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Health & Freedom

Culture of Corruption Has Become Common Within FDA, Big Pharma

by: Ethan A. Huff

(NaturalNews) When pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices are approved for use in medicine by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), their safety and efficacy are typically not the primary factors considered during the decision-making process. As pointed out by the Office of Medical and Scientific Justice (OMSJ), the FDA and the drug industry are both now dominated by cultures of corruption that put profits before patient safety in almost every instance, which means that a steady stream of deadly drugs and medical devices continues to flood the market.

Going as far back as the 1950s — and likely even much earlier than that — the FDA has made it routine practice to ignore and even deny the dangers associated with drugs and medical devices when approving them. In the case of the Upjohn Company, for instance, which unveiled the antibiotic drug Panalba back in 1957, the FDA ignored many years of complaints about the drug's safety in order to protect the company's profits.

At the time, data showed that as many as 20 percent of patients taking Panalba had suffered severe allergic reactions to the antibiotic, and yet the FDA did nothing. Even Upjohn's own research studies on Panalba showed that the drug was less effective and less safe than alternative drugs on the market, and still the FDA did nothing, effectively sheltering Upjohn's enormous profits from Panalba, which represented 12 percent of its overall profit earnings.

Sadly, the same is true today, as the drug industry and the FDA essentially work in tandem to get dangerous, but highly-profitable, drugs and medical devices to market. It is a win-win situation for both groups as the FDA gets kickbacks in the form of exorbitant new drug and medical device application fees, and the drug industry rakes in billions of dollars for blockbuster drug and device products that would never have been approved had science and facts been legitimately factored into the equation.

FDA's culture of corruption promotes social irresponsibility in all areas of food and medicine
Because the FDA so easily capitulates to the demands of special interests, the food and drug industries have largely become purveyors of social irresponsibility. Back in 2009, the FDA's own scientists came forward and admitted that they are routinely threatened by their superiors to cover up unfavorable study data, and basically promote "corrupt and distorted" information to the public — and this same type of trickle-down deception is inherent within food and drug firms as well (http://www.naturalnews.com/025827_scientists_FDA.html).

A study conducted back in 1977 by researchers from Penn State University (PSU) revealed that the vast majority of people, when put in such situations by their superiors where they are expected to lie, simply cave to the pressure and comply. Embodying the scenario that has evolved at the FDA and throughout the drug industry, the report explained that:

"[…] ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority."

And this is the situation many lower-level workers in government and industry find themselves in today. Will they have the courage to resist the pressure to commit acts of immorality that serve the voracious greed and malice of their superiors? Or will they just defy their consciences and obey their overlords, claiming all the while that they are "just doing their jobs?"

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Health & Freedom

SOPA Mutates Into Much Worse CISPA

by: Ethan A. Huff

(NaturalNews) Just because SOPA and PIPA, the infamous internet "kill switch" bills, are largely dead does not mean the threat to internet free speech has become any less serious. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), also known as H.R. 3523, is the latest mutation of these internet censorship and spying bills to hit the U.S. Congress — and unless the American people speak up now to stop it, CISPA could lead to far worse repercussions for online free speech than SOPA or PIPA ever would have.

CNET, the popular technology news website that was among many others who spoke up against SOPA and PIPA earlier in the year, is also one of many now sounding the alarm about CISPA, which was authored by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.). Though the bill's promoters are marketing it as being nothing like SOPA or PIPA, CISPA is exactly like those bills, except worse.

What CISPA will do, if passed, is remove all the legal barriers that currently stop internet service providers, government agencies, and others from arbitrarily spying on internet users. In the name of "cybersecurity," a term that is undefined in the bill, CISPA will essentially allow internet users to be surveilled by the government without probable cause or a search warrant, which is a clear violation of users' constitutional civil liberties.

Additionally, it will allow websites like Google, Facebook, and Twitter to intercept emails, text messages, and other private information that might be considered a threat to "cybersecurity." The government can then demand access to this information, even if it has nothing to do with copyright infringement, which is one of the excuses being used for why such a bill is needed in the first place.

Internet users are already required to abide by the same laws as everyone else
"Just because you commit a crime on the internet doesn't immunize you from liability just because it's on the internet," said Kendall Burman from the Center for Democracy & Technology, an internet freedom of speech advocacy group, to Russia Today (RT) in a recent interview. "Law enforcement has many tools to go after crimes that are committed anywhere, including the internet."

And Burman is right. Contrary to what former presidential candidate Rick Santorum and others have inferred about the internet being an unregulated "free for all," internet users are already required to abide by the same rules as everyone else. And those who commit crimes online are subject to the same legal obligations as those who commit them offline.

"When you talk about using information that the government receives that's purportedly for the purpose of protecting cybersecurity, and you're using it for law enforcement purposes or national security purposes that don't have anything to do with cybersecurity, well law enforcement has tools already to go after those crimes," added Burman. "And we very much fear that the information sharing machine that's related to cybersecurity could very much become a backdoor wiretap or a surveillance program by another name."

You can watch the full RT interview with Burman here:
http://rt.com/usa/news/cispa-bill-sopa-internet-175/

In truth, there is no legitimate need to pass any "cybersecurity" bills because legal mechanisms to address internet crimes are already in place.

