by Dawn Lester & David Parker

“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” ~ Albert Einstein

“Physicians who are free with their drugging keep themselves busy treating the effects of the drugs.” ~ Herbert Shelton ND DC

DISCLAIMER: Healthcare in the early 21st century is almost completely controlled by ‘vested interests’, which claim that their system, known as ‘modern medicine’, is the only genuine form of healthcare and that all other forms are to be regarded as pseudoscience and quackery. The consequence of this control is that we, the authors of this [excerpt], are under a legal requirement to state that we are not medical doctors. In addition, we are obliged to state that, even though its contents have been obtained from professional and reliable sources, this is only intended to serve as an informational guide; its core purpose is to assist people to make truly informed decisions about their healthcare.

The word ‘medicine’ has two applications, the establishment definitions for which are, “the science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment or prevention of disease.”

And, “any drug or preparation used for the treatment or prevention of disease.”

The various drugs and preparations that are referred to as ‘medicines’ are considered to be essential, core components of the ‘healthcare’ provided by medical practitioners to their patients. The inclusion in the definition of the word ‘science’ conveys the impression that the practice of medicine has a solid foundation that is based on and fully supported by scientifically established evidence. The definition also conveys the impression that the use of drugs and preparations is similarly science-based, and that ‘medicines’ are both appropriate and effective for the purposes for which they are employed.

Unfortunately, however, nothing could be further from the truth; any healthcare practice that employs the use of ‘drugs and preparations’ in the treatment and prevention of disease has no basis in ‘science’, nor is it capable of restoring patients to health.

This statement will no doubt be considered by many to be outrageous; but that does not deny its veracity, as will be demonstrated by the discussions here about the use of medicines for the treatment of disease. The medical establishment claims that there are many hundreds of different diseases, each of which is recognizable by its unique set of symptoms and each of which is treatable with the appropriate ‘medicine’. The purpose of the ‘medicine’ is to achieve the cessation of symptoms; an outcome that is interpreted to mean that the disease has been successfully conquered by the treatment.

This, at least, is the theory; but in practice, in the real world, it is not uncommon for a wide variety of different outcomes to be experienced by patients, even though they have all been diagnosed with the same disease and treated with the same medicine. The existence of such widely varying outcomes presents a direct challenge to the theory. Furthermore, although some patients may experience a complete cessation of their symptoms, this successful outcome cannot be attributed to the medicine, nor does it mean their health has been restored, for reasons that will be explained later.

An interesting feature of the definition of medicine is the reference to the ‘treatment’ rather than the ‘cure’ of disease; the reason for this is because the medical establishment states that many diseases are ‘incurable’. For these diseases, they claim that the appropriate treatments will ‘manage’ the patients’ conditions; which means that their symptoms will only be alleviated rather than eliminated.

It is widely acknowledged that all medicines produce ‘side effects’, which are effectively new symptoms that are the direct result of the treatment. The significance of this fact is inadequately reported and therefore insufficiently appreciated by most people; it is, however, a core problem of the prevailing medical system because the production of new symptoms is essentially the creation of a new health problem.

It is clear that the wide variation in the efficacy of medicines used as treatments for disease, as well as the additional symptoms they cause, raise serious questions about the ability of these ‘treatments’ to restore a patient to a state of health; which ought to be the fundamental purpose and function of a ‘healthcare’ system.

The website of the WHO (World Health Organization) provides a definition of health that states, “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

This definition has remained unaltered since first declared in their constitution when the WHO was founded in 1948. The WHO is the agency of the UN (United Nations) assigned to be the ‘authority’ for health matters for all of the people in all of the countries that have ratified the WHO constitution. In other words, the WHO directs health policies for implementation by virtually every country around the world. Yet the WHO policy recommendations with respect to disease treatment almost exclusively refer to the use of ‘medicines’ that are acknowledged to alleviate symptoms but not cure disease.

The WHO’s policies are clearly inconsistent with their objective to achieve better health for everyone, everywhere; especially in the context of their own definition of ‘health’.

