FORCES International - At the service of the pharmaceutical industry

Virtually omnipotent, omnipresent, pulling the strings of governments, institutions, international public health organizations, medical information, medical associations, scientific studies, many universities and scientific journals; influencing media all over the world, while attempting to reshape the economies and the culture of entire nations; antitobacco is just one of their industrial efforts. Introducing a new, unrivalled global superpower: the pharmaceutical industry. It wants to run all aspects of our lives for generations to come under the flag of the "health revolution." In this constantly updated section you will find information on how the pharmaceutical godfathers pull the strings of the most powerful entities in the world.

May 16, 2007 – Big Drugs Thwarted – The Texas legislature dealt a terminal blow to a drug company's scheme to impose a mandatory vaccination program on all adolescent girls in the state. Despite the governor's support for vaccinating the school girls with a new drug that is promoted as a prevention for a sexually transmitted disease and an aggressive campaign by Merck & Co, the manufacturer, to buy political support, the legislators put an end to the marketing scheme.

The vaccination in Texas provided a surprising glimpse into the mercantile machinations of the pharmaceutical industry. People are aware that anti-tobacco legislation, especially smoking bans, are a construct of the drug industry. The pharmaceuticals distribute millions of dollars to researchers to make up studies that purport to show secondhand smoke is harmful for nonsmokers. While the resulting "studies" never prove the dangers they are used to back up legislation that bans smoking. Big Drugs then wildly promotes smoking cessation devices to smokers who are no longer allowed to smoke tobacco. It's a con job of massive proportions.

The same interference in politics is being conducted by Merck. The company is marketing a vaccine that protects girls and women against strains of the sexually transmitted virus that cause most cases of cervical cancer and genital warts. Rather than building a customer base by marketing an effective product, Merck is taking a shortcut by advocating that the vaccine be a requirement for school. An audacious scheme but one that is finding favor with politicians throughout the United States including the governor of Texas who issued an executive order mandating the vaccine for all sixth-grade girls.

Once the word got out there was an outcry from parents and civil libertarians. The legislature crafted a law that blocks state authorities from following the executive order, which passed so overwhelmingly that the governor won't have the support to override the veto. Merck's nefarious plan, however, will be tried in other states where opposition is weaker or where big money talks louder.

Of course this is not science but marketing through prostituted institutions. A comment sent by a reader speaks for us too:

“…I don't see them saying that they ASKED any teens directly on what effect retail marketing had on them. What I get is that they surveilled a whole lot of stores -- noting their ad placements, price of cigarettes, etc. Then I get that they have this other (not associated) collected data of teens who answered about their smoking behaviour. And what I come up with is that they threw both in a hat, waved a wand over it, said abracadabra, and pulled this rabbit out of it. In other words, a leap... If this is how the teen sample describes their smoking status and if this is what the retail tobacco marketing landscape is around them, then the latter explains the former. What I do know is that it's just one more paper they're burying us under with. You barely debunk one (if you even finish) and there's already the next one being laid on our desk.”

May 7, 2007 – Social Marketing, Nematode Worms and Tobacco Control – It all boils down to a gene. So says the latest research on longevity. The subjects of the study, however, were nematode worms, which according to the researchers are enough like homo sapiens to render their genes an indicator of how long we people will live. From the study of worms researchers toiling in the vineyards of Big Drugs dictate what we must do to live to a hundred and beyond. Needless to say such a life might not be worth living for real people, as opposed to worms. Norman Kjono's brief examination of the worms and how smokers, without any help from Big Pharma, live to the max while enjoying themselves provides food for thought.

May 3, 2007 – Preposterous pandemic plan - Stupidity and dishonesty coexist more often than not – especially when it comes to “public health”, which, as we know, has become a license to throw public money down the toilet and have the waste called “responsible”. Here is the case of Edmonton, transferring hundreds of thousands of public dollars into the pockets of pharmaceuticals to buy symptomatics, believing it is doing a good thing to fight influenza. “Is this city rolling in so much money it can afford to start handing out tens of thousands of dollars so its employees can use a product that's marketed in the U.S. as ‘an immune-enhancing dietary supplement?’ “, asks Kerry Diotte from the Edmonton Sun.

