Senator Pan recieved bribes equal to twice the average American income to push mandatory vaccination law

By J. D. Heyes
July 14, 2015
Natural News

 

One of the primary sponsors of recently passed legislation in California mandating that nearly all children enrolled in public and private schools in the state be vaccinated received some of the millions in campaign donations showered on the bill’s supporters by Big Pharma.

Democratic Sen. Richard Pan, a physician, according to the table published below, was the top recipient of a share of more than $2 million in campaign contributions by large pharmaceutical companies as the measure, SB 277, was being “debated” in the California legislature.

As reported by the Sacramento Bee newspaper, Pan received $95,150 from pharmaceutical firms; the only other elected official receiving more than $90,000 was Assembly Speaker Toni Adkins ($90,205); the speaker decides what legislation will be taken up by the chamber.

In all, the SacBee reported, Big Pharma and its industry surrogates gave legislators in the 2013-2014 session more than $2 million:

Nine of the top 20 recipients are either legislative leaders or serve on either the Assembly or Senate health committees. Receiving more than $95,000, the top recipient of industry campaign cash is Sen. Richard Pan, a Sacramento Democrat and doctor who is carrying the vaccine bill.

Critics of the process noted that the campaign donations more than likely influenced how lawmakers voted – a charge proponents of the bill dismiss.

“We aren’t pushing this bill behind the scenes,” Priscilla VanderVeer, the senior director for communications for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, known as PhRMA, the industry’s main trade group, told the paper.

Pan historically has been supported by the Big Pharma vaccine industry

While PhRMA had never taken a public position on SB 277, the organization was widely known to have supported vaccinations as part of what it termed sound public health policy.

Still, the industry donated more than a half-million dollars to outside campaign spending groups that nevertheless assisted in getting some members elected last year, the SacBee reported.

“Leading pharmaceutical companies also spent nearly $3 million more during the 2013-2014 legislative session lobbying the Legislature, the governor, the state pharmacists’ board and other agencies, according to state filings,” the paper reported.

Tables (below) showing who gave, who received, and how much, were compiled by The Daily Sheeple news website.

NaturalNews has documented Pan’s financial connection to Big Pharma in the past. In this May report, we noted, citing TruthStream Media:

California’s bill to force vaccinations despite religious and philosophical beliefs — ostensibly guaranteed by the 1st Amendment – has been introduced by a pediatrician and state senator with ties to the vaccine industry.

Dr. Pan was among more than two-dozen California lawmakers who received campaign donations on record from Merck in the 2010 election cycle, ahead of supporting a 2011 law allowing girls as young as 12 years old to receive Gardasil vaccinations for HPV (manufactured by Merck) without parental consent.

Pan was a member of the state Assembly during the 2010 cycle; as documented by Health Impact News, he reportedly received $1,000 in campaign contributions from Merck.

Dr. Oz and the case of NO endorsement kickback

As NaturalNews editor Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, reported about a year ago elected officials on the national level have also been “paid” by Big Pharma to go after alternative healers and health advocates.

One such attack involved U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-MO., who launched broadsides at Dr. Oz for several health products he has endorsed. Come to find out, Adams reported, McCaskill had received some $146,000 in campaign donations from – you guessed it – Big Pharma.

“According to campaign contribution data published at OpenSecrets.org, prescription drug mega-retailer Express Scripts gave McCaskill over $109,000 in campaign contributions, most of which was routed through lobbyist groups or PACs,” Adams reported.

“Sen. McCaskill also accepted over $37,000 from Monsanto, widely regarded to be the most evil corporation in the world and an enemy of sustainable food production, heirloom seeds and traditional American farming methods,” he said.

Dr. Oz, by contrast, never got a cent from any company whose product he was pushing.

It seems when it comes to health public policy, it has become the best that money can buy.

Sources:

http://www.sacbee.com

http://www.thedailysheeple.com

http://healthimpactnews.com

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://www.truthwiki.org/Vaccine_Fanaticism/

US: Tainted Cancer Drugs Can Cause Stroke; Nationwide Recall Is Expanded

By Lori Alton
July 14, 2015
NaturalHealth365, July 12, 2015

 

A diagnosis of cancer is devastating. But cancer sufferers who have followed medical provider advice to undergo treatment with so-called cancer-fighting drugs may have unknowingly been exposed to the additional risk of stroke or other life-threatening medical event.

Why is this happening? The danger is due to tainted cancer medication in the form of sterile injectable drugs that the manufacturer began recalling in early June – due to “particulate” matter, as the company described the issue. The recall comes amidst yet another round of big pharma takeovers and acquisitions, leaving consumers to wonder whether drug companies are willing to take any available shortcut – even putting consumer health at risk – to turn a deal and build profit margins.

Multiple recalls of contaminated drugs: A shocking reality within the pharmaceutical industry

In early June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) distributed a media release from drug manufacturer Mylan in which the company recalled seven lots of the cancer drug gemcitabine, two of which carried the Pfizer label. The cancer drugs are typically used to treat breast, ovarian, pancreatic and non-small cell lung cancers.

Mylan noted that while it was not aware of any incidences of patient health reactions to the drugs, a range of serious health threats are possible if particulate from the tainted drugs are injected into a patient. The company admits the risks can be life threatening, including chance of stroke.

In addition, Mylan announced it was recalling a single lot of methotrexate, a drug used to treat severe psoriasis, certain neoplastic diseases and adult rheumatoid arthritis. The June recall follows an earlier recall by Mylan, in April, during which it recalled one lot of the cancer drug carboplatin with a Mylan label, along with seven lots of cancer meds it manufactured for Pfizer. The latter included five lots of gemcitabine in different doses, and one lot each of methotrexate and cytarabine.

Corporate profits are more important than product safety

The recall of tainted cancer drugs comes amidst a swirling environment of FDA warnings, corporate takeovers and acquisitions that bring into question whether pharmaceutical companies are paying as much attention to safe manufacturing practices as they are to orchestrating their next ‘great’ business deal.

The most recently recalled drugs were all packaged in Agila Onco plants. Mylan acquired the Indian facilities in 2013 through its $1.75 billion buyout of the sterile injectables segment of Strides Arcolab, a strategic step in its bid to become a significant player in the sterile injectables sector.

The drug cytarabine, manufactured for Pfizer and recalled in April, was also made at the Agila plant in Bangalore. It is now known that the facility had already been cited with a warning letter from the FDA 2013, just prior to Mylan closing the deal. The FDA warning involved the plant’s use of defective gloves in the aseptic processing area, and noted that the company was not taking the problem seriously enough.