Science is a process; it is a process that involves the study of different aspects of the world in order to expand the level of human knowledge; it also entails the creation of hypotheses and theories to explain the various phenomena observed during the course of those scientific investigations. As the various studies progress and the body of knowledge increases, they may reveal new information or they may expose anomalies and contradictions within existing hypotheses and theories. In such instances, it is essential for scientists, in whichever field they study, to reassess those hypotheses and theories in the light of the new findings; a process that may necessitate revisions or adaptations to be made to prevailing theories. Sometimes the new information may indicate a need to abandon existing theories and replace them with entirely new ones, especially when new theories provide better and more compelling explanations for the observed phenomena.

The theories underlying the use of ‘medicine’ to treat disease can be shown to contain many anomalies and contradictions; they are clearly in need of a thorough reassessment. However, and more importantly, other theories exist that present far more credible and compelling explanations for human illness and its causes. These explanations also offer the means by which people can address the causes of their illness, which can assist a full recovery from most conditions of ill-health and help restore people to the state of good health, in the true meaning of the word.

It is neither intended nor necessary to provide a history of ‘medicine’; it is far too vast a topic. Nevertheless, it is necessary to refer to certain aspects of this history to identify the origins of the use of ‘medicine’ and outline its progression to the situation that prevails in the early 21st century, especially in view of the dominance of the healthcare system recommended by the WHO for adoption by all Member States.

In various parts of the world and throughout history, a variety of ideas have arisen about the causes of illness and the appropriate measures to be taken to treat these conditions and restore health to the patient. However, all systems of ‘medicine’ operate from the same basic principle, which is that a person who is ill requires ‘treatment’ with a certain substance that is said to have ‘curative properties’ in order for the patient to recover their health.

Some of the ancient customs and traditions relating to the treatment of people exhibiting symptoms of illness were based on beliefs in the existence of malevolent, supernatural influences, rather than earthly ones, and these invariably involved the use of ‘remedies’ of a similarly supernatural nature; they may have included spells or incantations or the use of special tokens to ward off evil spirits. Other ancient customs and traditions employed an approach towards illness and its treatment of a more earthbound variety; many of the remedies employed by these systems involved the use of various natural substances, such as plants and similar materials that could be found locally and were claimed to have curative properties.

The medicinal use of plants has been documented in many regions of the world and recorded to date back many thousands of years. For example, Ayurveda, the ancient Indian system of medicine, is claimed to be approximately 5,000 years old. Similarly, TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) is also claimed to be many thousands of years old, although it is said to have its roots in Ayurveda, which indicates that Ayurveda is the older of the two systems. Many of these ancient systems also exerted their influence in other regions of the world; ancient Greek medicine, for example, is said to have been influenced by both Ayurveda and ancient Egyptian medicine; the latter system was recorded and documented on papyri, some of which have been dated to be a few thousand years old.

Many of these ancient systems were holistic in nature, meaning that they treated the whole person rather than addressing any specific symptoms they experienced, but the treatments almost invariably involved the use of ‘remedies’ that contained ingredients claimed to have curative properties. These ingredients were often derived from plants, or parts of plants, although in some instances, the substances used as ingredients were extracted from poisonous plants. Catharanthus roseus, for example, which is also known as rosy periwinkle, is toxic if eaten, but has been used by both Ayurveda and TCM for the treatment of certain health problems. Other remedies may have included ingredients that had been extracted from certain body parts of particular animals.

Although perceived to be in conflict with these ancient forms of traditional medicine, modern medicine has incorporated some of their methods. The pharmaceutical industry has manufactured a number of drugs using synthetic derivatives of the ‘active ingredients’ of certain medicinal plants widely used by practitioners of traditional medicine. Pharmaceutical drugs derived from the rosy periwinkle, for example, are used within modern medicine for the treatment of certain cancers.

Some ancient systems of medicine and healing, such as Ayurveda and TCM, remain popular and continue to be practiced in the 21st century. However, although they contain very useful ideas, especially with respect to the recognition that the human body should be considered holistically, they nevertheless retain some of the less useful ideas and methods, such as the use of animal parts and poisonous plants as ingredients of the medicines employed in the treatment of patients.

