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The Best Years In Life

Liver and Bowel Cleansing

excerpted from the author's book "Cancer's Natural Enemy"

When it comes to maintaining good health, as well as fighting and warding off disease and illness, no organ is more important than the liver – the body's toxic disposal plant.  Another important area of the body when it comes to health and illness is the stomach, and it has often been said that good health begins in the gut.

One of the best ways to help the liver and the stomach be as healthy as possible is regular cleansing to remove built up toxins and accumulated waste.  It is important to note that when someone is fighting a serious illness or condition by means of diet and natural supplementation, a condition such as cancer for example, having a properly functioning liver and colon free of toxins and waste will result in a body that is better prepared to utilize the good nutrition and supplementation in any natural protocol.

 In this article we will take a look at two of the many approaches one can use to cleanse the liver (the second of which also cleanses the gall bladder, kidneys and blood) and another for cleansing the colon.

How to Cleanse Your Liver – Two Approaches

 First, Doing it ALL By Yourself:

The following liver cleanse was kindly contributed by one of our noted correspondents and a member of the Oleandersoup Yahoo health group.

Ingredients

1/2 Cup Olive Oil Extra Virgin  (= 1.25 dl)

1 Big grapefruit (2 small) (Or 3 lemons)

4 tablespoon EPSOM salts =  ( MgSO4 + 7H2O)

(EPSOM salts  = Magnesium Sulphate =  EPSOMITE = Magnesium Sulfate Heptahydrate)

3 cups water (=750 dl)

(1 cup = 250 ml = 2.5 dl = 0.25 l )

You can substitute 3 cups water (=750 dl) (that is used in this recipe to dissolve Epsom salt) with 3 cups freshly pressed grapefruit juice, or freshly pressed apple juice . That way you will not feel unpleasant taste of Magnesium Sulphate
(Magnesium Sulfate = Epsom salt = MgSO4 + 7H2O) ]

If using lemon juice, do not blend juice with oil.
Drink little oil, little juice, from 2 different cups.

If you mix oil and juice, it may (it doesn't happen always) slightly congeal, and get a slimy consistence that is not easy to swallow.  It never happens with grapefruit juice!

Choose a day like Saturday for the cleanse, since you will be able to rest the next day.

Take no medicines, vitamins or pills that you can do without as they could prevent success.

Eat a no-fat breakfast and lunch such as cooked cereal with fruit, fruit juice, bread and preserves or honey (no butter or milk), baked potato or other vegetables with salt only. This allows the bile to build up and develop pressure in the liver. Higher pressure pushes out more stones.

2:00 PM.

Do not eat or drink after 2 o'clock. If you break this rule you could feel quite ill later.

Get your Epsom salts ready. Mix 4 tbs. in 3 cups water and pour this into a jar.

(You can substitute 3 cups water with 3 cups freshly pressed grapefruit juice, or freshly pressed apple juice.)

 This makes four servings, 3/4 cup each. Set the jar in the refrigerator to get ice cold (this is for convenience and taste only).

6:00 PM.

Drink one serving (3/4 cup) of the ice cold Epsom salts. If you did not prepare this ahead of time, do it right now. You may also add 1/8 tsp. of powdered vitamin C to improve the taste. You may also drink a few mouthfuls of water afterwards or rinse your mouth. Get the olive and grapefruit out to warm up.

8:00 PM.

Repeat by drinking another 3/4 cup of Epsom salts. You haven't eaten since two o'clock, but you won't feel hungry. Get your bedtime chores done. The timing is critical for success; don't be more than 10 minutes early or late.

9:45 PM.

Pour 1/2 cup (measured) olive oil into the pint jar. Squeeze the grapefruit by hand into the measuring cup. Remove pulp with fork. You should have at least 1/2 cup, more (up to 3/4 cup) is best. You may top it up with lemonade. Add this to the olive oil. Close the jar tightly with the lid and shake hard until watery (only fresh grapefruit does this).

Now visit the bathroom one or more times, even it makes you late for your ten o'clock drink. Don't be more than 15 minutes late.

10:00 PM.

Drink the potion you have mixed. Drinking through a large plastic straw helps it go down easier. (Editors note- don't, just stomach the terrible taste…and it is horrendous- be forewarned…but that's part of the cleanse, you can deal with it just like we have). Take it to your bedside if you want, but drink it standing up. Get it down within 5 minutes (fifteen minutes for very elderly or weak persons).

Lie down immediately. You might fail to get stones out if you don't. The sooner you lie down the more stones you will get out. Be ready for bed ahead of time. Don't clean up the kitchen. As soon as the drink is down walk to your bed and lie down flat on your back with your head up high on the pillow. Try to think about what is happening in the liver. Try to keep perfectly still for at least 20 minutes. You may feel a train of stones traveling along the bile ducts like marbles. There is no pain because the bile duct valves are open (thank you Epsom salts!). Go to sleep. You may fail to get stones out if you don't

Next morning:

Upon awakening take your third dose of Epsom salts. If you have indigestion or nausea wait until it is gone before drinking the Epsom salts. You may go back to bed. Don't take this potion before 6:00 AM.

2 hours later.

Take your fourth (the last) dose of Epsom salts. Drink 3/4 cups of the mixture. You may go back to bed.

After 2 more hours you may eat. Start with fresh fruit juice. Half an hour later eat fruit. One hour later you may eat regular food but keep it light. By supper you should feel recovered.

How well did you do?

Expect diarrhea in the morning. Use a flashlight to look for gallstones in the toilet with the bowel movement. Look for the green kind since this is proof that they are genuine gallstones, not food residue. Only bile from the liver is pea green. The bowel movement sinks but gallstones float because of the cholesterol inside. Count them all roughly, whether tan or green. You will need to total 2,000 stones before the liver is clean enough to rid you of allergies or bursitis or upper back pains permanently. The first cleanse may rid you of them for a few days, but as the stones from the rear travel forward, they give you the same symptoms again. You may repeat cleanses at two week intervals. Never cleanse when you are ill. [Editors note: I started passing chaff through normal bowel movements after my 4th colon cleansing fast, approximately after a total of 4×14= 56 days of total colon cleansing within 9 months. The chaff continued in normal bowel movements for 8 months! Thousands of tiny stones, looked like small popcorn and small bee pollen granules, others looked like moth wings. Sometime I would drop at one bowel movement 50-100 pea size stones that would float in the water. It was truly an experience. Almost daily for 8 months! When I did my first Dr. Clark's liver cleanse I immediately dropped over 200 pea size green and tan stones, and when I examined them I was shocked. They crushed in my fingers and what I found was pure fat, pure cholesterol. Can you imagine hundreds of them. Also in my second liver cleanse I had the same experience].

