Category Archives: Big Pharma

Well, this is not good…healthcare worker tests positive **edited

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…for Ebola.  Note how they immediately blame the healthcare worker for “breach in protocol”…without confirming what happened.

With what has happened with this hospital from the get-go, I’m not too confident with their assessment.

They sent Duncan home when he had a 103 degree fever…because he didn’t have health insurance.

#%&*!

This is the problem with for-profit medicine….thank you, President Nixon…and with hospitals run by CEOs instead of doctors.  Yes, young ones, doctors used to be in charge of running hospitals, before medicine became profit-driven.  Doctors used to run hospitals as they should be run–with compassion and an understanding of health issues.

They shove poor patients out the door before they are truly well enough to be dismissed, and here is the prime example of why this practice should be illegal….and why medicine needs to go back to how it was before Nixon thought HMO’s would be a great idea.

**edited to add:  I also question their blaming the victim for not following protocol, because as is reported, she was taking her temps twice a day.  She was being vigilant…so why would she break protocol when she obviously was aware of the risk and was monitoring herself?

Preventing Ebola, enterovirus….

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Until yesterday, NOBODY from the CDC or other official agencies had stated what people could do to prevent contracting Ebola or Enterovirus.

Joy Reid, MSNBC, had a professor from Louisiana State University and he said we could simply prevent getting the disease by….drum roll please….washing our hands.

Radical, I know.

One has to wonder why the CDC and others would not repeatedly state this in order to give people the tools they need to protect themselves?  The hysteria being created now warrants it.

Good old soap and water are your best bets against getting sick.  Not hand sanitizer.   I was taught at the Health Department that you should sing the “Happy Birthday” song in your head while washing your hands, for the proper amount of time.  My Science journalism professor told us the reason for friction is that it is the way to kill the microbes, and the soap is what lifts it off the surface of the skin.

I found a pretty good video on proper handwashing:

 

 

Be well, my friends.

Glucuronidation: one of the body’s detox pathways

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I am forever in awe of our bodies and how they perform every day miracles of protecting itself from toxins.

Today, I learned another term from the wonderful mercury support group: glucuronidation.  It’s apparently another chemical reaction in the body that helps the detox pathways to work properly.  Isn’t this fascinating?

Note how your everyday drugs can interfere with the body’s own design to take care of itself.

I’ve recently started taking ibuprofen to head off a migraine.  It worked a couple of times last month, and I took some this morning because I felt another one coming on.  It’s the only time I will take it anymore–because it can cause damage to the intestines, and it damages kidney cells.  So I have to really feel that  migraine is coming on in order to risk the harm to my body.  I figure that a migraine is much, much more harmful and devastating.  I feel so weak afterwards, it has to be doing some damage…especially when I lose five pounds with them (and then gain it back).

I cringe at the thought that I used to take ibuprofen almost on a daily basis, back in the day.  With being exposed to mercury via coal dust, and amalgam in baby teeth, and being gluten intolerant, I  had been taking ibuprofen for symptoms that would go away with proper detox.  It’s that slippery slope–where the body is damaged, resulting in pain, and the man-made drugs help for a time, but with interfering with detox pathways, make everything worse–and the person takes more of the drugs to relieve the increasing symptoms…and on…

Now, with the glucuronidation knowledge, there is even more reason not to take these FDA approved drugs unless there is an overwhelming reason to do so.

And Big Pharma thinks it’s quite all right for you to get worse on their drugs…more profits for them.

Hope my dear readers find this as fascinating as I do.  Isn’t the body wonderful?

Sirota is back…

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Woot.  

(hat tip Diane Ravitch)

A voice that was silenced by those proclaiming to be progressive and open-minded weren’t quite so much when put to the test.  It’s not hard to see why when you read this article blasting Hillary Clinton.  There’s a powerful push to get her into office, despite the coy “I haven’t decided” b.s. that she is spewing.  I’ve said it before, but I’m sick of Clintons and Bushes in the White House.  Time for a real change for a politician that actually speaks up for the “little people” who don’t have big lobbyists, big PACs, nor big money to influence Washington.

My own Big Pharm stories

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I thought I should tell my own stories related to prescription drug reactions–

In 1991, I took a drug called Seldane for sinus issues.  I was also taking a drug called Synarel for endometriosis.  This stupid drug was developed to put a woman’s body into premature menopause…under the misguided notion that the women’s period was the cause of Endometriosis ( I now believe it is related to gluten intolerance and heavy metal poisoning–since the symptoms began around the same time of coal ash exposure.)

As you can probably guess, there was a reaction…

One night, after taking the Synarel and Seldane, I began to get ready for bed.  I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, etc., when I dropped a bottle of rubbing alcohol.  As I reached for it from the cabinet, the bottle just passed through my hand as if I was not gripping it at all.

When I bent over to pick it up, my left arm went numb and began to swing aimlessly–as if I had no control over it.  I knew something was terribly wrong.