Whilst there is abundant evidence to support the idea that a wide variety of plants are suitable for consumption as foods, there is no evidence to support the idea that animal parts or poisonous plants have curative properties and can be beneficial for human health.

Hippocrates, the Greek physician who lived approximately 2,500 years ago, is sometimes referred to as the ‘father of modern medicine’; he is said to have gained some of his knowledge from the ancient Egyptian system of medicine. A substantial proportion of Hippocrates’ writings about his ideas on the subject of illnesses and their appropriate treatments has survived, and they provide useful insights into the type of medical practices that were in existence at the time. The ideas held by Hippocrates contained a mixture of strangeness and usefulness; the latter being demonstrated by his most famous saying that has been translated as, “Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.” This simple statement demonstrates the widely acknowledged fact that food is an important factor for health.

The ‘strangeness’ of Hippocrates’ ideas can be illustrated by his theory that illness was caused by an imbalance in what he referred to as the ‘four humors’, which are blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. His recommendations for the restoration of health required correcting these imbalances and his methods included such practices as purging and bloodletting. Unfortunately, neither of these practices is able to correct any genuine imbalance in the body or restore health, but both of them remained in use by practitioners of modern medicine until comparatively recently.

It is reported that George Washington, the US President, received a number of treatments that included the use of leeches for ‘bloodletting’, to relieve his cold, the outcome of which was that he died in December 1799 at the age of only 67 after more than half of his blood had been withdrawn from his body. There has never been any scientific evidence to support the efficacy of bloodletting, despite the fact that it was used as a ‘treatment’ for more than 2,000 years and had been advocated and employed by many eminent physicians in their own practices. Although leeches remain in use in modern medicine, their purpose is to assist blood flow and prevent clots, rather than to draw large quantities of a patient’s blood.

The ancient practices of ‘medicine’ continued in the Western world with little change until the ‘Medical Renaissance’ that began during the early 15th century. One of the key contributors of the 16th century to this renaissance is the Swiss physician, Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus, who is still held in high esteem by the medical establishment for his pioneering medical theories. The theories for which Paracelsus is best known have not, however, contributed to improved healthcare. On the contrary, they have impeded its progress because they placed an emphasis on the practice of fighting disease; a practice that remains a core function of modern medicine, but is nevertheless erroneous; fighting disease is not synonymous with restoring health.

One of his theories claims that the human body is a chemical system that becomes ‘imbalanced’ when a person is ill; an idea that is clearly similar to that of Hippocrates. Although not entirely incorrect, this idea has had disastrous consequences because of the substances used to address such imbalances. The solution Paracelsus proposed to correct the imbalance associated with the disease known as ‘syphilis’ involved the use of mercury, which he both recommended and used in the treatment of his patients. Paracelsus was not the originator of the idea that syphilis should be treated with mercury; that dubious honor belongs to Giorgio Sommariva, whose practice in the late 1490s involved the use of cinnabar. The contribution of Paracelsus to the treatment of syphilis was the formulation of a mercury ointment.

Another theory, and the one for which Paracelsus is probably best known, is encapsulated by the phrase ‘the poison is in the dose’; it is this theory that forms the basis of the idea that toxic substances are suitable for use as ‘medicines’, with the proviso that they are administered in the ‘right dose’. This theory also provides the justification for the use of toxic substances for other purposes. Although sometimes misquoted, the words attributed to Paracelsus have been translated into English as follows, “All things are poison and nothing is without poison; it is only the dose that makes a thing not a poison.”

Again, nothing could be further from the truth; all things are not poison.

Contrary to the claims of the medical establishment, the idea that the ‘right’ dose of medicine is therapeutic but the ‘wrong’ dose is harmful, is erroneous; a substance cannot change its inherent nature in relation to the quantity in which it is used. In his book entitled Natural Hygiene: Man’s Pristine Way of Life, Herbert Shelton ND DC underlines this point succinctly in the statement that, “Poisons are such qualitatively and not merely quantitatively.”

The only variations that occur due to the ‘dose’ of a poison relate to the extent of the effects it will produce and the degree of harm it will cause.