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Health & Freedom

Farmers Defend Right To Grow Food

by: Ethan A. Huff

(NaturalNews) The plaintiffs in a case seeking protection from Monsanto's predatory patent lawsuits have filed a Notice of Appeal challenging the case's recent dismissal by Judge Naomi Buchwald of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) and dozens of other food freedom advocacy groups and family farmers originally filed the suit on behalf of small growers everywhere in order to defend them against Monsanto's crusade of agricultural terrorism.

In case you are unaware, Monsanto has a nasty little history of suing farmers whose crops become inadvertently contaminated by the biotechnology giant's transgenic seeds and pollen. Between 1997 and 2010, in fact, Monsanto actually admits to having filed at least 144 lawsuits against farmers, and settled another 700 cases out of court, for so-called "patent infringement" involving non-genetically-modified (non-GMO) and organic crops that have become contaminated with GM materials and traits.

In one case, Monsanto targeted a 74-year-old seed cleaner named Mo Parr that the company claimed was infringing its patents. Though he vehemently denied the accusations, Parr ended up having his bank records subpoenaed, and his customers harassed. Monsanto eventually sued Parr for his supposed crimes, which did not exist, and actually won (http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18563_162-4048288.html).

So as an act of solidarity for universal food freedom, OSGATA and the other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against Monsanto back on March 29, 2011, aimed at protecting the hundreds of thousands of non-GMO and organic farmers in the U.S. from having their livelihoods destroyed by Monsanto's genetic trespass onto their property. And even though the case was recently dismissed by Judge Buchwald, OSGATA et al. are pressing on in this important fight for justice by filing an appeal.

"Farmers have the right to protect themselves from falsely being accused of patent infringement by Monsanto before they are contaminated by Monsanto's transgenic seed," said Dan Ravicher, Executive Director of the Public Patent Foundation, a non-profit legal services organization representing the plaintiffs in the case. "Judge Buchwald erred by denying plaintiffs that right and they have now initiated the process of having her decision reversed."

Monsanto is a threat to every non-GMO farmer in America
Judge Buchwald's misguided opinion that the case lacks merit, which is why she dismissed it, fails to recognize that every farmer who does not grow GM crops is at risk of being sued by Monsanto for patent infringement. The purpose of the lawsuit, of course, is to set a preliminary precedent that bars Monsanto from ever suing farmers whose non-GM crops become contaminated with GM traits, which is a perfectly reasonable approach to this ever-growing problem.

"These farmers have no desire to use Monsanto's GMO seeds, yet they are forced into the untenable position of losing their right to farm in the manner in which they choose, face legal intimidation and the loss of economic livelihood, all because America's legal system has failed to adequately protect them from the real threat of genetic trespass that is inherent as a result of Monsanto's patented GMO seeds and the natural biological functions of cross pollination from wind, insects or animals," said David Murphy, Founder and Executive Director of Food Democracy Now!.

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Health & Freedom

ADA Trying To Control All Nutritional Advice

You’ve got to believe me; I am not trying to pick on registered dieticians (RD’s). Unfortunately, they make it too easy for me. I know some very smart RD’s who are very knowledgeable about nutrition. However, as compared to most of the members of the American Dietetic Association (ADA), the RD’s who are knowledgeable about nutrition are, unfortunately, few and far between.

Presently, we have two-thirds of the U.S. population overweight and one-third obese. Part of the reason we have so much obesity in the U.S. is due to the nonsensical dietary advice the ADA and its members have been promoting. I can assure you, the last thing we need in the U.S. is to have the RD’s control who can and cannot speak about nutrition.

This blog post was prompted by an article in Forbes magazine (4.5.12) titled, “Is the American Dietetic Association Attempting to Limit Market Competition in Nutrition Counseling.” The article can be found here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelellsberg/2012/04/05/american-dietetic-association/

This article is well written and goes into more details about the nefarious activities of the ADA. This article discusses the ADA’s push to pass a terrible law in each state that will only allow RD’s the legal right to talk to patients about nutrition. All others will be subject to fines and jail time.

Let me review what is happening. I posted two blogs about this topic—the first on September 22, 2010 and the second on October 6, 2011. You can access these articles from the archives on my blog page.

The ADA is trying to ensure that only registered dieticians will be licensed to talk with patients about nutrition. If a health professional is not properly licensed to speak to a client about nutrition, he/she would be subject to fine of $10,000 per day of violation and possibly six months of jail. Can you imagine these penalties for counseling someone about nutrition? Think about it, you go into a health food store and the clerk tells you that you should eat less refined carbohydrates. The next thing you know, an ADA enforcer may be there to fine the clerk $10,000 and put them in jail for six months. Does that sound reasonable to you? It is not only health food store clerks who have to worry, it is chiropractors, certified nutritionists, personal trainers, yoga instructors, acupuncturists, naturopaths, homeopaths, nurses and pharmacists who may be barred from speaking to anyone about nutrition.

