Up Close and Personal
A brief summary by CTM founder, Phillip Day

ECLUB: So we lost the vote, eh?
PHILLIP DAY: Yes. Tony Blair has now made it completely clear his party supports the EU's supplements ban for Britain. Another reason to ensure this man never continues his havoc upon our country after the next election….
ECLUB: Although quite what we have to replace him with is another question.
PHILLIP DAY: I long to see a day when we have politicians other than failed attorneys running for office. Dogs scratch. Lawyers lie. The big problem in the recent vote was that only a small percentage of Britain's population had any idea what was on the cards. Many thanks, though, to all who took the trouble to harass their MPs, the response was overwhelming. Several of you sent back official replies from MEPs which said we've all got it wrong and the benevolent EU only wants to ensure we don't take too much Vitamin C. Well, the 1st August ban is not such a distance away. We'll soon know what's involved.
ECLUB: And in the European Court there's been a challenge too?
PHILLIP DAY: The Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) has been spearheading attempts to persuade the EU (and our Labour Government) to change its mind either by trying to negotiate amendments to the legislation or declare the whole enterprise unlawful. Their recent communiqué reads as follows:
The Alliance for Natural Health today presented its oral submission to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg in its landmark case challenging the ban in the EU Food Supplements Directive on 75% of vitamin and mineral forms currently sold in the EU market. Opposing oral submissions were made by the European Commission, the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and only one EU Member State, Greece.
UK Government did not present its objections to the challenge. Interestingly, neither the UK government nor Portugal attended to present oral arguments despite having filed Written Observations in the case. This means that none of the major EU countries felt the need to oppose the ANH's application for a declaration that the ban in the Directive was unlawful. (Full ANH press release below).
ECLUB: What was the outcome?
PHILLIP DAY: A baffled judge and a court decision sometime in June. The across-the-board ban will commence in the UK from 1st August if no reprieve is granted.
ECLUB: Are you hopeful?
PHILLIP DAY: Not unless ANH lawyers pull a rabbit out of the hat. I've always had strong reservations that the EU will in any way be turned from its course even if it does offer any carrot of apparent amendment. I do support Dr Verkerk's efforts, however, since ANH will serve to bring to wider attention the bankruptcy of the EU system and raise public awareness.
ECLUB: What position is CTM adopting?
PHILLIP DAY: That Britain withdraws her membership of the European Union, a goal supported by almost 70% of our country. Those familiar with the Campaign for Truth in Europe know the corrupt and unreformable EU represents a clear and present danger to our nation's interests in more ways than just in the realm of supplements. CTM's line in the sand will be drawn the day the country votes on the EU constitution and whether to adopt it. If we do, of course, the changes will be irreversible. What most Britons seek is an amicable divorce from the European Union and a free trade agreement with Europe, which is what we thought we were setting up in the first place.
ECLUB: What can people do?
PHILLIP DAY: Tell everyone they know about the encroaching danger of the EU and its constitution, which, far from being a 'tidying up exercise' as Peter Hain declares, or merely the 'rule-book of a golf club', seeks instead to undermine and change irrevocably the freedoms this nation and its citizens fought so hard over the centuries to preserve. In EClubs to follow, I will be advocating exactly this course, using our expansive network and books and videos to give Britons the optimum shot at fighting off this peril. If we don't succeed, then we have only ourselves to blame with what will follow. If we do succeed, then once the country is firmly back in British hands, our parliamentary system will enable us fairly and effectively to lobby and change any harmful legislation concerning vitamins or anything else.
ECLUB: And elsewhere in the world?
PHILLIP DAY: The same attempts by the Codex initiatives to ban alternative remedies continue apace. But the resistance is well organised. In New Zealand, there is the New Zealand Health Trust. In Australia, there's the Alliance for Health Freedom and Eve Hillary. In Europe, there's the mighty Rath Foundation, which warns: "The Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex) will come to be seen by future generations as the greatest threat to the basic human right of health the world has ever known. Never before in history has a special interest group, the pharmaceutical industry, so shamelessly tried to compromise the health of billions of people for no other reason than its desire to maintain multi-billion dollar markets for prescription drugs." In the UK, as we know, there's Dr Verkerk's Alliance for Natural Health. In the US, there's John Hammell's excellent International Advocates for Health Freedom.
ECLUB: Very well, what else do you have for us?
PHILLIP DAY: The first of a four-part series on AIDS to celebrate the imminent release of the new Credence title, The Truth About HIV. Many feel the AIDS issue does not concern them. Yet on Saturday, 6th November 2004, in the UK county of Berkshire, 48-year-old Brian Drysdale deliberately parked his car on the rails at a rural level-crossing and waited for the London-Plymouth express train. He was killed instantly, taking with him six other lives and injuring one hundred more as the train ploughed into his car at high speed and derailed. Drysdale had been previously told he was 'HIV-positive'. To understand the pernicious nature of this type of testing is to realise many are being condemned to an unnecessary and dreadful fate at the hands of their doctors. This practice is becoming more widespread as the new epidemic of Medical Testing Disease takes hold.
ECLUB: When will the new book be available?
PHILLIP DAY: People can order it now over the Internet. We should have it in stock by the end of the week.
ECLUB: Thank you, Phillip.

Omissions That Mar the BBC's 'Balance'
by Christopher Booker

A leak suggests that the BBC may be compelled under its new charter to present news in a way which is "balanced and fair". While almost everything the BBC reports these days is shaped by its own partisan agenda, the problem is often not in what it reports but what it leaves out.

A glaring example, I have observed before, was the BBC's coverage of responses to the tsunami disaster. While constantly puffing the ineffectual vapourings of the UN, it managed almost wholly to ignore the dramatically effective intervention of the US Navy, which in Sumatra helped to save many thousands of lives.

Long after this misreporting had been publicised, Newsnight was still claiming that "the Asian tsunami has provided a perfect example of the need for an effective UN under an activist Secretary General. This time Kofi Annan was quick off the mark and America's independent efforts soon looked superfluous."

Last week the BBC went overboard in puffing the launch of the A380 airbus, "a triumph of European co-operation". Yet when the EU insisted that it would only lift its crippling tariffs on Thai prawn exports if Thailand paid out £1.3 billion to buy six of these aircraft, this was ignored by the BBC. Equally unreported was the plea of Thailand's prime minister that his country did not want money from the outside world. What it wants is an end to the EU's discriminatory tariff against the country's main export, which since 1997 has cost its economy £3 billion, twice as much as all the disaster aid offered to the region.

The problem in getting the BBC to report fairly is that its employees are so enthralled by their collective mindset that they cannot see how unprofessional they have become.
Sunday Telegraph, 23rd January 2005

PHILLIP DAY'S COMMENT: The Brussels Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is perhaps one of the most biased news organizations in the world, not including CNN. It is staffed by people who have, as Christopher Booker contends, totally lost the plot when it comes to revealing the truth of a story. Since the BBC has become some hopelessly penetrated by woolly-cardiganed Euro-puppets mouthing Death to Britain! Death to Britain! Behind our backs, I believe this once proud institution is long overdue for complaints to pour in by the bucket-load. 70% of the British people intend voting against the introduction of the 'European Constitution' to end, once and for all, Britain as an independent nation. The BBC does not think this is newsworthy. Why not tell 'em by clicking here and sending them a stinging e-mail.

Further Resources
Ten Minutes to Midnight by Phillip Day
The Real Face of the European Union by Phillip Day, video documentary (PAL format only)
Vigilance by Ashley Mote

Click here to purchase or review any of the above.
Click here for telephone sales around the world.
Click here if you wish to contact Credence for information on treatment options or resources.

European Court Of Justice Advocate-General: EU Vitamin and Mineral Ban "As Transparent as aBlack Box"
PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release 25 January 2005

UK GOVERNMENT DECIDES NOT TO ATTEND COURT
HEARING TO MAKE ITS OBJECTIONS TO THE CHALLENGE

The Alliance for Natural Health today presented its oral submission to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg in its landmark case challenging the ban in the EU Food Supplements Directive on 75% of vitamin and mineral forms currently sold in the EU market.

Opposing oral submissions were made by the European Commission, the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and only one EU Member State, Greece.

No objections by UK Government to the challenge
Interestingly, neither the UK government nor Portugal attended to present oral arguments despite having filed Written Observations in the case. This means that none of the major EU countries felt the need to oppose the ANH's application for a declaration that the ban in the Directive was unlawful.

David Hinde Solicitor and ANH Legal Director said: "Given the vigour with which the UK Government resisted this application at the Judicial Review stage, it was extraordinary it did not now think the issue sufficiently important to warrant being represented at the ECJ to make oral submissions. The question inevitably arises whether this signifies a change of attitude on their part and a retreat from their previously bullish position about the legality of the Directive."

Paul Lasok QC, a world leading expert on EU law representing the ANH, opened the proceedings and systematically undermined the legal and scientific basis of the Directive, highlighting contradictions between various arguments put forward by the key bodies involved in developing the Directive, namely the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.

When asked by Judge Lenaerts as to the origin of the positive list which appeared to have been derived from an old list produced by the European Commission, and so omitted a vast array of nutrients that can normally be found in food, Mr Lasok responded: "The list was put together without adding, without subtracting and without thinking."

Advocate General Geelhoed, the senior judge at today's hearing, appeared to be baffled by the procedure for adding nutrients to the positive list, which he described: "As transparent as a black box."

Dr Robert Verkerk, executive director of the ANH said after the hearing: "It was remarkable that the vast majority of points that we had gone to great length to show the Court were not countered in any effective way by the opposing parties. The Commission, the Council and the Parliament were not able to give any adequate scientific explanations for why so many forms of vitamins and minerals that naturally occur in foods should be banned across the EU."

Final judgment expected in June 2005
The Advocate General announced that he would deliver his opinion on 5 April 2005, while the Court is expected to give its judgment in June, shortly before the ban would otherwise be set to come into effect on 1 August 2005.

ENDS
For enquiries and further information contact:
Alliance for Natural Health
www.alliance-natural-health.org

Two faces of Ben Bradshaw
by Christopher Booker

Two contrasting episodes last week highlighted the shambles Britain is making of the EU's common fisheries policy. In Cornwall our fisheries minister, Ben Bradshaw, was so badly caught out by a blunder he had made just before Christmas that, to save his embarrassment, he proposed that Britain should turn a blind eye to the breaking of EC law. Yet in Sussex two Hastings fishermen were prosecuted by Mr Bradshaw's officials and convicted for unwittingly contravening an EC fisheries regulation that no one had ever heard of before.

Cornish fishermen were shocked to learn that for the first three months of this year, under a deal agreed by Mr Bradshaw in December to save cod stocks, they would be barred from their normal fishing grounds off the north Cornish coast, putting their livelihoods at risk. Yet Belgian trawlers had been exempted from the ban.

Mr Bradshaw's initial reply was to say: "You sometimes get details like this which slip through unnoticed." Such was the furore when Padstow fishermen had to stay in port, while Belgian trawlers hauled in huge quantities of fish, including cod, that Mr Bradshaw agreed to meet local MPs and fishermen's representatives.