Just last year, Mylan recalled 10 lots of another Pfizer drug traced to the Agila plant for missing labels and for a black particulate.

Mylan is now in the midst of a complex big pharma game of mergers and acquisitions with a deal involving Perrigo, while at the same time Teva is making a bid for Mylan. Meanwhile, Pfizer is making a bid to expand its own sterile injectables business, sinking $17 billion into a buyout deal with the pharmaceutical company Hospira, a company known for its frequent product recalls.

Bottom line, as the saying goes, ‘let the buyer (cancer patient) beware.’

References:
http://www.fiercepharmamanufacturing.com/story/mylan-expands-recall-cancer-meds-made-pfizer/2015-06-09
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm444498.htm
http://www.fiercepharmaasia.com/story/mylans-bangalore-unit-cancer-drug-recall-expanded-firm-works-ma-angles/2015-06-17

This Might Make You Think Twice About Injecting Your Child With Gardasil

By Arjun Walia
July 9, 2015
Collective Evolution

 

Below is a clip from Dr. Harper, one of a select few specialists in OB/GYN who helped design and carry out the Phase II and Phase III safety and effectiveness studies to get Gardasil approved, and authored many of the published papers about it. She has been a paid speaker and consultant to Merck. The clip is from a documentary titled “One More Girl,” a documentary that questions the safety of the Gardasil vaccine (Human Papillomavirus [HPV] vaccine that supposedly helps protect against 4 types of HPV), and vaccines in general.

One very important point to acknowledge is the fact that she has appeared in multiple “anti-vaccine” films, and multiple radio shows emphasizing how the HPV vaccines are neither safe nor effective. She has mentioned that the tested length of the efficacy of the vaccines in preventing HPV infection is not long enough to prevent cervical cancer, which, as she states in the video, can take decades to develop. She has also stated that vaccination will not decrease the number of cervical cancer cases, but a routine of regular pap smears will. (source)

There are only about 50 HPV experts in the world, and Dr. Harper is one of them. Again, she has stressed that there is absolutely zero proof that these vaccines work, and that they are safe and effective.

She is clearly against administering these vaccines to young girls, and for good reason.

“It is a vaccine that’s been highly marketed, the benefits are over-hyped, and the dangers are underestimated.” –  (Taken from the One More Girl Documentary) – Dr. Chris Shaw, Professor at the University of British Columbia, in the department of Neuroscience, Ophthalmology, and Visual Sciences.

See what Shaw has to say about aluminum in vaccines HERE.

Dr. Bernard Dalbergue, a former pharmaceutical industry physician with Gardasil manufacturer Merck who has also started to raise his voice against the HPV vaccine, has said:

The full extent of the Gardasil scandal needs to be assessed: everyone knew when this vaccine was released on the American market that it would prove to be worthless.  Diane Harper, a major opinion leader in the United States, was one of the first to blow the whistle, pointing out the fraud and scam of it all. I predict that Gardasil will become the greatest medical scandal of all time because at some point in time, the evidence will add up to prove that this vaccine, technical and scientific feat that it may be, has absolutely no effect on cervical cancer and that all the very many adverse effects which destroy lives and even kill, serve no other purpose than to generate profit for the manufacturers. Gardasil is useless and costs a fortune!  In addition, decision-makers at all levels are aware of it! Cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, paralysis of the lower limbs, vaccine-induced MS and vaccine-induced encephalitis can be found, whatever the vaccine. (source)(I’ve had the source translated, I apologize for not being able to find an english translation online) (Here is another video of him speaking in French for those who can understand and/or are able to have it translated by someone)

For another CE article regarding the Gardasil vaccine, please click HERE.

Related CE Article (heavily sourced):

The Top 6 Reasons Why Parents Are Choosing Not To Vaccinate Their Kids

A Measles Death, Vaccines, and the Media’s Failure to Inform

There is a discussion to be had about public vaccine policy. The media ought to start having it.

By Jeremy R. Hammond
Global Research, July 09, 2015
Foreign Policy Journal, July 5, 2015

 

Last week, it was widely reported in the mainstream media that the autopsy of a woman who died of pneumonia earlier this year in the state of Washington found that she had been infected with measles, making this the first confirmed case of measles-related death in the US since 2003. Playing its usual role, the mainstream media is up in arms, blaming the death on parents who choose not to vaccinate their children and telling parents that to not vaccinate is irresponsible. Rather than journalists doing their job by asking hard questions about public policy and seeking out the answers, they choose to act as nothing more than a mouthpiece for government health departments and dutifully tow the official line on vaccine policy.

The woman who died was not among the unvaccinated. On the contrary, she not only had been vaccinated, but reportedly was tested and found to have a protective antibody titer. She nevertheless became infected with measles while seeking medical attention in a clinic. She died from pneumonia, which can be caused by any number of other bacterial or viral infections besides measles, including the common cold and flu. The reason her immune system couldn’t handle the infection was because doctors had her on immunosuppressive drugs. Hence, medical intervention was a contributing factor in her death.

The media, as ever, is pushing the theory of herd immunity to encourage vaccination. Everyone needs to be vaccinated to protect infants and the immunocompromised, we are being told. The argument implies that the individual from whom the deceased caught the measles was unvaccinated, but that is pure speculation; for all we know, the person she contracted the measles virus from had been vaccinated, too.

It is quite possible for fully vaccinated individuals to get measles. It is well understood that some people just don’t respond to the vaccine as intended; their immune systems do not produce a great enough amount of antibodies to be considered protective. This is true of about 5 percent of the population, and it’s the reason a second dose, or “booster” shot, is recommended. That second shot is likely unnecessary for most children who did respond to the first, yet it’s given routinely to everyone anyway, even though the purpose is to target the few non-responders. Even after a second dose, however, 3 percent or so of the population still won’t respond.

Moreover, the vaccine-induced immunity, unlike the more robust immunity gained from natural infection, wanes over time. In fact, the CDCconsiders birth before 1957 to be “evidence of immunity” to measles for the simple reason that pretty much everyone back then was infected with it as a child and gained lifelong immunity as a result.