Sometimes, the bile ducts are full of cholesterol crystals that did not form into round stones. They appear as "chaff" floating on top of the toilet bowl water. It may be tan colored, harboring millions of tiny white crystals.  Cleansing this chaff is just as important as purging the stones.

How safe is the liver cleanse? It is very safe. My opinion is based on over 500 cases, including many persons in their seventies and eighties. None went to the hospital; none even reported pain. However it can make you feel quite ill for one or two days afterwards, although in every one of these cases the maintenance parasite program had been neglected. This is why the instructions direct you to complete the parasite and kidney rinse program first.

This procedure contradicts many modern medical viewpoints. Gallstones are thought to be formed in the gallbladder, not the liver. They are though to be few, not thousands. They are not linked to pains other than gallbladder attacks. It is easy to understand why this thought: by the time you have acute pain attacks, some stones are in the gallbladder, are big enough and sufficiently calcified to see on X-ray, and have caused inflammation there. When the gallbladder is removed the acute attacks are gone, but the bursitis and other pains and digestive problems remain.

The truth is self-evident. People who have had their gallbladder removed surgically still get plenty of green, bile coated stones, and anyone who cares to dissect their stones can see that the concentric circles and crystals of cholesterol match textbook pictures of "gallstones" exactly."

Another Liver Cleanse:  With a Little Help from Jon Barron

This plan from Jon Barron of The Barron Report and Baseline Nutritionals, cleans the liver, gall bladder, kidneys and blood.

Jon's 5-Day Liver Gallbladder Flush

First thing on rising, drink 8 oz of pure water to flush your digestive tract.

An hour later, in a blender, mix up 8 oz of any fresh squeezed citrus juice (fresh squeezed apple juice or grape juice with all the sediment will work too), one lemon, 1 clove (not the whole bulb, just one clove) of garlic (increase by 1 clove each day), 1 tablespoon of olive oil (increase by 1 tablespoon each day), and a piece of ginger (about 1" long) along with 4-8 ounces of pure water.

It helps to first slice the ginger cross-grain into 1/8 inch slices to minimize the size of the fibers. Then blend the garlic and ginger in a small amount of liquid to minimize "chunking" before adding the bulk of the liquid.

Drink it down and follow with a fresh juice chaser to clear your mouth (If desired).

I know this is hard to believe, but this drink actually tastes great — sort of like a tangy Orange Julius. Here's why. Most people are not aware that fast food outlets rarely use any dairy in their "ice cream" shakes. They use vegetable oil. When you whip the oil at high speed, it gets creamy. Well, the same thing happens with the olive oil: when mixed in your blender at high speed, it makes the drink really thick and creamy — like there was ice cream in it.

Fifteen minutes after consuming this drink, follow with 2 cups of the liver/detox tea. It is also important to take 12 droppers full of the liver/detox tincture each day (spread throughout the day) while on the 5-day cleanse — and continuing after until the bottle is gone. (Again, a dropper full is the amount that fills a dropper when you squeeze and let go — about half the physical dropper.)

The Detox Diet

It is extremely beneficial to incorporate a 2-day raw food and 3-day juice-fast into your 5-day cleanse. (Actually, I usually do a 5 day juice fast while on the detox.)

Day 1

During the morning (after your cleansing drink and stopping one hour before lunch), eat all the live FRESH fruit or vegetable juice you want. Beet juice is especially good. In general, do not mix your fruit and vegetable juices together, and feel free to dilute your juices. (Certain combinations such as carrot and apple work together, but unless you know for sure, don’t mix fruit and vegetable). Make sure to swish all juices thoroughly in the mouth before swallowing.

For lunch you can have more diluted juice, or a raw vegetable or sprout salad. Absolutely do not use bottled dressing. Make your own dressing from fresh olive oil and lemon or apple cider vinegar (organic non-distilled is by far the best) and any fresh herbs and spices you of your choice. (Even better is to use no oil in your dressing. See note on fats below.) If you are hungry throughout the day, feel free to snack on fresh vegetables or juices.

For dinner eat fresh fruit or fruit juice or fruit smoothes.

Days 2-4

After your morning flush, drink diluted juices and herbal tea throughout the day — as much as you can drink. Try to consume 128 ounces during the day. Avoid all oils and fats.

Also recommended throughout the day is to consume cups of potassium broth. Potassium broth takes advantage of the fact that the outside of a potato is one of the highest plant sources of potassium. Take the peelings (1/4" to 1/2" including the skin) of several potatoes. Do NOT use the inside. Add other well chopped vegetables to taste including carrots (with skin), celery , whole beets (including greens), fresh parsley, and lots of onion and garlic (up to 50 cloves).

Simmer for 40-60 minutes in a covered pot using clean filtered water. Strain out the vegetables, cool and drink the broth. Refrigerate leftover broth in glass containers in the refrigerator for use over the next couple of days.

As much as possible, do not add spices to the potassium broth. If you must, though, you can add a little "Bragg Liquid Aminos" or real Tamari sauce for flavor.

Day 5

Same as Day 1

Days 6-8

Very clean diet of organic or locally grown produce – fruits and vegetables. Remember, your body will suck up whatever you put into it right after the cleanse. Eating fried chicken and Ding Dongs, for example, immediately after detoxing, will almost totally nullify the entire detox.

Notes on Liver Detox Tea

The tea helps with the flushing process itself, but also helps minimize any discomfort or nausea. The key herb in the tea is dandelion root, one of the strongest herbal lipotropics known. That is to say, it flushes fat deposits from the liver. Other herbs that you will find in the tea include things like: ginger, clove, cinnamon, burdock root, and horsetail. Incidentally, some of the other herbs used in the tea (such as uva ursi, parsley root, and juniper berries) are also extremely beneficial to the kidneys.

Two cups of the tea should be consumed fifteen minutes after drinking your citrus and olive oil flush. But several cups can and should be consumed throughout the day. In fact, consuming the liver/detox tea as a regular part of your diet is a pleasant and tasty way to continually optimize your health. (Feel free to sweeten the tea with honey or real maple syrup as desired.)

You will want a small tea strainer to clean out the small tea bits in the water.

I like to make my tea in a big 8 quart Dutch Oven pot. I fill the pot the night before and add 4-5 tablespoons of Tea, which I let soak overnight. In the morning I simmer for 20 minutes. Then I turn the heat to as low as it goes to keep the tea warm and scoop out cups as I want during the day. I’ll drink 5-8 cups a day. At night, I turn off the heat and just top the pot off with water and add 2 more tablespoons of tea to the mix and repeat the simmering process in the morning. Each day, the tea just gets stronger and richer.