My heart was racing at an incredible speed–not even during the most strenuous aerobic exercise did I ever feel it beat that hard and that fast.  My chest felt like an elephant was sitting on it.  There was an incredible burning in the center of my chest. I had all the symptoms of a heart attack.

I could not talk for about five minutes.  My brain was screaming “something’s wrong!” but I could not get my mouth to move to tell my ex something was terribly wrong.

The episode subsided–that is, the emergency symptoms subsided, and I was able to call my pharmacist, who was at a party and didn’t really want to be bothered.  He said it was just a reaction and that I should continue taking the drugs! No way.

And being a woman, which the medical profession considers “emotional” and “hypochondriac/psychotic”…it was hard to be believed when I told of my symptoms.

A neurologist actually said that I had a complicated migraine…even though I had the classic symptoms of a heart attack. Every afternoon, when I walked up a small hill to the mailbox, I again was hit with numbness down my left arm.

Two years after this episode, the FDA finally banned Seldane because of the side effects.  It had to take a woman dying of heart arrythmias before the drug was removed.  I later learned that they took the ingredient out that caused the arrythmias, and remarketed it under another name.

Then I find out that Synarel, too, causes heart palpitations, dizziness, chest pain, nausea, etc….

Women are not believed when they present with symptoms of a heart attack.  There are those who say that women don’t always have the same symptoms of men for heart attacks.

I remember sitting in the local hospital’s emergency room when a woman walked in, complaining of chest pain.  She was told to sit down in the waiting area.  Had she been a man, she would have been ushered back to the rooms immediately.

I have read of women who thought they had heart attacks but were not believed.  When they did autopsies after death, the woman had, in fact, had several heart attacks.

As you know, I’ve gone on to overcome this episode–resuming aerobic exercise after a period of rest and recovery.  I was scared sh*tless, I tell you, when I first began exercising again.  But I thought that I couldn’t just give up.  Little did I know that was a precursor of things to come…

And here I am, after struggling through one of the darkest periods of my life, finding the answer that no damn doctor ever diagnosed, and now the Big Pharma run FDA, has taken away one of the chelators that helped me get well.

Somebody please explain it to me…because I don’t understand that prescription drugs that did me a great deal of harm were approved by the FDA, but something that was not that helped me get well, is now by prescription only?  Doctors are not knowledgeable about chemistry, according to Dr. Cutler.  They are not required to take more than a couple of classes in chemistry, so they don’t understand the complicated nature of heavy metal chelation…and yet I’m supposed to trust them, after all I’ve been through?

Not a chance.

 

 

The toxic waterways

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I had heard this report was out but hadn’t seen it until now–about our toxic waterways.  Indiana, unfortunately, heads the list for toxic load.  It’s worse than I first read about–the number now is 17 million pounds of toxins into our waterways.  43 million pounds released into the Ohio river, THE most toxic river.  Good Grief.

And Joe Donnelly, Dan Coats, and Jackie Walorski, paid by their bosses (in the form of campaign $$, and God knows what else), are fighting for the industries’ right to poison us.    Some of them are so bold to say they’re fighting for us and our families….seriously.  17 million pounds of toxins.  Whom is irresponsible, Mr. Coats?

NY Times has a page up on fines and violations…and how nobody takes responsibility.

The Sierra Club’s take on the Indiana Dept. of Environmental Mis-Management, including a dog boiled alive by hot water discharge, and a coal industry lobbyist being appointed to…wait for it…the IDEM–for prosecuting the polluters.  If this wasn’t so serious, I would be laughing my arse off.

 

 

More on the Middle East

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I’ve read a few good posts on the Middle East-– Iraq and the U.S.’s role in the mess there.

I have to agree with the writer’s premise–that we have made a mess of things and they need to work this out for themselves without us riding in on a white horse to only make matters worse.

They know how many Americans feel about Muslims–led by a biased media willing to portray them as all thinking alike.  That is as stupid as portraying all women as thinking alike. Or anyone, for that matter.

My other posts on Iran here and here.

Palestinians cry for help.

Presbyterian Church divests itself of U.S. corporations helping Israel to destroy the Palestinians.

 

 

 

Alert

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Just wanted to give you a head’s up on something the mercury group has posted~

Vitamin Research Products (vrp.com) is no longer stocking DMSA, one of the chelators of mercury and lead.  They just suddenly stopped stocking it and have even removed the page from their website.

This is not good news.  They were the main supplier of DMSA.  Theories are abound that Big Pharma is behind this–buying out the competition.  And if they can buy out natural cures, they can force sick people to buy their side-effect-laden crap.

There are also allegations that Obamacare is limiting natural methods of healing, such as chelation supplements, making it harder for folks to get well. I don’t know this for fact, but it is one of the reasons I have not signed up for the health care.  Another reason is the link to the insurance industry instead of single-payer, which would have been more palatable, being like Medicare for All.

I can tell you that many of us on the group lost jobs as a result of mercury–therefore, we had lost the ability to pay for medical insurance and the ability to pay for supplements that insurance didn’t cover.   But at least the supplements were available…and cheap.  I would have not gotten well without that.  So once again, the poor take a hit for the uber wealthy to make even more profits….