A better result, Diotte points out, could be obtained if people would wash their hands. A better one yet would be achieved if people would stop allowing “public health” to wash their brains.

April 27, 2007 - Pharmaceutical industry says that smoking can be used as indicator of alcohol misuse - Here is another application of smoking which – as we all know by now – can ONLY be discussed if associated with negative things, since (and we know this also) smoking is such a killer that not even one death or disease can be scientifically proven to be caused by it. So, now smoking can be used as indicator of alcohol MISUSE – but, obviously, not as an indicator of alcohol use, because that could make smoking “look good”.

There is a graver ideological implication, however, in this umpteenth pronouncement of charlatans paid off by (who else?) the pharmaceutical industry, and it is this: "This means cigarette smoking status can be used as a clinical indicator for alcohol misuse, which presents an opportunity for intervention." The word “intervention” then gets repeated through the piece as if “public health” intervention on the life styles of citizens were normal and even demanded or expected. Stop and think for a second: what guarantees (or even indicates) that the “intervention” of “public health” is morally or politically superior to the free choices of the individual citizen? What guarantees do we have that state intervention will bring arguably “positive” results in the first place? And what referendums or otherwise expressed popular will do we have which indicates that the people want the state to engineer their lives? The answer to all those question is: nothing. Who are these people to establish how many drinks are risky for thee and me? And where is their democratic mandate to do so? The answers are nobody and nowhere. It is just a self-awarded and vague faith in an abstract “collective” represented by appointed health “authorities” provided with strong executive powers that are supposed to “know better” than thee and me, thus they can impose it. The failed, all-Marxist concept that 100 fools are wiser than one represents itself, once again acclaimed by fools who can’t see that 100 of them just make a 100 times bigger fool.

But we do have the answers on the “why” all this is happening: “The NIAAA and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation supported the study”. Enough said. Now it is time to act.

April 23, 2007 - Footnotes to nowhere - Smoking is often incorrectly referred to as a habit when it is in fact a serious addiction. Studies have shown that nicotine addiction can be as difficult to overcome as heroin or cocaine addiction.(4) — CHAMPIX(TM) Smoking Survey, conducted by Leger Marketing.

Note that in what is essentially a press release from Pfizer, Inc. touting its antismoking drug "the facts" are carefully footnoted in the references. Now if a reputable organization made a statement that started with "Studies show..." and footnoted it one would expect it to be backed up with a reference to those studies. Not in the Antismoking world! The fourth footnote, for instance, takes the reader to a Health Canada page which simply REPEATS the same assertion with NO footnote! This is a beautiful example of how the Antismoking Lobby has managed to get fundamental beliefs about smoking and secondhand smoke completely entrenched as unquestionable fact in the public mind WITHOUT ANY FACTUAL BASIS. It's purely a matter of having the money to repeat, repeat, repeat the lies.

One of the many faulty antismoking arguments is that smoking and the tobacco industry are useless, whilst the pharmaceutical industry, in spite of its disgusting capitalist and aggressive ambitions, does some good – as in making products to improve people's health. Of course one can reduce anything to his own notion of good and evil, but certain realities cannot be argued with. Smoking and the tobacco industry are economic engines that do good, as they create millions of jobs around the world, feed governments through taxation, support business and fill the gratification needs of billions. While that is a verifiable reality, virtual deaths supposedly caused by smoking are not – not even in one case. BP, on the other hand, seems to be free to promote aggressively any and all products – many of them quite harmful. But since the industry generously pays off antitobacco activists claiming to care for the hearth of people, well, those activists look the other way.

Corrupt “public health” authorities look the other way too, even when thousands of people report immediate and quantifiable ill effects

(including death) from the use of BP products. Finally, while the antitobacco industry demands that cigarette manufacturers procure a list of the “secret ingredients” that are not there – to excite public imagination about potions, BP can comfortably refuse to make clinical trial reports available for public scrutiny – and ministries of “health”, once again, take no action. We are not advocating the loser’s principle of “equality under oppression”. We do not demand that Big Pharma be treated like Big Tobacco. We demand that Big Tobacco be treated like Big Pharma – especially since the former never said that smoking is good for you. Perhaps it should have.

