A Little Tonic & Zinc

Professor Didier Raoult Publishes Results of a Hydroxychloroquine Treatment Study on 1061 Patients

By     CE Staff Writer

In Brief

  • The Facts:Professor Didier Raoult has published his early results for Hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for moderate to severe COVID-19 patients. 973 patients out of 1063, according to him, have shown “a good clinical outcome.”
  • Reflect On:Why is there always so much controversy and politicization of science and treatments? Why are these treatments controversial within the mainstream, but vaccines cannot even be questioned?

In a new study performed at IHU Méditerranée Infection, Marseille, France a  cohort of 1061 COVID-19 patients were treated for 3 days with the Hydroxychloroquine-Azithromycin (HCQ-AZ) combination. A follow-up of at least 9 days was investigated and the study found that no cardiac toxicity was observed. According to the abstract which was recently released:

“A good clinical outcome and virological cure was obtained in 973 (out of 1061) patients within 10 days (91.7%)…A poor outcome was observed for 46 patients (4.3 %); 10 were transferred to intensive care units, 5 patients died (0.47%) (74-95 years old) and 31 required 10 days of hospitalization or more…The HCQ-AZ combination, when started immediately after diagnosis, is a safe and efficient treatment for COVID-19, with a mortality rate of 0.5%, in elderly patients. It avoids worsening and clears virus persistence and contagiosity in most cases.” 

The original abstract can be accessed here.

Also, the researchers made this table available.

I came across this information via the Physicians For Informed Consent.

It’s not clear when the complete study will be made available. But there is another side to this story, Sciencemg  points out that:

The popular faith in hydroxychloroquine stands in stark contrast to the weakness of the data. Several studies of its efficacy against COVID-19 have delivered an equivocal or negative verdict, and it can have significant side effects, including heart arrhythmias. Raoult’s positive studies have been widely criticized for their limitations and methodological issues. The first included only 42 patients, and Raoult chose who received the drug or a placebo, a no-no in clinical research; the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy has distanced itself from the paper, published in the society’s International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents. The second study, published as a preprint without peer review, didn’t have a control group at all.

They go on to mention that:

Raoult has dismissed the criticism and complained about the “dictatorship of the methodologists” who insist on randomization and control groups in clinical trials. In his hospital, every patient diagnosed with COVID-19 receives hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin, an antibiotic. Raoult claims this has resulted in a very low death rate, which he says he will document soon in a publication.

Raoult has also found some high-level support in the medical world. An online petition in support of hydroxychloroquine was started by cardiologist and former Minister of Health Philippe Douste-Blazy—France’s candidate to lead the World Health Organization in 2017—and Christian Perronne, head of infectious diseases at the renowned Raymond Poincaré University Hospital in Garches, near Paris. Ten other prominent figures from the medical community, including two members of the Academy of Medicine, have also co-signed the petition, which demands hydroxychloroquine be authorized in hospital settings.

This has become a highly controversial topic that’s been politicized, as with most other medications and drugs. Profit and corporate interests are at stake, and therefore mass perceptions of it are controlled using various tactics and media. Sometimes it can be hard to decipher truth.

These findings also correlate with others that have been gaining attention as well.

For example, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, a board-certified family practitioner in New York, said in a video interview that a cocktail of Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc Sulfate and Azithromycin are showing phenomenon results with 900 coronavirus patients treated. (source)

In that video he stated that he believes it’s very important to “get this information out to the American people and to the world.”

Dr. Anthony Cardillo, an ER specialist and the CEO of Mend Urgent Care, has been prescribing the zinc and hydroxychloroquine combination on patients experiencing severe symptoms associated with COVID-19. In an interview with KABC-TV, Cardillo stated:

“Every patient I’ve prescribed it to has been very, very ill and within 8 to 12 hours, they were basically symptom-free, […] So, clinically I am seeing a resolution.”

“We have to be cautious and mindful that we don’t prescribe it for patients who have COVID who are well,” he said. “It should be reserved for people who are really sick, in the hospital or at home very sick, who need that medication. Otherwise we’re going to blow through our supply for patients that take it regularly for other disease processes.”

According to Cardillo, it’s the combination of zinc and hydroxychloroquine that does the job. “[Hydrocychloroquine] opens the zinc channel” allowing the zinc to enter the cell, which then “blocks the replication of cellular machinery.”

President Donald Trump has also been quite outspoken about this treatment in some of his recent press conferences. We’ve seen many mainstream media publications, however, downplay the potential of this treatment which may be confusing people.

Cardillo added that the drug should only be prescribed to patients who are on the more severe side when it comes to symptoms. This will help keep the limited supply of the drug ready for those who truly need it.

In New Jersey, Physicians have called for more autonomy in treatment of COVID-19

“An additional group of doctors has contacted a New Jersey State Senator calling on the State to lift restrictions on the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for the therapeutic treatment and prophylactic early treatment of COVID-19. The doctors are echoing Senator Pennacchio’s appeal for New Jersey to accumulate a stockpile of the medication….Pennacchio also wants the State to immediately compile a priority list for the HCQ distribution, ensuring enough medication for those currently prescribed for maladies including Lupus and RA, distribution to patients who have developed COVID-19, and for citizens as a preventive treatment. ‘I am optimistic these measures would decrease the severity and duration of the disease,’ said Pennacchio. ‘The goal must be breaking the pandemic so people can be allowed to return to their normal lives.’ ‘Allow doctors to be doctors. Remove the State’s unnecessary shackles, and let them save lives,’ Pennacchio urged.” (source

In France,  a large study indicates combination of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin to be effective in treating COVID-19

“In 80 in-patients receiving a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, the team found a clinical improvement in all but one 86 year-old patient who died, and one 74-year old patient still in intensive care unit. The team also found that, by administering hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin, they were able to observe an improvement in all cases, except in one patient who arrived with an advanced form…The team went on to say: ‘Thus, in addition to its direct therapeutic role, this association can play a role in controlling the disease epidemic by limiting the duration of virus shedding, which can last for several weeks in the absence of specific treatment.’” (source)

 

All of this, of course, continues to raise the question: why is there such a strong push for a vaccine, and perhaps a mandated one, when there are other options available now? Why is the world listening to Bill Gates and his calls for further lockdown until the vaccine is ready? Is there something else going on here? Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed that things won’t go back to ‘normal’ until a COVID-19 vaccine is developed.” You can read more about that here.

