|
Modern “Health Care” and Big Medicine - what is this institution really?
Where to begin???
If we simply look back at what has transpired globally since March of 2020, to anyone that has even a modicum of critical thinking or reasoning skills one has to question the motives of Big Medicine and the Medical Industrial Complex aka “Health Care”.
What is their priority - patient care and patient health, or corporate profits? Is this health care or a "sickness treatment" for profit model?
A rotten past
Lets begin this investigation by dialing the clock back, to the early 1930s, and focus on the predecessor of Bayer AG, a pharmaceutical and chemical giant at the time in Germany known as IG Farben (Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG). Lets examine and dissect some of their operational practices. It is a fact that IG Farben in co-operation with Nazi executives, did in fact carry out a series of horrific and deadly human drug trial experimentations. (1)
During the Nuremberg trials is was revealed that IG Farben was involved in numerous criminal activities including the use of slave labour in their industrial installations adjacent to concentration camps. Moreover, it was at these camps that IG Farben experimented with a range of pharmacological substances mainly for the treatment of infectious diseases which were previously induced into test subjects.(2)
To highlight the level of amorality and ethical degradation of IG Farben is most strongly represented in a letter found amongsty the files at Auschwitz. The letter applied to purchase prisoners for research on a hypnotic drug: “We need some 150 women in the best possible state of health… We confirm your response, but consider the price of 200 marks per woman too high. We propose paying no more than 170 marks per woman. The experiments were carried out. All of these persons died. We will contact you shortly about a new shipment”.(3)
It is valuable to note that here that Bayer AG paid $63 billion USD in 2018 for the acquisition of Monsanto, the maker of Round-Up (glyphosate) and the corporation responsible for lobbying the FDA to allow Folic Acid to be applied to nearly all grain crops and processed foods (see Ezra December newsletter for more details). These two substances are at the core of many of today's chronic illnesses.
What has changed in the Medical Industrial Complex since then? Lets examine several prominent medical scandals that have taken place since.
An overkill for morning sickness
In 1956 the West German pharmaceutical company Chëmie Grünenthal brought a new drug to market, Thalidomide. Originally prescribed as a sedative or tranquilliser, its use was quickly extended to a range of other conditions including pneumonia, colds and flu, and for relieving the symptom of nausea (morning sickness) often experienced by women (as only women can get pregnant) in early pregnancy. The drug was rolled out across a number of countries including the Germany, UK, Norway, Japan, and Canada.(4)
Now this is where the story gets interesting. The first samples entered North America in late 1959. At the FDA under the care of Canadian physician Dr Frances Kelsey, Thalidomide was not given approval for marketing into the USA. Dr Kelsey was later awarded the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service by non other than JFK for her refusal as an FDA reviewer to authorise Thalidomide into the US market.
Conversely, despite its obligation to ensure public safety Health Canada authorised the distribution of the drug simply based on the safety information provided by the manufacturer. No study had ever been done by independent researchers, and it appears that the incompetent Canadian authorities did not question the objectivity and credibility of the information presented by Richardson-Merrell, the American distributor for parent Chëmie Grünenthal.
Sound familiar?
It gets worse, much worse. In April 1961 Health Canada gave official approval for marketing of Thalidomide to Canadians, and despite the fact that in December of 1961 German and British authorities revoked sales of the product due to concerns that Thalidomide was responsible for severe birth defects, continued to allow the marketing and sale of this drug until March of 1962.
As unbelievable as it may be, Thalidomide was still legally available in Canada for three full months after being withdrawn from its country of origin, and other locations globally. Who knows how many victims could have been spared if Health Canada had not waited three months after the withdrawal of the drug in Germany before taking it off the market in Canada. (5)
Sound familiar?
Mother’s little helper
Moving on we next encounter a benzodiazepine, Diazepam, marketed under the trade name of Valium. Developed by Swiss based Hoffmann-LaRoche, Valium was an improved version of their drug Librium. Patented in 1959, and later unleashed onto the unsuspecting public in 1963. It has been one of the most frequently prescribed medications in the world since its launch, and in the United States it was the best-selling medication between 1968 and 1982, selling more than 2 billion tablets in 1978 alone with units stamped with their iconic trademark "V." (6,7,8).
Originally marketed to "reduce psychic tension," Valium went on to become the first drug to reach $1 billion in sales. How did Hoffmann-LaRoche accomplish this feat? Enter the advertising agency William Douglas McAdams under the leadership of Arthur Sackler. Sackler’s slick marketing campaign promoted Valium and a panacea for the aliments and stresses of modern life.(9)
In one devious 1970 ad titled "Mrs. Raymond's pupils do a double-take" featured a fictional middle-aged teacher debilitated by "excessive psychic tension and associated depressive symptoms accompanying her menopause." Thanks to Valium, however, Mrs. R. was once again "trim and smartly dressed, the way she was when school began.”(10)
Another 1970 ad portrayed Jane ("35, single and psychoneurotic"), whose low self-esteem prevented her from finding a man "to measure up to her father." A series of snapshots span 15 years of Jan's failed relationships, culminating in a picture of a matronly woman standing alone on a cruise ship—the fate from which Valium might save her.(10)
Does this sound like medical advice, or lurid, unethical entrapment? Seems similar to the old Camel Cigarette ads where they used doctors to endorse their brand! Recall that 4 out of 5 doctors recommend smoking Camels!
