8 Medical Lies and Why I Abandoned Medicine

By Shane Ellison, M.Sc.
Early to Rise © 2005
http://www.earlytorise.com/

By education and by trade, I was a drug chemist. My passion for
science motivated a successful career in drug design and synthesis -
in both academia and industry. As a scientist, I witnessed first-
hand the priorities of international pharmaceutical companies (Big
Pharma), which ranked wealth first and health a distant second.

In the pharmaceutical industry, making money supercedes science.
Science no longer prevails in medicine. Instead, modern medicine
has been democratized. Drug approval is a simple matter of 51%
telling the other 49% that a prescription drug is safe and
necessary. The outcome: deadly drugs are approved for use among
misinformed medical doctors and patients. Herein lies a story of
deceit and a chemist's abandonment of modern medicine.

My suspicion of modern medicine began while I was employed by Eli
Lilly to design a new generation of Hormone Replacement Therapy
(HRT) drugs. Such drugs include tamoxifen and raloxifene.
Initially, these drugs were thought to block estrogen receptors
(excess estrogen can initiate cancer growth) and thereby halt
cancer. As time progressed, though, it was learned that they were
also capable of activating estrogen receptors. The end result was a
biochemical environment favorable to cancer growth among users.[1]
The Journal of the American Medical Association recognized this
trend and stated "our data add to the growing body of evidence that
recent long-term use of HRT is associated with an increased risk of
breast cancer and that such use may be related particularly to
lobular tumors."

The risk of cancer associated with HRT drugs was obscured from
doctors by drug companies. This can be seen by the fact that
tamoxifen is the gold-standard used by medical doctors to fight
cancer among their patients, particularly breast cancer. This
explains why medical doctors might not notice its ability to cause
cancer - the patient already has it.

At any rate, my task was made clear: Design HRT "knock-offs" that
are effective without causing cancer.

My attempt to design safer alternatives was unsuccessful. And after
one year, the project was ended. However, access to HRT drugs like
tamoxifen was not. They remained on the market.

The fuel driving the continued use of HRT drugs was disinformation
via Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) advertising. Since 1962, monitoring DTC
advertising has been the sole responsibility of the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA). But in a ghastly conflict of interests, the
FDA granted the duty of DTC advertising to the pharmaceutical
companies in 1997. Officially, this was done as a means
of "promoting health awareness to ensure health and safety."
Unofficially, it was done to sell more drugs. DTC advertising
dictated that all women over 50 should use HRT to remain healthy.
Women scurried to their doctors to ask if "HRT was right for them."
My suspicion grew into conflict.

The disinformation campaign behind HRT drugs was not an isolated
case. I learned that drug advertising and science are frequently in
direct opposition to each other. For example:

DTC advertising dictates that lowering cholesterol prevents heart
disease. Science proves otherwise.

DTC advertising dictates that an aspirin a day will keep heart
attack away. Science proves otherwise.

DTC advertising dictates that depression is a disease that must be
treated with prescription drugs. Science proves otherwise.

DTC advertising dictates that ADHD is a disease and that our
children must be treated with amphetamines. Science proves
otherwise.

DTC advertising dictates that infants must be vaccinated to prevent
childhood illness. Science proves otherwise.

DTC advertising dictates that blood pressure must be controlled via
a lifetime of servitude to prescription drugs. Science proves
otherwise.

DTC advertising dictates that chemotherapy is your first line of
defense against deadly cancer. Science proves otherwise.

DTC advertising dictates that Type II diabetes must be treated with
daily insulin use. Science proves otherwise.

By spreading the aforementioned health myths, DTC advertising forges
a belief among the general public which asserts that drugs - not
lifestyle habits and nutrition - confer health and longevity. And
although, in reality, medicine is only necessary for sick people in
times of emergency, DTC advertising has been wildly successful in
convincing people that being healthy requires a lifetime of
prescription drug use. While it's true that the advertising usually
mentions the potential side effects of drugs, doctors tend to
discount them. They simply regurgitate the pharmaceutical-company
line that "the benefits of a drug outweigh the risks." Don't believe
it.

Western Medicine's plague of deception is deadlier than any virus,
illicit drugs, and terrorism combined. Well-documented in scientific
journals and reported by media outlets nationwide, FDA approved
drugs are killing an estimated 106,000 people every year.[2] That
equates to one individual dying every five minutes from "approved"
drugs - 300 people dying every day. Which is twice as many deaths
in a single year from "approved drugs" as the total number of U.S.
deaths from the Vietnam War.[3] This does not count death by
hospital medical error, which adds 98,000 deaths to the atrocity.
[4] If not killed, an estimated 2 million people are victims of
drug-induced illnesses.[5] These may include drug-induced obesity,
cancer, kidney disease, autism, depression and heart failure.