Also, the measles vaccine is a live-virus vaccine, and individuals can potentially get the disease from the vaccine as well as shed the virus. Vaccine-strain attenuated live viruses can replicate and revert back into virulent form (which is why they don’t vaccinate immunocompromised individuals) or recombine with other viruses to create novel virulent strains. This means that individuals who have received a live-virus vaccine can potentially catch the disease, as well as transmit the virus to others. This is why the live oral poliovirus vaccine was withdrawn from the market in the US, for example; every single domestic case of polio since 1979 was caused by the vaccine.

The theory of vaccine-induced herd immunity also overlooks natural herd immunity. Measles is a particularly useful example to illustrate the concept. This is what the measles mortality rate looked like before the introduction of the vaccine:

The vaccine was introduced in 1963, after the latest year shown in the above graph from the US Department of Health. Note that the above graph shows deaths from measles, not incidence of measles, which remained high until the introduction of the vaccine:

In fact, as already noted, it used to be that nearly everyone was exposed to the virus, usually in childhood, and gained lifelong immunity as a result. The virus was still around, but it was becoming less deadly to the US population due to an improving standard of living, better sanitation and hygiene, better nutrition (e.g., vitamin A is important for reducing measles mortality and decreasing morbidity), advances in health care, and so on.

What the declining mortality rate indicates is that the US population was developing natural herd immunity. We were learning to live in symbiosis with the virus, natural exposure to which not only confers permanent immunity to measles itself, but may help prime the immune system of children to protect against other diseases, as well.

But then along came the vaccine and destroyed that natural herd immunity.

While parents today are trained to have a hysterical fear of measles, back in the 1960s, when the vaccine was introduced, it was recognized as a generally mild disease with infrequent complications. In fact, in the era before the vaccine was introduced, it was accepted doctrine that the population would adapt to live in symbiosis with the virus—a respect for the balance of nature that was quickly discarded with the development of the vaccine.

The concept of “herd immunity” today is universally associated with the use of vaccines, but this is an application of the concept in fact borrowed from the observance of natural herd immunity to disease. In the case of measles, researchers in the 1930s—long before the vaccine existed—observed that epidemics in Baltimore occurred in predictable cycles and only when the level of immunity in affected communities was less than 55 percent (far below the 95 percent or so level of vaccination hypothesized to provide herd immunity with vaccination).

Now since nearly everyone is vaccinated at an early age, they don’t become infected with the disease in childhood and hence don’t develop the more robust permanent immunity conferred by natural infection.

The kind of immunity conferred by vaccines is not the same as that conferred by natural infection. Vaccines favor an antibody response while actually suppressing what is known as cell-mediated immunity. For example, while the flu vaccine offers protection against specific strains of the influenza virus, it works by inducing an antibody response while preventing the cell-mediated immunity that would otherwise offer protection not only against those specific strains of the virus, but other strains as well. Hence, getting an annual flu shot can actually increase the risk of getting the flu. (There areover 200 strains of viruses that cause influenza or flu-like symptoms, the vaccine only targets a handful of them, and public health officials guess each year which ones they think will be in circulation in order to manufacture seasonal vaccines for those specific strains.

While vaccine theory is premised on the idea of inducing humoral immunity, which involves an antibody response, scientists have learned the production of antibodies is neither always sufficient nor even necessary for the development of immunity.

Since the vaccine-induced immunity from the measles wanes over time, in the event of an outbreak, individuals are at greater risk of developing the disease in their adulthood, when it poses a higher risk of serious complications.

The government and media, of course, blame every outbreak on parents who choose not to vaccinate their children. This was true of the Disney outbreak earlier this year, even though the majority of cases were in adults.

Measles outbreaks can and do occur in highly vaccinated populations. Even if there was a 100 percent vaccination rate, outbreaks could still occur for the reasons already noted: some individuals do not respond to the vaccine, and the immunity of those who do wanes over time.

Moreover, because of public vaccine policy, mothers today who were never infected during their childhood and hence never developed robust permanent immunity are unable to protect their newborn babies from the disease in the event of an outbreak.

Without the vaccine, women would be infected as children and develop a permanent, robust cell-mediated immunity while continuing to be frequently exposed to the virus, thus also providing a harmless natural boost to their antibody levels. When they become mothers, they would then confer protection to their infants by passing on antibodies through their breastmilk.

But now, since women were vaccinated as children, they likely have a waning antibody titer by the time they start having children. Because the vaccine has quite successfully reduced transmission of the disease, they have not received the beneficial natural boosting of antibodies. Hence, they aren’t able to pass on that antibody protection to their infants.

Public vaccine policy has thus shifted the risk burden away from those in whom the disease is generally well-tolerated and onto those in whom it poses a higher risk of serious complications: adults and the most vulnerable members of society—infants.

Such long-term population-level negative consequences of vaccines simply don’t receive any consideration in the mainstream discussion.

In reports about the measles-related death in Washington, while amplifying public health officials’ recommendation that everyone make sure they and their children have been vaccinated for measles, the media has also failed to even approach the question of the more immediate individual risk associated with the vaccine. When the question of risks does come up, the media tends to treat it as though nonexistent. In the wake of the Disney measles outbreak earlier this year, for instance, theNew York Times insisted that there was “no evidence” that vaccines can cause harm and accused anyone who suggests otherwise of being “anti-science”.

This is a puzzling denial, indeed, in light of the fact that, back in the 1980s, the vaccine industry was granted legal immunity by the government because manufacturers were facing so many lawsuits for vaccine injuries that they were going out of business. This in turn threatened public health policy, which prompted the government to step in and bail out the vaccine manufactures by barring consumers from suing them for damages under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.

Under the law, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was also established to shift the financial burden of compensation for vaccine injuries from Big Pharma to the consumers. The program is funded by a $0.75 tax on every antigen dose of vaccines (so every time an MMR shot is given, being a combination vaccine, $2.25 is taxed for the purpose of contributing to the national vaccine injury fund).

The Supreme Court has upheld legal immunity for vaccine manufacturers on the grounds that certain adverse reactions are “unavoidable” and “design defects” are “not a basis for liability.” Justice Antonin Scalia described this special accommodation for Big Pharma as a “societal bargain”.

The line from the New York Times and other mainstream media that vaccines are harmless is hard to reconcile with the fact that corporations like Merck have been granted legal immunity by the government on the grounds that vaccines are unavoidably unsafe.

As a further illustration of how utterly ignorant and irresponsible such dismissals of the risks associated with vaccines are, one need look no further than the vaccine manufacturers’ product inserts. Merck’s product insert for its measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine states that “Unnecessary doses of a vaccine are best avoided….” Surely, there must be a reason? It happens there are many.