Throughout the 16th century, the physicians of many European countries continued to follow the work of Hippocrates, whose writings were studied by medical students in England, for example, and used as the basis for their qualification as medical doctors. There were two English medical colleges at that period; the Royal College of Surgeons that was founded in 1505 and the Royal College of Physicians that was founded in 1518.

Dr Thomas Sydenham MD, a 17th century physician who is widely regarded as the ‘English Hippocrates’, is also a source of both useful and harmful ideas; one of the latter was the appropriateness of mercury for the treatment of syphilis; this clearly demonstrates the level of influence that the work of Paracelsus had already begun to exert in the field of medicine.

The 16th and 17th centuries were a period during which science flourished, especially in Europe where scientific organizations such as the Royal Society, which was founded in 1660 to discuss scientific questions, were formed to provide repositories for the various writings of scientists about their work and their discoveries. The scientific advancements made during this period included many new discoveries and technologies as well as significant improvements to existing technologies, such as the microscope for example. The new and improved technologies were particularly useful tools that scientists utilized in their laboratory experiments, which they claimed provided the means by which their theories could be established and proven scientifically.

This period, known as the ‘Scientific Revolution’, was the era during which scientists also discovered new chemical elements and developed new chemical compounds, both of which provided further opportunities for scientific experimentation. The prevailing idea that the human body was essentially a chemical system that needed to be ‘balanced’ encouraged the use of chemicals in a wide variety of experiments in the field of medicine; a practice that continues to be the mainstay of medical science, and especially medical research, in the early 21st century.

This era that contained the ‘Medical Renaissance’ and the ‘Scientific Revolution’ extended into the 18th century and fostered the growth of an elitist attitude, especially within the field of ‘medicine’. Although this attitude predominated amongst those in charge of the medical organizations, such as medical colleges, qualified physicians soon began to hold a similar view of the system under which they had been trained. These men, because women rarely trained as physicians prior to the 19th century, sought to promote their medical system as the only ‘true’ system of healthcare as it was the only one grounded in science-based evidence.

Whilst this period is generally claimed to be the beginning of ‘medical science’, it was, in fact, the beginning of medical dogma.

The medical establishment promulgates the view that science-based medicine led to the overthrow of ‘quackery’, despite the fact that this ‘scientific’ system entails the use of toxic substances in the treatment of disease. It should be noted that the definition of quackery includes reference to unfounded claims about the ability of substances to treat disease; the significance of this description will become increasingly apparent throughout this discussion. It should also be noted that the treatment of syphilis with mercury-based compounds continued into the early 20th century, despite the lack of evidence that mercury has the ability to ‘heal’ this disease. There is, however, an abundance of evidence which demonstrates that mercury, like all other toxic substances, causes a great deal of harm and can even lead to death.

Europe was by no means the only region in which an elitist attitude was fostered towards the science-based medical system. In her book entitled Death by Modern Medicine, Dr Carolyn Dean MD ND refers to the situation in Canada and states that, “Allopathic doctors began amassing power as early as 1759. At that time, legislation was drafted to protect an ‘unsuspecting public’ against quacks or ‘snake oil salesmen’.”

The orthodox, or allopathic, system nevertheless employed practices that had not been scientifically established as having the ability to assist a patient’s recovery to its natural state of health; some of the unpleasant practices they used continued into the 19th century, as described by Herbert Shelton in Natural Hygiene, “…patients were bled, blistered, purged, puked, narcotized, mercurialised and alcoholised into chronic invalidism or into the grave.”

Many of these ‘treatments’ were a continuation of traditional practices that date back at least to the time of Hippocrates, if not earlier. But, as stated, these treatments frequently resulted in the death of the patient; a fact that demonstrates both their lack of efficacy and their dangerous nature. The harm caused by these practices and the substances used as ‘medicine’ did not go unnoticed, as Herbert Shelton reports, “It was well known to the physicians of the period that their drugs were damaging.”

The continuing use of these drugs, despite the knowledge that they were harmful, demonstrates the failure of the ‘scientific’ system to recognize the utter fallacy of the idea that ‘poisons’ can be ‘therapeutic’. The medical system in which they had been trained had not equipped physicians to provide ‘healthcare’ for their patients, nor did it protect patients from the harm caused by medical treatments.