Although those present at the meeting, including the Lib Dem MPs Paul Tyler and Andrew George, and Labour MP Candy Atherton, were told they must not reveal details of what was discussed, Mr Bradshaw's solution was that the Cornish fishermen should be permitted to continue fishing, while Brussels was asked for "clarification". According to Cornwall's chief fisheries officer, this is an "established strategy" used before, as for instance by France when it refused to lift the EC's ban on British beef exports.

The contrast could not have been greater with the case heard in Lewes Crown Court last week against two Hastings fishermen, Paul Joy and Graeme Bosom. In October 2003 Joy was told by a local ministry official that he had broken his licence conditions by catching more cod in the month of September than was allowed under EC quota rules.

Joy was astonished because the quota rules do not apply to small inshore boats such as those launched off Hastings beach. These have yearly "allocations" from the ministry - and at that time only 53 per cent of the allocation had been caught. But the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had decided the annual allocation could be subdivided into 12 monthly shares. Without warning, Joy was told that he had broken this new rule.

Last week the judge, Simon Coltart, ruled that Defra was entitled to interpret EC law in this way, and Joy and his colleague were advised by their barristers to plead guilty. I cannot say why the judge came to this conclusion because he barred reporting until he passes sentence this week.

Joy and Bosom face the possibility of fines of up to £50,000. In court they could not say a word in their own defence. That they have been found guilty of breaking EC law is no doubt just as convenient to Defra as Mr Bradshaw's decision that he should allow the law in the seas off Cornwall to be ignored.
The Sunday Telegraph, 23rd January 2005

The SEERA

A European Union Regional Assembly is even less wanted, if that is possible, in the South-East than in the North-East, where voters overwhelmingly rejected the idea last year. Yet Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's fantasy is being played out, with three months "public consultation" on the "South-East plan" about to begin.

Publicity leaflets have been "cascaded" (or as some say, "posted") to councils, accompanied by a letter from the South-East England Regional Assembly chief executive, Paul Bevan.

He writes: "The community involvement provisions of Planning Policy Statement II naturally apply as much to the sub-regional dimension as to the regional policies of the Plan. We are anticipating therefore that in facilitating the region-wide consultation locally, the relevant local authorities will also take responsibility for consulting on sub-regional policies applying to their areas, thus providing public input to the continuing sub-regional policy work...." The South-East England Regional Assembly (SEERA) will almost certainly never come about, but Bevan's bid for the 2005 Rotten Boroughs' Plain English award looks strong.

I ask, is there anyone out there who can understand this gobbledegook? In its first year of existence the SEERA cost £2 million; last year £3 million and the budget for this year is £4 million. Paid for - you've guessed it - by our local and income taxes. With the Conservatives and the UKIP promising to abolish useless bodies like the SEERA, no prizes for guessing who Mr. Bevan and the thousands of other non-job holders will be voting for at the general election.
Private Eye, 21st January 2005

European? Not Us Say the True Brit Teenagers

By Keith Gladdis

An amazing 98 per cent of our teenagers don't see themselves as Europeans - they prefer to be seen as British through and through. A poll reveals that the tiny 2 per cent of kids who said they were European was almost matched by the number saying they were Cornish.

The ICM poll for school watchdog Ofsted found young people were more likely to "downsize" national identity to English than "upsize" to European. One in three teenagers thought they were English. The vast majority (57 per cent) named the Union Jack as the most potent British symbol, with one in three picking the Queen.

When the school kids were handed photos of Britain's political leaders, a shocking 84 per cent didn't recognize Tory leader Michael Howard.

Even fewer, just 10 per cent, could name Lib-Dem leader, Charles Kennedy.

But a massive 95 pc cent did know Tony Blair.
News of the World, 16th January 2005

PHILLIP DAY'S COMMENT: An uphill battle for the EU, then, to persuade our youngsters to see themselves as 'EU Citizens'. Now is the time to intensify your task of warning others about the dangers of the European Union and what it will mean for every one of us. To make the task of informing others easier, please obtain a copy of my documentary, 'The Real Face of the European Union', which I am giving away to all attendees of my current UK tour, and show it to others.

Britain's continued survival and the freedoms we enjoy can only be assured if the population acts and acts now to create a monumental surge of outrage and indignation over what Tony Blair and Michael Howard see as the future of Britain - a mere province in a vast, all-mighty European superstate, dictated to by undemocratic legislation the population have no hope of rebuking, and enforced with the full might of a legal system with no accountability by a Euro police force that has been granted total immunity from the criminal law.

Act, and act now. If we let them get away with it, we have only ourselves to blame.

Further Resources
Ten Minutes to Midnight by Phillip Day
The Real Face of the European Union by Phillip Day, video documentary (PAL format only) . Free to all attendees of Phillip's UK and Ireland 2005 seminars.
Vigilance by Ashley Mote

Click here to purchase or review any of the above.
Click here for telephone sales around the world.
Click here if you wish to contact Credence for information on treatment options or resources.

National Enquirer or Rational Enquirer?

"Endless loop - n. See loop, endless.
Loop, endless - n. See endless loop." Isaac Asimov

23rd April 1984, and the National Academy of Sciences auditorium in Washington DC was packed with journalists and television crews abuzz with anticipation. US Health Secretary Margaret Heckler emerged and greeted the assembly, declaring: "Today we add another miracle to the long honour roll of American medicine and science. Today's discovery represents the triumph of science over a dreaded disease."

The miracle Heckler announced was that a team of virologists led by Dr Robert Gallo had isolated a virus that was apparently causing AIDS. This was a tremendous announcement and the enormity of Heckler's words, coming at a time when the climate of AIDS-induced fear was at its pinnacle, could not be overestimated. Speaking of Gallo's work as an all-American miracle discovery, Heckler reminded the public of the gratitude it owed to medicine for triumphing over this dreaded disease.

And then it was Dr Gallo's turn: "Dr Gallo, Sir! Dr Gallo, this way! Sir, this way!" chorused the hordes, the whirring and flashing banks of cameras more befitting a royal arrival. The jostling photographers vied for that special Gallo victory pose to accompany the following day's world editorials which would triumphantly announce: "The beginning of the end of the scourge of AIDS!"

With no demanding questions being asked of Dr Gallo, the likeable, but rather nervous-looking doctor produced what he described as photographic evidence of the cornered virus and briefly outlined the supporting science behind his discovery. And all the time, the flashing and the whirring. Gallo's discovery was the news of the decade, the answer the world had been yearning for, the relatively unknown doctor now quite fittingly fêted as the saviour of the human race.

But there was a big problem, as AIDS critic David Rasnick stated: "With that announcement, Gallo had publicly leapfrogged across the scientific process - across peer-review and analysis, across the very checks and balances of science."

Gallo had committed the cardinal sin as far as transparency of scientific reasoning was concerned. At the time of his press announcement, he had allowed no independent body initially to verify his claims. How very different the future of AIDS and HIV might have been, had Margaret Heckler opened the press conference thus: "Science and research must be studied in the context of all the interested parties involved. The questions centre on determining the relative weight of the various allies in the 'fact-creating' process - e.g. funding bodies, businesses, departments of state, professions and other scientists. In analysing scientific debates, one should always ask what social, institutional, political and philosophical interests lie behind often apparently 'neutral' and 'technical' knowledge claims."

An important piece of advice, ten years too late and in any case forgotten in the fanfaronade of the public canonisation of Dr Gallo. After all, for the good of mankind, science and scientists had been pulling out all the stops to bag possibly the biggest killer this planet had experienced since the bubonic plague of the 15th century. And of course, in this all-out mercy mission to save so many human lives, it goes without saying that nothing improper would have been taking place… doesn't it?

To our very great cost, and hence the reason for this book, we shall see that such trust and benevolence extended towards the science supporting AIDS and HIV are misplaced and naïve in the extreme. A special panel of the National Academy of Sciences would, a few years after the Gallo announcement, be meeting to discuss: "…a persistent pattern of behaviour on Dr Gallo's part of repeated misrepresentation, suppression and distortion of data, and the misrepresentation of findings in such a manner that would enhance Dr Gallo's claim to priority."

The above panel was by no means be the only one urgently convened over the years following the 1984 press conference to discuss the methodology of Dr Gallo, the founding father of the alleged HIV. What exactly was this man getting up to in the closeted, almost impenetrable world of beakers, bunsen burners and centrifugal separation? Before we visit the Gallo laboratories in Bethesda, Maryland, it might serve us firstly to examine the scientific and medical culture into which the AIDS phenomenon/crisis reared its head in the first place. Establishing what attitudes prevailed at the time concerning the theories on illness and contagious disease will highlight why the search for the cause of AIDS was so dominated by the virus hunters.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in America began in 1887 as the Hygienic Laboratory. An insignificant organisation at the time, it was actually affiliated to the Public Health Service, which itself was affiliated to the US Navy. The NIH has since retained its military connections, the Surgeon General to this day wearing a white uniform. In the 1930s Congress created the National Cancer Institute (NCI), which became the first subdivision of the NIH to focus on any particular illness, and the parent organisation thus became known as the National Institutes of Health. James Shannon became the director of the NIH in 1955, taking up his position at a time when the US was experiencing the effects of polio.

James Shannon persuaded Congress to release considerable amounts of money to fund an all-out medical war against polio. But with the natural waning of polio in the early 1960s (now showing all the signs of being an environmental affliction ), the many specialists trained exclusively in virology to combat the condition dropped their investigations and began to concentrate their efforts on the search for the cure for cancer. And of course, being virologists, all sought the virus that must surely lurk behind one of mankind's biggest killers. Any notions cancer might be a toxic, metabolic, nutritional or environmentally-based disease were given short shrift. Twas a virus and a virus only they hunted, nothing else considered. Gallo himself later remarked: "Sometimes we virologists have a virus in search of a disease."

As we shall see, the narrow ambitions of the virus-hunting fraternity have produced some highly embarrassing and costly medical research failures. This is particularly true of the research commissioned by Congress for Richard Nixon's 1971 War on Cancer, the NCI announcing that same year that a vaccine against cancer would be available by 1976. The dominant power the virus establishment wields and its disconcerting ability to get things badly wrong on occasions is highlighted most succinctly by South African barrister Anthony Brink: "As we've all seen, when these oracles mumble and the press trumpets blare, the entire world eagerly gobbles up every word without demur. How many fake health crises have they delivered still-born into the popular consciousness? Take the idle herpes scare in the 70s, the phantom syphilis epidemic of the 30s and 40s, the great swine flu fiasco and that shining emblem of medical idiocy, the pellagra plague in the first four decades of this century, treating the people with arsenic and ruthless quarantine, which turned out to be plain malnutrition among the politically awkward droves of poor whites in [America's] Deep South industrial towns.

We need contagious epidemics to fight. Even imagined ones. They're tremendously psychologically useful. Germ theory so dominates contemporary medicine that it seeks germs everywhere, the more virulent the better, and especially if they can be linked to our culture's great taboos - sex and death. Anything to avoid facing up to unappealing political realities like widespread chronic under-nourishment among a shameful number of our countrymen as the time-honoured and common-sense cause of broken health."

