09.27.06
Who Let the Dogs Out?
The other day an inquiry was made on one of the forums I visit as to whether Kevin Trudeau’s book, Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About, was worth buying. I had heard about Trudeau as he seemed to be causing a stir, but I was not interested in a new health book, so never bought or read his book. But because of the recent inquiry of Trudeau’s book, I decided to check it out from the library. Upon reading the Introduction and the first few chapters, I thought, “Oh, boy, he’s stepping on a lot of toes! Lots of people are not going to be happy with this chappy.” Not because what he was saying was false, but because what he was revealing likely has some truth to it. I’m specifically talking about his expose on the “money trails.” I would be shocked if it didn’t cause those implicated to jump up and bark orders to stuff him back in some deep dark cave. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there is some truth to the claims Trudeau makes regarding large companies like phamaceutical companies thriving on the profits made from sickenesses and diseases. The customers for companies that make drugs are sick people. If there were no sick people, that would result in no business, and no profits for big pharma. So to take it to the next logical step, for more business and more profits, big pharma needs more customers. For a drug company that means more “sick” people. Simply put, their interest is that there are more sick people to buy their drugs, not well people who will not buy their drugs. A very simple concept to understand, really. Yet the very sad fact remains that many people don’t like to face or admit to it. Patients want to feel and believe that the drug companies exist just to make us all well. And of course, those making their livelihoods from the sick and diseased don’t want to be exposed for their evil deeds and thus engage in helping to perpetuate sickeness and disease by disseminating ideas like, “no matter what you do, or how careful you are, sickness and disease with eventually bite you in the butt. There are no alternative treatments that work, and if you did get better without drugs, you were probably never sick in the first place. So don’t bother trying to stay healthy because it’s useless. Have your daily twinkie, AND DON’T WORRY, ‘We’re here to save the day with drugs and surgery.’” So, it only makes sense that those involved would be up in arms against Trudeau for blantantly connecting the dots for those who are “connect-the-dot-challenged.” There’s lots of money to be lost to big pharma and the supporting businesses if too many people decided to avoid drugs and improve their health naturally.
So today I thought, let’s take a quick Google search for Kevin Trudeau and see what shows up. And as predicted, I had to laugh. He has been smeared. LOL The beauty of it is he’s no goody-two-shoes. He has had a past. But what a fitting scenario it is for an insider to expose his fellow scoundrels for what they really are–greedy SOBs. Trudeau admits in his book that he, too, had been caught up in the greed and was convicted and sentenced to about two years in prison for his crime. He may still be a scoundrel for all I know, but I had have to give him credit for at least confirming from his experience what others have claimed has been going on in the health-care industry. The claims he has made is not unique to him. As an example there is another book out called Selling Sickness by Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels copyrighted in 2005. This is what the inside leaf says:
“Thirty years ago, Henry Gadsden, the head of Merck, one of the world’s largest drug companies, told Fortune magazine that he wanted Merck to be more like chewing gum maker Wrigley’s. It had long been his dream, he said, to make drugs for healthy people–so that Merck could ’sell to everyone.’
“Gadsden’s dream now drives the marketing machinery of the most profitable industry on earth.
“Using their dominating influence in the world of medical science, drug companies are systematically working to widen the very boundaries that define illness. Old conditions are expanded, new ones created, and the markets for medication grow ever larger. Mild problems are redifined as serious illness and common complaints are labeled as medical conditions requiring drug treatments. Runny noses are now allergic rhinitis, PMS has become a psychiatric disorder, and hyperactive children have ADD. When it comes to conditions like high cholesterol or low bone density, being ‘at risk’ is sold as a disease in its own right.”
Oye Vey. . .
Marlakins
Andrea said,
September 27, 2006 at 6:35 pm
Oye vey is right. What a racket, hey? Like my son said (and thanks so much for your prayers), all you have to do to be diagnosed as depressed is go to a doctor and say, “I’m depressed.” So the obvious job of the drug companies is to convince as many people as possible that they’re depressed.
