Big Pharma attacks vitamins + minerals, page 1

This isn't surprising one bit. And that is the sad thing.

In 2000, I heard all the cries about Heir Bush being a big oil man. Sure he is. I knew that, who didn't? But while we do have issues today with the oil companies, the larger issues are with the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

The price of medicine in the US has skyrocketed to a point where people now have to choose on a daily basis whether to take their meds or eat. All this is happening while other countries get their medicines for a fraction of the price. Why? Because the AMA is busily supporting the pharmaceuticals via prescriptions. It is not at all unusual to see someone taking a dozen different medications each and every day, while their health and their finances dwindle away. In many cases, some of the medications do nothing but treat side effects from other medications! It'll spread farther, as other countries begin to play the game we play between the doctors and pharmaceuticals.

Over and over I have seen my relatives and friends visit a doctor and have a prescription written, A few months later, they are on three or four prescriptions and are making regular monthly visits to that doctor. The they start seeing specialists and their prescription load doubles or triples. Soon they die, broke and feeble.

I do not go to doctors. Oh, I have been a few times, and I have to take that bi-yearly physical, but I pretty much ignore what they tell me. I've seen enough to know better.

I used to have a great-uncle that lived way out in the woods, even by my standards. I got to know him pretty well when I was using his place to hunt; I would always stop by and say hello to him when I was there. He lived simply, off the land. He had a small garden he tended out back. Folks would stop by after hunting and bring him some of what they had bagged, and some of the farmers even would bring him some meat when they killed a pig or cow. His freezer was packed to the brim with bacon, ham, beef, steaks, venison, squirrel, fowl... every kind of meat I could imagine, packed in there with frozen vegetables from his garden. He also kept a small henhouse out back for eggs and meat.

I remember on one occasion we were walking around in the woods behind his modest three-room house, and I asked him how old he was (diplomatically, of course). I don't recall the exact answer, but it was in the 90s. Twice after that, on the same day, he mentioned his age in his 90s, but all three times it was a different number. So while I knew he was between 90 and 100, neither of us knew just how old he really was. He simply didn't care.

This old man could work like no one I had ever met, or have met since. He never ran out of energy, was never tired, never complained about joint pain or stiffness. He was alert and aware, and pretty intelligent for someone who had been forced to quit school in the 6th grade. He had no neighbors, at least not within what most would call 'walking distance', and survived just fine on his own, with no help. My parents and I were concerned about him and kept begging him to come move closer to us so we could take care of him. He never did. He was happy where he was.

He died at the ripe old age of, I believe, 98. He was sick for about 4 months before the end - stomach cancer. He was forced to move in with his brother in town. But still, he did not listen to everything the doctor told him. He loved his gin and his cigars, and he continued to drink, smoke, and eat greasy fried foods until he quietly and peacefully passed away one night. He was smiling and alert until the end.

No doctor was needed to keep him alive for nearly a century. The only thing that was needed was simple living. He didn't take medicine, but rather used herbs, a few bought, more found growing around his little shack. He did not contribute to the wealth and power of big companies that took natural ingredients and processed them into a little pill. And that, my friends is the problem.

All medicines are made from natural sources. The vast majority of these are plants, which can be grown from a humble seed. This method of treating illness is not profitable to anyone but the grower, and that is not acceptable for those who want your money. So all natural medicines must be outlawed! People must be coerced into taking more of the synthetic toxins which can profit those in power. And it has nothing to do with making you feel better; it has nothing to do with curing a disease. It only has to do with power and money. The rest of the world will soon join the US in 'needing' these miraculous cures that cure no one.

But there is one hope I can see. Jim Stafford, an old country balladier, once summed it up in his song "Wildwood Weed'. The song is about how two boys found marijuana growing on their farm and used it, until one day a government agent came and destroyed it all. I recant the final lines of this song:

"And he burned and he dug,
and he dug and he burned,
'til he killed all our cute little weeds.
Then he drove away...
We just smiled and waved...
Sittin' on that sack of seeds."

TheRedneck