Jul 9, 2013 | Abuses of Power, Nature Body Mind
Dr. Lee Hieb explains how medical ‘consensus’ robs patients of their health
No one said it better than Michael Crichton – who, in addition to being a best selling author, was also a physician.
During a lecture at Cal Tech, he said, “Let’s be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right. … The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.”
The medical community has always been subject to “group-think,” but in recent decades we have become the leaders. Numerous physician-scientists have been ostracized, defrocked, de-licensed and in some cases driven to self-destruction by a medical community that has embraced consensus in science.
In essence, “We don’t care about your data; we all agree you are wrong.”
I once had a paper rejected from a major spine journal with a one line denouement: “Everyone knows you can’t do that.”
With time, ultimately, truth prevails, and renegade but correct physicians are vindicated – but not in time to save those patients who die from the mistaken consensus. Today, this “group-think” is depriving people from some of the best and cheapest medical treatment available – supplementation with adequate Vitamin D3.
Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with childhood rickets – a bone disorder – for over a hundred years. And it has been known since the 1970s that those living on the equator, regardless of particular locale, have lower rates of multiple sclerosis, colon cancer and depression. But more recently, many astute observers have discovered that low Vitamin D leads to many other disorders, including cardiac arrhythmia, breast cancer, adult fractures, dementia, heart attack risk and even diabetes.
Most recently, studies have demonstrated that higher levels of Vitamin D improve longevity and are beneficial at preventing influenza – even better than vaccination. Studies showing beneficial effects of high vitamin D levels are quite convincing. They not only show a correlation between low Vitamin D blood levels and the problem, but show improvement in the disease or prevention of the condition when levels are raised up through supplementation.
As an example, it has been shown in the laboratory that heart muscle does not contract well unless adequate Vitamin D is present. An Italian population study showed that low Vitamin D was proportional to atherosclerotic plaques (clogging of the arteries). Furthermore, a Japanese study of dialysis patients demonstrated that correcting Vitamin D deficiency significantly lowered death from heart attacks and heart disease in general.
These are only a few of the rapidly expanding body of literature supporting the role of Vitamin D in multiple disease prevention. But to achieve the positive effects seen in many diseases, blood levels need to be in the range of 50 to 100 ng/dl, not the 20 ng/dl that laboratories report as the lowest range of “normal” (how labs determine “normal” is the subject of another column). Specifically in the case of breast cancer, if one achieves blood levels above 55 ng/dl, the risk of breast cancer is diminished 85 percent.
It is the observation of many, many practicing clinicians that 1) most patients test in the low 20s, and 2) 400 iu of Vitamin D a day – the government recommended daily allowance doesn’t raise the levels at all. Studies of equatorial inhabitants demonstrate that some of the longest-lived people on the planet obtain 30,000-40,000 iu of Vitamin D (specifically D3) a day from the sunlight – nature’s source of the vitamin. Given that, it is not suprising that supplementing 10,000 iu a day of Vitamin D3 has been shown to have no adverse effects.
As an Orthopaedic Surgeon, I deal with bone disorders daily, and have long been interested in this topic. I quit testing for Vitamin D levels in untreated people after every one of my patients tested in the low 20s. I only tested my husband because he was convinced that golfing in Arizona 18 holes, six days a week would raise his level. It did not – his level was 22 ng/dl.
As a final fact, D3 supplementation is cheap. For less than $12 a month you can easily take 10,000 iu of Vitamin D3 a day.
Now, given all this, what would you do?
I, for one take 10,000 units of Vitamin D3 a day. I have done so for over 7 years, and my levels of 55 ng/dl are barely in the optimal range of 50-100ng/dl. I recommend the same to all my patients. But I must warn them that the government, via the Institute of Medicine and the FDA, disagree and believe people should take only 600-800 iu a day.
Now it doesn’t take a medical degree to figure out that a cheap treatment that has such potential upside with so little (if any) downside is worth doing as real preventive medicine. But the government consensus – developed by intellectuals who feel they are infinitely smarter than we are, and should be able to make our choices for us – is that there is no evidence for the beneficial claims.