Not only are the above treatments literally ignored by mainstream and not really well known about as they should be, Vitamin C is also being ignored. An article published by LiveScience, a mainstream science website, states that “Vitamin C is extremely unlikely to help people fight off the new coronavirus.” But how come  Medicine in Drug Discovery, of Elsevier, a major scientific publishing house, recently published an article on early and high-dose IVC in the treatment and prevention of Covid-19.   In the article, he states the following:

High-dose intravenous VC has also been successfully used in the treatment of 50 moderate to severe COVID-19 patients in China. The doses used varied between 2 g and 10 g per day, given over a period of 8–10 h. Additional VC bolus may be required among patients in critical conditions. The oxygenation index was improving in real time and all the patients eventually cured and were discharged. In fact, high-dose VC has been clinically used for several decades and a recent NIH expert panel document states clearly that this regimen (1.5 g/kg body weight) is safe and without major adverse events.

Again, all of this information should really raise some red flags and questions about what’s going on within governments, and their connection to pharmaceutical companies.  They’re the largest lobbying entity in Washington D.C. They have more lobbyists in Washington D.C. than there are congressman and senators combined. They give twice to Congress what the next largest lobbying entity is, which is oil and gas… Imagine the power they exercise over both republicans and democrats. You can read more about that here.

Why do we continue to turn to and rely on federal health regulatory agencies and companies that don’t make health a priority, and put profits ahead of health?

from:    https://www.collective-evolution.com/2020/04/14/professor-didier-raoult-publishes-results-of-a-hydroxychloroquine-treatment-study-on-1061-patients/

Drugs, Efficacy, & Safety


Pharmaceuticals: A market for producing ‘lemons’ and serious harm, analysis finds

Date:
August 17, 2010
Source:
American Sociological Association

The pharmaceutical industry is a “market for lemons,” a market in which the seller knows much more than the buyer about the product and can profit from selling products less effective and less safe than consumers are led to believe, according to an analysis that will be presented at the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.

“Sometimes drug companies hide or downplay information about serious side effects of new drugs and overstate the drugs’ benefits,” said Donald Light, the sociologist who authored the study and who is a professor of comparative health policy at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. “Then, they spend two to three times more on marketing than on research to persuade doctors to prescribe these new drugs. Doctors may get misleading information and then misinform patients about the risks of a new drug. It’s really a two-tier market for lemons.”

Three reasons why the pharmaceutical market produces “lemons” are: Having companies in charge of testing new drugs, providing firewalls of legal protection behind which information about harms or effectiveness can be hidden, and the relatively low bar set for drug efficacy in order for a new drug to be approved, Light said.

According to his study, independent reviewers found that about 85 percent of new drugs offer few if any new benefits. Yet, toxic side effects or misuse of prescription drugs now make prescription drugs a significant cause of death in the United States.

Light’s paper, “Pharmaceuticals: A Two-Tier Market for Producing ‘Lemons’ and Serious Harm,” is an institutional analysis of the pharmaceutical industry and how it works based on a range of independent sources and studies, including the Canadian Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, the Food and Drug Administration, and Prescrire International.

The foundation for the paper is the work Light did for a forthcoming book he edited, titled ‘The Risk of Prescription Drugs,” which is scheduled for publication this fall by Columbia University Press.

In both his paper and his book, Light describes the “Risk Proliferation Syndrome” that is maximizing the number of patients exposed to new drugs that have relatively low efficacy and effectiveness but have greater risk of adverse side effects. Building on clinical trials designed to minimize evidence of harm and published literature that emphasizes a drug’s advantages, companies launch massive campaigns to sell it, when a controlled, limited launch would allow evidence to be gathered about the drug’s effects. Companies recruit leading clinicians to try using the drug for conditions other than those for which it is approved and to promote such off-label or unapproved uses. Physicians inadvertently become “double agents” — promoters of the new drug, yet trusted stewards of patients’ well-being, said Light. When patients complain of adverse reactions, studies show their doctors are likely to discount or dismiss them, according to Light.

Despite the extensive requirements for testing the efficacy and safety of each new drug, companies “swamp the regulator” with large numbers of incomplete, partial, substandard clinical trials, Light said. For example, in one study of 111 final applications for approval, 42% lacked adequately randomized trials, 40% had flawed testing of dosages, 39% lacked evidence of clinical efficacy, and 49% raised concerns about serious adverse side effects, said Light.

“Just recently, major reports have come out about biased, poor trials for Avandia and Avastin,” Light said, who noted that orphan drugs are tested even less well.

“The result is that drugs get approved without anyone being able to know how effective they really are or how much serious harm they will cause,” Light said. The companies control the making of scientific knowledge and then control which findings will go to the FDA or be published.

“A few basic changes could improve the quality of trials and evidence about the real risks and benefits of new drugs,” Light said. “We could also increase the percentage of new drugs that are really better for patients.”

The paper, “Pharmaceuticals: A Two-Tier Market for Producing ‘Lemons’ and Serious Harm,” was presented on Aug. 17 in Atlanta at the American Sociological Association’s 105th Annual Meeting.

Story Source:

Materials provided by American Sociological Association. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

from:    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817111825.htm

American Sociological Association. “Pharmaceuticals: A market for producing ‘lemons’ and serious harm, analysis finds.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 17 August 2010. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817111825.htm>.

What About Healing?

True healing and true health are deep concepts which by their very definition imply oneness and unity (the word heal is etymologically derived from various words such as the Old English hælan meaning “to make whole”).

True healing includes the many levels within you beyond just the physical – the integration of the emotional, sexual, mental, spiritual and other selves or layers. True healing is far beyond just “managing”, “treating” and “curing” disease, which Big Pharma and its lapdog the FDA like to focus so exclusively upon.

Western medicine has its place in society as an excellent tool for specialized surgical or other emergency interventions – however it came into being from the Rockefeller-Big Pharma cartel, whose business model thrives on repeat customers who can’t get off the hamster wheel of drug after drug after drug.

On a deeper level, is it really any wonder that Western medicine can’t deliver true healing, when its approach is narrow and materialistic, rather than broad and holistic – when it’s fixated on managing, treating and curing, rather than healing?

Big Pharma and Western Medicine: Hooked on “Treating” Disease

If you’re wondering where the notion of “treating” come from, look no further than the FDA-mandated disclaimer that many natural health and holistic practitioners and companies are forced to use on their products.

It states that “this product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease” because only a drug can legally make such a claim. And, in a great example of FDA circular logic, if a substance does have an effect on the human body such as preventing or curing a disease – then it must be drug and not a food!