And of course Trudeau would be smeared. Anyone who challenges greed and power will be smeared. Jesus, for example.
Greed and power are such temptations! Anyone out there got young adult kids yet? Wow, they really struggle with that temptation. You can see it in their eyes, hear it in their conversations. Thing is, I remember this temptation from my own youth. How I envied wealth and power, and how I wanted it for myself! Fortunately no really tempting opportunities came my way, maybe I would have caved, who knows?
It breaks my heart to see little normal kids diagnosed with all these initials and given drugs. A darling 10yo just started singing in the choir in church–his mom is utterly convinced he’s ADD, and he picked up the music faster than most adults! There is absolutely nothing wrong with this young man’s focus. But anyway, he’s helping line the pockets of the big pharmas.
Oh well, time for bed. Nothing to do but keep telling the truth.
Cheers, Andrea
Administrator said,
September 28, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Hey Andrea:
I’m like you, I’ve never had the opportunity to be tempted, so who knows how I would behave! Luxuries are nice to have, I won’t deny.
So far I haven’t read anything in Trudeau’s book that looks bad to me! That is, I don’t feel he deserves to be called a quack. I don’t see him promoting some new invention or a new technique. He doesn’t appear to be claiming to be a doctor or anything, but rather just sharing a bunch of things that are commonly believed healthful amongst already existing alternative groups. Concepts he lists about detox and nutritional deficiencies are nothing new. I like his list of recommended books. I’ve read a lot of them already, but he lists a lot more that I haven’t read. I hope to check out some of them soon.
I have read in many places about the corruption of the pharmaceutical companies, but Trudeau goes even further to “link” the pharmaceutical companies to the food industries, the media, and government even. He wrote about insider trading info that government officals are entitled to that we average people don’t get. I found a website that shows who are the CEOs for various large corporations, and it also shows other corporations that they manage. And you’ll be surprised to find that some pharamceutical companies are linked to other companies like Coca cola and Pepsi as well as some banks. So it’s no surprise that small individuals who try to make changes get squashed because so many things are tied in together.
Now, I would like to qualify this in that I do think there are some scientists who honestly are looking for some cures. But I don’t think that the scientists are able to promote things that they find beneficial “IF” it doesn’t follow big pharma’s agenda. Take the laetrile thing with Kanematsu Sugiura of Memorial Sloan Kettering. Ralph Moss wrote that part of the problem “might” have had something to do with the fiasco of the “patchwork mouse” in addition to not really wanting to find a cure for cancer. During the same time the laetrile story was coming out, William Summerlin had just gotten “caught” for fabricating a false claim that skin could be grafted without rejection so long as the skin was soaked in some “special” solution.” He took some mice with spots and some without and transferred/grafted skin–supposedly. . . What was found was that he used a “magic marker” to put dots on the skin of the mice making it look like he successfully transplanted tissue without rejection. Oye! Anyway, since that fiasco made a big embarrassment for MSK, they may not have wanted to “risk” another fiasco with the laetrile. So, laetrile got a double suppression treatment, even though Sugiura was a good scientist who carefully documented his work. The idea was that they weren’t really interested in a cancer cure AND they wanted to save face. So the story goes. . . I’m sure it’s a lot more complicated than that, but the bottom line is some scientist are honest and looking for cures, but are not able to pass their discoveries on beyond a certain point.
Anyway, gotta run!
Marla
Andrea said,
September 28, 2006 at 6:22 pm
I agree, there are definitely honest scientists out there. I remember one touching TV program about a guy looking for a cure for juvenile diabetes. His daughter had it. There was no mistaking his sincerity. And I think you’re right, many of them are simply stopped from communicating what they’ve learned.