Really? If they emerge from their collective basement, they will find pages and pages of references. Don’t believe it? Do a simple Google search. Or just read the newspaper. Besides frequent articles in medical and general science journals supporting Vitamin D3 supplementation, there are monthly news stories about this rapidly advancing science.
Sadly, the government doesn’t just want to discourage you from taking extra Vitamin D, they want to prohibit it. Senator Dick Durban, D-Ill., in 2011 introduced a bill (innocuously labeled the “Supplement Labeling Act”) which would so over-regulate the supplement industry that they could no longer supply products such as Vitamin D3 at a cost affordable to the average consumer.
And state medical boards, which are now populated by many non-physicians, sanction physicians who step out of this approved “consensus” – what they call “standard of care.” According to them, if you are not doing what 90 percent of your colleagues are doing, you are by definition wrong. And they can punish you, even to the extent of taking away your license. So, regardless of progress in science, if 90 percent of doctors are recommending an inadequate dose of Vitamin D, your doctor must give you this wrong advice.
To be a scientific leader in this new world order is to be wrong. If the phone company had this philosophy, we would still be tied to land line rotary dials.
Science and medicine are not a vote. As Dr. Crichton pointed out, voting is for politicians. Science requires freedom to consider the alternatives, and in medicine, the freedom to make our own choices – not have government bureaucrats or the Institute of Medicine make them for us
via WND
Aug 15, 2012 | Globalist Corporations
It is time for the truth to be told about Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The organization is, flatly stated, engaged in fraud. Funded by drug companies and mammogram manufacturers, the organization preys upon women in order to grow its own financial power while feeding female victims into the conventional cancer industry grinder.
All across America, men and women participate in “run for the cure” events, raising tens of millions of dollars each year that go into the hands of Komen for the Cure. What these people don’t know is that much of that money is spent on “free” mammograms. Those mammograms, in turn, actually cause breast cancer because they subject women to high doses of ionizing radiation.
The Susan G. Komen scam, in essence, is to raise money that’s used to give women cancer and create a financial windfall for the very same companies that financially support Komen in the first place. “The Komen Foundation owns stock in General Electric, one of the largest makers of mammogram machines in the world. It also owns stock in several pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca,” reports Tony Isaacs at NaturalNews (http://www.naturalnews.com/027307_cancer_breast_ACS.html).
“DuPont, another huge chemical company and major polluter, supplies much of the film used in mammography machines. Both DuPont and GE aggressively promote mammography screening of women in their 40s, despite the risk of its contributing to breast cancer in that age group. And while biotech giant Monsanto sponsors Breast Cancer Awareness Month’s high profile event, the Race for the Cure, it continues to profit from the production of many known carcinogens.” (http://www.tbyil.com/breast-cancer-deception.htm)
Komen’s corporate partners include General Mills, Zumba Fitness, Walgreens, The Republic of Tea, REMAX, New Balance, American Airlines, Bank of America, Ford Motor Company, Dell and many more (http://ww5.komen.org/corporatepartners.aspx).
The bottom line? Komen deceives women while powerful corporations rake in the profits. This isn’t merely my own opinion. Two prominent doctors, in an article published in the British Medical Journal, have sharply condemned Komen for the Cure for lying about the “benefits” of mammograms.
Komen ads are false, say scientists
“The world’s largest breast cancer charity used misleading statistics and deceptive statements about mammography to promote breast cancer awareness and screening,” stated scientists. (http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/BreastCancer/34030)
Their names? Steven Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz, directors of the Center for Medicine and the Media at Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire.
They join a growing number of other doctors and medical professionals who now see Komen for the Cure as afundraising fraud and are going public with detailed accusations against Komen’s deceptions.
In the recently published BMJ article, Woloshin and Schwartz accused Komen of lying in its promotional propaganda for the 2011 Breast Cancer Awareness Month. In advertising, Komen falsely claimed the 5-year survival rate when breast cancer is caught early is 98%, while only 23% when not “caught early.” This is how Komen tricks women into getting more mammograms which cause more cancer — by claiming “early detection saves lives.” But it’s not science; it’s pure propaganda. (See below.)