Guess what? The moment something becomes a drug and not a food, it’s regulated differently. If you’re a producer of a food that wants to state its natural effects on the body, now you have to jump through all sorts of expensive hoops just to state the truth.

This is despite the fact that scientific studies have shown, for instance, that cherries have a positive effect on gout and arthritis, coconut oil on Alzheimer’s, and turmericspirulinagraviola/soursop on cancer. It is an upside-down, outrageous situation where people are being silent about the clear and scientifically provable effects of foods and other natural medicines out of fear of being sued into poverty, taken down or taken out.

Ignorant people defend the Big Pharma system by claiming it’s backed by “science”; meanwhile, insiders and experts state categorically that most scientific research is fraudulent, and most science is actually corporate junk science that is paid to produce the results its funders want.

Managing Disease: A Big Pharma Specialty

The truth is that managing disease is a Big Pharma specialty. The most profitable customers are those patients who are going to be reliant on prescription drugs – just to exist – for the rest of their lives. In those cases it’s all about managing disease. How interesting that the word itself management is a very corporate word.

Another aspect of the managing of disease is all the unnecessary (but very fancy and impressive sounding) testing that is done to people, under the guise of “early detection”.

In his revealing book Confessions of a Medical Heretic, Dr. Robert Mendolsohn quotes an article entitled “Cleveland’s Marvelous Medical Factory” which boasted of the Cleveland Clinic’s “accomplishments last year: 2,980 open-heart operations, 1.3 million laboratory tests, 73,320 electrocardiograms, 7,770 full-body x-ray scans, 24,368 surgical procedures.”

Seems wonderful … except for the very obvious point that none of these procedures has been proven to have anything to do with restoring health or true healing.

When people get screened for a disease, they are being subjected to dangerous radiation (more money for the Rockefellers) which harms tissue and can end up causing the exact disease it is supposed to be protecting against – as happens daily with the mammogram scam, designed to drum up new breast cancer clients.

Healing vs. Curing

Healing vs curing: there is a difference. Healing takes into account the energetic and holographic nature of our body and reality.

At this stage you may be thinking: well, Big Pharma and Western medicine do a lot of “managing” and “treating”, but aren’t they also in the business of “curing”? Yes – but even in this case, Western medicine is falling short of the ultimate goal of healing. Curing a disease and healing a disease are different things.

As this website Healing Through The Arts states:

“Curing is what medical science attempts to do through medication, treatment and external intervention. It usually is the result of a series of treatments that hopefully lead to an event – the absence of disease.

“Healing is an internal process you do for yourself. Healing restores the balance and harmony to the body, mind and spirit. It can be done without a cure. Healing activities are essential when the negative influences of illness, loss or life changes encompass your life.”

The website MindBodyGreen states:

“Curing is a restoration of health, an absence of symptoms, and a remedy of disease. Healing, on the other hand, is a restoration of wholeness — not the level of wholeness before the diagnosis, but a restoration of wholeness that is new, different, and comparatively better than before the onset of disease. Healing is not the removal or cessation of symptoms, but rather an integrative process that transcends the physical and includes mental, emotional, and spiritual vitality and wellness.”

Others have defined curing as the “elimination of all evidence of disease” and healing as “becoming whole”.

There are many ways to conceive and verbalize the difference between curing and healing, but the overall point is that healing is a deeper concept which includes the understanding that we are not just physical beings.

If we want to attain true health, we must address all the levels of our being. Often a “disease” is merely an outer physical manifestation of a psychological, energetic or spiritual blockage which is taking place at a much deeper level.

Big Pharma has (rightly) been accused of making drugs that just mask symptoms without healing the underling cause.

In many cases, they transfer the disease or imbalance from one part of the body to another. From a holistic perspective, this is only minorly helpful or not helpful at all, because as long as you have some imbalance, you’ve still got a health problem you have to deal with.

So, even if Big Pharma actually cures your disease, rather than just treating it or managing it, you still aren’t really at a place of true healing, or real health and balance. If the cause of your disease is happening on an energetic level, how can drugs, surgery or radiation ever address it?

Towards True Healing

In conclusion, if you want true healing, look at all aspects of your entire life. Are you indulging in negative thought patterns? Are you involved in toxic relationships? Are you getting the right type, frequency and duration of exercise? Are you sleeping well? Is your lifestyle too sedentary? Are you allowing questionable food items into your diet? How are you dealing with stress?

Even if you are doing a good job on most of these, being weak in one of these areas may be enough to throw your system off balance and lead to disease. We’re all on a journey of remembering our true selves, and reclaiming our wholeness through true healing is an inseparable part of it.

By Makia FreemanHumansAreFree.com

from:    http://humansarefree.com/2019/02/true-healing-beyond-managing-treating.html

What Doctors Don’t Know

Renowned Doctor Slams Medical Education & Says We Have “An Epidemic of Misinformed Doctors”

September 2, 2018
IN BRIEF
  • The Facts:Dr. Asseem Malhotra, a well-known Doctor in Britain had some choice words to say in front of the European Parliment about modern-day medical education and overall knowledge doctors possess. He’s one of many who continues to emerge and speak out.
  • Reflect On:Why do doctors continue to learn nothing about nutrition? It seems they are trained to prescribe medicine and do not question what they are prescribing. They risk losing their jobs by speaking out and educating themselves.

Dr. Asseem Malhotra is known as one of the most influential cardiologists in Britain and a world-leading expert in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of heart disease. Currently, he is leading a huge campaign against excess sugar consumption. What also makes him unique is something he recently admitted took him decades to figure out: that our entire medical system, one of the main ‘protectors’ of the human race, is completely corrupt. He now believes that medical education is a state of “complete system failure,” causing “an epidemic of misinformed doctors.”  He also stated that honest doctors can no longer practice honest medicine, and that there is also a growing epidemic of patients who are being harmed.

There is no denying that to some extent, medicine and doctors have done a lot of good and saved a lot of lives. However, an over-reliance on doctors for our health and well-being has spawned a serious problem, one that should be in the spotlight and immediately fixed.

The Need To Think For Ourselves

We all have to realize that society has been manufactured in a way where we simply give up our own mind to someone else, who has been given theirs by someone else. We lack the ability to think for ourselves because, from birth, we are programmed to think a certain way by somebody else.

This is something important for us to change, and by ‘us’ I not only mean patients; it should be a priority for all who practice medicine. And there are signs that it has started changing. Why? Because there is a shift in consciousness taking place. People within all societal systems (health, financial, education, government, etc.) are waking up, and starting to investigate what they have been taught. Rather than simply believing the promotional literature, more are pursuing self-education (which Dr. Malhotra stressed was the only real form of education).