Notes on Taking the Liver Tincture and Blood Cleanser

To keep things simple, I use 4 droppers of both the liver tincture and the blood cleanser three times a day during the flush. That’s 12 droppers of each a day. Since each bottle contains about 60 droppers, that means I finish the two bottles in 5 to 5 ½ days. There’s no way to make these tinctures taste good. They are very bitter. I put my 8 droppers in about 1 oz of juice (for this, bottled apple juice works fine) and shoot it down like a shot of bad whiskey. Then I chase with a swig of plain juice to clean the palette. (Note: The blood cleanser is not actually part of the liver detox, but I like to combine my liver and blood cleanse into one operation. It's not essential to do it that way, but it makes sense.)  

What You Need to Know About Fats

The way the flush works is that you starve your body of fats all day. This allows bile to build up in your liver and gallbladder. Then, in the morning, you have your only intake of fat (1-5 tablespoons of olive oil, depending on which day of the flush you're on). This causes the liver and gallbladder to literally "wring themselves out" in an attempt to deal with the oil — squeezing out accumulated fat, cholesterol, and toxins in the process. The more fat that you consume during the day,  the more you minimize the purging action of the olive oil drink. In other words, it's best to avoid all fats and oils during the liver/gallbladder flush. Note: the purging action gets progressively stronger each day on the flush. On the last day, when you consume 5 tablespoons of olive oil, that works out to a half cup of oil in one shot. That really squeezes the liver and gallbladder..

Needed Cleansers

    *

      Liver detox tea
    *

      Liver detox tincture
    *

      Blood cleanser (if you choose to do the blood cleanse at the same time)
    *

      Colon activator
    *

      Needed for Morning Drink
    *

      Whole organic oranges for juicing for 5 days. Or organic fresh squeezed orange juice from the market. (Remember, fresh squeezed apple juice or grape juice with all the sediment will work too.)
    *

      5 lemons
    *

      1 bottle of extra virgin olive oil (organic if possible)
    *

      1 big organic ginger root (about 5 inches worth)
    *

      4 Organic garlic bulbs should provide enough garlic for your morning drinks (15 cloves over 5 days) plus 50 cloves for your potassium broth.
    *

      Potassium Broth
    *

      4 Large organic potatoes
    *

      4 large organic carrots (with skin)
    *

      2 sticks organic celery
    *

      3 whole organic beats sliced, plus greens
    *

      2 peeled and sliced organic onions
    *

      50 cloves of garlic (see morning drink)
    *

      Juicing
    *

      Juicer. Any good juicer will do. If you don’t have one, look on the net for the Miracle Juicer, which you can pick up for less than $100. (Note: a good juicer is probably the single best investment you can make in your health.)
    *

      Any combination of all vegetable or all fruit will do. One exception is mixing apple and carrot. I usually make a juice of Apple, Carrot, Celery, and Ginger. (1 large apple, 1 stick celery, ½” piece of ginger, and enough carrots to make 20-24 oz of juice.

In Addition

    *

      Psyllium husks taken daily will help keep things moving and minimize toxic build up. I usually take a tablespoon of psyllium with 8 oz of water about an hour after my morning olive oil drink and at around 6 pm with my Activator to keep everything moving. (Note: if you are allergic to psyllium, use oat bran instead. Do NOT use ground flaxseed during the liver flush as it contains a lot of oil.)
    *

      A couple of packets of Sun Chlorella tak

Colon Cleansing

Bowel movements are the basis of your health. If you don't have at least 1 bowel movement per day, you are already walking your way toward disease. Man's body has not changed very much in the past several thousand years… however man's diet has certainly changed a lot. All the refined sugar, white flour, hormone/antibiotics-filled meats we constantly ingest constitute an assault on our bodies. We are continuously violating our bodies by eating terrible foods. Colon cancer is the 2nd leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. A constipated system is one in which the transition time of toxic wastes is slow. The longer the "transit time," the longer the toxic waste matter sits in our bowel, which allows them to putrefy, ferment and possibly be reabsorbed. The longer your body is exposed to putrefying food in your intestines, the greater the risk of developing disease. Even with one bowel movement per day, you will still have at least three meals worth of waste matter putrefying in your colon at all times.

Disease usually begins with a toxic bowel. Those having fewer bowel movements are harboring a potentially fertile breeding ground for serious diseases. Infrequent or poor quality bowel movements over an extended period of time may be very hazardous to your health.
A Proper Colon Cleansing Program Removes the Mucoid Plaque From the Colon.

Even a thin layer of mucoid plaque weakens the body. Nature intended mucoid plaque to be sloughed off. But due to stress and diet, most Americans have many hardened layers of mucoid plaque. The healthy colon weighs about 4 pounds. One autopsy revealed a colon choked with 40 pounds of impacted mucoid plaque! A proper colon cleanse and detoxification program prepares your body for optimal health by removing the mucoid plaque.  The person on a typical Western Diet holds 8 meals of undigested food and waste material in the colon, while the person on the high fiber diet holds only 3.
Every One Can Benefit From A Good Colon Cleansing Program

Whether or not your bowel is clean or dirty, or whether or not you have mucoid plaque inside your bowel, everyone benefits from doing a colon cleanse. It improves your health and your well being.

A good cleansing program should always begin by removing the waste in your colon, the last portion of your food processing chain. If you attempt to clean your liver, blood, or lymph system without first addressing a waste filled bowel, the excreted toxins will only get recycled back into your body. So, all congestion and toxins must be removed, and it must begin with cleansing of the bowel.

It takes more time and effort than a liver cleanse, but it is well worth it.  It is said that death begins in the colon, and indeed colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in American men.  The average person has eight meals in their colon, yet it was designed for only three.  Anywhere from 5 to as many as 40 pounds of decaying and rotted matter may be trapped in your colon.

Categories
Health & Freedom

New Beginnings In Mind, Body, and Spirit

by Ben Taylor

This is an article unlike most I write, but I would like to introduce you to our friend Donna Pravel, a freelance writer who will be presenting what I hope will be a regular article about Health and Nutrition from both a physical and a spiritual perspective. She has been a professional musician, a music teacher, a school teacher, a mid-wife, a practitioner of alternative and naturopathic healthcare and foremost of all, mother of seven children. I first learned about her as a regular on the forums of the alternative health and nutrition website CureZone, of which Utopia Silver and Utopia Naturals are company sponsors.

