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health system worldwide is in crisis. This crisis is
exacerbated by the costs and profits generated by the
pharmaceutical industry. Not only that, but with climate
change, there is increasing spread and re-occurrence
of diseases that until now have been under control or
in abeyance. Such diseases include the Western Nile
Fever, Sleeping sickness, Tuberculosis, Malaria and
of course AIDS. In particular, malaria is the largest
problem in the world.
One of the major causes of
spread and infection is not only the threat of biological
warfare, but also the fact that our population intermingles
more than it ever used to through the ubiquitous forms
of transport that are available including aircraft.
For example, the Mecca pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia
where thousands upon thousands of people intermingle,
was where an outbreak of meningococcal meningitis
occurred in 1987. As a result of further outbreaks
occurring it is now mandatory for people entering
Saudi Arabia to have a meningococcal vaccination before
entering.
It is unfortunate that there
is so much complacency on behalf of the pharmaceutical
industry and the fact that unless there is money or
profits to be made, little money is spent in research
and development.
Let us look at the health
crisis in the developed and the developing world.
In the developing world, about 14 million people die
each year of infectious diseases, many of which are
preventable or treatable, such as acute respiratory
infections, diarrhoeal diseases, malaria and tuberculosis.
Up to 45% of deaths in Africa are thought to be due
to infectious disease. In the third world, over half
of the children under 5 die of disease. The vast majority
are too poor to afford proper health care. Countless
millions more suffer debilitating illness and 2 billion
people lack access to basic health care. The availability
of cheap drugs and better health care system would
help to reduce these figures. (Policy of United Nations,
Kofi Annan).
No compensation is currently
available to reduce the costs of drugs for the treatment
of people in Africa who are infected with AIDS. The
number of people in Africa who are infected with AIDS
is 25 million. The number of people in Africa who
have died of AIDS in 70 million. The number of people
who have died in America because of Anthrax is four!
The pharmaceutical industry goes out of its way to
influence politicians and policy makers. (Note, Trade
Related Intellectual Property Rights, World Trade
Organisation rules).
In the US, as well as in the
UK, the pharmaceutical industry works hand in hand
with the government initiating so called health care
reforms. The combined worth of the worlds top five
drug companies, is twice the combined GMP of all Sub
Sahara Africa and their influence on World Trade is
extremely powerful because they bring their wealth
directly on the levers of Western power (The Governments).
Innovative Drugs are increasingly
unaffordable in developing countries other than for
a privileged elite. A ban on local copies will quite
simple rule out access for the majority of the population
(Medicines San Frontieres.)
It is no wonder that the health
system is in crisis when the whole essence of health
care is based on the use of allopathic drugs. The
pharmaceutical industry exists and feeds on illness.
Without illness it cannot grow. It cannot create new
drugs to band-aid the illness. Yet it is known that
iatrogenic illness or illness caused by drugs or technological
intervention is such that the treatment of illness
is now the fourth commonest cause of death in Western
Society. (Journal of the American Medical Association).
Sixteen per cent of patients who enter hospital either
die or come out worse than when they went in. (Medical
Journal of Australia 1995)
It is obvious that the current
system as it stands is not even curing the population.
It is just enabling them to maintain an existence
based on a life support concept—that is a life support
system consisting of chemicals and surgical intervention.
Governments are finding it
harder to heal the sick. A member of parliament, in
the United Kingdom said recently that” though the
resources are final, the demands for health care are
infinite. “ The cost of health in Europe has doubled
since the 1970’s being 9% of the GDP and in England
7% of the GDP. In England, the National Health Service
is funded by taxation that comes out of the voters`
pockets. However, in England, the National Health
Service is at breaking point. The hospital waiting
lists are enormous, and even in Australia, there are
problems with Medicare and waiting lists.
In France, doctors and nurses are going on strike,
because they are getting no more pay, yet they are
expected to do extra work for an ageing population.