Malhotra pointed out seven ‘sins’ that contribute to the lack of knowledge that not just doctors but everyone has, including patients, regarding modern day ‘medicine.’ He made these comments at a recent European Parliament meeting.

Other Prominent Doctors Speak Out

He’s not the only one to speak up about this issue. In fact, it seems that those who represent doctors have been speaking out about this for a long time. Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime Editor-in-Chief of the New England Medical Journal (NEMJ), considered one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals in the world, has said that,

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

Then there is Dr. Richard Horton, the current Editor-in-Chief of another prestigious peer-reviewed medical journal, The Lancet, who says,“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.” (source)

There are many examples of statements and documented evidence to choose from, which is why doctors like Malhotra are speaking out. You can watch his full talk below the tweet from November 21st, 2017.

from:    https://www.collective-evolution.com/2018/09/02/renowned-doctor-slams-medical-school-says-we-have-an-epidemic-of-misinformed-doctors/

On Vaccines

Vaccine Corruption Exposed To Washington State Board of Health

By Catherine J. Frompovich

Bernadette Pajer, co-president of Informed Choice Washington, made the most exceptional presentation before the Washington State Board of Health regarding fully informed medical consent and choice, full-disclosure regarding vaccine science and ingredients, plus Big Pharma’s apparently illegal tactics that deprive citizens of their inherent and indisputable rights to self-determination regarding their health, their children’s health and vaccines/vaccinations.

Ms. Pajer’s presentation needs to be studied, and even replicated, regarding what her group found out about the modus operandi of Big Pharma and vaccine manufacturers to deny personal health rights and the obvious collusion that goes on between dozens of groups, if not hundreds, and that Big Pharma foots the bill.

If that is not collusion and something subject to legal action under the RICO and Sherman Anti-Trust laws of the United States, I don’t know what is.

Brave Mom Exposes Vaccine Corruption To Washington State Board of Health
5:28 minutes

https://youtu.be/6nAJI2EYL-8?t=8

Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.

from:    https://www.activistpost.com/2018/08/vaccine-corruption-exposed-to-washington-state-board-of-health.html

Antidepressants and Violence

Study Finds That Antidepressants Can Double Person’s Likelihood of Depression and Violence

Posted by October 27, 2016 

anti-depressant

Brianna Acuesta | True Activist

In a landmark study conducted by Danish researchers found that antidepressants can cause a person to become twice as likely to commit suicide or engage in violent activity than before they started taking the drugs. The analysis looked at 11 studies in which people without any signs or history of depression were given antidepressants and then afterwards reported their level of anxiety, nervousness, and depression nearly doubled.

Professor Peter Gotzsche, from the Nordic Cochrane Centre and lead author of the study, said such feelings could be considered as “precursors to suicidality or violence.”

These findings indicate that when healthcare professionals assume that heightened anxiety or depression is caused by the person’s already-existing mental illness and not antidepressants, that this is a “potentially lethal misconception.”

Trial phases of the research conducted by drug companies that produce the SSRIs, such as Prozac, Luvox, Paxil, Zoloft, and Celexa, reported that some patients had experienced suicidal thoughts and ideations, and thoughts of violence.

Though antidepressants are seen as dangerous for children because they produce these feelings and thoughts, they are thought of as safe for adults. These findings show that this is not necessarily the case. Professor Gøtzsche told The Express,

“It is well documented that drug companies under-report seriously the harms of antidepressants related to suicide and violence, either by simply omitting them from reports, by calling them something else or by committing scientific misconduct.”

The dangers of antidepressants and the agenda that Big Pharma is pushing is becoming increasingly known, as people fight for their right for safe and affordable healthcare. Though these drugs can produce amazing effects on some of those suffering from depression and anxiety, the likelihood that they are also harming some users is high.

Warning labels on antidepressants do include mention that suicidal thoughts could increase during the initial period, but the results of such trials and how the drugs even affect people without mental illness are not made clear in any capacity.

Despite these findings by Professor Gøtzsche, many are quick to refute the claims. Professor Sir Simon Wessely, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Professor of Psychological Medicine, King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, said,

“Overall, medications used in any branch of medicine that do good can also do harm. The same applies in psychiatry. Current evidence from large scale studies continues to show that for antidepressants the benefits outweigh the risks. If the evidence changes then so will our advice, but this study changes nothing.”

Though it may change nothing about how pharmaceuticals market and make their antidepressants, it may change how people view the effectiveness and safety of such drugs. Reaching users and citizens is at the core of uprooting corrupt systems, such as pharmaceuticals who are primarily concerned about profit over safety.

What are your thoughts on these findings? Please share, like, and comment on this article!


This article (Study Finds That Antidepressants Can Double Person’s Likelihood Of Depression And Violence) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com

from:    http://consciouslifenews.com/study-finds-antidepressants-double-persons-likelihood-depression-violence/11127747/

Drugs, Effects, & the Mind

Taking Apart Psychiatry: Fraud-Kings of the Mind

Happy Sad PillsJon Rappoport, Guest
Waking Times

Exploding the myth of “good science…”

“Promoting diabolically false science, psychiatry creates a gateway for defining many separate states of consciousness that don’t exist at all. They’re cheap myths, fairy tales.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)

USA Today, January 26, 2016: “Primary care doctors should screen all adults for depression, an expert panel recommended Tuesday.”

—Let’s screen everybody to find out if they have mental disorders. Let’s diagnose as many people as possible with mental disorders and give them toxic drugs—

Wherever you see organized psychiatry operating, you see it trying to expand its domain and its dominance. The Hippocratic Oath to do no harm? Are you kidding?

The first question to ask is: do these mental disorders have any scientific basis? There are now roughly 300 of them. They multiply like fruit flies.

An open secret has been bleeding out into public consciousness for the past ten years.

THERE ARE NO DEFINITIVE LABORATORY TESTS FOR ANY SO-CALLED MENTAL DISORDER.

And along with that:

ALL SO-CALLED MENTAL DISORDERS ARE CONCOCTED, NAMED, LABELED, DESCRIBED, AND CATEGORIZED by a committee of psychiatrists, from menus of human behaviors.

Their findings are published in periodically updated editions of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), printed by the American Psychiatric Association.

For years, even psychiatrists have been blowing the whistle on this hazy crazy process of “research.”

Of course, pharmaceutical companies, who manufacture highly toxic drugs to treat every one of these “disorders,” are leading the charge to invent more and more mental-health categories, so they can sell more drugs and make more money.

