

Helsinki Declaration (1996)
The Declaration of Helsinki is a set of ethical principles regarding human experimentation developed originally in 1964 for the medical community by the World Medical Association. It is widely regarded as the cornerstone document on human research ethics (Wiki).

    “The participation of persons capable of giving informed consent to medical research must be a voluntary act. No person capable of giving that informed consent can be involved in a search without giving their free and informed consent”.

Oviedo Conventional (1997)
Article 5:
    “An intervention in the field of health can only be carried out after the data subject has given free and informed consent. This person is given prior adequate information about the purpose and nature of the intervention, as well as its consequences and risks. The data subject may, at any time, freely withdraw his consent”.

Loi Kouchner (2002)
Article 111-114:
    “Every person shall make decisions concerning his health with the healthcare professional and taking into account the information he provides him/her.The doctor must respect the will of the person after informing them of the consequences of their choices. If the person’s willingness to refuse or discontinue treatment puts his or her life and risk, the doctor must do everything to convince him or her to accept the much needed care. No medical or treatment can be practiced without the free and informed consent of the person and this consent can be withdrawn at any time”.

Salvetti Stop (2002)
   
“No medical treatment is mandatory in the European Union: “as a non-voluntary medical treatment, mandatory vaccination is an interference with the right to privacy, guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms”.
(Salvetti v Italy - ECHR decision of 9 July 2002. No 42197/98).

French Civil Code
Article 16-1
“Everyone has the right to respect their own bodies. The body in inviolable”.

Yet governments around the world have been content to repudiate these principles and policies in pursuit of enforcing vaccine mandates on behalf of the Pharmaceutical industry.

UK Government (2012): "Shared Decision Making: Liberating the NHS: No decision about me without me"
    
“Making shared decision making a reality: no decision about me without me”.

Council of Europe
Resolution 2361 (2021)
    “Advisory opinion: the Assembly urges member states and the European Union".
Article 731:
     “To ensure that citizens are informed that vaccination is no mandatory and that no one is under political, social or other pressure to get vaccinated, if he or she does not wish to do so personally”.
Article 732:
    “To ensure that no one is discriminated against for not being vaccinated, due to potential health risk or not wanting to get vaccinated”.

(Note. Most of this information on the principles of health freedom was put together by a source that I have since lost. Please advise if you are aware of the source. I am happy to add a full reference to it here).

Health freedom is a vitally important principle. For the future we need to recognise that powerful corporations will want to undermine it, that governments are willing to concede it, and that the mainstream media is likely to meekly acquiesce to it. The most recent example of this, the mandating of untested, experimental Covid-19 vaccines, is as invidious as anything perpetrated by the German Nazi regime in the 1930's and 1940's, and condemned at the Nuremberg trials. In both cases large numbers of people were subjected to experimental medical treatment, without their informed consent, and with the grievous suffering that resulted.

There is little doubt that it will happen again, possible in the near future. We should use the intervening time to ensure when it does more people are aware that their health freedom is a precious gift that they should treasure, and defend with some passion.


Monday 12 February 2024

Wygovy; weight loss, and pharmaceutical drugs

The obesity/diabetes drugs, Wygovy and Ozempic have become a pharmaceutical best sellers. They are making the drug companies very wealthy! The active ingredient, semaglutide, helps control blood sugar, lowers appetite, and makes patients feel "full". The current claim of medical science is that these semaglutide drugs can lead to weight loss of more than 10%.

Given the burgeoning epidemic of obesity around the world this claim is an attractive one for so many people who find losing weight difficult. The sales of these drugs increased rapidly in 2023 following their promotion by the mainstream media's on behalf of the drug companies. They were "breakthrough" drugs, we were told by all media outlets.

(Have you noticed how little advertising the pharmaceutical industry has to do for itself? A press release usually does it, with the media content to pass on the advertising, free of charge, without any apparent investigation into the claims being made).

The drawbacks of these drugs are already well known:

  • When patients stop taking the drug they put this weight back again.
  • The drugs are not recommended for more than two years (so they have to be, or should be stopped within that time, making any gains reversible).
  • Such are the concerns about these drugs the UK's NHS only prescribe them to patients who fulfil certain criteria, within a limited number of specialist weight-loss management clinics.
  • Semaglutide is already known to cause serious side effects, these including anxiety, bloating, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, confusion, constipation, diarrhoea, depression, fever, headache, indigestion, nightmares, seizures, tightness in the chest, trouble breathing, unusual tiredness or weakness, acid/sour stomach, heartburn, and much more.