What these ads did not explain, nor did prescribing physicians for many years, that Valium induces a high degree of tolerance, dependency, and painful and potentially life threatening withdrawal symptoms. Like other benzodiazepines, diazepam impairs short-term memory, in addition to hampering the learning of new information. Additionally, after stopping benzodiazepines, cognitive problems may last at least six months, and it is unclear if these problems last for longer than six months or are permanent. Benzodiazepines may also cause or worsen depression (11).
A pain medication to start with and to stay with
And on the subject of the Sackler family we of course have the drug OxyContin, which really needs no further discussion. American Purdue Pharma the company behind OxyContin funded research and paid doctors to make the case that concerns about opioid addiction were overblown, and that OxyContin could safely treat an ever-wider range of maladies.
Slick sales representatives marketed OxyContin as a product “to start with and to stay with.” Millions of patients found the drug to be a vital treatment for excruciating pain. However, many became addicted and dependant on the drug, and between doses, they experienced debilitating withdrawal, many turning to street level sources to feed their addiction (12).
Today opiate overdoses kill nearly 140 Americans every day, many whom became addicted to prescription opiates and ultimately turn to street sources to feed their addiction(13). In Canada that number is an average of 22 - which is 70% higher than the American numbers when corrected for population (14). In America, in the period from 1999-2021, nearly 645,000 people died from an overdose involving any opioid, including prescription and illicit opioids (15). In Canada, there was a total of 40,642 opioid toxicity deaths between January 2016 and June 2023 (14).
Anti-depressants or simply insanity?
This segment would not be complete without a look at the broadly prescribed anti-depressants, the SSRI’s (Selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors). Our dear friend and leading global drug safety advocate, Kim Witzack, experienced the horrors of these drugs first hand. In 2003 her husband Woody was prescribed Pfizer's Zoloft off-label as an insomnia medication. Just 5 weeks later Woody was found dead hanging from the rafters of their garage. Woody wasn’t depressed, nor did he have a history of depression or suicidality, or any other mental illness for that matter. He was simply another unfortunate victim of Big Medicine and their profit driven madness (16). See www.woodymatters.com for more details.
From this date forward Kim has worked tireless to hold the FDA accountable for their drug approval processes and what warnings are made available to the public on the drugs they are prescribed. Kim’s lobbying efforts resulted in Pfizer conceding to allow a “black box” warning on Zoloft that their product may increase the risk of suicide and death.
In fact it is very common for people placed on SSRI’s to feel far worse before they ever feel better. And what your prescribing physician may never tell you, is that stopping these medications is extremely difficult and very problematic.
Furthermore, evolving evidence since 2008 indicates that these substances offer little or no clinical value to treat the conditions that they are prescribed to treat. Poor study design, creative use of statistics, and data manipulation were the hallmarks by which these products were researched and promoted. (17,18,19)
Sound familiar?
Bottom line?
Healthcare is a business and we are its customers. It’s all about selling sickness.
There are other powerful interests working behind the scenes to come up with brand new disorders and dysfunctions, all aimed at expanding markets for their brand new products.
Why?
Because there is a lot more money to be made telling healthy people they are sick and need to be medicated. (20)
In 2019 the third leading cause of death in America was iatrogenic death (death by medical intervention), and after 2020 and the C19 era of obfuscated and false death reports it fell the the number 4 spot with 224,935 deaths in 2021 (21,22). Holding the number 2 spot is Cancer with 605,213 deaths - many of which arguably should also fall into the iatrogenic category.
It is a little known fact that Oncologists earn up to 65% of their revenue and income from commissions of chemotherapy drugs they prescribe (23,24). And with $176 billion in sales in 2021, with a 40-90% margin, this is massive market and there is very lucrative income to be earned here! Ever wonder why after billions upon billions of dollars raised for cancer research we are no farther ahead in our treatments?
The simple answer - profit.
What do these massive capital expenditures create in terms of patient outcomes? For over six decades the reductionist approach to cancer treatments and chemotherapies including recent immunotherapy for solid tumours produced outcome failure-rates of 90% (+/-5%), according to governmental agencies and industry (26).
In conclusion, humans across the planet simply represent a massive potential profit centre to the Medical Industrial Complex and nothing more.
Band-aid Medicine
Label a customer, sorry a patient, with a syndrome or a disease and a cascade of profit ensues. There is zero concern for what the underlying reason for those symptoms may be, and actually dealing with those underlying issues will only reduce the lifetime monetary value of the patient.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States (1953-1961) exclaimed during his Farewell Address on January 17, 1961, "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex." If Eisenhower was with us today, he may well expand his views on power and influence to include the Medical Industrial Complex (27).