According to study authors Woloshin and Schwartz, Komen willfully ignored “a growing and increasingly accepted body of evidence [showing] that although screening may reduce a woman’s chance of dying from breast cancer by a small amount, it also causes major harms.”
Here’s an image published by the British Medical Journal, detailing how Komen for the Cure is lying about mammography:
http://www.naturalnews.com/gallery/articles/Komen_Deception_BMJ.jpg
Here’s what the data actually say
Komen for the Cure is in the business of fear mongering. They want everyone to be scared out of their minds that breast cancer is going to strike down all the women in their life. And in order to deal with the fear, all you have to do is give more money to Komen.
It’s sort of like an old-school evangelical group that asks for donations and says you’ll be healed if you just “believe,” but instead of claiming to heal people with the power of faith, the Komen cult claims to heal women with the power of ionizing radiation.
In reality, the actual 10-year risk of a 50-year-old woman dying of breast cancer is about half a percent: 0.53% (http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/BreastCancer/34030).
With mammograms used to detect breast cancer tumors, that 10-year risk of dying from breast cancer moves ever so slightly downward to 0.46%.
In other words, the real risk reduction of dying from breast cancer by receiving mammograms is only 0.07% — seven women out of 10,000.
How mammograms kill women
Seven out of 10,000 is a far cry from the fear-mongering levels that Komen propagandizes. It’s not quite the cancer apocalypse that Komen makes it out to be, huh? And in the mean time, Woloshin and Schwartz explain that anywhere from 20% to 50% of women who receive mammograms for a decade of their lives will have at least one “false alarm.”
These false alarms often lead to women being treated with deadly chemotherapy cocktails. These expensive drugs enrich the very same drug companies that donate money to Komen for the Cure. This is all part of the cycle of fraud that exploits women’s bodies for profit, all while conducting this sick fraud with the message of “finding a cure,” emblazoned with pink ribbons. The magnitude of the deception in all this is pathological… even criminal.
“The Komen advertisement is deceptive in another way: it ignores the harms of screening,” say Woloshin and Schwartz. “Between 20% and 50% of women screened annually for a decade experience at least one false alarm requiring a biopsy. Most importantly, screening results in overdiagnosis. For every life saved by mammography, around two to 10 women are overdiagnosed. Women who are overdiagnosed cannot benefit from unnecessary chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery. All they do experience is harm,” they write.
That harm often comes in the form of unnecessary chemotherapy that poisons women but financially benefits the drug companies. Here’s another article on NaturalNews which also supports this conclusion:
http://www.naturalnews.com/020829.html
Also read my previous article, “10 Facts about the Breast Cancer Industry You’re Not Supposed to Know”
http://www.naturalnews.com/024536_cancer_women_breast.html
“Women need much more than marketing slogans about screening,” wrote Woloshin and Schwartz. “They need — and deserve — the facts. The Komen advertisement campaign failed to provide the facts. Worse, it undermined decision making by misusing statistics to generate false hope about the benefit of mammography screening. That kind of behavior is not very charitable.”
The article goes on to emphasize that mammograms are a wash, offering no net benefit to women’s health:
The benefits and harms [of mammography] are so evenly balanced that the National Breast Cancer Coalition, a major US network of patient and professional organizations, “believes there is insufficient evidence to recommend for or against universal mammography in any age group of women.” (http://www.knowbreastcancer.org/controversies/mammography-screening/)
But instead of telling women the truth, Komen lies to women, vastly exaggerating the “benefits” of screening:
“Komen’s public advertising campaign gives women no sense that screening is a close call. Instead it simply tells women to be screened, overstates the benefit of mammography, and ignores harms altogether,” write Woloshin and Schwartz.
Komen has even fooled doctors
Beyond fooling the public, Komen’s insidious disinformation campaign has even fooled most doctors. As Woloshin and Schwartz described how doctors are tricked by the “improved survival” statistics which mislead people into thinking that screening saves lives:
“In a recent survey we conducted with colleagues from the Max Planck Institute, most US primary care doctors mistakenly interpreted improved survival as evidence that screening saves lives.”