Maybe we will need nutrition prisons to house all the new inmates. I can hear the prison conversation. “What are you in for? I told someone to eat less carbs and they busted me.” As punishment, perhaps these new prisoners should have to eat food from all the ADA corporate sponsors. Who are these corporate sponsors? Pepsico, Coca-Cola, Mars, Soyjoy, Hershey’s and General Mills are such examples. I think that punishment would be too severe for the nutrition prisoners. But, I digress. Let’s get back to business.

The state of Michigan passed the ADA’s idiotic bill in 2006 and it was signed by the governor of Michigan. Fortunately, this law has not been implemented due to public and professional criticism. My October 6, 2011 blog post contains a letter I sent to the Michigan Office of Regulatory Regulation detailing my complaints about this dumb law.
For those of you that reside in other states, I have two words for you: Watch Out! The ADA is busy trying to pass this dangerous and unnecessary law in all 50 states. They are quiet about it because they do not want anyone to be aware of what they are doing. You have to organize and get the word out. In Michigan, we have formed a group to fight back. More information about this group can be found here: http://michigannutritionassociation.org.

As I said before, we do NOT need the ADA deciding who can and cannot speak about nutrition. This law needs to go away and the ADA should refocus its efforts to properly educate its members about nutrition.

Whether it is from an RD, nurse, or even a health food store clerk, you should have the right to decide who you would like to receive nutritional advice from.

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Health & Freedom

Marxism In Action: Newborn Seized In Hospital After Mother Questions Vaccine

by Michael P. Farris, Esq.

Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) Chairman

March 27th, 2012

I am not content to sit on the sidelines while the government gradually usurps the very essence of parental rights. I hope you share my determination. We need to stand with people like Scott and Jodi Ferris (obviously no relation to someone named Farris). Here’s their story:

Jodi went into labor a bit earlier than she had expected—and the baby was coming rapidly. Given their location and other factors, the midwife they had hoped would deliver the baby at their home encouraged them to get in an ambulance and head to the hospital.

Their baby, whom I will call “Annie,” was born in the ambulance in the parking lot of the Hershey Medical Center—a government hospital in Pennsylvania. Hospital personnel arrived very quickly and took charge of both baby and mom.

As any mother would do, Jodi immediately began to ask the nurses and attendants how her baby was doing. The hospital staff was utterly unresponsive. When they started to give Jodi an injection, she asked what it was and what it was for. They gave her vague answers like, “It’s just to help.” Only after giving her the injection of oxytocin did they tell her what it was and then asked, “You aren’t allergic to that are you?”

Jodi persisted in asking about Annie. No one would tell her anything other than “she’s in good hands and you’ll be able to see her soon.”

Eventually a doctor told her that Annie scored a 9 on a physical exam applied to newborns known as the APGAR test. A score of 8 or higher is considered healthy. (It is unclear when the score was given since she was in the ambulance at birth.) But shortly after this a different doctor told Jodi that Annie was “very sick” and would need to stay in the hospital. This doctor’s comments were accompanied by an explanation of his disdain for midwives saying, “Too many people think they know what they’re doing.”

About an hour later, another hospital staffer finally brought Annie to Jodi and said, “The baby is doing good. She will be able to go home in no time.”

Legal Requirements?

However, several hours later yet another staffer told Scott and Jodi that Annie would have to stay in the hospital for 48 to 72 hours for observation. Even though they persisted in asking why Annie would need to stay, his only answer was that “the law requires us to keep the baby for 48 hours.” When they asked for a reference to this supposed law, he answered, “you’ll have to get that from risk management.” (By the way, there is no such law in Pennsylvania.)

The risk management staffer eventually told them that even though they saw nothing wrong with the baby, they just like “to keep babies like this” for 48–72 hours. The Ferrises were told that Annie would not be released for this period since it was “unsafe for her to leave the hospital.”

Eventually, a risk management staffer admitted that the risk that was being managed was not the health of Annie but the risk that the hospital might get sued if something went wrong after she was discharged.

Ultimately, risk management said that they would be satisfied with a 24-hour stay and that Jodi and Scott could remain with the baby overnight.

You have been Accused

Late in the afternoon, a government social worker named Angelica Lopez-Heagy came into Jodi’s room announcing that she was there to conduct an investigation. Jodi asked to know the allegations. The social worker claimed that it would be against the law for her to show Jodi the allegations.

Jodi replied that she would not be comfortable answering the questions if she couldn’t know the allegations. Immediately the social worker proclaimed, “Since you’re not going to cooperate, I’ll just go and call the police and we can take custody of the baby.”

Fearing that the social worker would carry out her threat, Jodi replied that she was willing to cooperate.

The social worker soon intimated that the issue was Jodi’s refusal to consent to medical treatment for the baby. Jodi replied that she had no idea why anyone would say that. The social worker claimed that she had refused to allow a Vitamin K shot for Annie. Jodi replied that no one had asked her about such a shot. Moreover, she had overheard hospital staffers saying that they had already given Annie such a shot.

Neither the social worker nor any hospital staffer ever gave Jodi or Scott any example of any medically necessary treatment that they had refused for Annie.

At this point, Scott left the hospital to tend to their older children who were staying with friends.

Ordering Tests

Shortly after this, the hospital asked to check Annie’s white blood cell count and to perform a strep test. Jodi agreed to the testing.