 

As most of our readers know, for the past three years, I have personally been on the frontline in the courtroom as my own “lawyer”, representing not only myself and Utopia Silver, but defending the Rights of all Americans to choose their means of healthcare against out of control State and Federal bureaucracies that simply have no Constitutional authority to act in the manner they do. This case in a Texas State District court in Austin, Texas has been called “The Test Case” by Texas Attorney General prosecutors. In a nutshell, the issue is whether or not manufacturers and sellers of various supplements and/or their customers may exercise their Right of Free Speech in customer testimonials, the citing of research/studies and/or historical evidence concerning the benefits of dietary supplements and foods. It is the “government” position that if you manufacture or sell a supplement or food and speak or write of any benefit, that supplement or food magically becomes a “new drug” and is subject to regulation as a drug.

I’m giving this brief synopsis of our court battle, because it is why Donna originally contacted me. When she heard of our battle and what it was about, she emailed me and said that she was there with her help and support and even offered to be in the courtroom. I have, due mostly to my own shortcomings combined with these three years of tough legal battles, been required to be so objectively and coldly analytical of everything that happens around me, that I have at times forgotten when to turn it on and when to turn it off. It has become simply a survival instinct, much as an antelope might experience on the plains with an unseen lion constantly on the prowl in the tall grasses nearby. After witnessing the extent that people in our own “government” will go to obtain a prosecution “victory” through trickery, deceit and lying, I have become instinctively wary and hyper-analytical of any situation in which I become a part.

 

I was told face to face by a “man” in the hierarchy of the court “system” that, “This system operates on fear, but you show no fear and that is a problem for us”. He was right and that kind of fearlessness comes from knowing that the Lord is on our side in this battle of dealing with a system corrupted by money from influence peddlers in the pharmaceutical industry. I have had to stand face to face against threats and intimidation from prosecutors and judges, having to analyze their every word and “term of art”, their every act, their every expression, not to mention the cunning tricks used to presume and claim a jurisdiction that does not exist except in presumption and tacit assent/consent. BUT, that right kind of fearlessness can also translate into callousness if allowed to carry over into other areas of life. If not controlled, it can cause us to walk “where angels fear to tread” and I know now that is not the place to travel, because sometimes in becoming fearless in an arena of lions and warriors, one can become heartless in the arena of life where there still exists kind and gentle people who deserve no less that just that in return-all the time. There is a proper time and place to do battle, but there is also a time for the warrior to lay down that shield and to rest that spear in the corner. As stated, in part, in Ecclesiastes 3:

 

To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven:A time to be born,And a time to die;A time to plant,And a time to harvest;

 

A time to kill,And a time to heal;A time to break down,And a time to build up;

 

A time to weep,And a time to laugh;A time to mourn,And a time to dance;

 

A time to tear,And a time to sew;A time to keep silence,And a time to speak;

 

A time to love,And a time to hate;A time of war,

And a time of peace

Even things that are necessary and appropriate in their proper time and place become unnecessary and inappropriate in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even survival instincts can affect our interaction with others and we simply cannot live our lives in distrust of everyone around us. It isn’t healthy, it isn’t spiritually uplifting and it will simply cost us dearly in the loss of special people who should be a part of our lives. This rambling epistle does get back to Donna. In going through some personally painful and introspective analysis recently of where I am, where I should be and most of all who I am in God’s Creation, I re-read Donna’s blogs on MySpace and was impressed with her view of life in general. Although not dealing directly with my situation, but already knowing some of her history on CureZone, I asked if she would do a regular article for our Silver Bulletin e-News Magazine. She said yes and here we are.

As Donna’s writing already is to me, I believe she will be an inspiration to all who read her articles about mental, physical and spiritual “healthcare” involving the relationships between Mankind and God’s natural Creation, Man and Woman, children and parents, as well as between us and our Creator. Although Utopia Silver may not always agree with her opinions or endorse everything she writes, she has free rein to write what she believes and thinks, so enjoy her kind and gentle wisdom, as well as her knowledge of alternative healthcare.  

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Laughter, The Best Medicine

Money Truck

"We tried to tell them if they kept printing more paper money, that someday it would be worthless."

Garbage truck foll of cashdskvmlkdnlsdnvkdlm n

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Health & Freedom

New Beginnings In Mind, Body, and Spirit

by Ben Taylor

This is an article unlike most I write, but I would like to introduce you to our friend Donna Pravel, a freelance writer who will be presenting what I hope will be a regular article about Health and Nutrition from both a physical and a spiritual perspective. She has been a professional musician, a music teacher, a school teacher, a mid-wife, a practitioner of alternative and naturopathic healthcare and foremost of all, mother of seven children. I first learned about her as a regular on the forums of the alternative health and nutrition website CureZone, of which Utopia Silver and Utopia Naturals are company sponsors.

As most of our readers know, for the past three years, I have personally been on the frontline in the courtroom as my own “lawyer”, representing not only myself and Utopia Silver, but defending the Rights of all Americans to choose their means of healthcare against out of control State and Federal bureaucracies that simply have no Constitutional authority to act in the manner they do. This case in a Texas State District court in Austin, Texas has been called “The Test Case” by Texas Attorney General prosecutors. In a nutshell, the issue is whether or not manufacturers and sellers of various supplements and/or their customers may exercise their Right of Free Speech in customer testimonials, the citing of research/studies and/or historical evidence concerning the benefits of dietary supplements and foods. It is the “government” position that if you manufacture or sell a supplement or food and speak or write of any benefit, that supplement or food magically becomes a “new drug” and is subject to regulation as a drug.

I’m giving this brief synopsis of our court battle, because it is why Donna originally contacted me. When she heard of our battle and what it was about, she emailed me and said that she was there with her help and support and even offered to be in the courtroom. I have, due mostly to my own shortcomings combined with these three years of tough legal battles, been required to be so objectively and coldly analytical of everything that happens around me, that I have at times forgotten when to turn it on and when to turn it off. It has become simply a survival instinct, much as an antelope might experience on the plains with an unseen lion constantly on the prowl in the tall grasses nearby. After witnessing the extent that people in our own “government” will go to obtain a prosecution “victory” through trickery, deceit and lying, I have become instinctively wary and hyper-analytical of any situation in which I become a part.