To date these disadvantages have not slowed down burgeoning sales, especially as some pharmacies are selling them directly to the public, at a monthly cost of around £100 to £200.

Have we been here before?

For anyone who believes they have heard this before, can I refer you to one of my previous blogs, written in March 2018: Acomplia. What happens to all the 'wonder drugs' and 'miracle cure's of conventional medicine?"  Read the blog for a fuller description of events, but broadly this is what happened to Acomplia.
  • Acomplia was an obesity drug, approved in 2006, and hailed as a new 'wonder drug'.
  • In 2008 the drug was refused a licence in the USA, and withdrawn in the UK and Europe, particularly over fears of serious adverse reactions, particularly depression and suicide.
  • The medical science, which had proclaimed this wonder drug, was found to be 'faulty'.
         "one study discovered that one-third of people on the drug lost 10% of their body weight, and 60% lost a less impressive 5%. Apparently, what the study did not say was that everyone in the trial was also on a low-calorie diet, and virtually everyone put the weight back on once they stopped taking the drug".

I will copy the conclusion of the Acomplia episode here, and predict (with a high degree of confidence) that this will be the conclusion of Wygovy/Ozempic story within the next few years.
 

"The European Medicines Agency (EMA) commented that the drug had proved less effective in 'real life' than in clinical trials. Patient hopes raised in the 'science' laboratory but dashed in real life. So it had been decided to suspend the licence for Acomplia as:

               "New data from post-marketing experience and ongoing clinical trials indicated that serious psychiatric disorders may be more common than in the clinical trials".

So Acomplia demonstrates better than most pharmaceutical drugs the many aspects of the hopelessness of medical science and drug regulation, which in the interests of selling drugs raise hopes, but lead only to further patient damage.
  • The NHS resorts to a drug for a condition that would be better treated via life-style and dietary treatment.
  • The drug is significantly less effective than the trials (the medical 'science' funded by the pharmaceutical industry) suggested.
  • The full side effects of the drug remain unknown through all the 'scientific' drug testing, the regulator process, the licensing, and the prescription of the drug.
  • The side effects turn out to be considerably more serious than the original condition or illness.
  • And a drug thought to be unsafe in one country (the USA in this case) is considered to be perfectly 'safe' in others (indeed, most of Europe) - before it is withdrawn there too.
There is no such thing as a wonder drug, or a miracle cure, there never has been, and there probably never will be (on the basis that future performance is best predicted by past performance). So the next time the mainstream media, or your doctor tells you about a remarkable new treatment - run a mile, very, very quickly!"

There are already signs that these drugs will soon have to be withdrawn, with one pharmaceutical consultant saying that Ozempic, "the hot new weight-loss drug", poses medically dangerous gastrointestinal and mental health risks but fails to address the root causes of metabolic conditions.

So I will get back to you when pharmaceutical drug history repeats itself, as it so inevitably does. In the meantime it seems that these new obesity/diabetes drugs are going to cause a lot of patient harm in the years to come.

Wednesday 7 February 2024

The Financial Consequences of Sodium Valproate

Sodium Valproate is a demonstration that our medical system is failing. It has given pregnant women a drug that has caused an estimated 20,000 children born with serious birth defects, that is, 20,000 people who will require medical intervention and support for the rest of their lives. Compensation and damages will add to the cost of the NHS, the demand on taxpayers money, in a health service, and a national economy that is already under serious pressure.

I have written about these "secondary costs" of a failed medical system (pharmaceutical medicine) before, see these links. They explain why conventional medicine has always demanded more and more resources, and why it will always do so.

The scandal of Sodium Valproate starts, but does not end, with the damaged lives of young children, their families, or even the compensation/damages claims that will be forthcoming. It is the ongoing, or secondary costs that will stretch long into the future. Parents cannot work because they have to care for their children. Children lose their potential to develop into full citizens who can contribute to society as otherwise they would have done. As they grow older many will depend on benefits and other support. And, of course, the ongoing medical treatment needed to deal with the consequences of the harm done by Sodium Valproate.

The Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review’s (IMMDSR) report, ‘First do no harm’, referred to in yesterday's blog, outlined some of the harm caused by this dangerous drug. The report makes it clear that the babies are born with birth defects that include spina bifida, autism, malformations of the brain, heart, and kidneys, and in severe cases, death.

Yet when conventional medicine talks about what has caused these diseases they rarely mention that they might be cause by prescribed pharmaceutical drugs.

  • Spina Bifida. The NHS says that "It's not known what causes spina bifida but a number of things can increase the risk of a baby developing the condition". They mention lack of folic acid, family history, genetics, obesity and diabetes; and they mention epileptic drugs, including Valproate; but discount this by emphasising that doctors will not prescribe them "if there's a chance you could get pregnant while taking them, but they may be needed if the alternatives are not effective".
  • Autism. The NHS says that "nobody knows what causes autism, or if it has a cause". It does know, however, that it is "not caused by vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine". However, although it is clear from the IMMDSR report that they do know it is caused by Sodium Valproate they fail to mention it!

Conventional medicine never admits culpability, even when they know they are culpable!

The cost of Conventional Medicine around the world is rising exponentially, and it has been for the last 80 to 100 years. The UK's NHS has always demanded, year by year, resources, to cope with more and more sickness and disease.  

Why does it need more more money? Why is there epidemic levels of sickness and disease, regardless of how much is spent on treatment?

The Sodium Valproate scandal suggests that iotragenic (or doctor-induced) disease plays a very large part in this increased demand.

People get sick, and they are given pharmaceutical drugs that make them sicker. And then they are given more drugs to treat increased levels of sickness, leading to chronic disease, and the need for more medical care. It is these 'secondary' costs of medical failure, rarely if ever mentioned, that are fundamental to the funding of the conventional medicine. 

The problem of NHS funding not "an ageing population"; nor is it the increased sophistication (or even the increased cost) of medical treatment; or any of the other reasons routinely trotted out for medical failure. 

The problem is iatrogenic. 

It is the result of a medical system that is inherently harmful, dangerous to our health.



Tuesday 6 February 2024

Sodium Valproate: an anti-epileptic drug that has caused patient harm for 50+ years

This story demonstrates how the pharmaceutical industry makes huge profits from drugs that seriously harm patients, and how it uses it's allies, in government, conventional medicine, and the mainstream media, to make sure no-one realises that the drugs they are taking are harmful.

Sodium Valproate is an epilepsy drug, an anti-spasmodic. It was first approved in 1967, over 55 years ago. Conventional medicine has known it causes patient harm for most of that time; but despite restrictions of prescribing it, it is still being prescribed, and will continue to be so. Despite the fact that it is still causing serious harm.

Anyone who knows the history of pharmaceutical medicine should not be surprised to hear this. It has happened, and it continues to happen, with most prescribed drugs. Go to this link for other drugs that have gone through a similar process. Patients taking any of these drugs do not usually its history of harm, at least, not the full extent of the damage they can cause. Conventional medicine insists that they are "safe and effective" - for as long as they can.

I wrote about Sodium Valproate 13 years ago, here, "Epilim; a dangerous drug, but no legal redress for families"

In January 2024 NICE (the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) introduced new restrictions.

        "From January 2024, valproate must not be started in new patients (male or female) younger than 55 years, unless two specialists independently consider and document that there is not other effective or tolerated treatment, or unless there are compelling reasons that the reproductive risks do not apply".

Powerful advice indeed! But should not this advice have been given over 55 years ago?

Conventional drug-based medicine might appear to be protecting patients against dangerous drugs like Sodium Valproate, but they have not been doing so, so stringently, for the last 55 years. What this means is that the drug has been harming patients throughout this time, that drug companies have been profiting from selling it; and they can still do so as the drug continues to be available for prescription!

Except, of course, that conventional medicine has known (or should have known) about how dangerous this drug was for a very long time.

So a drug like Sodium Valproate can be (i) tested by medical science and pronounced "safe and effective"; (ii) national drug regulators (whose sole task is to protect patients from dangerous pharmaceutical drugs) can examine and approve it; (iii) the drug company can sell it to medical authorities; and (iv) doctors can prescribe it to patients. And vast profits can be made, especially when the drug is protected by the conventional medical establishment, including both government and the mainstream media. 