For mothers, contraindications to vaccination include pregnancy, as “the possible effects of the vaccine on fetal development are unknown” since there are “no adequate studies” into that question. “However,” Merck appropriately adds, “it would be prudent to assume that the vaccine strain of virus is also capable of inducing adverse fetal effects.” The vaccine-strain mumps virus “has been shown to infect the placenta and fetus”. Studies have shown that the vaccine-strain of rubella virus can be transmitted to infants through the breast milk. Whether this is also true of the measles and mumps viruses “is not known”. Merck advises that “pregnancy should be avoided for 3 months following vaccination” and that “Caution should be exercised when M-M-R II is administered to a nursing woman.” The vaccine also “has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential, or potential to impair fertility.” Among those who should not receive it are children who are hypersensitive to any of the vaccine’s components, including gelatin and eggs, the latter because the live viruses are propagated in chick embryo cell cultures. The rubella portion of the vaccine is propagated in “human diploid lung fibroblasts”; specifically, WI-38 (ATCC® CCL-75TM), which contaminates the vaccine with human DNA from an aborted female fetus. (This has raised some concern over “ethical problems” at the Vatican; specifically about “cooperation in evil” and the “unjust” practice of forcing parents “to act against their conscience”.) Another ingredient is “fetal bovine serum”. Another is “recombinant human albumin”; specifically, Recombumin® Prime, a product of Novozyems Biopharma US Inc. This is a genetically engineered protein (“recombinant” means it was made by dicing and splicing genetic material). The product was developed because of concerns that using the blood protein albumin from humans or cattle carries the risk of blood-borne contaminants like mycoplasma, prions, or viruses. (This has happened. In March 2010, the rotavirus vaccine Rotarix, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, was found to have been contaminatedwith a pig virus after it was injected into a million children.) Possible adverse reactions to the vaccine include:

• Fever
• Snycope (fainting)
• Headache
• Dizziness
• Vasculitis (a condition in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the blood vessels, causing inflammation that can lead to serious problems, including aneurysms)
• Pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas that occurs when the digestive enzymes it produces begin digesting the pancreas itself)
• Diarrhea
• Vomiting
• Parotitis (inflammation of the parotid glands)
• Nausea
• Diabetes mellitus (diabetes)
• Thrombocytopenia (a disorder in which there is an abnormally low amount of platelets, which help blood to clot)
• Anaphylaxis (a life-threatening allergic reaction that can cause cardiac and respiratory arrest)
• Arthritis (joint inflammation)
• Arthralgia (joint pain)
• Myalgia (muscle pain)
• Encephalitis (inflammation of the brain, which can cause permanent brain damage or death)
• Guillain-Barré syndrome (an autoimmune disorder in which the immune system attacks the peripheral nervous system, which can result in paralysis or death)
• Febrile seizures (convulsions brought on by fever)
• Afebrile seizures (convulsions without fever, which may indicate epilepsy)
• Pneumonia
• Measles-like rash
• Death

It is perhaps not too surprising that many of these adverse reactions are the same as the symptoms or complications of wild-type measles itself, including: fever; headache; diarrhea; vomiting; encephalitis; seizures; pneumonia; rash; and, of course, death.Of course, Merck and public health officials maintain that serious adverse events are rare, less than the risk of developing the same complications from the disease. But, then, the recent case in Washington is the first confirmed case of measles-related death since 2003, while there have been 65 deaths since 2003 reported to the nation Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) following vaccination with MMR.Furthermore, the possible adverse reactions listed in the product insert are just a list of known reactions from short-term studies—(and the vaccine manufacturers conduct their own studies to get FDA licensure)—and postmarketing surveillance. The long-term effects of vaccination and its interference in the natural development of an individual’s immune system haven’t been well studied, such as whether vaccination has contributed to the alarming increases in asthma, allergies, and autoimmune diseases.

The continued use of mercury as a preservative in flu vaccines and the use of aluminum as an adjuvant in numerous other childhood vaccines are particularly worrisome practices. Both are known neurotoxins that can pass the placental and blood-brain barriers.There has never been a study of long-term health outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. As much as the media likes to say that science has shown that there is no risk of developing autism from vaccines, there has never been a study comparing autism rates of individuals who’ve received the CDC’s recommended schedule and unvaccinated individuals.

Moreover, it is known that vaccinations can modify gene expression, and certain individuals may be genetically predisposed to having adverse reactions or long-term negative health consequence of being vaccinated; yet public policy treats vaccination as a one-size-fits-allsolution—thus playing Russian roulette with our children.

This is all just scratching the surface. The point is that the media treat the subject of vaccines as though there wasn’t even a discussion to be had—just fall in line and get your damn shots! This is dishonest and anti-intellectual. The popular accusation that anyone who questions public vaccine policy is “anti-science” is a particularly hypocritical creed reflective of the intellectual dishonesty and sheer laziness of mainstream journalists who bow to the altar of the state religion and preach official dogma rather than doing their jobs.

Notwithstanding the pretense to the contrary from public health officials and the mainstream media, there is a discussion to be had about public vaccine policy. We ought to start having it.

Jeremy R. Hammond is an independent political analyst and a recipient of the Project Censored Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism. He is the founding editor ofForeign Policy Journal and the author of Ron Paul vs. Paul Krugman: Austrian vs. Keynesian economics in the financial crisis and The Rejection of Palestinian Self-Determination: The Struggle for Palestine and the Roots of the Israeli-Arab Conflict. His forthcoming book is Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. He blogs atJeremyRHammond.com. Click here to sign up for his free newsletter. 

Pfizer Vice President Blows The Whistle & Tells The Truth About The Pharmaceutical Industry

By Arjun Walia
July 7, 2015
Collective Evolution

 

Below is a clip taken from the “One More Girl” documentary, a film regarding the Gardasil vaccine, which was designed to prevent Human Papillomavirus. In it, Dr. Peter Rost, MD, a former vice president of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world (Pfizer), shares the truth about the ties between the medical and pharmaceutical industry.

Rost is a former vice president of Pfizer, and a whistleblower of the entire pharmaceutical industry in general. He is the author of “The Whistleblower, Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman.” Considering his work experience, it would be an understatement to say that he is an insider expert on big pharma marketing.

Below are a couple of quotes from both a former and a current editor-in-chief of the two largest, and what are considered to be the most credible, medical journals in the world. It’s only fitting to include them into the article as they are directly related to what Dr. Rost hints at in the video.