In a PBS Frontline episode, Does ADHD Exist?, Dr. Russell Barkley, an eminent professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, unintentionally spelled out the fraud.

PBS FRONTLINE INTERVIEWER: Skeptics say that there’s no biological marker—that it [ADHD] is the one condition out there where there is no blood test, and that no one knows what causes it.

BARKLEY: That’s tremendously naïve, and it shows a great deal of illiteracy about science and about the mental health professions. A disorder doesn’t have to have a blood test to be valid. If that were the case, all mental disorders would be invalid… There is no lab test for any mental disorder right now in our science. That doesn’t make them invalid. [Emphasis added]

Oh, indeed, that does make them invalid. Utterly and completely. All 297 mental disorders. They’re all hoaxes. Because there are no defining tests of any kind to back up the diagnosis.

You can sway and tap dance and bloviate all you like and you won’t escape the noose around your neck. We are looking at a science that isn’t a science. That’s called fraud. Rank fraud.

There’s more. Under the radar, one of the great psychiatric stars, who has been out in front inventing mental disorders, went public. He blew the whistle on himself and his colleagues. And for years, almost no one noticed.

His name is Dr. Allen Frances, and he made VERY interesting statements to Gary Greenberg, author of a Wired article: “Inside the Battle to Define Mental Illness.” (Dec.27, 2010).

Major media never picked up on the interview in any serious way. It never became a scandal.

Dr. Allen Frances is the man who, in 1994, headed up the project to write the latest edition of the psychiatric bible, the DSM-IV. This tome defines and labels and describes every official mental disorder. The DSM-IV eventually listed 297 of them.

In an April 19, 1994, New York Times piece, “Scientist At Work,” Daniel Goleman called Frances “Perhaps the most powerful psychiatrist in America at the moment…”

Well, sure. If you’re sculpting the entire canon of diagnosable mental disorders for your colleagues, for insurers, for the government, for Pharma (who will sell the drugs matched up to the 297 DSM-IV diagnoses), you’re right up there in the pantheon.

Long after the DSM-IV had been put into print, Dr. Frances talked to Wired’s Greenberg and said the following:

“There is no definition of a mental disorder. It’s bullshit. I mean, you just can’t define it.”

BANG.

That’s on the order of the designer of the Hindenburg, looking at the burned rubble on the ground, remarking, “Well, I knew there would be a problem.”

After a suitable pause, Dr. Frances remarked to Greenberg, “These concepts [of distinct mental disorders] are virtually impossible to define precisely with bright lines at the borders.”

Frances might have been obliquely referring to the fact that his baby, the DSM-IV, had rearranged earlier definitions of ADHD and Bipolar to permit many MORE diagnoses, leading to a vast acceleration of drug-dosing with highly powerful and toxic compounds.

If this is medical science, a duck is a rocket ship.

To repeat, Dr. Frances’ work on the DSM IV allowed for MORE toxic drugs to be prescribed, because the definitions of Bipolar and ADHD were expanded to include more people.

Adverse effects of Valproate (given for a Bipolar diagnosis) include:

* acute, life-threatening, and even fatal liver toxicity;

* life-threatening inflammation of the pancreas;

* brain damage.

Adverse effects of Lithium (also given for a Bipolar diagnosis) include:

* intercranial pressure leading to blindness;

* peripheral circulatory collapse;

* stupor and coma.

Adverse effects of Risperdal (given for “Bipolar” and “irritability stemming from autism”) include:

* serious impairment of cognitive function;

* fainting;

* restless muscles in neck or face, tremors (may be indicative of motor brain damage).

Dr. Frances self-admitted label-juggling act also permitted the definition of ADHD to expand, thereby opening the door for greater and greater use of Ritalin (and other similar compounds) as the treatment of choice.

So…what about Ritalin?

In 1986, The International Journal of the Addictions published a most important literature review by Richard Scarnati. It was called “An Outline of Hazardous Side Effects of Ritalin (Methylphenidate)” [v.21(7), pp. 837-841].

Scarnati listed a large number of adverse effects of Ritalin and cited published journal articles which reported each of these symptoms.

For every one of the following (selected and quoted verbatim) Ritalin effects, there is at least one confirming source in the medical literature:

* Paranoid delusions

* Paranoid psychosis

* Hypomanic and manic symptoms, amphetamine-like psychosis

* Activation of psychotic symptoms

* Toxic psychosis

* Visual hallucinations

* Auditory hallucinations

* Can surpass LSD in producing bizarre experiences

* Effects pathological thought processes

* Extreme withdrawal

* Terrified affect

* Started screaming

* Aggressiveness

* Insomnia

* Since Ritalin is considered an amphetamine-type drug, expect amphetamine-like effects

* Psychic dependence

* High-abuse potential DEA Schedule II Drug

* Decreased REM sleep

* When used with antidepressants one may see dangerous reactions including hypertension, seizures and hypothermia

* Convulsions

* Brain damage may be seen with amphetamine abuse.

In the US alone, there are at least 300,000 cases of motor brain damage incurred by people who have been prescribed so-called anti-psychotic drugs (aka “major tranquilizers”). Risperdal (mentioned above as a drug given to people diagnosed with Bipolar) is one of those major tranquilizers. (source: Toxic Psychiatry, Dr. Peter Breggin, St. Martin’s Press, 1991)

This psychiatric drug plague is accelerating across the land.

Where are the mainstream reporters and editors and newspapers and TV anchors who should be breaking this story and mercilessly hammering on it week after week? They are in harness.

Thank you, Dr. Frances.

Let’s take a little trip back in time and review how one psychiatric drug, Prozac, escaped a bitter fate, by hook and by crook. It’s an instructive case.

Prozac, in fact, endured a rocky road in the press for a while. Stories on it rarely appear now. The major media have backed off. But on February 7th, 1991, Amy Marcus’ Wall Street Journal article on the drug carried the headline, “Murder Trials Introduce Prozac Defense.”

She wrote, “A spate of murder trials in which defendants claim they became violent when they took the antidepressant Prozac are imposing new problems for the drug’s maker, Eli Lilly and Co.”

Also on February 7, 1991, the New York Times ran a Prozac piece headlined, “Suicidal Behavior Tied Again to Drug: Does Antidepressant Prompt Violence?”

In his landmark book, Toxic Psychiatry, Dr. Breggin mentions that the Donahue show (Feb. 28, 1991) “put together a group of individuals who had become compulsively self-destructive and murderous after taking Prozac and the clamorous telephone and audience response confirmed the problem.”