Nevertheless, the proponents of ‘scientific medicine’ sought to increase their dominance during the 19th century by further developing their system and creating more formal training procedures for the qualification of physicians. To strengthen their dominance, they also implemented the doctrine that only those physicians trained under their ‘scientific’ system would be regarded as the ‘real’ doctors, and that anyone not trained under that system would be referred to as ‘quacks’.

The formalization of the ‘medical system’ in England, for example, led to the founding of the BMA (British Medical Association) in 1832, although under a different name until 1855. The purpose of this organization was, according to the BMA web page entitled The History of the BMA, to provide, “…a ‘friendly and scientific’ forum where doctors could advance and exchange medical knowledge.”

The BMA web pages that detail its history refer to their campaign against ‘quackery’ in the early 19th century. The term ‘quackery’ was, and still is, used to discredit all forms of ‘healing’ other than those of modern medicine. Yet it was that very same 19th century medical system, which claimed to oppose quackery, that employed ‘medicines’ known to be harmful and often led to a patient’s invalidism or death.

The practice of medicine has clearly not changed a great deal since the days of Hippocrates, after whom the Hippocratic Oath that urges doctors to ‘do no harm’ is named. This Oath is still sworn by newly qualified doctors and it is a laudable principle on which to base any work in the field of ‘healthcare’. But the use of harmful substances in the name of ‘healthcare’ denies physicians the ability to apply that principle in practice, as will be demonstrated here.

Although the medical establishment continues to repudiate the idea that ‘medicines’ are harmful, with the sole exception of ‘side effects’, there have been many individual physicians who have become aware of and concerned about the problems inherent within the system in which they were trained. As a result of their investigations, many of these physicians were brave enough to reject some, if not all, of their ‘training’ and to develop and utilize other methods of ‘healing’, many of which resulted in vastly improved outcomes for their patients. One such physician was Dr John Tilden MD, who discusses his experiences in his book entitled Toxemia Explained, in which he states that, “Twenty-five years in which I used drugs, and thirty-three in which I have not used drugs, should make my belief that drugs are unnecessary, and in most cases injurious, worth something to those who care to know the truth.”

Most people will probably assume that the ‘medical system’ of the early 21st century is based on solid scientific evidence, unlike the systems of earlier periods; but this would be a mistaken assumption. The system of modern medicine currently in use has been developed as the result of a variety of customs and traditions, none of which has been scientifically established to be appropriate for the treatment of a patient’s illness in order to restore them to health.

Furthermore, the ‘medical science’ of the 21st century is predominantly conducted in the laboratories of pharmaceutical companies; but laboratory experimentation does not provide ‘scientific proof’ that the use of modern pharmaceutical medicines is either safe or effective. On the contrary, there is a large and growing body of evidence that demonstrates quite clearly that ‘medicines’ are not only ineffective as treatments for illness but they are also capable of producing harm and causing death.

Modern Medicines

In Death by Modern Medicine, Dr Dean provides a detailed exposé of the problems with ‘modern medicine’, and states that, “Drugs are synonymous with modern medicine.”

The definition of ‘medicine’ cited at the beginning of this article refers to the treatment of disease through use of a ‘drug’, the establishment definition of which is, “any substance that affects the structure or functioning of a living organism.”

This definition highlights an extremely significant point, which is that the purpose of drugs, or medicines, is to affect the functioning of a living organism. Although it is intended to convey the impression that they are ‘therapeutic’, in reality, the effects produced by drugs are far from beneficial.

Medicines are produced in laboratories from chemical compounds; however, although chemistry is certainly a science, this does not mean that the use of chemicals to treat disease can be called ‘medical science’. The relevant branch of ‘science’ that pertains to drugs is pharmacology, which is defined by the establishment as, “the science of the properties of drugs and their effects on the body.”

The pharmaceutical industry, which is immensely profitable, relies on the research conducted within the field of pharmacology for their continuing existence and their domination of the manufacture of the ‘medicines’ used by the practitioners of modern medicine.