Then the hospital demanded that they give Annie shot for Hepatitis B. Jodi said that she would agree only if they tested her or Annie to see if either of them were positive. If so, then she was quite willing to have the shot for Annie. The hospital claimed that they had forgotten about this earlier when it was still possible to test that day, and that they needed to give the shot anyway without any testing.

When the social worker pressed her to make an immediate decision about this shot, Jodi asked her if they could simply wait until Scott got back before they decided.

Put yourself in Jodi’s shoes at this moment. You gave birth that morning in an ambulance. The hospital has made wild and conflicting claims about your baby’s health all day long. You are exhausted. You are in pain. Your husband has gone to check on your children. And a social worker who has threatened to take your baby into police custody is standing in your hospital room demanding that you make an immediate decision.

Jodi simply said, “Please can’t this wait until my husband gets back.”

The social worker renewed her threat. If Jodi would not answer her question right then, she would call the police. And then the social worker started adding conditions. She and Scott would have to agree to sign a safety plan before she could conclude her investigation.

Jodi said that she wanted her husband and an attorney to look at the plan. She felt she was in no position to read such a document and really understand what she was being pressured to sign.

Thrown Out

And then the story turns ugly.

The social worker left the room and called the police. Without a court order they took custody of Annie, immediately claiming that she was suffering from illness or injury—a patently false claim.

The social worker consented to the administration of the Hepatitis B shot even though no blood test had been done.

The police made Jodi Ferris get up out of her hospital bed and escorted her to the entrance—they were expelling her from the hospital because she had not signed the “safety plan.”

Scott met her at the entrance to the hospital. The police escorted them both off of the grounds of the hospital.

Jodi was told that she would be allowed to return every three hours to nurse the baby through the night.

Jodi and Scott were forced to spend the night that she had given birth in their car in the parking lot of a nearby Wal-Mart. You read that right. They kicked this mother out of the hospital, and in order to be close enough to feed her child, she had to sleep in the car.

To add insult to injury, Jodi was given access to Annie only sporadically and not every three hours.

Baby Returned

The next morning a judicial officer held a shelter care hearing. After hearing the evidence, the officer immediately returned custody of Annie to her parents.

No parents should be put through this kind of ordeal. It is not a crime to ask questions about the well-being of your child. It is not a crime to ask for testing to ensure that a procedure is needed before it is done. It is not a crime to be a protective mom.

It is a moral offense of the highest order to kick a mother out of a hospital and to seize her child on the day of her birth simply because a mom wanted to have her husband read a legal document before she signed.

Both the medical personnel and the social worker engaged in outrageous behavior toward this family.

And we believe that they violated their rights under the Constitution of the United States. And we are going to court to prove it.

Why is HSLDA fighting for parental rights in this context? It is not a homeschooling case.

Parental Rights at Risk

We are taking this case because we are tired of seeing the erosion of parental rights in virtually every area of life. Parental rights in medical cases have an impact on broader parental rights, including educational decisions.

And the plain fact is this: If we don’t fight for parental rights, it is probable that our rights will be eroded bit by bit until there is nothing that remains.

We cannot afford to fund cases like this out of HSLDA’s membership dues. We are taking this case because we believe that our members and friends will stand with Jodi and Scott Ferris. We believe that parents should not be punished by “over-the-top” social workers and doctors.

The social worker’s priority was not the welfare of Annie, but her own convenience and her own perception of her power. She was aiming to teach this homeschooling mother a lesson.

And the hospital was clearly not concerned that Annie had a medical issue—they were just trying to avoid being sued for medical malpractice.

When government workers run over parents in cases like this, the lesson that needs to be taught is to the government.

This case will cost tens of thousands of dollars. Your tax-deductible gifts to the Homeschool Freedom Fund of the Home School Foundation will make it possible for us to take this case to court and to try to establish a precedent that will help protect us all.

All of our families are at risk when the government is allowed to run over one of us. When we stand together, we can fight back for freedom and for truth.

Thanks for giving as the Lord leads you. And pray for us. This is not an easy case. We really need your ongoing prayers.

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Health & Freedom

IRS Wants 4,000 New Agents, $300 Million Budget To Enforce Obamacare

by: Jonathan Benson

(NaturalNews) More than quadrupling an estimate it put forth last year for new agents (http://dailycaller.com), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) now says that it will need more than 4,000 new agents to enforce the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare. And in addition to these new agents, the IRS is also asking for more than $300 million in new funding to help fortify the infrastructure it will supposedly need to unconstitutionally force Americans to purchase government healthcare.

The constitutionality of Obamacare is currently being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, and yet the IRS is already acting as though the overhaul is definitive law. According to IRS budget requests, the agency says it needs a massive cash infusion to "continue the development of new systems and modifications of existing systems required to support new tax credits." But in reality, this money will more than likely be used to spy on Americans and fine them for failing to purchase adequate health coverage.

"Health reform's insurance mandate says if you do not have 'adequate' insurance, you'll have to pay a fine as part of your tax return," writes Elizabeth MacDonald for FOX Business (http://www.foxbusiness.com). "If your business doesn't provide 'affordable' coverage, you'll have to pay a fine to the IRS, too, as part of your tax return filing."

