A while ago, a friend down the village came to me for a drop of advice.

He was very worried about his missus

Apparently she had suddenly all but lost all the use of her limbs.  She couldn’t get out of bed or out of a chair.  She kept falling over and worst of all, had become incontinent.

And before any smart arse says anything, she’s a teetotaller.

Naturally he had visions of all sorts on nasties such as Alzheimer’s or Muscular Dystrophy and to put it mildly was pretty sick with worry.

Of course I told him to bring her to see Doc, but he said she had been only recently and there was nothing wrong with her apart from some cholesterol problems or blood sugars or some such.  Doc had told her to watch her diet and had given her some pills called statins.

The next day, I had a poke around the Interweb, and sure enough – there it was – shed loads of people complaining about statins causing muscular weakness amongst other things, and what was worse, the damage the drug did could be permanent.

The upshot was that she came off the statins and immediately the problem was solved.

By sheer coincidence, Bill posted a link on this site this morning.

So here we have a doctor who has concerns about the side effects of statins being gagged and prevented from talking to the press.  Why?  Because statins are a major money spinner, earning the drug companies around €135 million a year in Ireland alone.  So what if people are permanently damaged as a result of statins when there is money like this to be made?  Of course the good doctor has to be gagged – he might damage profits.

Then there is the e-cigarette fiasco.  Here we have a device which is proven to be extremely effective in getting people off smoking cigarettes, yet Big Pharma is doing everything in its power to prevent e-cigarettes from being marketed.  Why?  Because they know their profits from Nicotine Replacement devices will be severely hit.  Fuck the people and think of the profits.

Or how about Varenicline?  Here is a drug that was rushed onto the market in 2006, bypassing many of the normal tests simply because it was seen as a massive money spinner.  The fact that major concerns were raised a mere year later that one of its nice side effects is suicide ideation did little to stop them pushing the drug.  It is estimated that hundreds in the States alone have committed suicide as a result of this drug yet it is still pushed with a frenzy onto the unsuspecting public.

I have no time for the Pharmaceutical Industry.  They make themselves out to be the great white heroes of the modern world, whereas in my opinion they are little short of an evil empire which cares little for health and has both eyes firmly fixed on profits.

They are probably the greatest cause of preventable disease and premature death in the world.