The Drug Companies

It's downright scary to realize what the pharmaceutical industry has become. Using lawyers, bribes, lobbyist, insurance companies and the power of the Federal Drug Administration, the drug companies have created a monopoly on 'health care.' 

The pharmaceutical companies make more profit than any other big business, and they plan to keep it that way. Their obvious goal is to make us totally dependant on them by trying to ensure that there is a disease, condition or syndrome to cover as many people as possible.

Through more and more laws being passed, they have nearly put an end to Natural Doctors, Natural Medicine and self-care. They have made many healing herbs, foods and even nutrients illegal, with the help of corrupt officials and the FDA.

Natural health professionals that flourished a few decades ago are now barred by law to practice, and Natural Doctors, Holistic Healers, Health Food Store Owners and even family members of the sick have even been arrested and jailed for using natural remedies.

An interesting story is applicable here. Many years ago when I had fell into a fast-paced lifestyle, eating a horrible diet, not getting enough sleep, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and generally abusing my body, I had fallen into very bad health and gained a lot of weight.

I went in to see a doctor and he immediately put me on blood pressure medication. I asked him then if I changed my diet, started exercising and lost weight, if I would still have to be on the medication. He assured me I would have to take it for the rest of my life. I didn't believe it.

I immediately started on a healthy diet, quit drinking and smoking, got plenty of sleep, started juicing and lost almost 50 pounds. When I saw the doctor the next time he said my blood pressure was fine, and he looked quite pleased. When I told him I had discontinued the medication some 6 weeks prior, he looked extremely upset and then advised me that I 'needed' to continue taking it!

I never saw that doctor again, nor have I ever been on blood pressure medication again either.

There's obviously no profit to be made by the drug companies from healthy people, so they use nearly any and all methods available to protect their money machine.

"According to a set of essays published in the Public Library of Science Medicine, drug companies are systematically inventing non-existent diseases, or exaggerating minor ones, in order to sell more of their products.

The practice turns healthy people into patients, and places many of them at risk of medically induced harm. Minor, normal problems, such as the symptoms of menopause, have been "medicalized" into treatable illnesses, and risk factors like high cholesterol are being treated as diseases in their own right.

Conditions including female sexual dysfunction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and "restless legs syndrome" have all been exaggerated and promoted by companies hoping to sell drugs. Even ordinary shyness is often defined by drug companies as a social anxiety disorder to be treated with antidepressants.

Richard Ley, of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, pointed out that some countries including Britain, have legal safeguards against drug industry "disease mongering." Most of the criticisms, he argued, apply primarily to countries like the United States where drugs can be advertised directly to patients."

Public Library of Science Medicine April 11, 2006; 3(4)  Times Online April 11, 2006

Obviously the best thing that you can do to save yourself from the pharmaceutical companies, is to take control of your own health through educating yourself on a proper diet, natural supplements, plenty of exercise and the other common sense habits that will assure that you won't have to become a 'victim' of the drug companies.

As long as this is a trillion dollar industry, I can't ever see anyone on the receiving end of the funds to try to make things right.