Regular intakes of nutritious food? Whoever heard of such a thing? A sensible prescription lost in our overall reverence for the pharmaceutically-driven medical model, itself intent on blaming viruses for most of man's ills.

When a disease fails to perform to a given pattern, it is understandably important the medical establishment is seen by the general populace to be in control of the situation and fully understanding of the disease in all its complexities. It was virologist Carlton Guidachek who first put forward the notion of the slow virus - that an invader could gain entrance to the body, hide up and strike, even years later. Bryan Ellison comments: "A few virologists in the early sixties simply invented the notion of the slow virus, [a concept] which was actually awarded the Nobel Prize in 1976. Of course, once the concept of slow viruses had come to be accepted, it was possible to blame conceivably any disease on a virus, no matter how uninfectious the disease was.…."

Although sounding quite plausible to the laity and even to some medical experts, the idea of the slow virus was eventually consigned to the scrap-heap. Science has shown the chief causes of disease are not dominated by the virus, but by metabolic/nutritional imbalances and ongoing toxicities which affect a person's immunity. Micro-organisms as disease pathogens are opportunistic. The weaker the immune system due to poor diet, lack of hydration and environmental toxicity, the greater the likelihood of ill-health from them.

Yet agencies around the world, such as the CDC and the EIS, daily shape our understanding of health and disease. In a discussion on 'shaped' awareness and preconceived ideas. Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stated that: "Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent every year to control the public mind."

Subliminally or otherwise, vast sums of vested-interest money influence our attitudes towards illness today. Bryan Ellison reports: "By the time AIDS came along, the virus hunters controlled all the reins of power in the biomedical research establishments, and so naturally they dominated the research on AIDS. The very first person to describe AIDS cases - Michael Gottlieb in Los Angeles describing five homosexual men with pneumocystis carinii pneumonia - himself was already suggesting that it was caused by the herpes-type virus, cytomegalovirus. [Such] was the result of the virus hunters being in a dominant position in the establishment."

There was no choice in the matter. Until proven otherwise, any new and emerging disease from the early sixties onwards was first and foremost considered viral in nature. And that was also true for some of the well-established diseases, especially cancer.

In the early 1970s, Robert Gallo was working out of laboratories in Bethesda, Maryland, under the wing of the National Cancer Institute, and reporting to the immensely powerful Litton Bionetics. Gallo, a fully trained virologist, had been set a specific brief. Steven S Hall, author of Commotion in the Blood, says this of Gallo's early calling: "Gallo set the research agenda, did the hiring and ran the lab meetings. Every lab has an overriding mission and Gallo's was no exception. Like many virologists, Gallo had been looking for a human virus believed to cause several forms of human cancer…"

Gallo was considering the possibility of a particularly nasty virus, a virus hidden deep perhaps, but a virus he believed existed and could be detected - the virus most likely responsible for the dreaded leukaemia.

Leukaemia is the umbrella term to denote the unrestricted growth of under-developed, 'rogue', immune-system white blood cells (leukocytes). In failing to mature properly, they create greater and greater numbers of themselves until they crowd out the healthy blood cells, bringing the immune system to a kind of leukaemic gridlock. In their attempt to validate the 'leukaemia as virus' hypothesis, Gallo's lab technicians would obtain the cancerous leukaemia cells and concentrate primarily on trying to manufacture a 'culture' in which the cancerous cells might live. This would then allow the researchers time to study the cells, in order to try and identify any attacking virus.

As a point of interest, more prized than isolating any virus, the virologists' Holy Grail was independently to create in these cultures the infamous killer T-cells. Just as the alchemist pursues the life force, the 'fifth essence' (quintessence), and the astrophysicist the single-line equation explaining the existence of universe, so the virologist dreams of creating test-tube T-cells - those unique and incredibly complex fighters in our immune system. ("Having such killers at our beck and call would surely then make it possible for us to manipulate them, train them even and then direct them to destroy any invading cancerous cells.") Discovering the recipe for promoting the growth of the T-cell was an ongoing pursuit. And creating the 'culture' in which the cells might grow was, and still is, time-consuming and expensive. The laboratory beakers containing Gallo's precious and painstakingly prepared cultures were all meticulously labelled and kept refrigerated at the necessary low temperature.

And then, in late 1974, after almost three years of experimentation, a leukaemic virus was apparently isolated, which Gallo named Human Leukaemia 23 (HL23V). Gallo immediately reported the discovery to the local scientific community, and submitted a paper on the isolated virus to Science which was published in January 1975.

Newspapers were quick to report on Gallo's remarkable achievement, but his peers were even quicker to question his claims, asking what culture he was using, how he had prepared it and how he had gone about his experiments. Gallo hedged and would not reveal the chemistry of his culture, nor would he share the exact manner in which his virus had been isolated - only that it had.

Concerning the validation of scientific claims, Geoff Watts, author of Pleasing the Patient, reminds us of traditional scientific methodology: "Researchers are required not only to publish their findings, but also to describe their method in sufficient detail to allow others to repeat the work. Indeed the repeatability of an experiment is one of the criteria by which scientists judge the claims of their peers."

Gallo's habitual reluctance to conform to this sensible scientific methodology served only to anger his professional colleagues. Their questions became more forcefully posed: "Where's the leukaemia virus, Dr Gallo? And how did you preserve the cells?"

With pressure mounting on Gallo to produce the necessary evidence to support his 'discovery', suddenly… a calamity! One morning lab workers arrived to find that the refrigerator containing the supposed leukaemia virus and the precious 'cultures' had been mysteriously unplugged. Any evidence of the HL23V, supposedly preserved in the secret 'culture', known only as WHE, had now been ruined.

Says Gallo of this unfortunate but quite timely disaster: "We were screwed. We were only able to say, 'Honest, we had it!' and prove it to nobody."

Popular medical literature of the day however makes no mention of these 'minor' irregularities along the way, and credits Gallo with all the 'leukaemia breakthrough' headlines. It was Robert Gallagher, a technician at Gallo's lab during this period, who later stated that they hadn't actually wrapped their hands around an actual virus; rather they had inferred its presence based on a number of intricate virological predictions. In the case of Gallo's HL23V, the overriding question: "Was there ever really a virus in the first place?"

And what about that secret 'culture' known only as WHE? Gallo certainly exercised prudence in not expanding on its exact make-up. The initials stand for 'whole human embryo'. Aborted whole foetuses, developed no further than the first trimester (3 months), had various cell extractions performed upon them, the extracted cells forming the base composite for the melted HL23V.

Readers comforting themselves that foetuses not exceeding the first three months are probably just underdeveloped cell matter may be shocked to discover otherwise, as the following extract from "Love Your Unborn Neighbour" reveals: "By the sixth week from fertilisation, tiny fingers appear, followed within days by toes. At the same time the eyes develop the lens and retina and the eyelids begin to appear. Brainwaves can also be detected. At seven weeks the child has its own fingerprints, the outer ear is present and the inner ear, with its hearing and balancing mechanisms, is well established. At twelve weeks the child's features become more defined. The unborn baby can open or close the lips, wrinkle the forehead, raise the eyebrows and turn the head. The baby's sex is easy to determine, the baby measures about 90 mm and weighs 45 g and she is also sensitive to touch."

Three years' lucrative funding and thousands of man-hours later and finally, a virus existing only by the word of Dr Gallo, now melted. With his reputation severely dented, and Gallo still insistent that he had isolated said leukaemic micro-organism, the Maryland virologist immediately began scouring the labs for a cell specialist, someone with the necessary qualifications to resurrect his battered HL23V program. Steve Hall recounts: "It would not be exaggerating to characterize the mood in the lab as scientifically based hysteria. And into this dark environment of desperation, suspicion and frantic scientific scrambling arrived Doris Ann Morgan…"

With a PhD in Biochemical Genetics, Doris Morgan joined Gallo from Litton Bionetics where she had held the post of senior scientist in cell biology. Working alongside Frank Ruscetti, her brief from Gallo was "Get me that HL23!" Steven Hall again: "Ruscetti's tack was to test every known bone marrow cell line and as many embryos as possible to see if he could scare up the same factor that had disappeared in the great refrigerator meltdown, and he did a prodigious amount of work. Before he finally stopped looking he had tested close to 250 cell types, all failures.

Morgan took a different tack. She decided to stick with the existing system of growing leukaemic cells and see if she couldn't tinker with the conditions enough to nudge the cells into expanded growth. While working in Houston she had managed to keep a number of white blood cells taken from mice, known as granulocytes, in test tubes for up to 3 weeks, which at the time, was considered a phenomenally long out-of-body experience for a blood cell. The leukaemic cells Gallo studied were also granulocytic, also of myeloid (bone marrow) origin. Perhaps Morgan could tweak the system a bit."

And in March 1975, after much tweaking, Morgan noticed the appearance of cells apparently not seen before. Could they be the hallowed T-cells, the Holy Grail of immuno-biology? Said Gallo at the time: "My God, this is important! But we've gotta be sure we're right."

Gallo soon began informing his peers that his lab had discovered the recipe for T-cell growth culture. His peers abruptly sat up. This was a massive step towards the elusive cure for leukaemia, and for the war against cancer in general. The administration of a strain of this factor in the patient could promote an absolute proliferation of killer T-cells, that would in turn make short shrift of any cancerous cells. This time Gallo did share his recipe for human T-cell growth factor with the scientific community, submitting his research for full publication in Science, March 1976. Gallo subsequently received hundreds of calls from immunologists, complaining that they couldn't get the growth factor to work. Says Ruscetti, "They were saying we were crazy, but this was only because they didn't really want to accept it."

Another dead end. But Gallo, impervious to the scepticism of his peers, sensed that Morgan's discovery was going to be big, and he calculatedly made a phone call upstairs. Stephen Hall again: "Given the personalities of Gallo and Ruscetti, it's just one of those things in human dynamics. They saw the significance of it; this was Nobel Prize stuff. Those personalities never concerned themselves with personal aspects, just with the scientific problem, and Doris got left in the dust. Finally, on 23rd January 1978, Phillip Markham from Litton Bionetics informed Morgan in a letter that her job would be terminated."

Morgan was being moved on. Asked if Gallo ever treated her badly, Morgan's only regret was that Gallo had taken all the credit for the discovery of the special factor, which, perhaps for Morgan, was a blessing in disguise. Gallo's growth factor, instead of being rightfully discarded, was adopted by Steve Rosenberg, and its name changed in 1979 to Interleukin 2, IL2 for short. Rosenberg, who would later become Ronald Reagan's cancer surgeon, took IL2 to new and dizzy heights. IL2 was fêted as a 'cancer breakthrough' on the front cover of Fortune magazine on 25th November 1985 and Rosenberg was awarded the $100,000 Armand Hammer cancer prize the same year for his work.