According to FOX News analyst James Farrell, new IRS reporting requirements under Obamacare, should it end up being declared constitutional, will require individuals to disclose personal insurance plan information such as coverage provisions and costs to the IRS. The provisions will also require individuals to reveal whether or not they have been offered health insurance by their employers, and what this employer-sponsored insurance costs, information that the IRS has never before dealt with.

Another stated reason for the increase in agents and budget funds is to enforce the new tanning excise tax. Tanning salons, health clubs, beauty parlors and other businesses that offer tanning services will be required to pay a tax similar to the kind levied on alcohol and tobacco (http://blog.heritage.org). According to The Daily Caller, the IRS is planning to devote 81 of its agents just to collecting this ten-percent tax (http://dailycaller.com).

"Obamacare bashes into the Constitution at every turn because it is fundamentally in conflict to the essential founding principles of this country — freedom and the sovereignty of states and citizens," writes Grace-Marie Turner for Canada Free Press (http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/45534). "It turns control over one-sixth of our economy to the federal government, ceding life and death decisions to the state."

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Health & Freedom

EPA Tramples Personal Property Rights, $75K+ A Day For Phony ‘Violations’

by: Ethan A. Huff

(NaturalNews) An Idaho couple that was ordered recently by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to stop building a house on their own property and pay fines of up to $75,000 a day until the property was returned back to its original condition, has been granted due process and a hearing by the U.S. Supreme Court. The ruling is a first as it now allows property owners to challenge the EPA's violation allegations prior to, rather than after, enforcement actions are taken.

In 2005, Mike and Chantell Sackett purchased three-quarters of an acre plot of land near Priest Lake, Idaho, upon which they planned to build a modest, three-bedroom house. After jumping through all the proper regulatory hoops, which included obtaining permits and verification that the land was suitable for building a structure in compliance with local and federal law, the Sacketts broke ground on their house in 2007.

But the process quickly went awry when EPA officials showed up at the property after gravel, dirt, and other materials had already been brought in, and ordered the Sacketts to produce a permit showing that they were allowed to build a structure in a so-called "wetlands" area. The Sacketts tried to explain that the site was not located in a wetlands area and that all the proper permits had been filed, but the officials still ordered them to restore the site back to its original condition or else face up to $75,000 a day in fines.

EPA compliance orders operate outside constitutional bounds, and are a threat to individual liberty and private property rights
Because of the unconstitutional way in which EPA compliance orders are structured, the Sacketts had no way of challenging the one issued to them prior to the federal government taking enforcement action against them if they continued to build their house. If the EPA decides one day, for instance, that your property is in violation of the Clean Water Act (CWA) — even if it is not — the agency can demand that you pay thousands of dollars in fines without due process or any sort of trial.

But thanks to a unanimous Supreme Court decision in the Sackett case, property owners have at least regained their constitutional right to due process in challenging the validity of arbitrary compliance orders before any enforcement action is taken. And the decision sets a precedent for all other property owners who may one day face the regulatory wrath of an out-of-control EPA that routinely acts outside constitutional bounds.

The Sacketts, however, may still end up having to comply with the EPA's order anyway, should a judge end up deciding that the property is a wetland and declare that the Sacketts' land modifications constitute CWA violations. It can only be hoped that common sense justice, rather than police state tyranny, will prevail in this important case.

"With an annual budget of $10 billion of your tax dollars and 17,000 agents at its disposal, is the EPA so inefficient that it is incapable of designating the lot a wetland before the Sacketts purchased it?" asks Geoff Cutler from The Pilot in a recent piece on the case. "The EPA was created with the noble cause of cleaning out pollution from our waterways. Where did it get police state authority to essentially take away lawfully purchased private property?"

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Health & Freedom

American Medical Revolutions

by Jack Phillips

About 170 years ago our ancestors forced the repeal of licensing laws which had created a monopoly over the practice of medicine for orthodox physicians. Ordinary people, farmers, artisans, tradesmen and others got together and forced politicians to act on their behalf. They were tired of bloodletting, and harsh medications like mercury compounds that ruined their teeth and weakened their bodies. They opted for kinder and gentler alternatives with lower casualty rates, particularly the newly introduced homeopathy. They were impressed that tiny doses of medicine were able to cure cholera much better than the massive doses used by orthodox physicians.

Homeopathy, introduced in America in 1825, was a brand new medical discipline developed by a German physician named Samuel Hanhemann (1744-1843). He was disillusioned with the results of medical practices of his day. He stopped practicing and began to study the effects of medicine on a healthy person, himself. He tried quinine, a very popular medication, first. It caused symptoms of malaria, the disease which it was able to cure. Similarly mercury produced symptoms of syphilis on which it had therapeutic effects. This experimental evidence lead to an assumption: substances which produce symptoms in healthy people can have a curative effect on sick people who experience the same symptoms. Extensive experimentation with his family and friends resulted in collection of the symptomology of 27 medications. With this information he was able to investigate the validity of his hypothesis.

Returning to the practice of medicine he found that clinical experience validated his hypothesis. By this means his hypothesis became a theory in accordance with scientific methodology. Ultimately, confirmed by other investigators, it became the law of similars.