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.”  – Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime editor-in-chief of the New England Medical Journal (NEMJ) (source)

“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.”  – Dr. Richard Horton, the current editor-in-chief of the Lancet – considered to be one of the most well respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the world. (source)

It’s Time To Re-Think Current Medical Research & See The Bigger Picture

In 2005 Dr. John P.A. Ioannidis, currently a professor in disease prevention at Stanford University, published the most widely accessed article in the history of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) entitled Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. In the report he states:

“There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false.”

We now have a large amount of evidence, and statements from experts that come directly from the field, which paint a very concerning picture. The science used to educate doctors and develop medicine is flawed. We are only ever exposed to studies that have been sponsored by big pharmaceutical companies, but these studies are not designed to take the long view. They are not designed to detect problems that can occur years or even decades after a treatment, or examine the risks of taking a drug for long periods of time. Nobody ever seems to mention or acknowledge the many studies which clearly show significant risk associated with many of the products that pharmaceutical companies are manufacturing to help fight disease.

What is even more concerning is the general population’s lack of awareness when it comes to these facts. This issue is definitely not going to be addressed in the mainstream news, and despite plenty of evidence to support it, some people will refuse to even look at or acknowledge that it exists. This is a big problem, our world is changing and we must keep an open mind and be open to new possibilities regarding the nature of our world. It’s 2015, and as we keep moving forward there will be more information coming out that challenges the deeply held, engrained belief systems of many. It’s okay to look at information that goes against what you believe, in fact, it’s needed if we are going to move forward and create a better world for ourselves.

You would think the statements above the video, from longtime editors of such major, peer-reviewed scientific journals (apparently, the best in the world) would at least get some mainstream attention.

When Dr. Rost was still working for Pfizer he had a couple of appearances in the mainstream media. Here is an example of him speaking with the Wall Street Journal almost 10 years ago, before he blew the whistle.

This is why alternative media is important, especially in a time where more and more people are waking up to what is really happening on our planet.

It’s time to examine the research that’s being conducted all over the world, from experts (scientists) at various institutions, that is not sponsored by these giant, multinational “health” corporations – the independent literature. Brilliant work is being published regarding various drugs, cures, treatments, vaccines, and more.

Thanks for reading, and I hope the video above gives you something to think about.

Vaccines kill more people than sharks, alligators, bears, snakes and spiders combined

By Ethan A. Huff
July 7, 2015
Natural News

 

The mainstream media is in a frenzy over a few shark attacks that allegedly took place in North Carolina this past week, reports of which are already triggering a wave of fear as some families rethink their summer travel plans. But the biggest threat to your children isn’t sharks, bears, alligators or any other predator — it’s vaccines.

The number of deaths that occur annually following routine vaccination is far greater than the number of people that die from sharks, alligators, bears, snakes and spiders combined, it turns out. And yet tired news outlets like The Washington Post are asking ridiculous questions like, “Are you afraid of sharks? You should be…”

Such fear-mongering distracts from a much more serious threat to your children — poison-filled injections that are associated with at least 5,000 deaths annually, according to data from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). The International Medical Council on Vaccination (IMCV) estimates that about 3,900 of these 5,000 reported deaths, or 78%, are directly caused by vaccines.

Recognizing that VAERS data constitutes as little as 10% of actual injury and death cases, the annual death rate from vaccines swells to about 39,000, a figure leaps and bounds ahead of the handful of deaths caused by sharks and other aggressive animals every year. Take a look at the following data presented by The Washington Post about animal-caused fatalities:

Sharks: 1 person per year
Alligators: 1 person per year
Bears: 1 person per year
Venomous snakes and lizards: 6 people per year
Spiders: 7 people per year
Non-venomous arthropods: 9 people per year
Cows: 20 people per year
Dogs: 28 people per year
Other mammals: 52 people per year
Bees, wasps and hornets: 58 people per year

If you add all this up, you’re left with a grand total of 183 animal-related deaths every year — this compared to a whopping 39,000 vaccine-related deaths! Put differently, for every one person who dies from an animal, according to data presented by The Washington Post and the IMCV, an astounding 213 people die from a vaccine or combination of vaccines!

Risk of dying from a vaccine is more than 200 times higher than dying from an animal attack

If the world was an honest place, The Washington Post would have compiled a report about the dangers of vaccines rather than animals, using this word-substituted title: “Chart: Vaccines that are most likely to kill you this summer.” Instead, it decided to publish a report with the same title, except with the word animals rather than vaccines.

Comparatively speaking, the risk of dying from an animal attack is a mere 0.5% the risk of dying from a vaccine. You are more than 200 times more likely to suffer mortality following a government-recommended shot, in other words, than you are dying from a bear, shark, alligator or any of the other aforementioned animals.

And consider this: Dr. David Kessler, the former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), believes that the estimated 10% reporting rate to VAERS is actually too high a figure. He says the reporting rate is closer to 1%, which means the number of vaccine-induced deaths that occur annually could be much higher than even 39,000!

And yet the mainstream media is completely silent on this, all the while supporting mandatory vaccination legislation like S.B. 277 in California that eliminates personal and philosophical vaccine exemptions. Perhaps it’s time for the corporate press to reevaluate what’s important in the world, because clearly its priorities are skewed, and the information it’s presenting misleading at best.

You can read more about The Washington Post and how it’s used as a propaganda rag for the vaccine industry at TruthWiki.org.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org

http://www.washingtonpost.com

http://www.whale.to

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://www.renewamerica.com

http://thinktwice.com

http://www.truthwiki.org/Vaccine_Fanaticism/

http://www.truthwiki.org/Medical_Fascism/

“The 21st Century Cures Act” Is On Its Way – Here’s Why You Haven’t Heard About It

By Lisa Bloomquist
July 7, 2015
Collective Evolution

 

The 21^st Century Cures Act is going through the U.S. Congress right now, and it will likely pass into law unless some opposition materializes (it passed through the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee with a vote of 51 to 0).  The Act is a give-away to the pharmaceutical industry, removing many of the safety mechanisms in place that are supposed to keep the public protected from unsafe drugs and medical devices.

The 21^st Century Cures Act allows drugs to be rushed to the market, removes phase 3 testing as a requirement for drug approval, bases drug approval on biomarkers rather than actual health outcomes, and encourages the production of new antibiotics at a time when microbiome destruction is increasingly being linked to chronic diseases.