Anyone wishing to embark on a study of the long history of 'cancer breakthroughs' will find the exercise a very sobering one. The NCI cancer vaccine, promised for 1976, has, of course, failed to materialise. And when traced with any objectivity, the history of IL2's 'effectiveness' in treating cancer is a horrendous litany of medical disaster. Almost every patient treated with IL2 suffered fever, malaise, nausea or vomiting, diarrhoea, sharp drops in blood pressure, skin rashes, breathing difficulties, liver abnormalities and irregularities in blood chemistry. Rosenberg himself details a number of horrifying case histories, and one in particular where the administration of IL2 had precipitated amongst other things, vomiting, swollen joints, lung fluid and 'vascular leak syndrome', where blood would ooze through the vessel walls and collect under the skin. Reading between the lines, it is evident that many a hapless patient died of his oncologist.

Charles G Moertel, a renowned and respected physician at that time, delivered the following opinion on the benefits of Interleukin 2 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 12th December 1986. "The treatment itself is an awesome experience, usually requiring weeks of hospitalisation, much of which must be spent in intensive care if the patient is to survive the devastating toxic reactions. In short, IL2 is associated with unacceptably severe toxicity and astronomical cost. This is not balanced by any persuasive evidence of true net therapeutic gain. IL2 would not seem to merit further application in the compassionate management of patients with cancer."

And today, the Chiron Corporation, pharmaceutical manufacturers and suppliers of Interleukin 2, state on their web page that "…many people are leading normal lives because of IL2." Credence has requested details from Chiron Corporation on the specific manner in which people have been helped by IL2. To date there has been no reply.

In reality, Doris Morgan's much vaunted IL2, remembered only as Gallo's discovery, has proven to be yet another dead end in a history of dead ends for our senior virologist. And he never won the Nobel Prize either. And what of Gallo's credentials to date? Anthony Brink is brief and dismissive about the early days of 'the Pope of AIDS': "Gallo's disgraceful behaviour in relation to his AIDS research was no first. Had he not ascended to such power and influence within the federal health bureaucracy, it is likely his claims to have found a single infectious cause for the disparate diseases grouped together as AIDS in the early 1980s would have been laughed out of court. After all, this was the bright spark who, with almost as much fanfare as that at his flash-bulb popping HIV press announcement, had loudly touted his discovery of what he claimed to be the first identified human retrovirus, HL23V, in the mid 1970s. After another look, this exciting find turned out to be nothing of the kind, just another accidental laboratory artefact. His laboratory hadn't done the most basic controls. To his great embarrassment, Gallo had to retract his claims, and HL23V then modestly retired as a virus from the scientific lexicon."

And what of Gallo's team? What of their credentials? A brief trawl through the records reveals that Syed Zaki Salahuddin, one of Gallo's closest lab associates, was convicted of using Gallo's laboratory credit card to purchase supplies from the NIH central stores; supplies which he then spirited out in order to set up his own research laboratory. Having established his own lab, Salahuddin then installed his wife as director. Running alongside this venture, Salahuddin also arranged for various 'private interest' items to be manufactured, all within Gallo's own laboratory, which were then sold to outside competitors. Dr Dharam Ablashi, a fellow worker at Gallo's laboratory, was recruited as a sales rep for this clandestine outfit. Salahuddin was ordered to repay $12,000 and complete 1,750 hours community service. Salahuddin was also one of the principal authors of the early papers announcing the discovery of an HIV. Gallo's second-in-command at the lab, Prem Sarin, would later find himself on trial for directing $25,000 into his own account which should have been spent hiring a lab technician. Sarin was equally involved in the early papers on the 'discovery' of HIV. In his "Lab Rat" article, Seth Roberts summarises the early years thus: "Gallo's lab has been described by past and present employees as a 'den of thieves' and as being 'full of mediocrities'. In its quantity of intrigue and capricious purges, it resembles a 'medieval Italian town', says one former employee. He adds, 'I'm surprised somebody hasn't killed someone there.' Without AIDS, Gallo would have been simply another grasping, over-productive, under-scrupulous scientist. Dozens of awards, hundreds of papers, thousands of tantrums, a vast phone bill, a ringside seat at the discovery of IL2 and HTLV1, and a handful of derailed careers - that would have been the Gallo legacy. AIDS, however, gave him the chance to really make a difference."

And 'make a difference' he did. IL2 was becoming a fading memory for Gallo. It was now the early 1980s, and Gallo's attention was becoming increasingly diverted towards Gottlieb's up-and-coming, but as yet unnamed AIDS syndrome. But just prior to Gallo's full pursuit of the virus that 'must surely lie at the heart of AIDS', another startling claim was made by some members of his team.

In 1980, Frank Ruscetti and fellow biologist Bernard Poiesz apparently isolated the very first human cancer retrovirus, naming it Human T-cell Leukaemia Virus or HTLV1 for short. The 'discovery' of the cancer retrovirus (a generalised description of this interesting little entity being, "I can't see it under the microscope, and you can't see it either. But if Gallo's lab tells us there's one there, then what reason do we have to disbelieve them?") has subsequently precipitated massive injections of cash into virus labs the world over. It will come as no surprise to the reader that yet again, HTLV1 has proven to be just another of those 'Gallo lab discoveries' that no-one has yet been able independently to verify. This fact does not stop Robin McKie, science editor for the Observer newspaper, from writing: "Once a contender for the Nobel prize, for discovering the first human cancer-causing virus, Gallo…." etc, etc. But it was to be one artefact in particular, the elusive HIV, which would prove to be the most destructive 'quark' in the history of immunology.

1983 was the beginning of Robert Gallo's public ascendancy into the AIDS debate. The following chronology traces the key events leading up to Gallo's world-wide announcement of his 'discovery' of HIV and that 'HIV was probably the sole cause of AIDS'.

In May 1983, fellow virus hunter Luc Montagnier from the Pasteur Institute, Paris, trustingly submits a paper to Robert Gallo, outlining what Montagnier believes to be a new type of virus. Gallo senses that Montagnier may be on to something and edits the paper in such a manner that the reader would concur that the Montagnier virus is a member of the same family as Gallo's HTLV1 (leukaemia) virus. The ensuing paper conveniently bolsters Gallo's 'discovery', regardless of the fact that HTLV1 had been completely discredited.

In July 1983, Gallo receives a shipment of factor for inspection, which Montagnier states contains his virus, named Lymphadenopathy-associated Virus or LAV. Montagnier believes that this is the virus which may lie at the heart of AIDS.

On 14th September 1983, unaware of the growing US interest in his findings, Montagnier lectures on the blood test he has developed, which can apparently detect certain antibodies in the blood - antibodies that might indicate the presence of his virus, and hence, the onset of AIDS.

On 15th September 1983, Montagnier files for a UK patent on his potentially lucrative AIDS blood test. Throughout all of these proceedings, Gallo has been in attendance at a number of meetings where the technicalities of Montagnier's virus and its supporting science are intimately discussed. These and other factors would later add weight to accusations that Gallo was attempting to plagiarise and then 'cash in' on Montagnier's work.

On 22nd November 1983, after close observation of Montagnier's potentially momentous discovery, Gallo announces that his lab too has isolated certain particles, which might also be the AIDS virus. Not surprisingly though, an independent analysis of the samples submitted by Gallo for verification produced no trace of a virus. To counter these embarrassing findings, Gallo's lab almost immediately announces the discovery of yet another virus, which is named HTLVIII. Gallo states that this is most definitely the much sought-after AIDS virus. A subsequent enquiry to establish the actual existence of Gallo's HTLVIII (later renamed HIV) determines that yet again, Gallo had failed to isolate any virus. Roche Laboratories found no trace of HTLVIII in the ten samples submitted to them.

On 12th March 1984, despite the fact that Gallo's HTLVIII does not apparently exist, James Curran from the CDC meets with Gallo, and tells him that the blood test procedure that Gallo has been working on confirms the presence of Gallo's HTLVIII virus in blood samples of suspected AIDS patients. In other words, Gallo claims discovery of a virus, and then claims a method to detect the virus. This 'full-circle' scenario is then given the official stamp of approval by a close colleague in an influential position. More respectably translated, the Centers for Disease Control have just informed the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute that everything is satisfactory. Gallo's two inventions will go on to 'confirm' to the waiting world that the epidemic known as AIDS is viral. Says Gallo later: "In Curran's view, we had determined the cause of AIDS."

In the same month, Gallo's well-timed letter to the Lancet is published, telling of his 'struggle' to isolate Montagnier's LAV, the virus that Montagnier believed was responsible for AIDS. And indeed, several years later, Montagnier would confess that his own lab had never actually isolated the virus known as LAV, according to the standard rules for isolation.

On 23rd April 1984, Heckler introduces Gallo to the world. That same day, Gallo submits his blood test kit for a US patent. Anthony Brink dryly comments: "In cravenly seeking the endorsement of Big American Science, Montagnier naively left his keys in the ignition, and the next thing it was gone. Gallo resprayed Montagnier's LAV as HTLVIII. It was later renamed HIV on the basis of Gallo's claims, without proof to warrant its fearsome title." In short, at that Washington press conference which proclaimed the discovery of the vicious virus probably causing AIDS, there was no virus.

On 29th May 1985, Gallo's patent on his own blood test is granted. Montagnier's patent is still pending at this time. (Montagnier's patent was never granted.)

In December 1992, Robert Gallo is indicted for scientific fraud by the Office of Research Integrity, a supervisory department of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), based on his declaration that he had discovered HIV. Anthony Brink comments: "Having sneaked through a patent application on the blood test, thus guaranteeing him a fortune in royalties, Gallo went on to publish four papers in the prestigious if dowdy journal Science two weeks later. Then the trouble started: an exuberant international dispute over who stole the fake diamonds. For Gallo, this was the Paula trouble that led to Monica."

And fake diamonds they were too. For the habit of inferring the presence of a virus without actually being able to lay hands on one is a habit not solely confined to the Gallo labs. To loyal readers of The National Enquirer, Montagnier's money-spinning LAV may well be alive and well (along with Elvis and assorted bullet-headed extra-terrestrials). To the rational enquirer however, Montagnier's LAV remains elusive to this day. The scandalous use of 'inferred' photography in modern-day science and the blatantly false imagery produced is discussed in more detail later.

Montagnier was incensed when he learned of Gallo's televised announcement. He believed that Gallo had quite simply stolen his virus and would now reap the rewards. Montagnier was not going to forego his cut. Branching away from the usual loose laboratory rules for verification, Montagnier pressed for definite proof that his share of the expected proceeds would be 'isolated', verified and then visibly transferred into his own bank account. He wasn't going to rely on Gallo only inferring that this would soon take place. An indistinct photograph of Montagnier's share of the proceedings would not suffice in this instance.

The subsequent wranglings between Gallo's laboratory and the Pasteur Institute and between the French and US governments became increasingly acrimonious, with accusations of scientific plagiarism and 'inexplicable' cross-contamination of evidence. Presidents Reagan and Chirac persuaded Montagnier and Gallo to meet up to sort out their differences. They emerged from their meeting in a Frankfurt hotel, agreeing to share the royalties on the blood testing kits, which, by 1994, would amount to $35,000,000. Whether or not Montagnier has ever forgiven Robert Gallo for exhibiting a photograph of Montagnier's unsubstantiated 'virus' at that Washington press conference, claiming it as his own, will probably never be known.