Subsequently experimentation with varying doses disclosed that small amounts of medicines had more effect on the diseases of patients than large amounts. This experimental evidence led him to conclude that his medications were stimulating the inherent healing powers of his patients. They were getting well without the damaging side effects of excessive amounts of medicines.

Many orthodox physicians in Germany, observing Hahnemann’s successes, sought training in the application of the new doctrines and began to practice homeopathy-generating a new school of medicine in the process. It became popular all across Europe. Homeopathic physicians began treating the royalty and nobility of Europe.

Homeopathic physicians didn’t try to find the cause of diseases. They spent a lot of time identifying symptoms in consider-able detail since each patient was considered to be unique. The symptoms defined the disease. Matching the symptoms of the patient with the symptoms associated with medications was not an easy job. Intelligence, training and dedication were required to achieve the full benefits of homeopathic technology. Ultimately some homeopaths limited themselves to the use of low potency medications while the most effective practitioners used the high potency variety, those with the highest dilutions.

Hahnemann did not claim to have discovered the law of similars. The therapeutic systems of empiric physicians in ancient Greece and Paracelsus had included this theory. The important discovery that medicinal substances could be more active at high dilutions was his alone and he was vilified because of it. Those whose incomes depended on the sale of large quantities of drugs found it economically damaging. Orthodox physicians, whose use of excessive amounts of mercury caused their patients to lose teeth and deteriorate physically, hated it as a serious threat to their physical safety as well as their professional reputation. But many physicians trained in the orthodox tradition abandoned it and took up the practice of homeopathy with great success.

Success of homeopathic treatments with camphor, copper sulfate and Veratrum album, recommended by Hahnemann during the Asiatic cholera epidemic in Europe in 1832, firmly established homeopathy in France. When Hahnemann arrived in Paris in 1835 he was granted a license to practice medicine within 6 month. He subsequently cured the Marquess of Anglesea of tic deleureux which French physicians had been trying unsuccessfully to cure for 20 years. After losing prestige and patients to the homeo-paths, member of the French National Academy of Medicine called them knaves, ignoramuses, charlatans and quacks. Nevertheless orthodox physicians adopted camphor, copper sulfate and Veratrum album as remedies for cholera.

American homeopaths were as successful treating cholera in the 1830s as the French homeopaths. They added to their reputation when in 1978 a yellow fever epidemic spread from New Orleans into the Mississippi Valley with alarming death rates: 4,600 of 27,000 cases in New Orleans, 5,000 out of 18,500 cases in Memphis with a total of 15,934 death out of 74,265 cases reported in the Mississippi Valley. Homeopathic physicians in New Orleans had treated 1,945 cases with loss of 110. In the rest of the south they had treated 1,969 cases with loss of 151–7.7%. The overall death rate for reported cases in the south was at least 16%. The French Government awarded a gold medal to a French homeopath for his work during the New Orleans epidemic. Homeopaths were popular!

Insurance companies began offering reduced rates to persons employing homeopathic physicians and homeopathic life insurance companies were being chartered. In 1870 the Homeopathic Life Office of New York reported that it had sold 7,927 policies to followers of homeopathy and 2,258 to other; 84 deaths in the first category and 66 in the second justified the lower premiums charged to the former.

As a result of these successes by 1892, homeopaths in the United Stated controlled about 110 hospitals, 145 dispensaries, 62 orphan asylums and old peoples homes, over 30 nursing homes and sanitaria and 16 insane asylums.

In 1889 the Westborough, Massachusetts insane asylum was run by homeopaths and the Springfield Republican reported that the cost of maintenance is much less and recoveries and general success greater than in allopathic asylums.

Meanwhile competing medical technologies and an oversupply of physicians drastically reduced the income and status of about 110,000 orthodox physicians. An average one earned $750 per year in 1900 and about 40 per year committed suicide because of financial difficulties. But about 15,000 homeopathic physicians prospered and 26 schools of homeopathy flourished at the end of the century. Unsuspecting homeopaths, fully occupied with their lucrative practices, gave grudging support to their own organization not realizing that they were in danger.

Orthodox physicians at the American Medical Association (AMA) plotted their downfall. The first objective was reduction in the number of medical schools and medical students. This had been a cherished goal since 1846 when the founding convention of the AMA occurred.

Politically astute George Simmons, M.D. who graduated from Hahnemann Medical College of Chicago in 1882 and later attended Rush Medical School, was appointed secretary of the AMA and editor of its journal (JAMA) in 1899. Soon thereafter he was appointed secretary of a committee to consider reorganization. In 1901 a reorganized AMA changed from a loose federation of independent professionals into a political powerhouse. The reorganization substantially reduced the influence of individual physicians who had been objecting to unethical drug company advertising.

In 1904 the AMA established a Permanent Council on Medical Education. In 1905 the Council arranged a conference of state medical licensing boards to review the status of medical education and set standards for medical schools. A temporary standard required four years of high school and 4 years of medical school and examination of graduates by state boards before licensing. In 1906, the committee inspected 160 medical schools, grading 82–A, 46–B and 32–C. Fifty schools agreed to require 1 year of college sciences courses for admission.