A shocking review-study published in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases (1996, v.184, no.2), written by Rhoda L. Fisher and Seymour Fisher, called “Antidepressants for Children,” concludes:

“Despite unanimous literature of double-blind studies indicating that antidepressants are no more effective than placebos in treating depression in children and adolescents, such medications continue to be in wide use.”

An instructive article, “Protecting Prozac,” by Michael Grinfeld, in the December 1998 California Lawyer, opens several doors. Grinfeld notes that “in the past year nearly a dozen cases involving Prozac have disappeared from the court record.” He was talking about law suits against the manufacturer, Eli Lilly, and he was saying that those cases had apparently been settled, without trial, in such a quiet and final way, with such strict confidentiality, that it is almost as if they never happened.

Grinfeld details a set of maneuvers involving attorney Paul Smith, who in the early 1990s became the lead plaintiffs’ counsel in the famous Fentress lawsuit against Eli Lilly.

The plaintiffs made the accusation that Prozac had induced a man to commit murder.This was the first action involving Prozac to reach a trial and jury, so it would establish a major precedent for a large number of other pending suits against the manufacturer.

The case: On September 14, 1989, Joseph Wesbecker, a former employee of Standard Gravure, in Louisville, Kentucky, walked into the workplace, with an AK-47 and a SIG Sauer pistol, killed eight people, wounded 12 others, and committed suicide. Family members of the victims subsequently sued Eli Lilly, the maker of Prozac, on the grounds that Wesbecker had been pushed over the edge into violence by the drug.

The trial: After what many people thought was a very weak attack on Lilly by plaintiffs’ lawyer Smith, the jury came back in five hours with an easy verdict favoring Lilly and Prozac.

Grinfeld writes, “Lilly’s defense attorneys predicted the verdict would be the death knell for [anti-]Prozac litigation.”

But that wasn’t the end of the Fentress case. “Rumors began to circulate that [the plaintiffs’ attorney] Smith had made several [prior] oral agreements with Lilly concerning the evidence that would be presented [in Fentress], the structure of a postverdict settlement, and the potential resolution of Smith’s other [anti-Prozac] cases.”

In other words, the rumors declared: This plaintiff’s lawyer, Smith, made a deal with Lilly to present a weak attack, to omit evidence damaging to Prozac, so that the jury would find Lilly innocent of all charges. In return, the case would be settled secretly, with Lilly paying out big monies to Smith’s client. In this way, Lilly would avoid the exposure of a public settlement, and through the innocent verdict, would discourage other potential plaintiffs from suing it over Prozac.

The rumors congealed. The judge in the Fentress case, John Potter, asked lawyers on both sides if “money had changed hands.” He wanted to know if the fix was in. The lawyers said no money had been paid, “without acknowledging that an agreement was in place.”

Judge Potter didn’t stop there. In April 1995, Grinfeld notes, “In court papers, Potter wrote that he was surprised that the plaintiffs’ attorneys [Smith] hadn’t introduced evidence that Lilly had been charged criminally for failing to report deaths from another of its drugs to the Food and Drug Administration. Smith had fought hard [during the Fentress trial] to convince Potter to admit that evidence, and then unaccountably withheld it.”

In Judge Potter’s motion, he alleged that “Lilly [in the Fentress case] sought to buy not just the verdict, but the court’s judgment as well.”

In 1996, the Kentucky Supreme Court issued an opinion: “…there was a serious lack of candor with the trial court [during Fentress] and there may have been deception, bad faith conduct, abuse of the judicial process or perhaps even fraud.”

After the Supreme Court remanded the Fentress case back to the state attorney general’s office, the whole matter dribbled away, and then resurfaced in a different form, in another venue. At the time of the California Lawyer article, a new action against Smith was unresolved. Eventually, Eli Lilly escaped punishment.

Based on the rigged Fentress case, Eli Lilly silenced many lawsuits based on Prozac inducing murder and suicide.

Quite a story.

And it all really starts with the institution of psychiatry inventing a whole branch of science that doesn’t exist, thereby defining 300 mental disorders that don’t exist.

Here’s a coda:

This one is big.

The so-called “chemical-imbalance theory of mental illness is dead.

Dr. Ronald Pies, the editor-in-chief emeritus of the Psychiatric Times, laid the theory to rest in the July 11, 2011, issue of the Times with this staggering admission:

“In truth, the ‘chemical imbalance’ notion was always a kind of urban legend — never a theory seriously propounded by well-informed psychiatrists.”

Boom.

Dead.

However…urban legend? No. For decades the whole basis of psychiatric drug research, drug prescription, and drug sales has been: “we’re correcting a chemical imbalance in the brain.”

The problem was, researchers had never established a normal baseline for chemical balance. So they were shooting in the dark. Worse, they were faking a theory. Pretending they knew something when they didn’t.

In his 2011 piece in Psychiatric Times, Dr. Pies tries to cover his colleagues in the psychiatric profession with this fatuous remark:

“In the past 30 years, I don’t believe I have ever heard a knowledgeable, well-trained psychiatrist make such a preposterous claim [about chemical imbalance in the brain], except perhaps to mock it…the ‘chemical imbalance’ image has been vigorously promoted by some pharmaceutical companies, often to the detriment of our patients’ understanding.”

Absurd. First of all, many psychiatrists have explained and do explain to their patients that the drugs are there to correct a chemical imbalance.

And second, if all well-trained psychiatrists have known, all along, that the chemical-imbalance theory is a fraud…

…then why on earth have they been prescribing tons of drugs to their patients…

…since those drugs are developed on the false premise that they correct a chemical imbalance?

Here’s what’s happening. The honchos of psychiatry are seeing the handwriting on the wall. Their game has been exposed. They’re taking heavy flack on many fronts.

The chemical-imbalance theory is a fake. There are no defining physical tests for any of the 300 so-called mental disorders. All diagnoses are based on arbitrary clusters or menus of human behavior. The drugs are harmful, dangerous, toxic. Some of them induce violence. Suicide, homicide. Some of the drugs cause brain damage.

Psychiatry is a pseudo-pseudo science.

So the shrinks have to move into another model, another con, another fraud. And they’re looking for one.

For example, genes plus “psycho-social factors.” A mish-mash of more unproven science.

“New breakthrough research on the functioning of the brain is paying dividends and holds great promise…” Professional gibberish.

It’s all gibberish, all the way down.

Meanwhile, the business model demands drugs for sale.