So where was Montagnier's virus at that press conference? Where was Gallo's virus? In truth, on that spring day in April 1984, there was actually no virus to show the world. This of course did not hinder proceedings. The show had gathered unstoppable momentum. Re-enforced with the full backing of the American medical, political and scientific establishments, a photograph of someone else's virtual virus, no virus of his own, and a lucrative patent application at the back of his mind, Dr Robert Gallo braced himself to enter the world's stage. Brushing down his suit, he entered the whirring, flashing arena of the National Academy of Sciences auditorium, announced a major breakthrough in the battle against AIDS, and quite unabashedly soaked up every last bit of the worship the world bestowed upon him.

Further Resources
The Truth about HIV by Steven Ransom and Phillip Day. Available from 5th February 2005

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Drug Company Empire Ready to Fall

The $500 billion drug company dynasty finally appears ready to fall as the industry struggles to save face among continual reports of serious problems with well-known drugs. Meanwhile, drug research and development is on the decline and the industry is struggling to find new medicines.

Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly, all major players in the drug company market, each disclosed major problems with popular medications -- all in the span of about half a day:

Pfizer announced an increased risk of heart problems in people taking the painkiller Celebrex (one of the world's best-selling medicines).

AstraZeneca reported that lung cancer drug Iressa, which was approved in the United States in 2003, did not prolong lives in a trial.

Eli Lilly warned that Strattera, an ADHD drug, might cause severe liver injury. The news pushed stocks down, causing the market value of the three companies to decline by more than $30 billion.

But it's not just these three companies that need to worry -- all major drug companies are at risk of similar declines. Although spending on drug development has nearly doubled to about $33 billion, new drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have declined significantly from 53 in 1996 to 21 in 2003.

The major threat to companies (aside from growing negative publicity due to dangerous side effects) is that if fewer drugs are produced, investors will want to cut the companies' research spending. Meanwhile, governments may force companies to cut drug prices to support programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

The result? A less profitable industry that produces fewer new drugs.

The drug companies are not going out without a fight, however. In an attempt to save their falling dynasty, drug makers have been:

· Pursuing aggressive ad campaigns to doctors and patients
· Increasing drug prices
· Attempting to extend patents on existing medications

The efforts have been a mixed blessing for the industry. While they've protected drug company profits in the meantime, they've also irritated the industry's target market -- both consumers and governments alike -- and have even caused a political reaction in the United States and Europe.
New York Times December 18, 2004

DR MERCOLA'S COMMENT: As we all know with the Vioxx debacle, Merck is stumbling badly. The even better news is that the major drug companies Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly have each disclosed serious problems with popular medicines. This follows on the heels of the world's largest drug company, Pfizer, announcing that their blockbuster drug Celebrex also has cardiovascular side effects. No surprise here as I said this many years ago.

No major drug company is exempt from the problem. The number of new drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration has declined sharply since the mid-1990's, falling from 53 in 1996 to 21 in 2003, even as the industry has nearly doubled its annual spending on drug development, to about $33 billion. Apparently the decline in drug research and development has been an open secret among analysts and scientists for years.

Since the industry as a whole earns half a TRILLION dollars a year, they do have a LONG way they can fall before they really start to "hurt." Heck, Merck will lose $50 billion with Vioxx and they are still kicking strong. Fortunately, as a result of this news Pfizer lost nearly $25 billion.

Pfizer is spending $7 billion EVERY year on new drug development alone. Collectively, all drug companies spend $16 BILLION to market their drugs to physicians every year and another $3 billion for direct-to-consumer advertising. That gives you some idea of how much money is involved here.
www.mercola.com
(Excellent free newsletter available from this site).

Heart Disease
by Phillip Day

Profile
The leading cause of death in the western world today is heart disease. Over 3,000 Americans die EVERY DAY from heart disease in its various forms. So, if we are interested in living to be 100, heart disease must be one of the first hurdles we must overcome. Is that possible?

If you were able to remove heart disease from the general population, our world today would be radically different from what we see. How many relatives would still be with us? How much more money would there be available for proper research to conquer other, less well-known problems?

We are about to find out that heart disease can end today based entirely on existing scientific knowledge. That is why I become increasingly tired of the whining British National Health Service and its government over cash shortages in Britain and how financially strapped the hospitals and health services are today. None of this would be happening if the population and its health services WOULD EXERCISE PREVENTION INSTEAD OF CURE. For who, in reality, is responsible for the soaring costs of healthcare today, if not we, the population, through not taking proper care of ourselves? That's our responsibility, by the way, not the government's.

Types of heart disease
All forms of heart disease will be dealt with in this chapter as the approaches to them are essentially the same. Let's first take a look at the major problems:

Cardiomyopathy: Any disease affecting the heart muscle's ability to pump juice. The heart works through electrical/muscular contraction. When this becomes impaired, the decreased efficiency of the heart to circulate blood begins to cause warning signs. Shortness of breath, arrhythmia (see below), fatigue, a chronic, unproductive cough and blue extremities are common indications.

Congestive heart failure: Failure or impairment of the pumping action of the ventricle of the heart, resulting in a back pressure of blood, engorging the veins in the neck creating fluid retention in the tissues, or edema. Shortness of breath, even when lying prone, swelling of the legs, etc.

Myocardial infarction: The classic heart attack, where part of the heart muscle, usually the left ventricle, dies, following an interruption of the blood supply. The patient experiences a 'heart attack' - an abrupt, severe chest pain, which may spread to the arms and throat.

Arrhythmia: Any disturbance or abnormality in the regular beating of the heart. These include specific variations, such as ectopic beats, atrial fibrillations, ventricular tachycardias and severe ventricular arrhythmias. Arrhythmias may result from a whole host of different heart conditions. More ominously, the Oxford Concise Medical Dictionary warns: "Arrhythmias may… occur without apparent cause."

Atherosclerosis: Fatty lipoprotein plaque build-up in the arteries, which prevents proper blood flow, leading to heart failure and other conditions.

Arteriosclerosis: Hardening or thickening of small artery walls. The term is often used interchangeably with atherosclerosis (incorrectly).

Thrombosis: A condition in which liquid blood solidifies or thickens in an artery, preventing blood flow. This may happen in the brain artery, impairing blood flow to the brain, resulting in a stroke. Thrombosis in any artery disrupts blood flow to the tissue it supplies. Coronary thrombosis often results in myocardial infarction, or 'heart attack'.

Angina pectoris: What I term 'the slow heart attack'. Pain in the centre of the chest, spreading to the arms and jaw. Often brought on by exercising, where the demand for blood from the heart exceeds the cardiovascular system's ability to provide it. Angina often occurs as a result of damaged or occluded arteries (athero/arteriosclerosis and other heart conditions).

Embolism: A blood clot or other solid body restricting blood flow to vital organs (including the heart and lungs) and tissues. The embolus may become detached and be carried to another part of the body, where it becomes lodged, creating localised or systemic problems.

Heart murmurs: A mitral valve prolapse occurs when this heart valve becomes misshapen or deformed, causing a leakage of fluid between the left upper chamber (atria) of the heart and the left ventricle. Such murmurs may be detected by stethoscope.

Commentary
So, here we are, examining the leading killer of humankind in the western industrial nations…. Doesn't that give you a clue to the where the problems may lie immediately?

The heart and its circulatory (cardiovascular) system are all about tubes, a pump and lots of blood. Notice the problems described above in semi-medical vernacular really come down to the fact that if you don't want to get the leading cause of death, you must have a strong and efficient heart muscle, clean, well constructed pipes (veins and arteries) and blood that is pure and not filled with the kind of debris and rubbish you might find in a Staten Island junkyard.

The human heart beats around 100,000 times every 24 hours, pumping six quarts of blood through a freeway system of over 96,000 miles of blood vessels. This staggering feat is the equivalent of the heart moving 6,300 gallons a day, or shunting 115,000,000 gallons of blood by time you reach fifty. None too shabby, eh?

Then consider that those six quarts of blood each of us have are made up of over 24 trillion cells, seven million new ones of which are produced by our body every second, to replace worn-out cells and continue the work of transporting nutrients and removing waste and toxins. This amazing pump, responsible for all the action, has the capability to run maintenance- and service-free for decades without missing a beat. And no, it doesn't come with a warranty.

Coronary heart disease, heart attacks, angina pectoris, thrombosis, myocardial infarctions - trouble by any name - can be caused by certain types of drugs, as we shall see, and also by coronary arteries that have become progressively clogged by fatty material which prevents normal blood-flow (atherosclerosis). If you take your garden hose, which is supplying water to your lawn sprinkler (in countries which allow you to have one), and bend the hose, the water flow ceases to the sprinkler. Likewise, if the arteries supplying blood to the heart become clogged with deposits, or blood clots brought on by sticky platelets, the same starving of liquid to the pump will occur.

Drs. Pauling and Rath
But it's the underlying cause of almost all heart problems that is the most provocative and misunderstood issue in medicine today. Two doctors, Linus Pauling and Matthias Rath, popularised the scientific truth that had been whispered fearfully in medical corridors for decades, but which had failed to come out because of huge vested interests in the corporate profitability of heart disease - namely that heart disease was primarily a fulminating deficiency of vitamin C complex and the amino acids lysine and proline, which help form the collagen fibres that knit the artery walls together. Dr Matthias Rath sums up his findings:

"Animals don't get heart attacks because they produce vitamin C in their bodies, which protects their blood vessel walls. In humans, unable to produce vitamin C (a condition known as hypoascorbemia), dietary vitamin deficiency weakens these walls. Cardiovascular disease is an early form of scurvy. Clinical studies document that optimum daily intakes of vitamins and other essential nutrients halt and reverse coronary heart disease naturally.

The single most important difference between the metabolism of human beings and most other living species is the dramatic difference in the body pool of vitamin C. The body reservoir of vitamin C in people is on average 10 to 100 times lower than the vitamin C levels in animals."

What a revelation, eh?

Low density lipoprotein - Lp(a)
The makings of scurvy
Scurvy occurs when the collagen matrix in the body begins to break down. With heart disease, the scurvy process is much slower, sometimes taking years to develop. As Dr Rath reports, vitamin C is essential for the production of collagen and elastin, the elastic, fibrous materials which knit the walls of arteries and blood vessels together. Collagen fibres are a lot like the steel girders you see when builders are erecting a new skyscraper. Each fibre has been calculated to be far tougher and stronger than an iron wire of comparable width. Collagen cells form the structure for arteries, organs and skin, and so a chronic vitamin C deficiency causes the beginning of a collapse in the arterial walls, necessitating a healing process to commence, in the form of lipoprotein(a) fats which the body attempts to use to bond the thousands of tiny breaches in the arterial walls.