In 2020 the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review’s (IMMDSR) report, ‘First do no harm’, picked out Sodium Valproate as a particularly dangerous drug. It explored the harm it caused. There is actually a disease named after the drug - foetal valproate spectrum disorder (FVSD), which is the blanket diagnosis for the wide variety of disorders and development issues known to be caused when the foetus is exposed to the drug in the womb​​. The babies are born with birth defects that include spina bifida, autism, malformations of the brain, heart, and kidneys, and in severe cases, death.

A Patient Safety Commissioner, Henrietta Hughes, described the ongoing use of Sodium Valproate as  “a far bigger scandal than thalidomide”.

​The IMMDSR report made headline news, unusual for such negative news about pharmaceutical drugs. Even the mainstream media could not ignore it at the time. But eventually the publicity was effectively ignored. The fact that conventional medicine can continue to use the drug is testimony to this. Once, harmful pharmaceutical drugs were banned by drug regulators. This is what should happen but it appears that this is no longer the case - regardless of the horrendous publicity. There has been much more, as these few examples demonstrate.

One of the findings of the IMMDSR report was that the voice of the patient has been dismissed over the years, that conventional medicine (the NHS) just did not listen to them. Remember my 2010 blog? The large group of parents, with damaged children, who went to court to argue that what they were being told (that the drug was "safe and effective") was not correct? They lost! And as a result of this, so did many more parents whose children were born, damaged, during the next 12 years. 

So perhaps the new guidelines will protect potential parents now - if doctors follow the guidelines. But no-one should believe that Sodium Valproate's only adverse drug reaction is to cause serious birth defects. It is now thought that male infertility can be damaged. The drug is also known to cause of other serious conditions, such as nausea, confusion, delusions, feeling of unreality, mental depression, difficult/laboured breathing, vomiting, weakness, bleeding, encephalopathy, suicidal thoughts behaviour, and many more. It's all in official medical literature! To see a more complete list of adverse reactions visit this link

Except, of course, that for an entirely complete list of adverse drug reactions to Sodium Valproate we might have to wait another 55 years! The pharmaceutical industry is a slow learner, especially when big drug profits are being made.

Nor should anyone believe that Sodium Valproate is prescribed only for epilepsy. It is also used for people with Bipolar Disease, and Schizophrenia, Migraine - and several other illnesses.

And many people will not know that they are taking Sodium Valporate, as like most pharmaceutical drugs, it is branded under many different names. These include Absenor, Convulex, Depakene, Depakin, Depakine, Depakine, Depalept, Deprakine, Encorate, Epival, Epilim, Stavzor, Valcote, Valpakine, Orfiril, and no doubt many others. The branding of drugs seems to be done to deflect attention, and create confusion! One drug, with a multiplicity of names!

The conclusion is easy to relate. Sodium valproate has been associated with birth defects for many years. The medical profession has denied this for 55 years, during which time thousands of patients, around the world, have been damaged. Patients were not properly informed about the dangers - not least because the medical profession were denying these dangers until recently. Conventional medicine invariably does so, and many of the drugs they say are "safe and effective" today are nothing of the sort. But we will not know, or be told, for many years, if not decades.
 
The fact is that most pharmaceutical drugs are harmful to patients; the medical establishment is quite aware of the harm they cause (it is in the medical literature) but it continue to allow doctors to prescribe them. Moreover, patients continue to take them because they are not adequately informed about their dangers.

Wednesday 31 January 2024

Pharmaceutical Medicine: Outcomes, and the importance of Empiricism

Observing the outcomes of taking pharmaceutical medicine is important. Such observations are an important element of science - examining the world, investigating what is happening around us. It is called empirical science.

        "Empirical evidence is information acquired by observation or experimentation. Scientists record and analyze this data. The process is a central part of the scientific method." 

"I'm ill again, I've been diagnosed with (illness3) now!"

"Oh! What bad luck. That's a nasty illness, I am so sorry."

"You know I have never been well since I got (illness1) and was given that (drug) to treat it."

"Yes, I remember. You went down with (illness2) soon after; and now you have (illness3)."

"I'm just unlucky; or perhaps I am just getting old".

So what has caused these illnesses? Is it a matter of luck? Can it be put down to ageing? Or are other factors involved - like the 'side effects' from the medication we have taken for previous illnesses?