Rushing Drugs to Market

With the passage of the 21^st Century Cures Act, drugs will be rushed to market with little testing required. A New York Times piece, “Don’t Weaken the F.D.A.’s Drug Approval Process” notes that the 21^st Century Cures Act “could substantially lower the standards for approval of many medical products, potentially placing patients at unnecessary risk of injury or death.” The Act weakens an already weak regulatory process that is currently doing a poor job of protecting the public from adverse reactions to drugs and medical devices. (In the currently weak system, preventable medical errors in hospitals are the third leading cause of death in the United States, and, “between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year who go to the hospital for care suffer some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death.” source)

The End of Evidence Based Medicine

Modern medicine is supposed to be “evidence based medicine” backed up by replicable, placebo controlled scientific experiments that show that a drug or medical device effectively treats the disease or symptom that it is purported to treat. This standard of evidence will no longer exist if the 21^st Century Cures Act passes into law. The Act will allow drug approval to be based on biomarkers and surrogate measures rather than health outcomes. This has been disastrous in the past and it will be even more disastrous in the future. For example, we’re now seeing that statins do well at reducing cholesterol, but despite improving that biomarker, they don’t improve health outcomes for large portions of the population (notably, the female portion of the population).

A New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) article, “The 21st Century Cures Act — Will It Take Us Back in Time?” notes that:

But though a drug’s effect on a biomarker can make approval quicker and less costly, especially if the comparator is placebo, it may not always predict the drug’s capacity to improve patient outcomes. Bevacizumab (Avastin) delayed tumor progression in advanced breast cancer but was shown not to benefit patients. Similarly, rosiglitazone (Avandia) lowered glycated hemoglobin levels in patients with diabetes even as it increased their risk of myocardial infarction. In 2013, patients began to receive a new drug for tuberculosis approved on the basis of a randomized trial relying on a surrogate measure of bacterial counts in the sputum — even though patients given the drug in that trial had a death rate four times that in the comparison group, mostly from tuberculosis.

Representative Diana DeGette (D-CO), one of the co-sponsors of the 21^st Century Cures Act, bragged on Twitter that, “In 120yrs we have gone from #snakeoil to mapping the #humangenome. W/your help #Cures2015 is ready to take us further.”  But if pharmaceuticals are no longer required to have evidence that they improve health outcomes, how are they any better than snake oils? One only needs to look as far as the recent history of psychiatry to see that the line between snake oils and “evidence based medicine” is already woefully thin.  Removing regulatory and procedural requirements from the drug approval process, via the 21^st Century Cures Act, will just encourage the production of more dangerous pharmaceuticals that are no better or safer than snake oil.

Diminishing requirements for evidence of efficacy is bad for the medical system too. Basing medicine on scientific inquiry and actual evidence of efficacy is a bedrock of medicine, and without it the medical system will lose credibility.

The Loss of Informed Consent

The 21^st Century Cures Act will diminish another bedrock of modern medicine – informed consent. The NEJM article notes that:

“Informed consent by patients in drug trials has traditionally been sacrosanct, with exceptions made only when consent is impossible to obtain or contrary to a patient’s best interests. But another clause in the proposed law adds a new kind of exception: studies in which ‘the proposed clinical testing poses no more than minimal risk’ — a major departure from current human subject protections. It is not clear who gets to determine whether a given trial of a new drug poses ‘minimal risk.’”

Informed consent is crucial not only for the credibility of modern medicine, it is crucial for liberty.

Dangerous New Antibiotics

One of the least controversial, but in reality most dangerous, parts of the 21^st Century Cures Act is its encouragement of new antibiotics. Before I go into why this part of the Act is dangerous, let me acknowledge that bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a huge problem, and antibiotic resistant infections are causing many deaths. Without being able to keep pathogenic bacteria in check, many medical procedures will be impossible, and many lives will be lost.  But we got into the predicament of bacteria being resistant to antibiotics by over-using antibiotics in both agriculture and medicine, and to encourage increased use of antibiotics will only perpetuate the problem. The solution to antibiotic resistance is prudent use of available antibiotics and finding sustainable ways to reduce harm caused by pathogenic bacteria (perhaps by using healthy bacteria to keep the unhealthy bacteria in check), not doubling down on the “kill all bacteria” tactic that led us to the problem of antibiotic resistant bacterial infections in the first place. Bacteria will continue to adapt in us and around us, and increasing the intensity of the war between us and bacteria is beyond foolish.  We will lose any war that we wage against bacteria because we need bacteria – they are not separate from us – and they play a larger role in human health than we can currently imagine.

A healthy and balanced microbiome (“the ecological community of commensal, symbiotic and pathogenic microorganisms that literally share our body space”) is crucial for all areas of health, and a disturbed microbiome has been linked to all of the diseases of modernity, including mental health disorders, neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, autoimmune diseases, inflammatory bowel disease and Crohn’s disease, mysterious diseases like fibromyalgia, autism, etc. And while there is acknowledgement of the role that a healthy microbiome plays in these diseases, researchers and journalists alike have been loath to acknowledge the role antibiotics have played in contributing to these diseases of modernity. No one wants to be anti-antibiotic. Everyone knows that antibiotics have saved millions of lives, but that doesn’t mean they are without consequences. And the good that penicillin has done doesn’t mean that all antibiotics are equally safe or effective. I can make a pretty thorough argument that fluoroquinolone antibiotics, like Cipro/ciprofloxacin and Levaquin/levofloxacin, drugs that work by “inhibition of the enzymes topoisomerase II (DNA gyrase) and topoisomerase IV (both Type II topoisomerases), which are required for bacterial DNA replication, transcription, repair, and recombination,” are at least partially responsible for many of the diseases of modernity (more information can be found HERE, HERE and HERE). Fluoroquinolone antibiotics do not have the same safety profile as amoxicillin, and to assume that they do because both are categorized as antibiotics, is foolish on multiple levels.

The 21^st Century Cures Act will encourage the production of new antibiotics, regardless of their safety profile or mechanism of action. Doctors Avorn and Kesselhem note in the NEJM that:

The proposed legislation would make immediate changes with respect to new antibiotics and antifungals by enabling their approval without conventional clinical trials, if needed to treat a “serious or life-threatening infection” in patients with an “unmet medical need.” In place of proof that the antimicrobial actually decreases morbidity or mortality, the FDA would be empowered to accept nontraditional efficacy measures drawn from small studies as well as “preclinical, pharmacologic, or pathophysiologic evidence; nonclinical susceptibility and pharmacokinetic data, data from phase 2 clinical trials; and such other confirmatory evidence as the secretary [of health and human services] determines appropriate to approve the drug.” Antimicrobials approved in this manner would carry disclaimers on their labeling, but there is no evidence that such a precaution would restrict prescribing to only the most appropriate patients. If passed in its current form, the bill would also provide hospitals with a financial bonus for administering costly new but unproven antibiotics, which could encourage their more widespread use. The bill gives the secretary of health and human services the authority to expand this nontraditional approval pathway to other drug categories as well, if “the public health would benefit from expansion.”