These lipoproteins are Nature's perfect Band-Aid. They are extremely sticky and form the atherosclerotic deposits associated with advanced forms of heart disease today. Cardiovascular medicine, unaware or willingly ignorant of the underlying nutritional deficiency cause of atherosclerosis, focuses its attention on vilifying the lipoproteins' LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol content as one of the primary causes of heart diseases, when it is in fact the healing (survival response) precursor brought on by a chronic vitamin C deficiency. Today the drug industry has predictably mobilised a multi-billion-dollar business of anti-cholesterol drugs, which have wrought devastating results in cardiac patients, necessitating a further $20 billion drug program to combat all the side effects. Rath and Pauling discovered that

• Optimum vitamin C intakes (600 mg - 3 g daily), along with supportive intakes of vitamin E (800-1,000 IU), the amino acids lysine and proline, the B vitamins, essential fatty acids (EFAs), magnesium, minerals, trace minerals and amino acids, provide healthy arteries
  
• A long-term vitamin C deficiency will lead to atherosclerotic deposits in the arterial walls to cover the breaches caused by the disintegrating collagen, eventually resulting in coronary heart disease and, further north, strokes in the brain
  
• Vitamin C depletion over a few months will lead to massive blood loss through collagen disintegration, resulting in leaky artery walls, collapsing organs and death by scurvy

Vitamin C depletion (complete absence of the nutrient) in the industrial nations is almost an impossibility, even with the ghastly diets with which we feed ourselves today. However long-term vitamin C deficiency is very common and occurs in almost all the population, hence the prevalence of heart disease in all its forms.

Coronary arteries sustain the most stress since they are the primary roadways for blood being pumped by the heart. The need for ongoing repairs of the leaky artery walls produces an overcompensation of repair materials, such as cholesterol, triglycerides and low-density lipoproteins (LDL), produced in the liver, which lead to infarctions as this plaque builds up. Other areas, such as arteries in the legs, are also affected. Varicose veins often develop as a result of this ongoing healing process (see Varicose veins).

Collagen in our body is made up of proteins composed of amino acids, particularly lysine and proline. An optimum supply of vitamin C complex, E, proline and lysine are decisive factors for the regeneration of connective tissue in the artery wall and thus for the reversal of cardiovascular disease. These factors are almost never prescribed by allopathic medicine, which is why, in spite of the most technical medicines and surgical procedures available, heart disease continues to be the main killer of industrialised, commercially fed, vitamin C-deficient humanity.

Let's look at the problem in action
An interesting parallel can be seen in nature with hibernating animals which, during their extended sleep period, deplete their vitamin C reserves, due to lack of incoming nutrition. As a result, fat molecules are deposited along their artery walls, which lead to a thickening of these vessels. In spring however, once these animals recover from their hibernation and begin consuming vegetation and fruits, such as berries, their vitamin C, amino acid and antioxidant intakes rise sharply, resulting in a reversal of these repair factors, leading to a re-stabilisation of their arterial walls and their normal function.

Lack of antioxidant material is also a major contributing factor. Current theories on this subject suggest that oxidative elements, known as free radicals, are brought into the body through smoking, car exhaust, pollution and smog, damaging the collagen in the artery walls, bringing on the need for further lipoprotein repairs. It is believed the damage is done because electron-hungry free radicals rob healthy cells to produce degradation in the cell and cell-death. These oxidative elements are now widely thought to be the leading cause of pre-ageing and cell degradation.

Autopsies of military personnel killed during the Korean and Vietnam wars showed that up to 75% of the victims had developed some form of atherosclerosis even at ages of 25 or younger. Yet those servicemen who had been captured by the enemy and incarcerated on rice and vegetable diets were later, upon release and a medical examination, found to have cleared the plaque during their period of captivity.

Victims of accidents are often found to have developed atherosclerotic deposits that would have become a problem for them, had they lived longer. Dr Rath comments:

"The main cause of atherosclerotic deposits is the biological weakness of the artery walls caused by chronic vitamin deficiency [malnutrition]. The atherosclerotic deposits are the consequence of this chronic weakness; they develop as a compensatory stabilizing cast of Nature to strengthen these weakened blood vessel walls."

Heart disease studies with nutrition
So chronic vitamin and mineral deficiencies produce a breakdown of collagen in the arterial walls, leading to increased artery wall tension, narrowing of the artery diameter, thickening of artery walls and therefore high blood pressure. The result is heart attack, strokes (impairment of arterial flow to the brain), high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) and heart failure. Interestingly, as time marches forward, the public's ability to garner adequate supplies of vitamin C from its diet through fruits and vegetables becomes progressively less as our food chain is corrupted further with processed, chemical foods and the public's penchant to move away from healthy, natural foods in favour of the more 'tasty' and better advertised artificial alternatives.

Ironically heart disease manifested itself less in medieval times during spring, summer and autumn since the predominantly vegetarian diet of the average working class citizen often provided well mineralised vegetables and fruits. Winter however was another matter. Freezing was not possible back then, and nutritional intake took a dive as diets only comprised those foods that could be adequately salted and preserved during the winter months. Strokes and heart disease were common during these months.

Back then, of course, the killer was the more extreme of the vitamin C deficiency ailments - scurvy - which resulted when sailors, for instance, dramatically halted their vitamin C intake, due to the restriction of provisions available on board their ships.

Dr James Enstrom and colleagues from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) dramatically proved the heart disease link with vitamin C when they studied the vitamin intake of 11,000 Americans over 10 years. Funded by the US Congress, their study demonstrated that citizens taking in at least 300 mg per day of vitamin C in their diet or through supplementation cut their risk of heart disease by up to 50% in males and 40% in females. This study alone should have made headline news. Who before could have claimed such a reduction in the number of deaths from the leading disease killer in the western world? But nothing was mentioned! The study focused primarily on vitamin C, but, as we will see, other nutrients also play a key role in the prevention or complete elimination of heart disease. We must always remember too that nutrients in the body work in synergy, not in isolation, so any supplementation regime we embark upon should be a complete program, together with a suitable diet.

Dr G C Willis demonstrated that vitamin C complex could reverse atherosclerosis. Willis gave a sample of his patients 1.5 grams of vitamin C a day and gave the remainder of the group no vitamin C. After a year, the atherosclerotic deposits in the patients fed the vitamin C had decreased in 30% of the cases. In contrast, no reduction in deposits was observed in the control group, which had even grown further. In spite of the clear evidence over 40 years ago of the benefits of just vitamin C through Willis' work, no follow-up study was ever commissioned.

Professor Gey, from the University of Basel in Switzerland, conducted studies in which he compared the vitamin C, vitamin A (beta carotene) and cholesterol intakes of citizens living in Northern Europe with those in the southern regions of the continent. His findings were recorded thus:

• Those living in the northern nations of Europe had the highest levels of cardiovascular disease and the lowest blood levels of vitamins
  
• Southern European populations had the reverse statistics of their northern counterparts and so were more healthy
  
• An optimum intake of vitamins C, E and A had a far greater impact on decreasing risks of cardiovascular disease than the reduction of cholesterol, now becoming increasingly viewed (correctly) as a secondary factor in heart disease risk (an inevitable result of the primary deficiency of nutrients leading to the breakdown of the arterial walls).

Gey's report also highlighted the preference for the Mediterranean diet, rich in wine and olive oil, abundant in bioflavonoids (another part of the C complex) and vitamin E, as a main prevention regimen for heart disease in almost all its forms.

Further studies showed that these nutrients separately produced impressive results for cardiac disease prevention:

• Vitamin C intake lowers cardiovascular risk by 50%
  
• Vitamin E intake lowers cardiovascular risk by one-third, documented in 87,000 study participants over six years
  
• Beta carotene (vitamin A) intake lowers cardiovascular risk over 30%, documented in more than 87,000 study participants over six years
  
• No prescription drug has ever come close to matching these figures in preventing heart disease

However, when these nutrients were combined with other synergistic agents, such as magnesium, vitamin B3 (nicotinic acid), vitamin B5 (pantothenate) and the amino acid carnitine, and levels of these maintained in the body over the long-term, near total prevention could be expected, and in those already suffering from a variety of cardiac ailments, a clear record of efficacy in reversing these conditions was observed.

Learning from our animals
While the World Health Organization announces that more than 12 million people each year die from the consequences of heart disease and strokes, this death rate is just not occurring in the animal kingdom. When vitamin C levels in animals were measured, procured as a result of their diets and own production of vitamin C, they were found to have between 1 g and 20 g available a day, when compared with human bodyweight. Humans on the other hand, unable to produce their own vitamin C, are now consuming less and less foods containing the essential nutrients available in fruits and vegetables, themselves now depleted of vital nutrients because of commercial and over-farming practices. Some do not even make the miserable 'Recommended Daily Allowance' (RDA) of C - 60 mg a day. This dramatic paradigm shift in nutritional intake by the human over the past 150 years, from a diet almost completely vegetarian (5-10% animal protein intake - meat was largely unavailable to many of the poorer citizens) to one dominated by animal food sources, has manifested itself in the most disastrous death toll from cardiovascular disease, which can now be identified primarily as a metabolic, nutritional deficiency disease.

High blood pressure and arrhythmia
Modern medicine does not know the actual cause of high blood pressure in many of its cases, referring to these unknowns as "essential hypertension". Drugs prescribed can be diuretics, beta-blockers, blood thinners (including the rat poison, Warfarin) and other medications. Yet studies again exist demonstrating that vitamin C , coenzyme Q10 , magnesium and the amino acid arginine are able to lower blood pressure very effectively without the attendant side-effects of prescription medications. Vitamin C also increases the production of prostacyclin, a small molecule hormone that relaxes the blood vessel walls and also keeps the blood viscosity at optimum levels.

Arrhythmia, or inconsistent heartbeat, is also much misunderstood by conventional medicine. The term "paroxysmal arrhythmia", so often used, simply means "causes unknown". Beta-blockers, calcium antagonists and pacemakers are often prescribed in ignorance of the true underlying nutritional causes. Rath states:

"The most frequent cause of irregular heartbeat is a chronic deficiency in vitamins and other essential nutrients in millions of electrical heart muscle cells. Long-term, these deficiencies of essential nutrients directly cause, or aggravate, disturbances in the creation or conduction of the electrical impulses triggering the heartbeat. Scientific research and clinical studies have already documented the value of magnesium, calcium, carnitine, coenzyme Q10 and other co-factors in helping to normalise different forms of irregular heartbeat, thereby improving the quality of life for the patients."

Other problems linked to the heart
Coffee is known to cause heart problems. Coffee stimulates the release of the hormone adrenalin, which relies on vitamin C as the catalyst for its production. Stress also produces adrenalin, drawing down and depleting supplies of vitamin C in the body, resulting in C deficiency problems. The Pill and other hormonal medications also have the effect of drawing down levels of C in the body, producing the attendant effects of heart disease in its various forms.

The great fatty acid boys
Fats are essential, which is why they call them 'the essential fatty acids', but they have to be the right kinds of fats! Omega-3 and omega-6 oils especially are the two important types of essential fatty acids. The suffixes '3' and '6' refer to differences in the particular oil's chemical structure. These 3 and 6 oils are vital for optimum health and play a central role in preventing and healing heart complaints. Needless to say, most of us get plenty of the commercial junk fats, which the body struggles to break down and eliminate, but few of the sixes and threes (and nines), let alone in their optimum configurations.

The main omega-3 oil is alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), prevalent in flaxseed (58%), pumpkin seeds and walnuts. Fish oils, such as contained in oily fish like salmon, cod and mackerel, contain the other important omega-3 oils, DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid). (Ensure these fish are fresh and cold-caught, NOT FARMED).