April 17, 2007 - Chantix: as "good" as Zyban? Perhaps even better - This week Clearing The Air reports on a man's nightmare while attempting to quit smoking with the latest ”wonder drug” Chantix, which blocks nicotine receptors to the brain. Loaded with tons of adverse effects, this is the latest approach to antismoking lobotomy, to make you quit the disease that does not exist and save the statistical years that are not there. As Chantix is poised to repeat the Zyban disaster, we can rest assured that the “health” authorities will do nothing. Smoking “kills”, and information like this will be kept at bay by the mass media in the name of “public health”. Furthermore smokers are disposable citizens, anyway – rubbish that society no longer wants – and if they croak while quitting smoking after listening to propaganda, their death is “attributed” to smoking – by the same corrupt institutions that say “smoking kills” in the first place. So all bases are covered. One of the big advantages of smoking cessation with pharma-garbage is that once you are dead you will not get any sicker. What a deal!

April 17, 2007 - … And since you are there, you may as well drug your pet too! – Why not?... After all, you are stuffing your kids with Ritalin as they “suffer” from Attention Deficit Disorder (AKA vivacity); you are stuffing your husband with Zoloft because he is “suffering” from depression on the job; you feed your own face with Chantix or Zyban to successfully screw up your brain and heart so you can quit smoking. Why not load up you pet with Prozac? Buy Reconcile, “…a beef-flavoured chewable tablet that helps treat dogs for separation anxiety. The medicine is supposed to be used in combination with behaviour management training to help dogs that have difficulty being separated from their owner or family members.”

Moreover, “It basically calms the dog and makes it more receptive to the training that's supposed to go along with it," said Steve Connell, a Lilly veterinarian. Not just the dogs, Mr. Connell, not just the dogs... Ask any “public health” institution nowadays. They will explain that to you – behind closed doors.

March 23, 2007 - Worldwide use of ADHD drugs nearly triples - For a generation huge numbers of children, especially boys, have been medicated in the United States for so-called attention deficit disorders. For "attention deficit" read fidgetiness and the normal challenge to authority that goes hand in hand with childhood. The press, with rare exceptions, has kept the escalating ADHD drug rate obscured but as America's bad habits export themselves around the globe the over-prescribing of dangerous drugs to children is finally catching notice. In the past decade usage of ADHD medication has risen 274 percent, which enriches the pharmaceutical industry by over two billions dollars per year, just in the the United States. The rise of attention deficit disorders and the resulting medication is a triumph of marketing for Big Drugs, which envisions a world where every individual is on daily doses of prescription medication from cradle to grave.

Now that attention deficit has gone global there may finally be an examination of the syndrome and the conventional, pill-popping method of dealing with it. In a curious twist the man most responsible for igniting the ADHD myth admits that many of those children so diagnosed are not really ill. Lest he be honored for belatedly righting a horrendous wrong he helped facilitate, Dr. Robert Spitzer, professor of psychiatry, Columbia University, says that he is less concerned by wrong diagnoses and possible side-effects from drugs, than failing to prescribe them where needed. In other words he says that while too many children are given drugs when they in fact don't suffer from attention deficit disorder, his primary concern is that the right children haven't been given the drugs. Big Pharma salutes him as a true-blue, drug-peddling trooper and to hell with the damaged drug-addled children whose childhoods were spent in a fog.

March 20 - The REAL political rulers – Let’s not kid ourselves: politics today are established by huge multinationals and democracy is an illusion. Better stated, democracy and public opinion are accessories to be used to confirm politics already decided by the multinationals. It works in a simple way: multinationals largely control the media, the media form public opinion with biased or outright false information. After the public opinion is “treated” by the media and local politicians are misinformed, or bought, then democracy “chooses” the only possible choice based on the false information received. The case in point which is dear to our heart is smoking, but it is certainly not limited to that. One has just to think about the man-made global warming fraud, for example or the "obesity epidemic".