And I agree about it’s being complicated. There’s a lot of propaganda about what’s quackery and what’s not, and I think that many otherwise reputable scientists and doctors believe the propaganda, and I think probably many of the propagandists believe their own propaganda! Certainly I as a young woman believed a lot of medical propaganda, until facts asserted themselves over and over and I could no longer deny what I was seeing.
I really didn’t want to believe it. I really wanted to believe in the status quo.
But at a certain point, I just couldn’t any more.
People like Trudeau can stand back and see the big picture and say, Guess what? The way this looks from here, all the “information” is slanted toward these big companies making a bundle. He can see that at least in part because he’s not in it anymore.
But the scientists and the salesmen and maybe even some of the CEOs and the doctors, they’re in it. They ARE it, so they can’t see it. What I’m trying to say is that I think it’s likely they’re really innocent in a way, just ignorant of the big system that they’re a part of and how it manipulates them, too.
And we, the patients, have that perspective too. We’re not dependent on the medical business for our living, and that helps a lot. We’ve been to a lot of docs, we’ve heard a lot of stories, and a picture begins to form in our mind–Hey wait a minute! This isn’t healing! This is money!
We are really fortunate to be able to step out of the system and get a more accurate picture of what is really going on.
Well, gotta go, Andrea
Administrator said,
September 29, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Yes, Andrea, I think you have a point about being able to see from the “outside.” That definitely makes it easier to be more objective. However, I’m not so sure I’d go so far as to say that those guys who are reaming us are innocent. Sure they may have been innocent at one point, but along the line, as they climb up the ladder, they have to be exposed to what they’re really doing. And that’s where I think they lose their innocence. As Lorraine Day, M.D. mentions in one of her videos, she was told as a doctor from another doctor who was her superior, “Every doctor will have to compromise their values at one point.” It’s when they’re confronted with that is where they make their choice to either change their course or to stay the course. Some people’s consciences get seared to where they can no longer discern what’s morally right and wrong, while other people just go through life suffering the consequences, and yet still others who get out of it, like Lorraine Day did. Kevin Trudeau writes in his book about millionaires who are so greedy that they continue to break the law, risking jail time, for more money. Cripes, they’re already millionaires, but they want more. On page 20 of his book, Trudeau writes:
“I’ve been in boardrooms. I’ve listened to these people. I’ve heard CEOs of major pharmaceutical companies say things such as this: ‘I don’t care how much liver damage this drug causes, get it approved by the FDA. Pay whoever you have to pay, get the lobbyists that you have to get, but just get this drug approved. Do it, and our stock price goes up threefold. We sell our stock and move on. And five years from now, when they find out about the liver damage, they’ll take the drug off the market. But who cares, we’ll have our money. Just do it.’ That is why I am mad as hell, and I am not going to take it anymore.”
These kinds of people know what they’re doing. I wouldn’t say these kinds of people are innocent. It seems, the higher up they go, the less innocent they become because the higher up they go, the more information and understanding of the inner workings of the company are exposed to them. There’s no way they can not know it. It’s the little guy, like the scientist who is funded by them who can remain innocent, yet they sometimes become corrupt for other reasons like vying for the nobel prize or other merits of recognition. And yes, money is likely involved too because they have to please those who are funding their research. It’s a major test of character, and I’m glad I not in it.
You’re just too kind, Andrea!
Marla
P.S. How did Debbie’s biopsy go? When will they have the results? I’m still praying for her!
Andrea said,
October 1, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Yes, Marla, you’re right–there’s plenty of guilt, too, I’m sure. I think there’s both innocence, born of ignorance, and guilt, and lots more guilt at the top. Test of character, to be sure.
If you got to the other blog, you know that Debbie’s biopsy came back benign! Phew!
I’ll be interested to see how my son deals with the temptations of the system. He said to me about 3 months ago–his low point, he was quite depressed–”I have two choices. I can either sell my soul to the Devil, or go crazy.” I told him that as his mother I felt neither of those alternatives were acceptable and he’d simply have to find a third.
Thanks so much for your prayers. TTFN Andrea