Linoleic acid or cis-linoleic acid is the main omega-6 oil and is found in many plant and vegetable oils, including safflower (73%), sunflower, corn, and sesame. The most useful type of omega-6 oil is gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), found in evening primrose oil, used to treat kids with ADD/ADHD problems. Once in the body, omega-3 and omega-6 are converted to prostaglandins, hormone-like substances that regulate many metabolic functions, particularly inflammatory processes. (For more information on the fat boys, see A Guide to Nutritional Supplements).

Summary
If we examine the three main areas for heart disease treatment and prevention, we arrive at diet (and supplementation), exercise and lifestyle choices (rejecting smoking, alcohol, drugs and adverse character traits, such as anger, jealousy and irritability) as a means of normalising blood pressure, adrenal hormone secretions and even androgens (male hormones), which are linked to male pattern baldness and a higher risk of heart disease.

The diet, exercise and lifestyle strategies relevant to avoiding heart disease are explained in the Take action section below. The dietary and supplement regimens are designed to optimise nutrition in a way that is very similar to the nutritional intake of those peoples who do not suffer these problems. Modified nutrition and an associated vitamin and mineral supplementation assure optimum protection against heart attack and stroke.

THESE SIMPLE MEASURES ARE ALSO THE SAME FOR OTHER SERIOUS DISEASES, meaning, as we proceed, that we can develop a common lifestyle strategy that will work across the board for all the major problem areas. This strategy must be applied consistently. Those looking for a magic formula to repair a health condition need to know that the magic formula is doing the right thing and doing it CONSISTENTLY. Once again, there are things we must do, and there are things we must avoid.

Take action
So, here we go. If you have a heart complaint, or are recovering from a heart attack or stroke, firstly engage the services of an MD or ND trained in nutritional medicine. Important considerations are contraindications with medications which may have been prescribed to you. In Health Wars, there are two chapters on the heart which get into more detail on the problems with stress, existing diabolical medications for heart conditions, which come with their own serious side-effect problems, and how these affect your performance and well-being. Heart patients, under medical supervision and recommendation, may benefit from the following:

• DIET: COMMENCE THE FOOD FOR THOUGHT LIFESTYLE REGIMEN
  
• DIET: Note the things in this regime you need to give up!
  
• RESTORING NUTRIENT BALANCE: COMMENCE THE BASIC SUPPLEMENT PROGRAM, ensuring:
  
• Vitamin C complex (ascorbates plus bioflavonoids), 3-5 g per day, spread throughout the day
  
• Vitamin E, 800-1000 IU per day
  
• Vitamin A emulsion, as directed
  
• Lysine and proline, as directed
  
• Magnesium, 200-400 mg, three times per day
  
• Coenzyme Q10, 150-300 mg per day
  
• L-Carnitine, 300 mg, three times per day
  
• Vitamin B1, 200-250 mg per day
  
• Omega 3 & 6 essential fatty acid complex (EFAs), as directed
  
• TIP: Avoid stress, even if it means ditching your whiz $2 million-a-year city job to go farm Christmas trees in Moose Jaw. You can't drive that Ferrari if you're dead
  
• TIP: Avoid the contraceptive Pill and take some serious medical advice on discontinuing HRT, ERT and other hormonal medications
  
• TIP: Avoid eating heavy amounts of any commercially produced meats, especially the red variety (see Health Wars - Meating the Main Problem)
  
• TIP: Exercise wisely but regularly, according to your physician's advice

Further Resources
The ABC's of Disease by Phillip Day
Health Wars by Phillip Day
Food for Thought by Phillip Day

Click here to purchase or review any of the above.
Click here for telephone sales around the world.
Click here if you wish to contact Credence for information on treatment options or resources.

Death Rates From Prescription Drugs
Explode at the Beginning of Each Month

According to research, deaths attributed to medication errors rise by as much as 25 percent above normal in the first few days of every month. This study is the first to document a beginning-of-the-month boost in deaths associated with mistakes in prescription drugs.

The Problem
The primary culprit behind these death rates: A beginning-of-the-month increase in pharmacy workloads and a consequential increase in their error rates. To offer a further explanation of this occurrence, one sociologist stated, "Government assistance payments to the old, sick and the poor are typically received at the beginning of each month. Because of this, there is a beginning-of-the-month spike in purchases of prescription medications."

However, further findings suggest otherwise.

Researchers examined all United States death certificates from 1970 to 2000 to analyze some 131,000 deaths caused by fatal poisoning accidents from drugs. They found that a small number (3 percent) of the deaths were from adverse effects of the right drug taken at the right dose, while the majority of deaths (97 percent) resulted from medication errors:

· Wrong dose given or taken
· Accidental overdose of a drug
· A drug taken inadvertently
· It was also discovered that the beginning-of-the-month spike in deaths was apparent in the young and well as in the elderly and poor, indicating the problem is partially due to pharmacy error.

(The study did not include specific clinical information regarding prescription type, dosage or days supply, nor did it include deaths associated with overdose of street drugs or from intentional poisoning.)

The Solution
In order to reduce the medication-error death rate researchers recommended:
· Pharmacies to consider increasing staffing levels at the beginning of each month
· Government officials to consider spreading assistance payments out over the entire month, rather than the beginning.
· Both patients and clinical staff to make a special effort to check the accuracy of their prescriptions at the beginning of each month

Science Daily, 6th January 2005
Per www.mercola.com
Excellent free newsletter available from this site,

Kill Pill

Bad 'Cures' Wipe Out 10,000 People a Year
By Dr Hilary

Next time you are taking a pill your doctor has prescribed for you, think before you swallow. For there's a slight chance the little tablet in the palm of your hand will do you more harm than good. And you should be prepared to find out everything you can about its ingredients and side-effects before putting it on your tongue - because an astonishing 10,000 people a year die from bad medicine in the UK.

There are plenty of case histories. Colin, a 44-year-old builder, collapsed and died from a bleeding stomach ulcer caused by long-term use of anti-inflammatory pills. Dave, a seventeen-year-old student, was taking anti-depressants and apparently doing well until he suddenly took his own life.

Mary, a 38-year-old secretary, was prescribe a harmless looking appetite-suppressant tablet and developed heart failure as a result a few years later.

A recent survey showed that out of 20,000 emergency admissions to two NHS hospitals, 1,300 were actually victims of medicine side-effects. It's estimated that the NHS spends £466 million looking after patients made even more ill by their prescriptions - and the ever-increasing numbers of newer and more potent drugs is making the problem worse.

Only during the last few weeks Vioxx - a commonly dispensed anti-arthritic tablet - and Crestor, a cholesterol lowering agent, have both been hastily withdrawn from the market because of concerns over a link to increased heart disease rates. All of the most modern types of anti-depressants have been banned from use by teenagers because of concerns over increased suicides. In some cases the drugs have turned people into killers.

In 1989 Joseph Wesbecker entered a Louisville, Kentucky printing plant and shot dead eight people before turning the gun on himself. Wesbecker was on an anti-depressant. The families of the victims claimed the medication had affected Wesbecker's state of mind and sued the pill's manufacturer who settled with them out of court.

It isn't just the newest medicines or those used for the most serious conditions that cause the problems. Far from it.

Humble aspirin is often hailed as the oldest surviving painkiller of all and is used to stave off strokes and heart attacks, thin the blood and prevent colon cancer. But it is also responsible for nearly 20 per cent of all admissions caused by adverse drug reactions. Aspirin's side-effects include fevers, especially in the young and gastro-intestinal disorders.

Penicillin causes allergic reaction in 10 per cent of the population. Beta-blockers, used for controlling high blood pressure, can make asthma worse.

So what can we do to protect patients from bad medicine?

Doctors need to prescribe medicines which are gentler, less often and in the lowest effective dose for the least amount of time. They need to spell out the side-effects of the drug to the patient before handing over the prescription.

Patients should ask the doctor how their medicine works and what are the likely side-effects? They should ask if any pills they are already taking - including herbal treatments - will react badly with it.

It's only by being savvy that you will prevent any nasty reactions to the medicines you take and reduce the risk of making yourself MORE ill than you were before you took them.
The News of the World, 16th January 2005

PHILLIP DAY'S COMMENT: If the only conclusion the News of the World can come to is to use more gentler, friendly drugs, then let me interpolate the proper nostrum: Drugs kill, damage, confuse, cause suicide, and only treat the symptoms. While they can put a patient into a holding pattern (Warfarin thinning the blood, pain-killers for killing pain, etc.), they do not solve the underlying cause of any illness. The only reason you need to consult a doctor whenever discontinuing medication is to find out whether they have been keeping your blood pressure down artificially, so if you stop, you might have a problem. Arthritis patients are given pain-killers or steroids, never the true by unpatentable advice they need to stop themselves damaging their joints further. Folks, always seek to change diet and lifestyle first. Stay as far away from doctors as you can unless you accidentally run into the back of one in a road accident. Find a real doctor trained in nutritional protocols who can oversee you where necessary. For more information on the drug-death phenomenon, please see the resources below.

Further Resources

Health Wars by Phillip Day
Wake up to Health in the 21st Century by Steven Ransom
The Mind Game by Phillip Day

Click here to purchase or review any of the above.
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Click here if you wish to contact Credence for information on treatment options or resources.

Drug Giant Admits Another Arthritis
Painkiller Increases Heart Risks

by Dr Joseph Mercola

Pfizer announced that patients who took a high dosage of Celebrex, its top moneymaking painkiller, were in the higher risk bracket for heart attacks. This announcement was made right on the heels of the withdrawal of its one-time big competitor, Vioxx, which was stripped from store shelves in September.

Pfizer admitted that one of two cancer trials revealed an increased cardiovascular risk over placebo, while the other trial revealed no greater cardiovascular risk.

The results of this study prompted one cardiologist to discontinue prescribing Celebrex and all other COX-2 inhibitors.

Celebrex and Vioxx fall into the category of painkillers known as Cox-2-inhibitors. These drugs have gained extensive popularity among arthritis sufferers due to their effectiveness in alleviating arthritis pain without side effects such as upset stomach and bleeding.

A spokesperson from Pfizer stated the company had no plans to remove Celebrex from the market. Celebrex also just so happens to be one of the biggest moneymakers for the drug company pulling in $1.9 billion in sales in 2003. Bextra trailed close behind with total sales of $687 million.

When problems with Bextra arose, the FDA took action by placing warning labels on the bottles warning patients of potential heart problems linked to taking the drug in people who had recently undergone heart bypass surgery. In regard to the announcement on Celebrex, the FDA responded by saying they would be studying the new data on Celebrex before taking any necessary actions. Until these actions are determined, they encouraged doctors to offer alternative treatments.

Pfizer, on the other hand, has plans in the works to conduct an extensive trial next year to verify the heart-safety of Celebrex in arthritis patients who recently experienced a heart attack.
USA Today, 17th December 17, 2004
Per www.mercola.com
Excellent free newsletter available from this site.