In 1907 Arthur D. Bevan, M.D., the Council’s chairman, convinced Henry Pritchard, former President of MIT, who now headed the Carnegie Foundation, to sponsor a study of medical education. That Foundation, founded in 1905 with the objective of upgrading the status of college teachers and creating a uniform system of higher education, was a logical ally. In November of that year the trustees approved the proposed study and Pritchard hired Abraham Flexner, an educator who had graduated from Johns Hopkins University, to work on the project.

Flexner headed for his alma mater’s medical school, which he used as his standard of comparison. Accompanied by Nathan Caldwell, M.D., who replaced Bevan as Chairman of AMA’s Council on Medical Education, Flexner made a comprehensive survey of medical schools in 1910. His opinions of most of the schools he visited and evaluated were not flattering. Harvard University was incensed at his opinion of their medical school which had been reorganized by Charles Elliot in 1870.

Flexner was convinced, probably by Dr. Caldwell, that Hahnemann and homeopathy were frauds, since this was the official opinion of the AMA which denied that homeopathy possessed therapeutic efficacy. Flexner also bought the opinion of William Osler, M.D. that “sectarian allopathy and homeopathy” were yielding to the new scientific medicine.

Flexner’s famous report, coauthored by Nathan Caldwell, caused substantial changes. It started a process that empowered the AMA, disorganized the homeopaths and forced the closure of homeopathic medical schools. Even though John D. Rockefeller favored homeopathy and repeatedly insisted that it be sup-ported, all of his money was spent on “scientific medicine”. Frederick Gates who was influential in disbursing Rockefeller’s money wrote that Hahnemann was in-sane. John D., Jr. told his father that the homeopaths were integrating with the allopaths. Letter requests for funds from one homeopathic school were said to have been unanswered.

Scientific medicine was designed to be capital intensive. Requirements for teaching it increased costs beyond the capability of students to support the schools with tuition and fees. As a result schools, unable to supplement their income from other sources like grants and bequests, were forced to close or consolidate. In 1910 the number of medical schools was reduced from 166 to 131. Only 63 were left in 1929. In the 1930s and 1940s, 11 homeopathic schools closed. After 1930 even the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia was teaching allopathic medicine except for one or two classes of homeopathy.

New laws gave the AMA the power to control what the schools taught. Curricula were heavy in the sciences, but there was only minimal training in nutrition and pharmacology. Physicians who used to make up their own remedies began to rely on pharmaceutical company formulations and for information on drugs. Production of physicians was substantially reduced. Competing medical sects, whose members had totaled less than 10% of all physicians, were all but emasculated.

Evidently our present unsatisfactory situation came about because the frustrated monopolists of the 1820s found a way to put themselves back in the driver’s seat. They convinced upper and middle class people that they were scientists who could bring the benefits of science to their patients. At least $300 million ($600 million according to Harris Coulter’s The Divided Legacy) contributed by wealthy donors, supplemented by an unknown amount funneled through the JAMA by the pharmaceutical industry and other advertisers, helped them regain control. At a time when one dollar bought a 10-hour day’s work, this was an irresistible flood that carried the orthodox physicians back into power and supported the monopoly for almost a hundred years.

Once in control, efforts to reduce competition and increase income have been unceasing. Physicians who practice alternative medicine, in competition with regular physicians, are subject to harassment. In the state of Washington about 30% of them are being harassed at this time. Those who make substantial advancements in medical science often find the Federal Government moving against them. The FDA and FTC have used taxpayer money to suppress new technology in a number of cases. Even State legislators have cooperated, in cases where other means failed,

The purpose of the new licensing laws was to protect the public but, in fact, monopolized medical care, according to reports, has been killing over 200,000 of us every year and promises to bankrupt the country. These laws are used to prevent free public access to less lethal, more effective and less expensive therapies. As Daniel Haley so eloquently wrote, in Politics in Healing, “we don’t need government protection from things that can’t hurt us”.

Medical science should be a search for the truth and many medical scientists have spent their lives in this search. Unfortunately scientific medicine, as practiced by the medical monopoly during the last century, has rejected the discoveries of a number of medical scientists. Too many promising technologies have been consigned to the dust bin of history. As a result, medical services are much more expensive than they should be and lower in quality than they could be. Less suppression and more competition can make people healthier at lower cost.

One hundred years of suppression of advancements in medical science is enough. Even physicians have been victimized. Their expensive schools don’t teach them about the suppressed science and give them inadequate training in nutrition and therapeutics. We can do without the high prices and poor care. Let’s recover and apply the suppressed technology and reward, rather than discourage, innovations that promise lower costs and better quality care. Replace the medical monopoly with laws guaranteeing freedom of choice in medical care.

Again in 2008, as in the 1830s, orthodox medicine is killing lots of people and creating lots of invalids. The exorbitant price of $2 trillion a year is too much. We owe it to ourselves and our descendants to reintroduce competition into the medical marketplace. Forcing the repeal of the Medical Practices Act will be a good start. The Access to Medical Treatment Act proposed in the 2000 session of Congress might also be resurrected.