I was told face to face by a “man” in the hierarchy of the court “system” that, “This system operates on fear, but you show no fear and that is a problem for us”. He was right and that kind of fearlessness comes from knowing that the Lord is on our side in this battle of dealing with a system corrupted by money from influence peddlers in the pharmaceutical industry. I have had to stand face to face against threats and intimidation from prosecutors and judges, having to analyze their every word and “term of art”, their every act, their every expression, not to mention the cunning tricks used to presume and claim a jurisdiction that does not exist except in presumption and tacit assent/consent. BUT, that right kind of fearlessness can also translate into callousness if allowed to carry over into other areas of life. If not controlled, it can cause us to walk “where angels fear to tread” and I know now that is not the place to travel, because sometimes in becoming fearless in an arena of lions and warriors, one can become heartless in the arena of life where there still exists kind and gentle people who deserve no less that just that in return-all the time. There is a proper time and place to do battle, but there is also a time for the warrior to lay down that shield and to rest that spear in the corner. As stated, in part, in Ecclesiastes 3:

To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven:A time to be born,And a time to die;A time to plant,

And a time to harvest;

 

A time to kill,And a time to heal;A time to break down,And a time to build up;

 

A time to weep,And a time to laugh;A time to mourn,And a time to dance;

 

A time to tear,And a time to sew;A time to keep silence,And a time to speak; A time to love,And a time to hate;A time of war,And a time of peace.

Even things that are necessary and appropriate in their proper time and place become unnecessary and inappropriate in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even survival instincts can affect our interaction with others and we simply cannot live our lives in distrust of everyone around us. It isn’t healthy, it isn’t spiritually uplifting and it will simply cost us dearly in the loss of special people who should be a part of our lives. This rambling epistle does get back to Donna. In going through some personally painful and introspective analysis recently of where I am, where I should be and most of all who I am in God’s Creation, I re-read Donna’s blogs on MySpace and was impressed with her view of life in general. Although not dealing directly with my situation, but already knowing some of her history on CureZone, I asked if she would do a regular article for our Silver Bulletin e-News Magazine. She said yes and here we are.

As Donna’s writing already is to me, I believe she will be an inspiration to all who read her articles about mental, physical and spiritual “healthcare” involving the relationships between Mankind and God’s natural Creation, Man and Woman, children and parents, as well as between us and our Creator. Although Utopia Silver may not always agree with her opinions or endorse everything she writes, she has free rein to write what she believes and thinks, so enjoy her kind and gentle wisdom, as well as her knowledge of alternative healthcare.

Categories
Health & Freedom

New Beginnings In Mind, Body, and Spirit

Categories
Health & Freedom

New Beginnings In Mind, Body, and Spirit

Categories
Health & Freedom

The Blue Man, To Be Blue or To Be Dead?

The major media from Fox to CNN to ABC are again running what amounts to a propaganda blitzkrieg against colloidal silver with stories about a man, Paul Karason of Madera California, who developed a cosmetic condition called Argyria, from using large quantities of homemade colloidal silver. As usual, they have to dredge up “old news”; as with this case from fourteen years ago. Seldom do they ever give any substantial background to such stories, leaving in the minds of their viewers and listeners images of people turning blue from using almost any amount or any kind of colloidal silver.

Beyond the intent of mainstream media to discredit the use of silver, this story is not only about Argyria if some kinds of “colloidal silver” are used in excessive quantities, but is unintentionally a story about the life saving ability of silver. Paul started making and taking colloidal silver because of life threatening and dehabilitating diseases, Arthritis, Diabetes and an unspecified liver condition, possibly Hepatitis. It is his claims of the living saving benefits of colloidal silver that the media just skims over and in most cases completely leaves out of printed stories. He specifically credits colloidal silver for saving his life and says he had rather be blue than dead. Not a difficult choice for him when the efforts of mainstream medicine apparently failed. Not only is he alive, but he is apparently healthy and happy.

What the controlled media doesn’t tell you is that these “blue people” always use one of several “kinds” of colloidal silver to excess, drinking upwards of a quart or more a day for long periods of time. If you take any “patented drug”, “mainstream medicine”, or “over-the-counter-medication” and use any of them to a similar excess, you will not be alive to go before the news media and talk about it. The blueness or grayness you experience may well be that associated with being in a horizontal position, six feet under.

In fact, thousands die each year from simply using the recommended or prescribed doses of many patented drugs. This is what actually happens to tens of thousands of people using such drugs every year. (Read Death by Medicine, by Dr. Gary Null in our Archives ) This list of death causing drugs range from aspirin to Tylenol to anti-biotics, but you will never see a media blitz about it. If silver were even indirectly attributed to one death, there would be SWAT teams ready to pounce and shut down the manufacturers and sellers. Instead the worst they have is a rare cosmetic condition that doesn’t even cause death.

The current “blue man” admits to consuming homemade ionic silver in large and frequent quantities for a long period of time and as a result eventually developed Argyria. Without any doubt he would make a very convincing Papa Smurf for a television movie and he wouldn’t need any makeup, but he is not at all representative of a typical colloidal silver user, even one who uses silver every day. I can personally attest to that; I have averaged using from a tablespoon or so per day to occasionally using several ounces a day for a few days when I felt a bug coming on. Supposedly it is the heavy silver use and exposure to sunlight that triggers the condition. Well, I am an extraordinarily active man who is out of doors in the sun as much as I am indoors and as you can see in a recent picture on http://utopiasilver.com/about.htm; I am certainly not blue.

The news stories seldom if ever give information about the many different kinds of products called “colloidal silver”. There are products that have low PPMs and small particles, like our Advanced Colloidal Silver, which is mineral and distilled water only and has almost no chance of causing Argyria even with more than modest use. There are many so-called colloidal silver products made with animal protein, salines and nitrates that may have several thousand PPMs. These large particle, high PPM products without doubt have the capability of causing Argyria, but only with frequent and heavy use. Even then the cases are far and few between and should not be taken as representative of colloidal silver use any more than the thousands of organ failures and deaths are representative of over-the-counter painkillers, such as aspirin, Tylenol and acetaminophen. Painkillers Up Post Heart Attack Deaths,
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20051114/painkillers-up-post-heart-attack-death

The biggest problem with such stories as this hyper-sensationalized “Blue Man” is the fact that it keeps the public attention, whether intentionally or inadvertently, away from potentially pandemic diseases and problems caused directly by the use of anti-biotics. Super-germs attributable to the use and overuse of antibiotics caused an estimated 40,000 deaths and possibly many times more in North American alone and are in the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions worldwide. It is very disturbing that although mainstream medicine and mainstream media coverage have addressed this issue somewhat, they almost always leave out the number of deaths because it is so shockingly large. They would never cover-up such numbers or even “a death” if it involved colloidal silver. I think that if someone drowned in a vat of colloidal silver, it would be reported as a colloidal silver “caused” death.