PHILLIP DAY'S COMMENT: The real story itching to come out here is not that 'the drugs can do you in' (we've known that for years), but a) the public can clearly see the drug industry has absolutely no clue how to treat disease other than by deadening the pain and removing the symptoms and b) isn't this the unimpeachable drug regulation procedure the EU wishes to employ to save us from our wicked vitamins?

Osteoarthritis and rheumatism are eminently treatable using natural means. There's the news that's fit to print! In my book, The ABC's of Disease, I lay out the research that has been done on these conditions and the best strategies to adopt to get us back on our feet and squeak-free. But we will have to do a little more than groan at the inconvenience and pop a pill.

Further Resources
The ABC's of Disease by Phillip Day

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Click here for telephone sales around the world.
Click here if you wish to contact Credence for information on treatment options or resources.

Pupils' £20m Pay Day

200,000 sixth- formers to get £100 bonus
just for staying on at school
by Laura Clark

Up to 200,000 sixth-formers will be handed £100 this week as a reward for turning up to lessons after the Christmas holidays. They will qualify for the payments under a controversial Government scheme aimed at encouraging youngsters to stay on at school.

Critics yesterday said the bonuses - costing £20million - were excessive and a miss-use of taxpayers' cash, with ministers accused of bribing children. Youngsters will get the money paid directly into their bank accounts to spend on anything they like.

They will be able to claim four further £100 bonus payments at intervals throughout their two-year courses for turning up to class.

Since September, 16-year-olds have qualified for weekly Maintenance Allowance payments based on their household's income if they agree to continue in education.

Those whose family income is £30,000 a year or less, qualify for at least £10 a week. This rises to £20 when the income is below £24,030. Where income is £19,630 or less, children are eligible for £30 a week.

In return, they must sign agreements with their school or college setting out minimum attendance and homework requirements. Those failing to stick to the deal will have their payments stopped. The £100 bonuses are extra sums payable for 'high attendance and commitment' at five stages throughout their courses, with the first due this month.

Overall, adding together weekly payments and bonuses, youngsters can qualify for up to £2,800 over two years.

Some 40 per cent of England's 666,000 first-year sixth-formers - the only school year eligible so far - currently claim EMAs, a total of 270,000. Officials at the Department for Education and Skills estimate that 75 per cent - about 200,000 - will have demonstrated enough 'commitment' to receive their first bonus.

Ministers are convinced the scheme will aid pupils from poor families who are tempted to drop out of school to find jobs because their parents cannot support them.

Skills Minister, Ivan Lewis, said the January bonus would have a 'big impact' in keeping students on their courses after Christmas. He added: "We have one of the worst post-16 drop-out rates in the world and are determined to reverse this."

But the payment scheme has been dogged by controversy since its introduction with critics dismissing it as a costly gimmick that amounts to little more than bribery.

The annual cost to the taxpayer is expected to top £500million. The vast majority of youngsters would have stayed on in education or training without the extra payments, it is estimated. Even supporters of the weekly payments said the Christmas bonuses were unjustifiable.

Phill Willis, Liberal Democrat education spokesman, said: "There are significantly more important things to do with £20million than give young people a Christmas bonus. The EMA is a good idea to support students staying on in the sixth-form or at college. But to give these bonuses for literally turning up seems to be taking the idea to an unacceptable extreme."

Nick Seaton, chairman of the think-tank the Campaign for Real Education, said: "This money would be better allocated to schools to spend as they see fit rather than giving it direct to youngsters who can spend it on anything including computer games and CDs. This is tackling the problem from the wrong end. The Government should be improving provision at primary and secondary level so that children want to stay on, not bribing them to accept it."

One head teacher in Scotland where a similar scheme is up and running, has warned that pupils are spending the money on nights out with friends - while continuing with part-time work.
Daily Mail, 24th January 2005

Further Resources
Ten Minutes to Midnight by Phillip Day
The Real Face of the European Union by Phillip Day, video documentary (PAL format only) to all seminar attendees in the UK and Ireland for 2005

Click here to purchase or review any of the above.
Click here for telephone sales around the world.
Click here if you wish to contact Credence for information on treatment options or resources.

From The Mailbag
Recent letters from our subscribers

"I thought you would want to know that I received a phone call this week from a woman whose aunt had cancer. Three years ago spoke with this lady over the phone and recommended Phillip Day's "Cancer: Why We're Still Dying to Know the Truth" and sent her his tape. I suggested she try a radical diet change, B17 apricot kernels, minerals, Vit C…the works. Apparently she took my advice, but never called me again. Three years later I learn that her breast cancer has completely gone! She attributes the healing to the suggested protocol. Give God the glory, everyone, because it is He who put the nutrients we need on the earth and created the human body to heal itself." - Tracey F, Georgia, USA

"Delighted to know others are on my wavelength!" - Deidre D, Co Wicklow, Republic of Ireland

"Thank you, Phillip, for being able to reveal what we need to know in a simple manner!" - Kathleen T, VIC, Australia

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"My sister just found out about cancer. We looked into alternatives straight away. Through all this we have become avid readers of Phillip Day's books and Steve Ransom. One of my main goals in life now is to use my influence to spread the word of truth in medicine." - Noah R, NSW, Australia

"Most informative - have read 'Cancer' by Phillip Day. Now informing all I come in contact with including my patients about your information regarding cancer. Keep up the good work." - Keith S, VIC, Australia

"Having been diagnosed with breast cancer three times since November 1989, I am very interested in Phillip Day's lectures, books and tapes, etc. Phillip, I wish there were more of you and your good work around the world. You have the best knowledge I have come across." - Joy M, VIC, Australia

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"I work for 'WorkCover' the workers' compensation authority in South Australia, and have a strong desire that injured workers receive the best practical treatment in restoring them to the work force and the community. I am somewhat disenchanted with mainstream medicine since there appears to be significant reluctance to embrace complimentary/alternative modalities that work equally as well (if not better in some instances) but with far less side-effects. The organisation could perhaps be seen as a dinosaur when it comes to embracing and utilising complimentary medicine as treatment programs for injured workers and I am attempting to break down the barriers." - Ashley S, SA, Australia

"I have enjoyed your seminar at this moment of my life. My local doctor stuffed me up with anti-depressants and now I have started another diet with another doctor, juice, veggies - a nutritional diet, no sweets, no bread, etc.. Your material is excellent." - Ilde H, VIC, Australia

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Too little is said about the benefits of nutrition and exercise. Food is about nourishing your mind and body rather than grabbing a bite on the run or before the next client. Healthy eating habits and regular exercise are the building blocks to good health." - Yvonne Y, Tasman, New Zealand

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"By following the regime of alternative therapy advised by the Oasis Hospital of Good Hope, my wife is currently completely rid of breast cancer. We must do everything possible to prevent the pharmaceutical industry from succeeding in their aims to deny the progress of alternative medicine. I would be willing to help in any way I can." - Dennis B, Murcia, Spain

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"I am very anti-Codex. Know of John Hammel's efforts in that regard." - Gene E, ON, Canada

"I have only recently been introduced to CTM and so far think it is great. As health professionals and individuals we need to make a difference." - Michelle F, Co. Offaly, Ireland

"This (Ten Minutes to Midnight) is of such vital importance it should be widely disseminated before it is too late. Your other books are truly wonderful - I have read them and re-read them. Thank you for all your investigative work, it is top rate." - Mavis K, Middlesex, UK

"I appreciate you telling the truth about what I happening. Keep up the good work." - Katherine F, MN, USA

"I am overwhelmed with all the info and knowledge!" - Suzan O, QLD Australia

"Fantastic presentation - made me feel really hopeful and very much enlightened." - Ann C, Middlesex, UK

"I have been reading a book called "Cancer; Why We're Still Dying to Know the Truth". The book has been full of information which has really opened my eyes. In fact, the book was so informative I couldn't stop reading it." - Lorraine P, Tasmania, Australia

"I've always been a huge supporter of everything you're doing and try to pass on your info to as many as possible here in the US!" - Jan J, NC. USA

"I've had a mastectomy because of breast cancer but after reading Phillip's book, "Cancer - Why We're Still Dying to Know the Truth", decided to refuse chemotherapy offered and do B17 and change my diet. Thank you for the wonderful work you do, Phillip. I thoroughly enjoyed your talk at the venue on the Gold Coast last November." - Pam L, QLD. Australia

"Absolutely fabulous! I purchased 3 of your books and am being educated about your work and what's going on out there. I've developed such a passion/disgust that I am now undertaking a global project of educating everyone about how important nutritionals, safe personal care products etc. are and providing them with safe companies to buy from. I'm conforming all around me and everyone I educate is shocked they did not know any of this…. especially toxic personal care products. I have found no one who doesn't want to know so I'm on fire and looking forward to hearing all your latest info. I actually did a big community project at your Melbourne talk this year by bringing flocks of people to come and hear you. My friend in Melbourne said I should come and listen to you as you have 20 years more experience at this. Thank a million. I hope I can make as much difference in people's lives as you have." - Luisa B, VIC. Australia

"I am impressed and want to know more. I worked as an RN for 37 years." - Doris T, Idaho, USA

"Haven't been to a supermarket for a long time now as I was utterly "gob-smacked" at what the trolleys were filled with." - Christine B, Auckland, New Zealand

"I think the work you are doing is great. I hope more people have the chance to find out about the news you spread. Keep up the good work." - Corin B, Dundee, Scotland

"Interested in the health issues and political stuff of your site. Some of your views and info are consistent with Bible prophecy. We need more of your ilk to say what the truth is no matter. Remember, "You can't do wrong doing right." And God watches over you - keep up the good work." - Patrick D, Edinburgh, Scotland

"I bought the book "Great News on Cancer in the 21st Century" I found the book very interesting. An eye-opener. I have recommended it to my friends to read." - H. B, Berkshire, UK

"A change in my eating habits is a must. Many thanks, Phillip Day!" - Barbara D, QLD, Australia

"Heard your presentation in Auckland. Very impressed. Have read five of your books so far, will read the rest if I can hang on to them long enough before friends and family take them away. Not surprised by the big business involvement. …." - Tony R, Auckland, New Zealand

"I fully support everything CTM and Credence are doing. People need to be made aware of the hold pharmaceutical companies have over doctors and governments and the danger a lot of drugs are to our health. Thank you!" - Lorna C, WA, Australia

"Thank you for exposing all the lies about the cons in the medical field because they have no knowledge of nutrition. New way of eating is on the way for me as I suffer from asthma. Looking forward to your books and new recipes. Thank a million." - Doris L, QLD, Australia

"Brilliant organisation of putting the facts and information out for the people to make informed choices" - Debra S, QLD, Australia

"Phillip is a wonderful speaker - first time to hear him and I was so impressed with his talk." - Marguerite & Jim B, Berkshire, UK

"Dear Phillip, as an expatriate Englishman living in Australia, and involved in the health industry, I am horrified to read of the attempts to hijack the trading of vitamins and mineral health supplements going on in Europe. Surely England will not go down this repressive track which is more reminiscent of Nazi Germany than the principles of democratic freedom, for the preservation of which so many of us died." - Alistair W, NSW, Australia