(Wegwarth O, Schwartz L, Woloshin S, Gaissmeier W, Gigerenzer G. Do physicians understand cancer screening statistics? A national survey of primary care physicians in the United States. Ann Intern Med 2012;156:340-49.)
Obscene executive salaries
“Susan G. Komen for the Cure is a multimillion-dollar company with assets totaling over $390 million . Only 20.9% of these funds were reportedly used in the 2009-2010 fiscal year for research “for the cure,” writes Emily Michele at Alternet (http://www.alternet.org/story/154010/i_will_not_be_pinkwashed%3A_kome…)
She goes on to explain, “I don’t know about you, but I would never expect directors of a charitable “non-profit” organization to make more than most doctors, lawyers, or even politicians. Their CEO and president, Hala G. Moddelmog, made $531,924, plus $26,683 in change. That’s more than President Obama makes.”
This is all revealed in Komen’s own IRS reporting forms:
http://ww5.komen.org/uploadedFiles/Content/AboutUs/Financial/Komen%20…
Komen spends about 39% of its money on “public health education,” which is just another way to say “pinkwashing.” This money is used to catapult the Komen propaganda so that future fundraising events can raise even more money, much of which is paid to Komen’s fat cat executives as cushy salaries.
Just remember: When you run for the cure, a significant portion of the money you raise is going straight into the pockets of wealthy Komen executives. None of the money is actually being used to promote vitamin D or cancer prevention. “Detection,” after all, is not prevention. It’s just a way to push the cancer industry’s agenda of treating more women with toxic chemotherapy chemicals (and more ionizing radiation).
Komen’s activities are crimes against humanity — and blacks in particular
Susan G. Komen for the Cure isn’t just a dishonest, deceptive non-profit that exploits women for its own power and prestige; it also engaged in crimes against humanity. The use of deceptive statistics, lying propaganda, and false and misleading fundraising events push a machine of death and destruction that sacrifices the lives of women upon the altar of Big Pharma profits.
Notably, Komen usually targets black women, focusing their mobile mammogram trucks — “mobile cancer stations” — on low-income neighborhoods in cities like Detroit where breast cancer among African American women is far more common than in white neighborhoods. The result of all this is increased rates of breast cancer due to the mammography itself. This, in turn, results in statistics which are cited by Komen itself to spread fear and alarm over the disease, justifying their very existence.
It is, at every level, an insidious scam conducted at the cost of innocent human lives. Far from “finding a cure” for cancer, Komen spreads cancer, incites fear, lies to women and then cites the very cancer that it causes as justification for its existence.
Susan G. Komen is a danger to the American public. It functions as a recruitment branch of Big Pharma, ensnaring women with a seductive message of hope and inspiration while delivering suffering and death.
If you donate money to Komen, you are financially supporting this insidious, destructive non-profit monstrosity that destroys lives and brutalizes women. Women who undergo chemotherapy should be called, “chemically battered women,” and Komen promotes this abuse of women through its reliance on false and deceptive propaganda.
The solution to all this? Boycott Komen. Refuse to raise money for this harmful organization that exploits women. Inform your friends about pinkwashing. Share this article. Help stop the exploitation of women by Komen and its lying propaganda.
Looking for a real way to prevent breast cancer? Take more Vitamin D. Komen won’t educate women about vitamin D — (surprised?) — but here at NaturalNews, we have a powerfully informative infographic that tells the story:
http://www.naturalnews.com/Infographic-The-Vitamin-D-Guide.html
We also have a highly informative vitamin D video that’s especially educational for Africa-Americans:
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=5A62FC73922FD51A88E62E42C5A0AD5E
Learn more about the Komen for Cure fraud at:
http://www.naturalnews.com/033783_Komen_for_the_Cure_pinkwashing.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/033837_Komen_for_the_Cure_BPA.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/034987_race_for_the_cure_breast_cancer_pin…
http://www.naturalnews.com/028631_Komen_for_the_cure_pinkwashing.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/Komen_for_the_cure.html
Sources for this story include:
How a charity oversells mammography
BMJ 2012;345:e5132
http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e5132
http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/BreastCancer/34030