The disingenuity of the mainstream media has made statements related to Paul Karason saying such things as, “While it is true that microscopic silver particles have some germ-killing properties, they've since been replaced by much more effective and safer drugs.” While grudgingly admitting some benefit of silver, they always overstate the positive aspects of “patented” drug use. One can only wonder where these safer and more effective drugs are. The popular antibiotic erythromycin reportedly causes six deaths for every 10,000 people taking it in conjunction with other drugs and this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Just remember, there is often an agenda associated with stories that are regularly “planted” in the mainstream media about “colloidal silver” and other alternative healthcare products. That ultimate agenda is to bring all “healthcare” under the regulatory authority of “government” agencies such as the FDA and sooner than later under the authority of CODEX (http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/index_en.jsp), which is simply a giant step into the integration of our society into the advancing International Federalist Governance (The Novus Ordo Seclorum).

Here is side note that I will elaborate on in a later article:
Believe it or not, the USFDA has no regulatory authority over the manufacture or sale of any food, supplement or over any drug for that matter in my opinion. It may only regulate interstate commerce, which is only the transportation and shipment between any state or territory and within the District of Columbia or within any other territory not organized with a legislative body. Read the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that brought this “out of control” agency into existence in 1938. I will post it later on our website, because you must read the original act to get most of the correct language. In recent government postings, certain key phrases are deliberately left out so that we will forget what they were originally intended to do and to mean.

Further proof that the FDA has a very narrow and limited authority as do all “federal” agencies can be found in the 18th and 21st Amendments to the Constitution, where alcohol was initially “outlawed” and then later was purported to have been “re-legalized”. In fact, what was done with the 21th Amendment was to bring the 18th Amendment “the alcohol prohibition amendment” back into compliance with the Constitution. The 18th Amendment had overstepped the boundaries of the federal government regulatory authority; the 21st corrected that Constitutional violation. I will detail this in a later editorial/opinion piece that will give you some insight into the truth about many of our so-called laws used by Federal agencies to treat us as mere cattle/animals and beat us into submission.

We must all be independent-thinking Men and Women and not allow ourselves to be controlled, coerced, and manipulated by forces that have hidden agendas for our lives. Our lives belong to us, not to the government and not to the mega-corporations. We all (you and I) have certain God-given unalienable Rights, including, but not limited to, the Right to determine how to best care for our health, without restriction, but if don’t make the decision to keep it regardless of the consequences, we will lose that Right along with all other Rights of self determination.

Categories
The Best Years In Life

Colloidal Silver Has Mainstream Medicine Singing the Blues

by Tony Isaacs the author of Cancer's Natural Enemy

The recent widespread mainstream media coverage of the “blue man” Paul Karason and his rare skin condition known as Argyria is the latest in a series of largely misleading and sensationalized scare stories about the dangers of colloidal silver turning a person’ skin blue.

Although this latest story did not appear to originate from mainstream medicine or the FDA, there is little doubt that they have welcomed it with open arms and have been quick to trot out “medical experts” and past FDA warnings to help “sing the blues” about colloidal silver. The truth is that mainstream medicine has a very good reason to cry long and loud about colloidal silver, because it does represent a very real danger – a danger to the huge profits of the pharmaceutical industry’s patented antibiotics.

The truth is that silver has been used effectively by mankind to fight germs and ailments for thousands of years, and the instances of it turning people’s skin blue are so rare as to be almost non-existent. As a matter of fact, almost all of the relative handful of reported instances have involved one or more of the following: older silver products that contained as much as 10% or more silver (compared to mere parts per million in modern colloidal silver), silver nitrate, home made colloidal silver that was contaminated with salt, and silver that has been consumed continuously in very large quantities over a very long period of time

What is also true is that colloidal silver is far safer, more effective and less expensive than the marginally effective and side effect laden mainstream antibiotics. The best and strongest of the FDA approved antibiotics are effective for a handful of bacteria at best, whereas colloidal silver is supremely effective against just about every kind of single celled pathogen, including bacteria, fungal growths and viruses (which antibiotics are often miss-prescribed for, but have zero effect on).

If the public were told the truth, a rarity when it comes to mainstream drugs versus natural competition, colloidal silver would represent a threat to literally billions of dollars of profits and so it is no wonder that mainstream medicine and their duped allies in the mainstream media are singing the blues – just as they have repeatedly done with many other natural plants, supplements, vitamins and minerals that represent safer, more effective and less expensive alternatives to the synthetics created in the labs of the powerful world pharmaceutical empire.

Since the early 1900’s the modern pharmaceutical industry has been all about profits and controlling the world drug trade and their only marketplace is our bodies. They have a longstanding and clear track record of doing whatever it takes to suppress any and all competition, including lies, misleading industry funded studies, and the suppression and persecution of competition through the agency much of the public thinks is protecting the general public, but in reality serves foremost to protect the profits of the pharmaceutical empire it serves and depends on. The same can be said of mainstream germ theory medicine, whose American Medical Association, along with the FDA, also has a track record of supporting industry at any and all costs and suppressing and harassing competition.

While there are a great many natural threats to mainstream profits, whose track records of being used safely and effectively by mankind for hundreds and even thousands of years cast very dark shadows of doubts on industry claims of their dangers and ineffective, perhaps no natural alternative to mainstream drugs represents as big of a threat to industry profits as colloidal silver, and it is no coincidence that colloidal silver has been placed at the very top of the FDA/mainstream medicine hit list.

When it comes to warning and scaring people away from silver, both the mainstream medical industry and the FDA have some very big credibility problems. As noted earlier, silver has a history of safe and effective use dating back thousands of years. Today it is used by NASA, the US military and Potters for Peace for water purification, is used as a germicidal agent by hospitals, medical suppliers and recently was incorporated into a new line of hospital pajamas to prevent the spread of infection.

Moreover, at one time silver products were very much in favor with both mainstream medicine and the FDA. No fewer than 34 different prescribed and over-the-counter medications containing silver were not only widely sold by industry, they were also approved by the very same FDA which now seeks to warn us of its dangers and have us believe it is ineffective. What changed their minds? The obvious answer can be found in the fact that silver fell out of favor at the very same time that patented sulfa drugs and patented antibiotics created in drug company labs came on the market. Once that happened, the non-patentable silver was no longer a tool for healing, but a threat to profits.

Zealous protection of mainstream approved drugs and suppression of natural competition is nothing new – look at the estimated 100,000 or more deaths caused by Vioxx before the FDA finally removed it from the market. Look at the ridiculous actions of the FDA when it threatened Washington cherry growers for telling the truth about the health benefits of eating cherries, or at the storm trooper actions against the makers of Charantia (bitter melon) tea in Florida who dared put references to some of the 650 plus PubMed studies and citations about bitter melon on their website.

The FDA persecutions and prosecutions of cherry farmers, bitter melon, and a long line of other natural alternatives points out just how extreme the protection of the big drug companies products and profits really is. Consider this: other than issues of national security, only in natural health is it a crime to tell the truth. For example, only the makers of FDA approved drugs can use the word cure, or even imply and health benefits without the FDA considering the product a drug.