So even though the chemical-imbalance nonsense has been discredited, it will continue on as a dead man walking, a zombie.

Big Pharma isn’t going to back off. Trillions of dollars are at stake.

And in the wake of Aurora, Colorado, Sandy Hook, the Naval Yard, and other mass shootings, the hype is expanding: “we must have new community mental-health centers all over America.”

More fake diagnosis of mental disorders, more devastating drugs.

You want to fight for a right? Fight for the right to refuse medication. Fight for the right of every parent to refuse medication for his/her child.

from:    http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/03/01/taking-apart-psychiatry-fraud-kings-of-the-mind/

The TPP, Confederate Flag, & Multinationals

AS ALWAYS —- DO YOUR RESEARCH

ECONOMIC SLAVERY FOR ALL: While we were distracted with the Confederate flag flap, Congress quietly forfeited our entire economic future via fast-track trade authority

(NaturalNews) While America was distracted by a contrived, pre-planned Confederate flag distraction, the U.S. Congress forfeited the entire economic future of the country by quietly passing so-called “fast-track authority” which will allow President Obama to approve the TPP “free trade” agreement.

The TPP, as you may have heard, outright surrenders U.S. sovereignty to multinational corporations, handing them total global monopolies over labor practices, immigration, Big Pharma drug pricing, GMO food labeling, criminalization of garden seeds and much more. In all, the TPP hands over control of 80% of the U.S. economy to global monopolists, and the TPP is set up to enable those corporations to engage in virtually unlimited toxic chemical pollution, medical monopolization, the gutting of labor safety laws and much more.

Plus, did I mention the TPP will displace millions of American works as corporations outsource jobs to foreign workers? While corporations rake in the profits from new global powers, everyday American workers will lose their livelihoods and their jobs (not to mention their pensions).

Political sleight of hand: It was SOOOO easy to distract the American people with a flag flap!
Essentially, America just got sold out by people like Marco Rubio. And it was incredibly easy to pull off, too. First, America was distracted by a contrived, pre-planned mass hysteria / outrage event now known as the Confederate flag flap. Hilariously, this literal false flag controversy doesn’t even involve the actual Confederate flag. It involves a battle flag that people mistakenly think is the Confederate flag. (But who needs historical accuracy when there’s hysteria to spread?)

While Amazon.com was frantically deleting Confederate flag products from its website and everybody was going bat-crap insane over the 1970’s comedy TV series Dukes of Hazzard and its use of the so-called Confederate flag on a hot rod car, Republicans and the President were busy committing outright treason at the highest levels: surrendering American sovereignty and economically enslaving all of America’s future children.

And that’s the tragic irony of all this: While the political left falsely believed it was denouncing slavery by pressuring every online retailer and government entity to ban the Confederate flag, the U.S. Congress was busy enacting a whole new level of total economic enslavement for everyone, regardless of their skin color.

While ignorant “activists” ran around in mass hysteria, thinking they were banishing a symbol of enslavement to the history books, they were actually providing the necessary public distraction for quiet passage of the TPP’s fast-track authority.

In other words, they played right into the hands of the real slave masters: the globalist, monopolist corporations and their fascist government puppets who betray the People at every opportunity.

Believe me: These corporations don’t care about the skin color of their slave workers. They gladly enslave everyone, including you and me, if we’re stupid enough to allow our own elected representatives to forfeit America’s future (which they just did).

Screw the Confederate flag issue, folks: All Americans are now the “property” of multinational monopolist corporations that have turned national governments against their own people. The Confederate flag flap was merely a useful distraction to trick the population using political sleight of hand to fool everyone about the real agenda being pursued in Washington.

America is now officially a nation of slave workers beholden to multinational corporate interests. How does your silly flag outrage feel now?
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/050199_fast-track_authority_TPP_Confederate_flag.html#ixzz3eHqRC6nV

Ebola Virus – Panic & Vaccine

CAVEAT:  As always, Do your Research, check things out, pay attention, and do not panic:

 

Doctor: ‘There’s Not Enough PANIC and Customers to Make an Ebola Vaccine’ — Oh Really?

Melissa Melton
Activist Post

A short two-minute video Bloomberg News uploaded to YouTube attempts to explain why the world doesn’t already have a widely available Ebola vaccine.

(Trusting the ingredients of such a thing and whether or not you would personally take it is another matter entirely, but hold on a second.)

What’s fascinating about this clip is what Dr. Ben Neuman, University of Reading, says towards the end.

Neuman explains that because viruses easily mutate, “It’s not just one drug we need for Ebola. We need a cocktail of drugs and perhaps a nice vaccine that could be used.”

Hm. Sounds like a Big Pharma hay day pay day, does it not?

But Dr. Ben also goes on to explain why the major pharmaceutical companies haven’t been all that eager to produce this cocktail of drugs and vaccines — which would surely translate to big bucks — just yet.

These all take a lot of money and right now in the history of what we know at least, there have been fewer than 5,000 people who have been infected with Ebola. It sounds scary, but I don’t know that there’s enough…uh…panic or enough people who are potential customers for these drugs to warrant a company — a private company anyway — putting the money it would take to develop this. [emphasis added]

Did you catch that? (Yeah, I know you did, that’s why I added the emphasis.)

Watch the video. The good doctor even struggles to find his words before he says he isn’t sure there is enough panic and customers to warrant developing a vaccine.

This is despite the fact that articles were coming out in scientific circles back in 2008 that Ebola vaccines had been successfully used in animal trials and even on one human patient, a lab worker who accidentally pricked her finger with an Ebola-laced syringe.

There’s not enough panic to go any further with it, though? Well, gee Ben, where can we get some panic from?

This video reveals two fundamental truths.

One: pharmaceuticals and vaccines really aren’t about saving lives…oh no, first and foremost, they’re about making money.

Two: there has to be enough panic to stir up potential customers to necessitate the creation of said pharmaceuticals and vaccines and there just simply was not enough Ebola panic to go around to make it worth it.

Well…there certainly is enough pricey panic now, isn’t there?

It’s a concerted effort. As I wrote earlier in an article questioning this sudden media zoo surrounding Ebola and why, in an unprecedented move, we’re suddenly shipping people infected with Ebola here for the first time ever, a lot of people in the military-medical-media industrial complex stand to make a lot of money off of this virus.

And, right on time, Reuters is reporting that they’re going to fast track a new Ebola vaccine and start testing on human patients as early as next month. Was that quick or what?

The Hegelian Dialectic is such a timeless strategy. Why? Because it works. So they just keep using it over and over and over.