Hypnotized by DTC advertising, people are oblivious to the ill
effects of prescription drug use. This is evidenced by their
willingness to swallow whatever "the doctor ordered." They drug
their children, hop the borders to smuggle inexpensive prescription
drugs back into the U.S., beg their congressman for discounts and
pay a lifetime of insurance fees in order to snatch up these silent
killers. The avalanche of DTC advertising has smothered common
sense.

For the general public and medical doctors to fully grasp the effect
of Modern Medicine's Deceit, they have to judge the situation by
what a drug is actually accomplishing, rather than what the drug
company ads and pharmaceutically-compliant politicians insist. The
health benefits of prescription drugs are illusory. Step away from
the hypnotic drug ads, close the ghost-written medical journals,
discard research studies dominated by statistical contortionists and
give yourself a prescription-drug reality check: Very few
prescription drugs have any value outside of emergency medicine and
those that do can usually be replaced with safer and less expensive
natural medicine. This was a troublesome lesson for me, as an
aspiring drug chemist, to learn. Unfortunately, it was not the only
one.

Humanitarianism among Big Pharma has been abandoned. The technical
skills of chemists are not being used for humanitarian purposes.
They are being used in a deadly game of profiteering. Those at risk
are not the misinformed, high-paid medical doctors but rather their
patients. Becoming aware of this ripple effect of DTC advertising
led to my abandonment of modern medicine.

I had to face the cold, hard facts: Western Medicine has become a
billion dollar empire not out of keen science, but rather deceit.
The end result has been one nation under drugs. This subjugation
has set a standard of health in America that, by definition, is sick
care disguised as health care.

Forward thinking chemists recognize the deadly trend. But few have
the luxury of speaking out or resigning. The majority of chemists in
the U.S. are foreigners. Their career secures them the right to live
and work in the U.S. This demands allegiance to their employer,
regardless of the end result of their labors. Admittedly, that this
is an intentional act of Big Pharma is speculative.

Individuals outside of the drug industry often question my conflict
with Big Pharma. How can a single person denounce a philosophy
adhered to by millions of medical doctors? That is simple: I ignore
the majority thinking that is steeped in disinformation. I stand
firm in science. Truth in science requires only one scientist to
verify reproducible results in the face of pharmaceutical tyranny.

Science proves that habits, not drugs, create and eradicate disease.
The current devastation of prescription drugs is a warning that
healthy lifestyle and nutrition habits must replace blind worship of
prescription drugs in the pursuit of life-extension. As people
obtain better health intelligence and heed this warning, drug use
will recede. A new model of health care based on common sense, not
profiteering, will emerge.

About the Author

Shane Ellison is dedicated to stopping prescription drug hype in its
tracks. To this end, he has made it his mission to introduce
healthy lifestyle habits as well as safe and effective nutritional
supplements to the public. With his keen ability to sift through
scientific literature and weed out fact from fiction, Shane has
empowered thousands to assert their health freedom by saying "no" to
prescription drugs. http://www.healthmyths.net/

References:

[1] Sally, A. et al. Estrogen Plus Progestin and the Incidence of
Dementia and Mild Cognitive Impairment in Postmenopausal Women.
Journal of the American Medical Association. 2003;289:2651-2662.
Chen CL, Weiss NS, Newcomb P, Barlow W, White E. Hormone replacement
therapy in relation to breast cancer. Journal of the American
Medical Association. 2002 Feb 13;287(6):734-41.
Spurgeon, D. Long Term use of HRT Doubles Cancer Risk. British
Medical Journal. 2003 Jul 5;327(7405):9

Yoneva T. Taniguchi K. Tsunenari T. Saito H. Kanbe Y, Morikaw K,
Yamada-Okabe H. Identification of a novel, orally bioavailable
estrogen receptor downregulator. Anticancer Drugs. 2005 Aug;16
(7):751-6.

Labrie, F. et al. EM-652 (SCH 57068), a third generation SERM acting
as pure antiestrogen in the mammary gland and endometrium. The
Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. 1999 Apr-
Jun;69(1-6):51-84.

[2] Starfield, Barbara. Is US Health Really the Best in the World?
Journal of the American Chemical Society, July 26, 2000-Vol 284,
No.4.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7503122/

[3] There were an estimated 58,000 U.S casualties in the Vietnam War

[4] Moride Y, Haramburu F, Requejo AA, Begaud B. Under-reporting of
adverse drug reactions in general practice. British Journal of
Clinical Pharmacology, 1997 43: 177-181.

[5] Tejal K. Gandhi. et al. Adverse Drug Events in Ambulatory Care.
The New England Journal of Medicine. Volume 348:1556-1564. April 17,
2003. Number 16.