The catch is that in order to be FDA approved, no matter how many PubMed cited studies or other studies have been performed, and no matter how much of a history of hundreds or thousands of years and users, the FDA only approves drugs that go through its specific approval process – one that costs hundreds of billions of dollars.

When it comes to natural alternatives, spending such money on a natural product that cannot be patented is prohibitive and, though the process is purported to be one which protects the public from unsafe medicines (we see how well that worked for hall of shame list of drugs like Vioxx, Avandia, et al), the net effect of the FDA’s drug definitions and approval process is to exclude natural competition and insure that only the patentable and profitable synthetics created in drug company labs can be approved.

The most recent example of such one-sided treatment favoring industry came in the following news story earlier this past week about a lawsuit filed against the FDA by Public Citizen after the FDA ignored years of complaints about the dangers of ruptured tendons caused by one of the drug industry’s most powerful and profitable antibiotics:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Despite long-standing evidence that fluoroquinolone antibiotics can cause tendon ruptures, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has failed to increase its warnings to patients and physicians about the dangers of the medicines, Public Citizen told a federal court Thursday.

Public Citizen sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asking the court to force the FDA to act upon a petition the consumer group filed with the agency 16 months ago. The FDA has failed to respond to the petition, which asked the agency to put a “black box” warning on fluoroquinolone antibiotics (such as Cipro, Levaquin and others) to make doctors and patients more aware of the risk of serious tendon injury before tendons actually rupture.

The petition also urged the FDA to send a warning letter to physicians, as well as require an FDA-approved medication guide to be dispensed when prescriptions are filled. Public Citizen contends that the FDA is violating the Administrative Procedure Act by not acting upon the petition.
Stronger warnings could lead to earlier intervention and prevent needless injuries by allowing doctors to switch patients to other antibiotics, said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group.

“While the FDA sits idly by and ignores the problem, more people will suffer serious tendon ruptures that could have been prevented,” Wolfe said. “The current warning is buried in a long list of possible adverse reactions and is far too easy to miss.”

From November 1997 through December 2005, the FDA received 262 reports of tendon ruptures, mainly of the Achilles tendon, 258 cases of tendonitis and 274 cases of other tendon disorders in patients using fluoroquinolone antibiotics. An additional 74 tendon ruptures have subsequently been reported to the FDA for a total of 336. Because only a small fraction of cases are typically reported to the FDA, the actual number of ruptures and other tendon injuries attributable to the antibiotic is much higher

Source: Healthy News

One can only imagine the FDA's reaction if 336 tendon ruptures had been reported for those who take the best antibiotic and pathogen destroyer on the planet – colloidal silver. No doubt, they would have raided the manufacturer with storm troopers and shut it down years ago, just as they have done many times with the manufacturers and sellers of other natural competitors to drug company products.

In conclusion, as far as I can tell, not one single instance of Argyria has been attributed to properly made colloidal, that has not stopped the FDA from continuing to "sing the blues" about silver or from going after those who make and sell colloidal silver products, not because silver represents a whit of threat to human health but rather because it represents a threat to the inflated bottom line profits of the mainstream drug manufacturers.

Finding out who the FDA really serves is a simple task – all you have to do is follow the money. Don’t take it from me– see what a noted past FDA commissioner has to say:

"The FDA 'protects' the big drug companies and are subsequently rewarded, and using the government's police powers they attack those who threaten the big drug companies. People think that the FDA is protecting them."

It isn't.

"What the FDA is doing and what the public thinks it is doing are as different as night and day."

Dr. Herbert Ley
Former U.S. FDA Commissioner

Categories
Silver Archives

Statistics Prove Prescription Drugs Are 16,400% More Deadly Than Terrorists

America was rudely awakened to a new kind of danger on September 11, 2001: Terrorism. The attacks that day left 2,996 people dead, including the passengers on the four commercial airliners that were used as weapons. Many feel it was the most tragic day in U.S. history.

Four commercial jets crashed that day. But what if six jumbo jets crashed every day in the United States, claiming the lives of 783,936 people every year? That would certainly qualify as a massive tragedy, wouldn’t it?

Well, forget “what if.” The tragedy is happening right now. Over 750,000 people actually do die in the United States every year, although not from plane crashes. They die from something far more common and rarely perceived by the public as dangerous: modern medicine.

According to the groundbreaking 2003 medical report Death by Medicine, by Drs. Gary Null, Carolyn Dean, Martin Feldman, Debora Rasio and Dorothy Smith, 783,936 people in the United States die every year from conventional medicine mistakes. That’s the equivalent of six jumbo jet crashes a day for an entire year. But where is the media attention for this tragedy? Where is the government support for stopping these medical mistakes before they happen?

After 9/11, the White House gave rise to the Department of Homeland Security, designed to prevent terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Since its inception, billions of dollars have been poured into it. The 2006 budget allots $34.2 billion to the DHS, a number that has come down slightly from the $37.7 billion budget of 2003.

According to the study led by Null, which involved a painstaking review of thousands of medical records, the United States spends $282 billion annually on deaths due to medical mistakes, or iatrogenic deaths. And that’s a conservative estimate; only a fraction of medical errors are reported, according to the study. Actual medical mistakes are likely to be 20 times higher than the reported number because doctors fear retaliation for those mistakes. The American public heads to the doctor’s office or the hospital time and again, oblivious of the alarming danger they’re heading into. The public knows that medical errors occur, but they assume that errors are unusual, isolated events. Unfortunately, by accepting conventional medicine, patients voluntarily continue to walk into the leading cause of death in America.

According to a 1995 U.S. iatrogenic report, “Over a million patients are injured in U.S. hospitals each year, and approximately 280,000 die annually as a result of these injuries. Therefore, the iatrogenic death rate dwarfs the annual automobile accident mortality rate of 45,000 and accounts for more deaths than all other accidents combined.” This report was issued 10 years ago, when America had 34 million fewer citizens and drug company scandals like the Vioxx recall were yet to occur. Today, health care comprises 15.5 percent of the United States’ gross national product, with spending reaching $1.4 trillion in 2004.

Since Americans spend so much money on health care, they should be getting a high quality of care, right? Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Of the 783,936 annual deaths due to conventional medical mistakes, about 106,000 are from prescription drugs, according to Death by Medicine. That also is a conservative number. Some experts estimate it should be more like 200,000 because of underreported cases of adverse drug reactions.

Americans today are used to fixing problems the quick way – even when it comes to their health. Thus, they rely heavily on prescription drugs to fix their diseases. For every conceivable ailment – real or not – chances are there’s a pricey prescription drug to “treat” it. Chances are even better that their drug of choice comes chock full of side effects.