Most definitions of the word ‘drug’ indicate that it can refer to either a ‘legal’ or an ‘illegal’ substance; this is significant because it illustrates that the ‘action’ of all drugs is effectively the same; in other words, they all have the ability to affect the functioning of a living organism. In fact, some ‘legal’ drugs, Ritalin and Adderall for example, have very similar chemical compositions to some ‘illegal’ drugs. Although the terms ‘drug’ and ‘medicine’ may be used interchangeably, the medical establishment understandably prefers to use the latter term with reference to the substances employed as treatments for disease, due to the frequent association of the word ‘drug’ with illegal substances. Their preference for the word ‘medicine’ also helps to convey the impression that the effects produced by them are ‘therapeutic’; this is however, a false impression.

The human body is, to a certain extent, ‘chemical’ in nature, but the chemicals required by the human body need to be in a very specific form in order to be metabolized and utilized for the body’s physiological functions. The chemical compounds synthesized in the laboratories of pharmaceutical companies and produced as medicines are not appropriate for the human body, because, as Herbert Shelton explains, “All drugs are physiologically incompatible with the functions of the body.”

The stated purpose of ‘medicine’ is to ‘fight’ disease by affecting the structure and functioning of the body. Any substance that adversely affects the body’s structure or is physiologically incompatible with the body and its functions is, however, poisonous to the body; as indicated by the establishment definition of ‘poison’ which refers to, “any substance that irritates, damages, or impairs the activity of the body’s tissues.”

The medical establishment inevitably promotes the idea that ‘medicines’ only interfere beneficially, with the sole proviso that they are administered in the correct ‘dose’ to exert their therapeutic actions. However, as has been stated, a substance cannot change its nature solely by reference to the quantity in which it is used.

The manufacture of medicines involves a number of different stages, the first of which may include the isolation of the active ingredient of a plant claimed to have curative properties and its synthesis into a chemical compound. The pharmaceutical industry produces huge numbers of chemical compounds, each of which is subjected to a variety of tests in order to determine its effects on ‘disease’. Until recently, the tests to determine the effects of these compounds were conducted on tissues claimed to have been affected by a particular disease; the purpose of the tests is to discover if the compound is able to alter the tissue and counter the disease process. If any effects are observed that are considered to be ‘beneficial’, further tests are conducted to discover whether the compounds that produced those effects could be incorporated into the development of a marketable product; a ‘medicine’.

Some pharmaceutical companies report that they no longer use diseased tissue for this type of testing and that instead, they now use ‘disease molecules’, which can be molecules of genetic material, either DNA or RNA, or protein molecules.

The laboratories of the pharmaceutical industry contain many thousands, if not millions, of chemical compounds that are tested against various disease molecules. These tests are conducted using highly technical equipment, particularly robotics that have the capability of performing incredibly large numbers of tests at an extremely rapid rate. The purpose of the testing remains the same, which is to ascertain whether any chemical produces an ‘effect’ on any of the disease molecules that can be interpreted as ‘beneficial’ with the ultimate objective of developing a ‘medicine’.

It is entirely possible that any number of chemical compounds may produce an ‘effect’ on a piece of genetic material or on a protein molecule in a cell culture in a laboratory. However, the idea that effects produced by chemical compounds on isolated molecules can be extrapolated to indicate that those compounds may have a beneficial effect in a living human being is totally inappropriate for a number of reasons. One of the main reasons is that, when tested, disease molecules are no longer in their natural environment within the human body; an environment that is poorly understood by the medical establishment, which perceives the human body to be little more than a living machine comprised of various parts, each of which can be studied and, if found to be diseased, ‘fixed’ through the use of chemicals without reference to any other part.

The work of the pharmaceutical industry is clearly an extension of the work of Hippocrates, Paracelsus and others who have claimed that the body is essentially chemical in nature and that these chemicals need to be ‘balanced’ when the body is ill. Although partly true, this idea has resulted in the use of synthetic chemical compounds that are physiologically incompatible with the human body for the treatment of disease. The long history of erroneous ideas about the living human body continues to exert a detrimental influence on the ability of the medical establishment to change its approach and gain a better understanding of ‘health’ and of ‘disease’.