Fluoroquinolone antibiotics like Cipro and Levaquin, some of the most popular antibiotics on the market, cause a chronic illness known as fluoroquinolone toxicity syndrome or, colloquially, “floxing,” that includes damage to connective tissue (tendons, ligaments, cartilage, fascia, etc.) throughout the body, damage to the nervous systems (central, peripheral, and autonomic), and more. Rather than putting mechanisms in place that help victims of iatrogenic antibiotic poisoning, or to prevent their pain and suffering in the first place, the 21^st Century Cures Act opens the door for more damaging antibiotics to flood the market.

The Ever-Increasing Power of the Pharmaceutical Industry

The current medical system lacks the mechanisms required to protect consumers from the dangers of pharmaceuticals. The FDA is failing to protect people from dangerous drugs, the justice system is failing to compensate people for harm done by dangerous drugs, doctors, pharmacists and even research scientists are so indoctrinated in the “there’s a pill for that” culture that they fail to question it, and the drug-consuming public ends up poisoned and sick because no one is keeping the pharmaceutical companies in check. All powerful entities need checks and balances, the pharmaceutical industry is no exception.  The 21^st Century Cures Act gives the too-powerful pharmaceutical industry even more power, power that will undoubtedly be abused.

Pros and Cons

There are a couple good elements to the 21^st Century Cures Act. It increases the NIH budget, which some can argue is an improvement. It also focuses on finding pharmaceutical solutions to rare diseases, which many people with rare diseases will find to be cause for hope.

I fear though, that people with rare diseases will be turned into guinea pigs because the pharmaceutical companies seeking cures for their rare diseases will have no limits put on what they can do to the people suffering from them.  I also find it objectionable that there is no mention in the Act of investigating the causes of “rare” diseases or “rare” adverse drug reactions.

The potential harm that can be brought on by the 21^st Century Cures Act far outweighs its potential benefits, and I encourage all Americans reading this to contact your Congressional Representatives to voice your concerns about this bill.

Human Health is Too Important to Leave to Congress 

The human body is amazingly, beautifully, mind-bogglingly complex and intricate. New discoveries about our biology are being made every day. For example, it was recently discovered that the brain has a lymphatic system, a discovery that may have huge implications for human health. Additionally, the burgeoning fields of epigenetics and microbiome research have far more questions than answers within them, and exciting discoveries are being made within those fields every day. Though there are undoubtedly brilliant scientists working in the biological sciences, even they are far from knowing “enough” about unforeseen consequences of messing with a biological system (through use of a drug) that connects to all other biological systems.  Any doctor or scientist who is worth his/her title realizes how little anyone knows about the complex workings of the human body, is aware that medicine is constantly changing as new discoveries are made, and has humility about the consequences of what he/she doesn’t yet know.

If scientists can’t possibly know “enough” about human biology to produce pharmaceuticals that are exact and without side-effects (aka collateral damage), the shills and corporate-whores in Congress certainly don’t know “enough” about human health to legislate major changes that affect how medicine is implemented. They have that power though, and the 21^st Century Cures Act is a consequential piece of legislation that is going to have major effects on the entire medical system if it is signed into law. Most of those effects are negative.

The 21^st Century Cures Act diminishes the rocks on which modern medicine are based – informed consent, individual body autonomy, the Hippocratic Oath, and basing medicine on scientific evidence. The people of America, and the world, need to fight to keep those bedrocks in place. If all medical decisions, and all medical legislation, were made with informed consent, individual body autonomy, the Hippocratic Oath, and scientific evidence in mind, the world would be a much better place. Don’t assume for a second that current medical and legislative decisions are being made with those basic principles in mind. They are constantly being eroded.  Diligently protect them to the best of your ability – and call your Representatives.

Resources:

1. New York Times, “Don’t Weaken the F.D.A.’s Drug Approval Process”
2. The New England Journal of Medicine, “The 21st Century Cures Act — Will It Take Us Back in Time?”
3. Medscape Medical News, “Bill Aims to Expand Drug Indications Minus Randomized Trials”
4. Modern Healthcare, “Beware a 21st Century Quackery Act”
5. Public Citizen, “Cures for the 21st Century: Five Simple Ideas Congress Has Ignored”

Mind Altering Drugs

By Peter Vlemmix
Global Research, June 29, 2015
Peter Vlemmix, June 20, 2015

 

We fight a continuous war to prevent people taking illegal mind altering drugs for pleasure or sorrow, it’s called the war on drugs. 

Yet we use society’s most respected professionals –namely medical doctors and pharmacists– to hand out legal mind altering drugs, which have devastating consequences on people’s health.

You are made to believe that Big Pharma is interested in your health, but in practice it is a lethal profit making machine.

–

 

 

Drug Companies Donated Millions to California Lawmakers Prior to Forced Vaccination Bill

Should we not have the right to choose?

By Christina Sarich
June 21, 2015
Natural Society

 

One in 50 children are now autistic. No, you didn’t read that wrong. Despite the fact that a CDC whistleblower recently came forward admitting that the government agency obfuscated evidence linking vaccines to autistic behavior, California lawmakers passed a mandatory vaccine bill (SB277) which removes parental exemptions – making it so parents couldn’t refuse or delay vaccines. Even more damning evidence has surfaced proving that Big Pharma had their hands in the creation of the bill.

The Sacramento Bee is reporting that State lawmakers behind bill SB277 have ties to the makers of vaccines. Pharmaceutical companies and their trade groups gave current members of the Legislature more than $2 million. Nine of the top 20 recipients of these funds are either members of the Senate health committee, or leaders who could influence the outcome of the bill, as well as push it through to law.

One senator, in particular, is also a doctor, Richard Pan, who received more than $95,000 in campaign cash. He also just happens to be the man who wrote the bill.

As if that weren’t bad enough, Big Pharma also donated more than $500,000 to outside campaign spending groups that helped some of these top nine individuals be elected to their current legislative positions.