I suspected that Big Pharma would try to grab this part of the market again, because they had in the past and continually try to get some twerp in Congress to do their bidding with making supplements illegal.

With billions of dollars and high-priced lawyers, they have gotten away with trying to take credit for natural healing herbs and methods, such as those used in India.  These were used for thousands of years…and Big Pharma comes along and tries to claim a patent.  Utterly mindboggling.  More here on Big Pharma’s battle to get a share of the market in India. An even better explanation of it here.

Big Pharma tries to claim that compulsory licenses aren’t available for cancer drugs – a lie; or that they are only available for national emergencies – another lie; or that India is establishing a general exception to patents for pharmaceuticals – an even bigger lie.  Sovereigns retain the right under TRIPS to issue compulsory licenses or to allow public, non-commercial use of patented products or processes.  As long as the correct procedures are followed and adequate remuneration is paid, the patent holder has nothing legitimate to complain about – unless, of course, it is a U.S. multinational who doesn’t want an emerging country like India to get in its way.

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…or for a group of U.S. citizens who want natural methods to heal their bodies to get their way….

And unfortunately, that’s not all that the greedy are trying to patent.

Lastly, here is a good segment on DN! with Vandana and Mira Shiva–two “uppity” women I admire for fighting the good fight~~

Vandana brings up the point of liability.  It would seem that none of the chemical companies — be it Dow/Union Carbide or any Big Pharma — want to take responsibility for the harm that they cause.  All the profits. None of the guilt.

She also highlights the attitudes towards the poor–they don’t matter so let’s poison them or use them as guinea pigs.

It was great to hear of them speak of their strong mother in the end~~no junk food in the house.  My father, too, did not allow junk food in the house when I was growing up–a parent who cares is not going to feed their child junk.  I heard the other day of parents of my children’s generation feeding their kids nothing but junk…and they don’t see anything wrong with that.  Very unsettling.  Regretfully, I didn’t appreciate my Dad’s wisdom until recently.  I always felt deprived because other kids got to have a “treat” of junk food on Friday night.  Just before the divorce, my sister would make Chef Boy-ar-dee pizzas on Friday night.  I felt happy at getting that “treat”.  Pfft.  The “treat” that kills.

Food is medicine.  Weeds are medicine.  When will we learn to value that which is not valuable by profit-making and make that available to all, not just those with cash in hand??

 

 

IVAW statement on making VA political

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Iraq Veterans Against the War has this up on the republican-wrap-themselves-in-a-flag manipulative political game they’re playing.

When that stunt didn’t work the GOP blocked the passage of a bill that would have opened up 27 new VA health clinics, strengthened one of many health programs like sexual trauma care and gone far in reducing the benefits backlog. These are just a few of the many opportunities to improve the lives of veterans that political gamesmanship squandered.

“Why would Congressional members put Iran sanctions into a bill meant to care for so many veterans? The answer is that in the end members of Congress like Mitch McConnell don’t actually care about healing veterans.” said Matt Howard, Marine veteran and Communications Director of IVAW.

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Sickening, isn’t it?

And from the not-too-distant past, George W. Bush speaking out both sides of his mouth towards Veterans healthcare.

We have never gone to war without taxing the rich to support the war….so one has to ask why they were not taxed?

Donnelly and wars

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Joe Donnelly was once again on our local radio (to be fair, Walorski also gets plenty of free air time).  Now he is pushing mandatory annual psychological testing on military. He says there are way too many suicides in the military, and he wants to get this to “zero”.  He traveled to Israel last month to see how they were dealing with military suicides…he named the number, but I forget their record.

I’m sure the trip was at Senator Donnelly’s own expense because he’s not going to charge the American taxpayer for something he could have done at home. /dripping sarcasm, folks

Where do I begin?

All during the interview, Donnelly never mentions the fact that the reason there are so many suicides in the military is because war is soul destroying. Incredibly, he even stated that these soldiers had been to “tour after tour after tour”…just totally clueless on how his own governmental policies were the cause of the problem.  He seems to be unwilling to even consider the cause of the mental distress and why soldiers would lose their love of life. As they kill another human being, they must ask themselves…why?

Why were we there, Senator Donnelly? Can you even answer that question–with brutal honesty?

Why is Israel being consulted?  They force their people to join the military…is Senator Donnelly going to suggest that, too? How is Israel able to convince their soldiers that killing the Palestinians, who just want to live in their on land, is okay?  I don’t call that psychological help, but more likely brainwashing and propaganda to create an enemy–the Palestinians.

The next aspect of Donnelly’s “solution” is the belief that somehow psychological treatment will end all suicides.  Really?  Just like Common Core and No Child Left a Mind will “make” children 100% proficient?

Psychology has been blown up to be a greater asset than it is.  All the drugs and talk therapy cannot erase the devastating effects of war on a person’s psych.

How about we just get rid of war, Senator Donnelly?

No, the military industrial complex can’t function without war.  If we don’t have an enemy, they’ll create one…got to keep those war profits rolling in…