The Pharmaceutical Industry has a malign influence on the
big health campaigning charities. I have visited this subject before: see http://wildeaboutobesity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/for-new-perspective-on-conflicts-of.html This
corruption has been brought to my attention again because some journalists and
other concerned individuals/bodies, e.g. here, have
been drawing attention recently to the way big charities have been subverted
away from their original charitable aims and objectives. They have become
instead bloated, overpaid quangos, largely funded from taxation, serving
political aims, campaigning for political objectives and deceiving ordinary
citizens into donating their time, money and effort to organisations they would
not want to fund if they knew the truth about them.
My own particular concern is the big health campaigning
charities, which I regard as a front for promoting pharmaceutical drugs and
thereby increasing the profits of Big Pharma. If drug promotion benefited
people's health, I would not be against it. But that is not the
case.
When the aim is to get more and more people taking
prescription drugs, rather than the aim being to prevent, ameliorate or cure the
disease, we are clearly in a dystopian world of lies and corruption, of blighted
lives and unnecessary suffering. Although these health charities give a modicum
of good advice, it is outweighed by misinformation, drug promotion and failure
to draw attention to simple, really useful dietary measures. Here are some
examples:
A crucial
dietary measure that would reduce the incidence and severity of childhood asthma
is to avoid feeding children salty meals and snacks. - See this
article, where you will read, "According to a new study published in the
American Dietetic Association, high-salt foods and snacks are linked to lung
changes that trigger asthma symptoms.," and that researchers in Greece
found, using questionnaires, "Kids who ate high-salt foods more than three
times a week saw their risk of asthma symptoms go up almost five
times."
We read in
this Telegraph report of research in Rome, Italy, led by Dr
Giuseppe Corbo.
"The study of 20,000 six and seven-year-olds, published in the medical
journal Epidemiology, confirmed a strong link with asthma and obesity, but
found that salt was the biggest risk. Those with the highest intake were
two and a half times more likely to develop asthma." (my emphasis) See also
Salt/Sodium in Foods. But AsthmaUK
don't tell people about the massive difference salt reduction makes to the
incidence and severity of childhood asthma, surely a greater benefit than any
drug treatment and with no harmful side-effects or habituation to medications. -
My personal opinion is that everyone's health and pocket would benefit if
AsthmaUK were to close down.
Similarly, Diabetes UK (i.e. www.diabetes.org.uk) gives precisely the wrong
dietary advice about diabetes. See this article
by Dr Briffa. And this
one.
And what shall I say about the British Heart
Foundation (BHF)? The British Heart
Foundation is a charity that states that it aims to prevent people dying from
heart diseases. I don't believe that the advice it gives is very likely to
succeed in that aim. - To me, the most important preventative measure, and
indeed the most important remedial measure with regard to heart problems, is
avoiding salt and salty food. This reduces the risk of stroke,
high blood pressure, heart attack and heart failure, reduces obesity and reduces
breathlessness. It is also helpful to cut down on carbohydrates and eat plenty
of healthy fat. (Check out LCHF - Low Carb/High Fat - on your favourite search
engine.) - Yet what does the BHF and its spokespeople plug over and over again?
- Why statins, of course. It is a drug-oriented website. Its
aim does not seem to me to be to prevent people dying from heart diseases. Its
aim seems to be to get people to take drugs, especially
statins. Statins are controversial, vastly over-prescribed drugs with many adverse side-effects.
Did you know that many of the
most-prescribed drugs (tricyclic
anti-depressants, steroids,
antipsychotics, etc.) - by causing sensitivity to salt - can and do actually
cause obesity, heart problems and type 2 diabetes, among many other serious
degenerative health conditions? And that salt
intake is also linked to stomach cancer? And that Paracetamol/Calpol/Tylenol/Acetaminophen
(a painkiller) is especially harmful to children? And that there
is massive overprescribing of powerful painkillers by UK GPs, leading to
addiction and to death by overdose among their unfortunate
patients?
It seems clear to me that the
health campaigning charities should be strongly advising people to reduce salt
and sugar intake and cut down or cut out processed food products, since these
measures are of enormous benefit to health, particularly with regard to
degenerative diseases. And rather than encouraging people to take pharmaceutical
drugs that have so many harmful side-effects, often far more harmful than the
illness they are being prescribed for, they should be on the side of avoiding
drugs unless they are absolutely necessary.