Since early 2021 many people have been having similar conversations regarding the Covid-19 pandemic, and the vaccines used to prevent and treat it. It is time for us all to start asking the same questions. Anyone who actually observes, and considers what they are seeing, cannot help but conclude that the world is witnessing dreadful adverse vaccine reactions, including heart disease and death. Millions of people, particularly in the most vaccinated countries, are reporting these 'side effects' to national drug regulators. One Covid-19 vaccine (AstraZeneca) has already been quietly withdrawn from the market, and described as "defective".

Conventional, or pharmaceutical medicine, have always (and are clearly doing so now) routinely dismissed such observations and reports as ‘anecdotal’ and ‘unscientific’. The problem is that medical science does not usually look at vaccine or drug harm without being paid; and drug companies won’t pay for them to do so if the outcome is likely to produce bad publicity! So such conversations pass by, never examined, never investigated.

Yet these observation are the basis of science - empirical science. If something is observed it should trigger more science, more investigation either to confirm or deny the observation. Britannica describes empirical evidence as "information gathered directly or indirectly through observation or experimentation that may be used to confirm or disconfirm a scientific theory or to help justify, or establish as reasonable, a person’s belief in a given proposition. A belief may be said to be justified if there is sufficient evidence to make holding the belief reasonable."

So medical science usually ignores our observations about health, preferring not to investigate in case what they find is not appreciated by their drug company paymasters.

Yet our observations are important for another, more practical reason: what we witness going on around us is a clinical outcome - they are the outcome of an illness, and/or the outcome of medical treatment. It is a truism that patients are only interested in medical treatment only when they are sick. They then want treatments that make them better, treatments that are both effective (an outcome) and safe (another outcome).

Most patients are not interested in what has once took place in a scientific laboratory!

Yet this is why pharmaceutical medicine have never been interested in treatment outcomes. Drug companies invest in ‘medical science’ for one reason - to produce positive evidence of the safety and effectiveness of a treatment. This evidence forms the basis of their advertising and promotion; it is used to encourage people to take the treatment; it ensures that profits are made - this is their primary purpose. 

Any outcome of a treatment, after this, might prove that the treatment is less safe, and less effective than patients have been told. This is not wanted. It’s bad advertising. It's not what pharmaceutical medicine wants us to know!

In the 1960's and 1970's conventional medicine clearly recognised the need for empiricism in medicine, and the importance of outcomes. Around the world, National Drug Regulators were created in order to ensure there was no further drug scandals, like Thalidomide disaster. Each new drug had to go through a process of scientific tests; and in addition reporting systems were established. 

These reporting system were based almost entirely on patient observations about the outcomes of medical treatment.

The result was that many new drugs and vaccines were tested, approved by the regulator, came to the market, and given to patients. Then patients reported on adverse drug reactions; the drug regulator investigated the reports, and then took appropriate action. The result was that many pharmaceutical drugs were eventually banned, withdrawn, or 'discontinued' because they were were found to be either ineffective, or unsafe for patients. I have listed many of these banned drugs here. It is a very long list. But what is becoming clearer, as the years have passed, is that drug regulation is no longer as effective as it was during the latter decades of the 20th century.

The reason for this is also becoming clearer. Drug Regulation is now effectively controlled by the Pharmaceutical Industry. I first wrote about this situation over 10 years ago now. The situation has become progressively much worse. The Regulator is now controlling the Regulated. Even the unprecedented number of patient reports about the harm caused by the Covid-19 vaccines, based on patient observation, have been largely ignored. It is not that the reports have been investigated, and found to be unreliable. They have not been properly investigated!

We are sicker now than we have ever been. Name any chronic disease that has not reached epidemic proportions during the last 70-100 years - the years when pharmaceutical medicine has gradually taken over health provision, and now control it entirely.

Many people are beginning to ask important questions about the outcomes of conventional medicine:

  • is what I am being told about pharmaceutical treatments honest and true?
  • what are the health outcomes of taking pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines?
  • could my illness be an adverse drug or vaccine reaction?
  • when will medical science be expected to focus on adverse drug outcomes?
  • how many people will drug regulators allow to contract a serious disease, how many people allowed to die, before they take action to protect patients?
  • why is it that politicians, governments, and the mainstream media do not tell us about what is going on?
  • how much more money will we have to spend on pharmaceutical medicine before we reach the conclusion that it is ineffective, and unsafe for patients.