Despite a mounting and impressive body of evidence of the dangers and harm associated with vaccinations coming from both within and outside the mainstream medical community, much of mainstream medicine and the agencies that serve it continue to maintain that vaccinations are not only safe, but that we face grave dangers if we don`t vaccinate ourselves, our children and our elderly.
The continued denials and the push for more vaccinations, including going as far as requiring mandatory vaccinations of young school girls based on disputable evidence, is nothing new. Sadly, it is just another in a series of less than praiseworthy chapters that have marked how mainstream medicine has allowed advertising and hype to mislead and failed to serve those entrusted to its care. Whether it be a physically or psychologically addictive drug, a drug we have been psychologically coerced into taking, or one we have even been legally compelled to take, mainstream medicine has followed the money at the expense of our health.
Around the
year 1810, a derivative of opium named Morphine was developed as a pain killer. It was considered a wonder drug because it eliminated severe pain associated with medical operations or traumatic injuries. It also left the user in a completely numb euphoric dream-state. Because of the intense euphoric side effects, the drug in 1811 was named after the Greek god of dreams, Morpheus, by Dr. F.W.A. Serturner, a German pharmacist. By the mid 1850`s morphine was available in the United States and became more and more popular with the medical profession. The benefits of using the drug to treat severe pain were considered nothing short of remarkable to doctors of the time. Unfortunately, the addictive properties of the drug went virtually unnoticed until after the Civil War.
During the Civil War, when what would come to be mainstream medicine was beginning to organize, the number of people exposed to morphine in the course of being treated for their war related injuries skyrocketed. As a result, tens of thousands of Northern and Confederate soldiers became morphine addicts. In just over 10 years from the date of its arrival into this country, the United States was plagued with a major morphine epidemic. Cigarettes online.
Even though no actual statistics were kept on addiction during this period, the problem grew large enough to raise serious concerns from the medical profession. Doctors became perplexed and were completely in the dark as to how to treat this new epidemic.
By 1874, about the same time that mainstream medicine was beginning its assault on natural and homeopathic alternatives in earnest, the answer to this increasing problem was thought to be found in the invention of a new drug in Germany. This new wonder drug was called Heroin, after its German trademarked name. Heroin was imported into the United States shortly after it was invented. The sales pitch that created an instant market to American doctors and their morphine addicted patients was that Heroin was a "safe, non addictive" substitute for morphine. Hence, the heroin addict was born and has been present in American culture ever since. (In a chillingly similar manner, the opiate Oxycontin was approved in recent years as another "safe, non-addictive" pain killer to replace traditional opiates, with similarly tragic results).
From the late 1800`s to the early 1900`s the reputable drug companies of the day began manufacturing over the counter drug kits. These kits contained a glass barreled hypodermic needle and vials of opiates (morphine or heroin) and/or cocaine packaged neatly in attractive engraved tin cases. Laudanum (opium in an alcohol base) was also a very popular elixir that was used to treat a variety of ills. Laudanum was administered to kids and adults alike -- as freely as aspirin is used today.
There were of course marketing and advertising campaigns launched by the drug companies producing such products that touted the narcotics as the cure for all types of physical and mental aliments ranging from alcohol withdrawal to cancer, depression, sluggishness, coughs, colds, tuberculosis and even old age. Most of the elixirs pitched by the old "snake oil salesmen" in their medicine shows contained one or more of these very much mainstream narcotics in their mix.
Another line of drugs which was widely prescribed and sold over the counter by mainstream medicine was amphetamines. Amphetamine was synthesized too late to have the widespread applications enjoyed decades earlier by cocaine and the opiates. It was, however, marketed in products commonly used to relieve head congestion and asthma. Amphetamine continued to be employed as a popular prescription diet-aid into the 1970s.
In the 1950`s thalidomide was launched as a wonder drug alternative to barbiturates for pregnant women, despite the drug companies having clear evidence it was dangerous; and it took twelve years after its dangers for children were discovered and after thousands of deformed babies, which came to be known as "Thalidomide Babies", were born before it was taken off the market. It might be worth noting that America was a safer, more innocent and more trusting place in those days -- a time when we knew our neighbors and left our doors unlocked while we strolled the streets in safety.
More recently, at least a dozen major drugs have been pulled from the market only after pressure and exposure became too great to handle in spite of all the flawed studies, spin control, massive advertising and protective efforts on behalf of industry by agencies who were supposed to protect the public at large. The most famous of these drugs was of course Vioxx, which has had more deaths attributed to it in the United States than the Vietnam War.
Currently, Avandia and Fosamax, as well as the FDA approved sweetener Aspartame are pulling out all the stops in the face of mounting evidence of their harm and using the usual list of suspects to try to hang on and milk as much profits as possible at the expense of human lives and suffering until they are ultimately removed from the market. Based on the increasing incidences of death and side effects, many observers feel certain that someday Gardasil, which is still in a huge growth stage and being forced on schoolgirls around the world due to a massive campaign by Merck, will ultimately join that litany of evil drugs, as will many of the vaccines being touted so highly today for childhood diseases, prevention of cervical cancer for school girls, and flu protection for the elderly.
One feature that all of the aforementioned drugs, and many others like them which have been pulled from the market due to safety issues, have had in common is a wealth of industry claims of their effectiveness and safety -- claims which continued well after their harmful effects became known, as well as claims to the same effect by the agencies whose industry ties and support have been chronicled in these pages and elsewhere. Which leads us to another shared characteristic: huge amounts of profits at stake. Sadly, those discredited and harmful drugs also shared the endorsements and recommendations of the doctors we entrust our health to.
If there is any lesson we should have learned from the tangled history of drugs, doctors and Madison Avenue that makes up today`s mainstream medicine, it is that it serves profits foremost and our health a very distant second. Nowhere has this been more vividly demonstrated than the misinformation we were told about cigarettes on behalf of Big Tobacco.
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