– Jack Phillips


JOURNAL OF ORTHOMOLECULAR MEDICINE
Official Journal of the International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine
Volume 23 3rd Quarter 2008 (Download Full Text PDF)

Categories
Health & Freedom

Doctor From MMR Controversy Wins High Court Appeal

by: Ethan A. Huff

(NaturalNews) The U.K. General Medical Council's (GMC) rash and unfounded decision to strike Professor John Walker-Smith, who had helped Dr. Andrew Wakefield in treating desperately-ill children with regressive autism symptoms and severe gastrointestinal problems, off the medical register for alleged "professional misconduct" has been exposed as a fraud. During a recent High Court appeal, Mr. Justice Mitting ruled that Prof. Walker-Smith's striking "cannot stand" because of serious misconduct in the way GMC handled the case against him, and that the entire council needs to be reformed.

For many years now, Prof. Walker-Smith has had to endure having his reputation tarnished by the likes of freelance journalist Brian Deer, GMC, the British Medical Journal, and the lapdog American media who have together conspired to destroy the legitimate work of Dr. Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues on the gastrointestinal problems they observed in young children, many of whom had received the combination measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. And caught in the fray of this malicious crusade against independent thought and honest medical inquiry was the life and career of Prof. Walker-Smith, who had already retired from his medical practice when the controversy began.

Prof. Walker-Smith had been head of the department of pediatric gastroenterology at the Royal Free Hospital (RFH) in London where Dr. Wakefield was making observations about children's health that would later be published, and retracted, by The Lancet. During this time, Prof. Walker-Smith was helping to treat these suffering children, the parents of whom had directly approached both him and Dr. Wakefield for help after being ignored by their own general practitioners.

"There has been a great burden on me and my family since the allegations were first made in 2004 and throughout the hearing that ran from 2007 to 2010," said Prof. Walker-Smith in a recent statement about the case. "I am relieved that this matter is now over."

Since GMC's handling of the entire case has been proven fraudulent, it is now Dr. Wakefield's turn to be exonerated
Mr. Justice Mitting's scathing indictment of GMC's unprofessional and dishonest handling of the Dr. Wakefield case is telling, as it once again calls into question the legitimacy of any of the claims made against Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues concerning their observational, peer-reviewed study. It only further reinforces what has already come to light about the blatant fraud that is the continued witch hunt against Dr. Wakefield for his independent work.

"The welcome decision to exonerate Prof. Walker-Smith is a clear indication that the GMC's case against the Royal Free doctors was manufactured to discredit any association between bowel disease, autism conditions and some of the parents' reported link to the MMR vaccine," writes Age of Autism. "The allegations leveled at Prof. Walker-Smith and the Royal Free team now have to be viewed with total skepticism as nothing more than a witch hunt by vested interests at the highest levels in government, media and the pharmaceutical industry."

This ruling will clearly bolster the efforts of Dr. Wakefield to vindicate his own reputation and career, including his recent lawsuit against Brian Deer, BMJ, and BMJ editor Fiona Godlee, all of which have repeatedly spread lies and slander about Dr. Wakefield and his paper.

Categories
Health & Freedom

Urge Your Congressmen To Co-sponsor HR 1830 and Restore Raw Milk Rights

by: Jonathan Benson

(NaturalNews) For 15 years, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been overstepping its regulatory bounds by restricting individuals from buying and selling — or even just transporting — raw milk across state lines. But legislation authored by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) will undo this form of food tyranny, if passed, by once again establishing freedom of food choice for millions of Americans that currently do not have access to raw milk.

One of the foundational principles upon which any free society is built on is the fundamental human right to grow, eat, buy, and sell the food of one's choice. But this freedom stops, at least in most parts of the country, when raw milk comes into the picture, as 15 states currently prohibit the sale of raw milk for human consumption, and another 19 restrict it to on-farm or herd-share forms of distribution only (http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/raw_milk_map.htm).

Up until 1987, there were no restrictions on the interstate sale and trade of raw milk, which meant that raw milk lovers who lived in a prohibited state could have it shipped in from a nearby legal state. But all that changed when the FDA decided that Americans no longer had the right to carry raw milk across state lines, or to transport it to other people across state lines, a position that the agency has gotten increasingly aggressive in enforcing in recent years (http://www.naturalnews.com/033280_FDA_raids_timeline.html).

Last May, Rep. Paul announced House Resolution 1830 (HR 1830), also known as the Unpasteurized Milk Bill. This bill simply states that it will "authorize the interstate traffic of unpasteurized milk and milk products that are packaged for direct human consumption" (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h112-1830).

Since being unveiled, the bill has received three additional cosponsors — Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Cal.), Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), and Rep. Timothy Walberg (R-Mich.). And the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF), a pro-food freedom group, is asking everyone in the health community to move the bill along by contacting their Congressmen and urging support for HR 1830.

FTCLDF has created an "Action Alert" page with two simple steps you can take right now to stop the FDA from continuing to hold captive our food freedom. The first action item is to call your Congressmen and urge them to cosponsor HR 1830. FTCLDF has even created a sample message you say over the phone:
HERE

The second action item is an online petition that will send a fax to your local representatives, state senators, and local newspapers, urging support for HR 1830. You can access that petition here:
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/petitions/pnum1079.php

Sources for this article include:

http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/petitions/pnum1079.php