The problem is, prescription drugs don’t treat diseases; they merely cover the symptoms. U.S. physicians provide allopathic health care – that is, they care for disease, not health. So, the over-prescription of drugs and medications is designed to treat disease instead of preventing it. And because there are so many drugs available, unforeseen adverse drug reactions are all too common, which leads to the highly conservative annual prescription drug death rate of 106,000. Keep in mind that these numbers came before the Vioxx scandal, and Cox-2 inhibitor drugs could ultimately end up killing tens of thousands more.

American medical patients are getting the short end of a rather raw deal when it comes to prescription drugs. Medicine is a high-dollar, highly competitive business. But it shouldn’t be. Null’s report cites the five most important aspects of health that modern medicine ignores in favor of the almighty dollar: Stress, lack of exercise, high calorie intake, highly processed foods and environmental toxin exposure. All these things are putting Americans in such poor health that they run to the doctor for treatment. But instead of doctors treating the causes of their poor health, such as putting them on a strict diet and exercise regimen, they stuff them full of prescription drugs to cover their symptoms. Using this inherently faulty system of medical treatment, it’s no wonder so many Americans die from prescription drugs. They’re not getting better; they’re just popping drugs to make their symptoms temporarily go away.

But not all doctors subscribe to this method of “treatment.” In fact, many doctors are just as angry as the public should be, charging that scientific medicine is “for sale” to the highest bidder – which, more often than not, end up being pharmaceutical companies. The pharmaceutical industry is a multi-trillion dollar business. Companies spend billions on advertising and promotions for prescription drugs. Who can remember the last time they watched television and weren’t bombarded with ads for pills treating everything from erectile dysfunction to sleeplessness? And who has ever been to a doctor’s office or hospital and not seen every pen, notepad and post-it bearing the logo of some prescription drug?

Medical experts claim that patients’ requests for certain drugs have no effect on the number of prescriptions written for that drug. Pharmaceutical companies claim their drug ads are “educational” to the public. The public believes the FDA reviews all the ads and only allows the safest and most effective drug ads to reach the public. It’s a clever system: Pharmaceutical companies influence the public to ask for prescription drugs, the public asks their physicians to prescribe them certain drugs, and doctors acquiesce to their patients’ requests. Everyone’s happy, right? Not quite, since the prescription drug death toll continues to rise.

The public seems to genuinely believe that drugs advertised on TV are safe, in spite of the plethora of side effects listed by the commercial’s narrator, ranging from diarrhea to death. Patients feel justified in asking their physicians to prescribe them a particular drug they’ve seen on TV, since it surely must be safe or it wouldn’t have been advertised. Remember all those TV ads heralding the wonders of Vioxx? One might wonder how many lives could have been spared if patients didn’t see the ad on TV and request a prescription from their doctors.

But advertising isn’t the only tool the pharmaceutical industry uses to influence medicine. Null’s study cites an ABC report that said pharmaceutical companies spend over $2 billion sending doctors to more than 314,000 events every year. While doctors are riding the dollar of pharmaceutical companies, enjoying all the many perks of these “events,” how likely are they to question the validity of drug companies or their products?

Admittedly, not all doctors reside in the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies. Some are downright angry at the situation, and angry on behalf of an unaware public. Major conflicts of interest exist between the American public, the medical community and the pharmaceutical industry. And although the public suffers the most from this conflict, it is the least informed. The public gets the short end of the stick and they don’t even know it. That is why the pharmaceutical industry remains a multi-trillion dollar business.

Prescription drugs are only a part of the U.S. healthcare system’s miserable failings. In fact, outpatient deaths, bedsore deaths and malnutrition deaths each account for higher death rates than adverse drug reactions. The problems run deep and cannot be remedied without drastic, widespread change in the system’s money and ethics.

The first issue – money – is the main reason the medical industry cannot seem to change. Prescribing more drugs and recommending more surgeries means more profits. Getting more drugs approved by the FDA, regardless of their safety, means more money for the pharmaceutical industry. As the healthcare system stands today, physicians and drug companies can’t seem to pass up earning loads of money, even if a few hundred thousand people lose their lives in the process. Even in drastic cases of deadly drugs, everyone involved has a scapegoat: Drug companies can blame the FDA for approving their product and the doctors for over-prescribing it, and doctors can blame the patients for wanting it and not properly weighing the risks.

What ultimately arises is a question of ethics. In layman’s terms, ethics are the rules or moral guidelines that govern the conduct of people or professions. Some ethics are ingrained from childhood, but some are specifically set forth. For example, nearly all medical schools have their new doctors take a modern form of the Hippocratic Oath. While few versions are identical, none include setting aside proper medical care in favor of money-making practices.

On the research side of the issue, “Death by Medicine” cites an ABC report that says clinical trials funded by pharmaceutical companies show a 90 percent chance that a drug will be perceived as effective, whereas clinical trials not funded by drug companies show only a 50 percent chance that a drug will be perceived as effective. “It appears that money can’t buy you love, but it can buy you any ‘scientific’ result you want,” writes Null and his team of researchers.

The government spends upwards of $30 billion a year on homeland security. Such spending seems important. Since 2001, 2,996 people in the United States have died from terrorism – all as a result of the 9/11 attacks. In that same period of time, 490,000 people have died from prescription drugs, not counting the Vioxx scandal. That means that prescription drugs in this country are at least 16,400 percent deadlier than terrorism. Again, those are the conservative numbers. A more realistic number, which would include deaths from over-the-counter drugs, makes drug consumption 32,000 percent deadlier than terrorism. But the scope of “Death by Medicine” is even wider. Conventional medicine, including unnecessary surgeries, bedsores and medical errors, is 104,700 percent deadlier than terrorism. Yet, our government’s attention and money is not put into reforming health care.

Couldn’t a little chunk of the homeland security money be better spent on overhauling the corrupt U.S. healthcare system, the leading cause of death in America? Couldn’t we forfeit the color-coded threat system in favor of stricter guidelines on medical research and prescription drugs? No one is attempting to say that terrorism in the world is not a problem, especially for a high-profile country like the United States. No one is saying that the people who died on 9/11 didn’t matter or weren’t horribly wronged by the terrorists that day. But there are more dangerous things in the United States being falsely represented as safe and healthy, when, in reality, they are deadly. The corruption in the pharmaceutical industry and in America’s healthcare system poses a far greater threat to the health, safety and welfare of Americans today than terrorism.

If the Bush Administration really wants to save lives — a lot of lives — it needs look no further than the chemical war has been declared on Americans by Big Pharma.

Categories
Laughter, The Best Medicine

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