‘Science’ is, or should be, a process of investigation; and the scientific method should involve procedures that ‘follow the evidence’.

In ‘medical science’, the evidence from observations in the real world is often poorly explained or even unexplained by the theories. For example, the experience of Dr John Tilden, was that his patients recovered from illness when they stopped using ‘drugs’; an experience that completely contradicts the theories of modern medicine, but nevertheless qualifies as empirical evidence that should not be ignored.

Unfortunately, instead of abandoning their erroneous theories in the light of contradictory empirical evidence, the medical establishment has established them as medical dogma and anyone who dares to question this ‘orthodoxy’ is subjected to vilification. In order to dominate the field of ‘medicine’, the medical establishment has created a medical system that perceives itself to be ‘elite’ and condemns any other views, as demonstrated by the BMA and their campaign against ‘quackery’. This attitude is inculcated into medical students during their training, as experienced by Dr Carolyn Dean, who explains in Death by Modern Medicine that, “In fact, we were told many times that if we didn’t learn it in medical school it must be quackery.”

There are, however, many problems with the information taught in medical schools, especially with respect to pharmacology and the study of the effects of drugs within the human body.

Once a chemical compound has been observed in the laboratory to produce what is perceived to be a beneficial effect on tissues or ‘disease molecules’, it is subjected to various tests to determine the effects on living organisms; laboratory animals initially, then small groups of healthy human volunteers. The purpose of these tests is to determine the ‘therapeutic dose’ and to ascertain the extent of any ‘side effects’ of the drug. But these tests cannot be considered to provide ‘proof’ that the chemical compound has any benefits for human health; especially as none of the volunteers at this stage of testing has the ‘disease’ that the drug is believed to be able to treat.

There are two branches of pharmacology; pharmacodynamics, which entails the study of the effects of drugs on living organisms, and pharmacokinetics, which entails the study of the actions of living organisms on drugs. However, as the discussions here will demonstrate, the only effect of drugs is that of poisoning the body and the only actions of the body involve efforts to expel the drugs.

The medical establishment claims that medicines have the ability to ‘target’ the diseased part of the body; but this is not the case, as indicated by a June 2011 article entitled Targeted Drug Delivery To Tumors: Myths, Reality and Possibility. Although this article refers to the delivery of drugs to a tumor, the underlying principle is the same; but the article reveals that, “Current drug delivery systems, however, do not have the ability to guide themselves to a target.”

This means, therefore, that drugs are able to affect parts of the body that are not diseased or affected by disease. It is claimed that the bloodstream is included in the delivery system by which drugs reach the diseased parts of the body; but the idea that the bloodstream is merely a transport system is erroneous. Although its functions include the delivery of nutrients and the removal of toxins, the blood is affected by all of the substances that enter the body; it will therefore be poisoned by toxic materials.

There is a wealth of evidence from a variety of sources to demonstrate that ‘modern medicine’ is not based on ‘science’; some of that evidence can be gleaned from the medical establishment itself. For example, in October 1991, Richard Smith, then editor of the prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ), wrote an editorial entitled Where is the Wisdom? The Poverty of Medical Evidence, in which he states that, “There are perhaps 30,000 biomedical journals in the world…”

This clearly represents an impossibly huge volume of material for doctors to read, but the quantity of medical reading matter is not the real crux of the problem. The editorial refers to a medical conference that had been held in Manchester during the previous week. One of the speakers at that event was Professor David Eddy of Duke University, whom Richard Smith quotes as having said that, “…only about 15% of medical interventions are supported by solid, scientific evidence…”

Richard Smith then continues in his own words to state that, “This is partly because only 1% of the articles in medical journals are scientifically sound, and partly because many of the treatments have never been assessed at all.”

These revelations run counter to the claim that modern medicine is a ‘science’ and that treatments have all been scientifically ‘proven’ to be both safe and effective.

Excerpt from What Really Makes You Ill – Why Everything You Thought You Knew About Disease Is Wrong

See Part II here.