Problem: not enough panic to make the big bucks off Ebola.

Reaction: create a panic to make the big bucks off Ebola.

Solution: problem solved.

It’s basically the same strategy they used to pawn off fast tracked, experimental H1N1 vaccines on people just a few years ago, only this time they’re playing with a much scarier virus to induce even more fear. In fact, next time you see a headline like, ‘Ebola fear going viral’ feel free to keep this in mind.

Melissa Melton is a writer, researcher, and analyst for The Daily Sheeple, where this first appeared, and a co-creator of Truthstream Media with Aaron Dykes, a site that offers teleprompter-free, unscripted analysis of The Matrix we find ourselves living in. Melissa also co-founded Nutritional Anarchy with Daisy Luther of The Organic Prepper, a site focused on resistance through food self-sufficiency. Wake the flock up!

from:    http://www.activistpost.com/2014/08/doctor-theres-not-enough-panic-and.html#!bxnJoD

High Cholestrol can be Good

How Medical ‘Science’ Proves that Black Is White

July 24, 2013

The corruption of medical science continues apace. Dr. Malcolm Kendrick shows how one study draws a conclusion that’s the exact opposite of what its data documents. Apparently, it doesn’t matter how many tricks and twists are applied, as long as the conclusion states what the pharmaceutical corporation wants.

Man Faking Hiding His Eyes

Photo by Cayusa

by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick

Last week I was going through some old files, and presentations, in a vague effort to clean up my computer. Whilst looking a one of many thousands of studies I had filed away I came across this paper: ‘Clarifying the direct relation between total cholesterol levels and death from coronary heart disease in older persons1.’

I read it, and immediately recalled why I kept it. For it came to the following, final, conclusion:

 ‘Elevated total cholesterol level is a risk factor for death from coronary heart disease in older adults.’

I remember when I first read this paper a few years ago. My initial thought was to doubt that it could be true. Most of the evidence I had seen strongly suggested that, in the elderly, a high cholesterol level was actually protective against Coronary Heart Disease (CHD).

However, when a bunch of investigators state unequivocally that elevated cholesterol is a risk factor for heart disease, I try to give them the benefit of the doubt. So I read the damned thing. Always a potentially dangerous waste of precious brainpower.

Now, I am not going to dissect all the data in detail here, but one sentence that jumped out of the paper was the following:

‘Persons (Over 65) with the lowest total cholesterol levels ≤4.15 mmol/L had the highest rate of death from coronary heart disease, whereas those with elevated total cholesterol levels ≥ or = 6.20 mmol/L seemed to have a lower risk for death from coronary heart disease. ‘

Now, I can hardly blame you if you struggled to fit those two quotes together. On one hand, the conclusion of the paper was that .. ‘Elevated total cholesterol level is a risk factor for death from coronary heart disease in older adults.’ On the other hand, the authors reported that those with the lowest total cholesterol levels had the highest rate of CHD; whilst those with the highest cholesterol levels had the lowest rate of CHD.

Taken at face value, this paper seems to be contradicting itself … utterly. However, the key word here, as you may have already noted, is seemed. As in … those with elevated total cholesterol levels ≥ or = 6.20 mmol/L seemed to have a lower risk for death from coronary heart disease. ‘

Now you may think that this is a strange word to use in a scientific paper. Surely those with elevated total cholesterol levels either did, or did not, have a lower risk of death from CHD? Dying is not really something you can fake, and once a cause of death has been recorded it cannot be changed at a later date. So how can someone seem to die of something – yet not die of it?

The answer is that you take the bare statistics, then you stretch them and bend them until you get the answer you want. Firstly, you adjust your figures for established risk factors for coronary heart disease – which may be justified (or may not be). Then you adjust for markers of poor health – which most certainly is not justified – as you have no idea if you are looking at cause, effect, or association.

Then, when this doesn’t provide the answer you want, you exclude a whole bunch of deaths, for reasons that are complete nonsense. I quote:

After adjustment for established risk factors for coronary heart disease and markers of poor health and exclusion of 44 deaths from coronary heart disease that occurred within the first year, [my bold text]elevated total cholesterol levels predicted increased risk for death from coronary heart disease, and the risk for death from coronary heart disease decreased as cholesterol levels decreased.

Why did they exclude 44 deaths within the first year?  Well, they decided that having a low cholesterol level was a marker for poor health, and so it was the poor health that killed them within the first year.

The reason why they believed they could do this is that, a number of years ago, a man called Iribarren decreed that the raised mortality always seen in those with low cholesterol levels is because people with low cholesterol have underlying diseases. And it is these underlying diseases that kill them. (What, even dying from CHD. And how, exactly does CHD cause a low cholesterol levels … one might ask).

In truth, there has never been a scrap of evidence to support Iribarren’s made-up ad-hoc hypothesis. [A bottle of champagne for anyone who can find any evidence]. However, it is now so widely believed to be true, that no-one questions it.

Anyway, without chasing down too many completely made-up ad-hoc hypotheses, the bottom line is that this paper stands a perfect example of how you can take a result you don’t like and turn it through one hundred and eighty degrees. At which point you have a conclusion that you do like.

Young researcher: (Bright and innocent)  ‘Look, this is really interesting, elderly people with low cholesterol levels are at greater risk of dying of heart disease.’

Professor: (Smoothly threatening) ‘I think you will find … if you were to look more carefully, that this is not what you actually found … Is it? By the way, how is your latest grant application going?’

Young researcher: (Flushing red at realising his blunder) ‘Yes, by golly, how silly of me. I think I really found that elderly people with high cholesterol levels are at a greater risk of dying of heart disease.’

Professor: ‘Yes, excellent. Be a good lad, find a good statistician to make sure the figures make sense, and write it up.’

For those who wonder at my almost absolute cynicism with regard to the current state of Evidence Based Medicine, I offer this paper as a further example of the way that facts are beaten into submission until they fit with current medical scientific dogma.

As a final sign off I would advise that any paper that has the word ‘clarifying’ in its title, should be treated with the utmost suspicion. I think George Orwell would know exactly what the word clarifying means in this context. Facts do not need clarification.

You can watch Dr. Kendrick discussing cholesterol and heart disease here.

1: Corti MC et al: Clarifying the direct relation between total cholesterol levels and death from coronary heart disease in older persons. Ann Intern Med. 1997 May 15;126(10):753-60

from:    http://gaia-health.com/gaia-blog/2013-07-24/how-medical-science-proves-that-black-is-white/