And yes we did not even cover vaccines, mRNA or otherwise. We will save that topic for another month! But know that most of the modern chronic illness are driven by vaccines, and we will uncover the research on this subject with a close examination of the Landmark Control Group Study. See the podcast link below to learn more.
References:
- Vollman, J, Winau, R. Informed consent in human experimentation before the Nuremberg code. British Medical Journal 1996;313:1445–1447, (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Informed+consent+in+human+experimentation+before+the+Nuremberg+code&author=Vollman+J&author=Winau+R&publication+year=1996&journal=Br+Med+J&volume=313&doi=10.1136%2Fbmj.313.7070.1445&pages=1445-1447)
- Borkin, J. The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben. New York: FreePress, 1978. (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=The+Crime+and+Punishment+of+I.G.+Farben&author=Borkin+J&publication+year=1978)
- Coordination gegen Bayer-Gefahren (red.). IG-Farben; Von Anilin bis Zwangsarbeit. Stuttgart: Schmetterling Verlag, 1995. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Coordination+gegen+Bayer-Gefahren+(red.).+IG-Farben;+Von+Anilin+bis+Zwangsarbeit.+Stuttgart:+Schmetterling+Verlag,+1995.
- https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/medicine/thalidomide
- Report of the Thalidomide Task Force of the War Amputations of Canada. https://thalidomide.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/synopsis-war-amps-report.pdf
- Calcaterra NE, Barrow JC (April 2014). "Classics in chemical neuroscience: diazepam (valium)". ACS Chemical Neuroscience. 5 (4): 253–60.
- Fischer J, Ganellin CR (2006). Analogue-based Drug Discovery. John Wiley & Sons. p. 535
- US patent 3371085, Leo Henryk Sternbach & Earl Reeder, "5-ARYL-3H-1,4-BENZODIAZEPIN-2(1H)-ONES", published 1968-02-27, issued 1968-02-27, assigned to Hoffmann La Roche AG
- "How the American opiate epidemic was started by one pharmaceutical company". Theweek.com. 4 March 2015. Retrieved 10 January 2018.
- An Anxious History of Valium, What a drag it is getting old—or is it? Valium's heyday is long past, but it lives on as a cultural icon. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303289904579195872550052950
- Riss J, Cloyd J, Gates J, Collins S (August 2008). "Benzodiazepines in epilepsy: pharmacology and pharmacokinetics". Acta Neurologica Scandinavica. 118 (2): 69–86.
- The Family That Built an Empire of Pain - The Sackler dynasty’s ruthless marketing of painkillers has generated billions of dollars—and millions of addicts. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain#:~:text=Sackler%20promoted%20Valium%20for%20such,patient%E2%80%94with%20no%20demonstrable%20pathology%E2%80%94
- https://drugabusestatistics.org/drug-overdose-deaths #:~:text=Opioid%20Overdose%20Death%20Rates&text=Opioids%20kill%20more%20than%20136,255.74%25%20between%202000%20and%202019.
- https://health-infobase.canada.ca/substance-related-harms/opioids-stimulants/
- https://www.cdc.gov/opioids/basics/epidemic.html
- https://www.woodymatters.com/our-story
- Effectiveness of antidepressants: an evidence myth constructed from a thousand randomized trials, John PA Ioannidis, Philosphy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 2008; 3: 14, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2412901/
- Exploratory analyses of efficacy data from major depressive disorder trials submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration in support of new drug applications, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 2011 Apr;72(4):464-72. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21527123/
- Comparative efficacy and acceptability of 21 antidepressant drugs for the acute treatment of adults with major depressive disorder: a systematic review and network meta-analysis, Lancet 2018 Apr 7;391(10128):1357-1366, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29477251/
- https://www.kimwitczak.com/selling-sickness
- Prevalence, severity, and nature of preventable patient harm across medical care settings: systematic review and meta-analysis, BMJ 2019; 366, https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l4185
- https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
- Cancer docs profit from chemotherapy drugs, https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna14944098
- Some cancer docs say their income tied to treatments, https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8BP0FT/
- The Drugs That Bring in the Most Pharma Revenue, https://www.statista.com/chart/18311/sales-revenues-of-drug-classes/#:~:text=This%20is%20according%20to%20the,almost%20double%20to%20%24320.6%20billion
- Analyses of repeated failures in cancer therapy for solid tumors: poor tumor-selective drug delivery, low therapeutic efficacy and unsustainable costs, Clinical Translational Medicine, 2018; 7: 11, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5852245#:~:text=For%20over%20six%20decades%20reductionist,to%20governmental%20agencies%20and%20industry.
- Beware the Medical-Industrial Complex, Oncologist 1996;1(4):IV-V, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10388005/
| 