Furthermore, pharmaceutical companies contributed nearly $3 million in additional cash to the 2013-2014 legislative session lobbying, among these representatives, the state pharmacists’ board, and other agencies – who could also sway the outcome of SB277 – for mandatory vaccines.

Dr. or Senator Pan, whichever title you choose, is an ‘industry insider’ with far-reaching influence. He has been a teaching faculty member at UC Davis Children’s Hospital, and served many organizations which determine medical funding.

While he has flip-flopped on the vaccine issue in the past, previously introducing a bill which would have required parents to get their doctor’s approval to refuse a vaccine for their child, he recently said that the Disney measles episode, argued by some to be a false flag, was reason enough to promote forced vaccinations ‘for public health.’

Read: California Lawmakers Voice Resounding ‘NO’ to Forced Vaccines

Thousands of people are now calling for the resignation of Dr. Pan for obvious conflict of interest, and a recall of the bill which caused massive protests in California before legislators voted it into law.

A petition has also been started with the same intent:

“We call on California State Senator, Dr. Richard Pan to resign from his position due to his vested interests in profiting from Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and literally dozens of pharmaceutical companies, and the conflict of interest this causes.” (Change.org)

Massive Protests in California Against SB277

The petition was already delivered on June 9^th, and had gained 9000 signatures in just days of its posting. A Voice for Choice stated:

“To the Honorable Governor and Legislature of the State of California,

We, the undersigned people of California, are writing in regards to the unquestionably unconstitutional Senate Bills 277 and 792, and Assembly Bill 1117. It shocks the conscience to consider that there are Senators and Assembly Members who deem it within their province to utterly annihilate fundamental rights that all of the members of the California Legislature swore to uphold.

A vote in contravention of the knowledge that SB 277, SB 792, and AB 1117 are clearly incomprehensible under both the United States and California constitutional laws, and in cognizance of the fact that despite the fact that vaccines cause demonstrable injuries, and yet under California laws, doctors and manufacturers remain completely immune from liability, is an attestation to the fact that you are mandating a medical procedure for all children, as well as for adults working as preschool and child care workers, without even a glimmer of choice. If you feel comfortable making that decision, knowing full well the potential ramifications of such a vote, then we see no reason why you would not agree to be held personally responsible, both morally and financially, should any subsequent vaccine injuries or deaths occur. We are strongly opposed to SB 277, SB 792, and AB 1117 and demand that you vote against these bills.

America is a Constitutional Republic and the Supreme Law of this Republic guarantees under Article IV, Section 4, a republican form of government for every state.

In the best interests of the People, businesses and industries of California, and to protect them from economic devastation and bodily harm, the government of California will vote “No” on SB277, SB792, and AB1117. These bills violate the U.S. Constitution, in particular, the 1st, 5th, and 14th Amendments; and the California Constitution, in particular, Article 9; as well as the California Education Code, by which all children are to be afforded a free public education. There is no compelling state interest to deny children in California the right to a public education. And according to the California Department of Public Health, “[v]accination coverage in California is at or near all-time high levels.”

The document continues to outline how California legislators are going against Constitutional law. You can read it in its entirety here: AVoiceforChoice.org/petition/

Related: $15,000 Tax Penalty Enforced for Not Vaccinating

A press conference in Berkeley, California will also be held on Monday, June 22 at 11:00 a.m. to address “the unconstitutional aspects of SB 277 as well as informing about the Consumer Protection Amendment in English, Spanish, and Russian.” Details here.

Additional Sources:

CDPH.ca.gov

Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/drug-companies-donated-millions-to-california-lawmakers-prior-to-forced-vaccination-bill/#ixzz3dhoYYJir
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Shocking Report from Medical Insiders

By F. William Engdahl
June 18, 2015
New Eastern Outlook

 

A shocking admission by the editor of the world’s most respected medical journal, The Lancet, has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media. Dr. Richard Horton, Editor-in-chief of the Lancet recently published a statement declaring that a shocking amount of published research is unreliable at best, if not completely false, as in, fraudulent.

Horton declared, “Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.”

To state the point in other words, Horton states bluntly that major pharmaceutical companies falsify or manipulate tests on the health, safety and effectiveness of their various drugs by taking samples too small to be statistically meaningful or hiring test labs or scientists where the lab or scientist has blatant conflicts of interest such as pleasing the drug company to get further grants. At least half of all such tests are worthless or worse he claims. As the drugs have a major effect on the health of millions of consumers, the manipulation amounts to criminal dereliction and malfeasance.

The drug industry-sponsored studies Horton refers to develop commercial drugs or vaccines to supposedly help people, used to train medical staff, to educate medical students and more.

Horton wrote his shocking comments after attending a symposium on the reproducibility and reliability of biomedical research at the Wellcome Trust in London. He noted the confidentiality or “Chatham House” rules where attendees are forbidden to name names: “’A lot of what is published is incorrect.’ I’m not allowed to say who made this remark because we were asked to observe Chatham House rules. We were also asked not to take photographs of slides.”

Other voices

Dr. Marcia Angell is a physician and was longtime Editor-in-Chief of the New England Medical Journal (NEMJ), considered to be another one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals in the world. Angell stated,

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.”

Harvey Marcovitch, who has studied and written about the corruption of medical tests and publication in medical journals, writes, “studies showing positive outcomes for a drug or device under consideration are more likely to be published than ‘negative’ studies; editors are partly to blame for this but so are commercial sponsors, whose methodologically well-conducted studies with unfavorable results tended not to see the light of day…”

At the University of British Columbia’s Neural Dynamics Research Group in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Dr Lucija Tomljenovic obtained documents that showed that, “vaccine manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and health authorities have known about multiple dangers associated with vaccines but chose to withhold them from the public. This is scientific fraud, and their complicity suggests that this practice continues to this day.”

Lancet’s Dr. Horton concludes, “Those who have the power to act seem to think somebody else should act first. And every positive action (eg, funding well-powered replications) has a counter-argument (science will become less creative). The good news is that science is beginning to take some of its worst failings very seriously. The bad news is that nobody is ready to take the first step to clean up the system.

Corruption of the medical industry worldwide is a huge issue, perhaps more dangerous than the threat of all wars combined. Do we have such hypnosis and blind faith in our doctors simply because of their white coats that we believe they are infallible? And, in turn, do they have such blind faith in the medical journals recommending a given new wonder medicine or vaccine that they rush to give the drugs or vaccines without considering these deeper issues?

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.