In 15 years time, one third
of the people in Europe will be over 65 years of age
and will have long term chronic conditions. Although
some may take responsibility for their health, many
patients will indeed still rely on chemical and surgical
treatments handed out by the governmental health systems.
This is in conjunction with
the rising patient e expectations and increased demands
for instant cures. Patient expectations of the medical
profession are growing as is increased litigation
causes rocketing insurance premiums for Doctors.
The status of the Medical
practitioner is being eroded by an often demanding
public who have no understanding for self-responsibility
or self-healing. As a result, GPs and doctors are
often forced into defensive practices and excessive
investigations as they feel surrounded by a hostile
arena.
In addition, with economic
crises, it may become more difficult for governments
to fund the health system with current taxation. It
may well be that people in the future will have to
pay for their health to a greater degree
There is a huge hypocrisy
in these statements, because of the enormous profits
that the pharmaceutical industry is making. They are
creating the chemical band-aid approaches that are
not helping the vast majority of the population to
prevent or heal the basic causes of their degenerative
illness.
It seems as if by an almost
mandatory process, nutrition supplements, lifestyle
change, exercise, diet and relaxation are excluded
from the conventional medical arena.
In Australia, doctors will
be reprimanded if they spend too long talking to their
patients by trying to find out the basic cause of
the dis---ease. It is often a profound psycho-social
situation. It is known that heart disease can be reduced
even with a high cholesterol if patients are in a
community which is supportive and loving (Dean Ornish).
The global market is so controlled
by the huge corporate transnationals that their market
domination enables them to dictate the drug prices.
In the past years the pharmaceutical prices have risen
faster than the rate of inflation. There is also very
little price elasticity. Despite the fact that actual
manufacturing costs are relatively low.
In a vast scenario of declining
world health, increasing poverty, risk and spread
of infection, the ability to move around the world
faster by modern transport, increasing epidemics of
cardiovascular disease, obesity, dementia, cancer,
diabetes, there is a wonderful opportunity for the
pharmaceutical and chemical industry to make enormous
profits from a population that appears to have planted
within it a state of obsolescence.
You see a health system based
on a global market, placed there, simply to make money
at the expense of anything and anybody else. It is
so inhumane. Companies have been increasingly using
direct to consumer ads in the US to use their drugs.
They also sponsor Specialists worldwide and give them
large sums of money to talk about and promote their
drugs .GPs are the unpaid Reps of this industry
Drug companies are even arranging
appropriate chemical trials with fabricated data purely
to market their drugs. Scientists are accepting huge
sums of money from drug companies to put their names
to articles encouraging new medicines on articles
that they have not written (Guardian Newspapers 2002
and Judith Jones, Director of Division of Drug Experience,
MDA, Campaign against Fraudulent Medical research)
The drug giants are also refusing
to develop drugs needed in the third world. For example,
drugs combating malaria, tuberculosis, sleeping sickness
- because of lack of profits to be made.
They also use cheap human
guinea pigs in the developing world, and have used
patenting to destroy the homegrown pharmaceutical
industries in Thailand, India, Egypt and Brazil. (John
La Carre)
It is no wonder that the world
health system is in a crisis. We human beings are
not being treated as human beings. The gross profit
margins of some of the leading pharmaceutical companies
in recent years, have around 70-80%.
The Public is being treated
in a numbers economics game for the sake of lining
the pockets of the wealthiest of the wealthy, particularly
the enormous transnational pharmaceutical companies.
The Medical Renaissance Group
aims to bring together the global community of doctors
and community to lobby their respective governments
for the creation of a healing culture which places
priority on the health of the individual rather than
on the illness of the individual. In this respect,
it supports preventative, nutritional and mind / body
medicine and sees healing as being a unique partnership
between the doctor and the patient. Please take advantage
of our FREE Foundation Membership for a limited time
only Please write or e-mail Dr Ellis at medren@ozemail.com.au
stating your name, address, phone number, profession,
specialty and interests and how you feel you can contribute
towards the association.
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