In fact, there would be practically no antismoking "movement" if Big Pharma did not pay for it. It follows that those who support smoking bans implicitly accept and support Big Pharma's interference with - and the running of - public policy. It is inevitable.

And often, alongside RWJF you find Philip Morris, Big Tobacco that sold out long ago to the “public health”/Big Pharma agenda of social control, marketing and public frauds.

March 19, 2007 - Is receiving a placebo the same thing as trying to quit cold turkey? The limitations of NRT clinical trials - Whether it is desirable to discard the pleasure of smoking in order to gain a few statistical months of life after the age of 76 is one’s own business as long as it is understood that no miracle will happen, that most of the "significant benefits" will be one’s own illusion by justifying the “socially acceptable” decision, and that most likely something will be sorely missing for the rest of one's existence, along with the likelihood of turning “sour”. On the other hand, those who never start will never know the pleasure and will miss the benefits and the protections that smoking brings. With that premise, this piece from Michael Siegel's blog illustrates quite well the fraud about Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT).

First of all, let us not be mislead by the definition, as “therapy” assumes the existence of a disease, and smoking is not a disease but just a pleasurable past time. This point is quite important in light of the neo-Nazi "public health" philosophy that considers habits "diseases", very much like — just as in the bygone days that we delude ourselves as having overcome — homosexuality was a "disease".

Second, NRTs simply do not work. Even those who believe in all the myths about smoking (and are not on the payroll of the pharmaceutical multinationals) agree that NRTs are essentially a commercial hoax, and that quitting cold turkey is the best way — and the way that works permanently. The fact that people can quit cold turkey stands for our point that nicotine is not addictive, but rather habit-forming, as well as pleasurable and beneficial, which brings us to another inevitable conclusion: NRTs are a fraud. Not surprisingly, those who say that NTRs do not work are viciously attacked. By whom? By the antismoking enterprises who get money from the pharmaceutical industry. What a surprise! That should also explain why the ministry of “health” near you promotes pharmaceutical smoking cessation “aids”. Can we help you to quit corruption, "health" ministry? Now, that's an addiction that everybody would gladly do without.

March 12, 2007 - “This is not what most people in America who have looked at publicity for this vaccine were led to believe" - First, anyone who questioned the need for yet another vaccination for schoolchildren was an antediluvian misfit. Now – literally just weeks later – the claims about the tremendous life-saving potential of the anti-cervical cancer vaccine are tumbling down. To gain public support for the expensive vaccination program, the public was lied to again. Yet again.

The lies about the value of various health “interventions” have become so ubiquitous that in the event of a real crisis – a new black death, for instance – will anyone believe the boy who cried “wolf” so many times?

February 27, 2007 - Pill-popping Nation - Think about it for a minute. In the last week how many TV ads have you seen hyping the latest pill for insomnia, erectile dysfunction, and restless leg syndrome? Probably several. In the past few years, could it be that the latest and greatest epidemic has become, not "social anxiety" or the winter blues, but the wave of new diagnoses for what we used to think of as some of life's expected inconveniences?

Can you imagine, the average American took seven prescription drugs during a year in 1993, more than any other nation in the world. At the last "big count" in 2004, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCoP) the "average" American takes 12 prescription drugs per year, with the average cost of $850.

"I have an observation", writes a reader. "This does not include illegal drug use. So my first question is: Just exactly who is 'straight', that is not drugged and able to think and reason coherently? And just who the hell is running the country if we are all stoned on prescription drugs?"

February 12, 2007 - The Light Begins to Break Through, II - Giving meaning to the old adage of "better late than never", the mainstream press is finally taking a gander at the ties between the anti-smoking movement and the pharmaceutical industry. Ties may be too mild noun for the relationship between Big Drugs and anti-tobacco. Partnership is more appropriate as evidence emerges that prominent anti-smoking spokesmen are being paid by the manufacturers of smoking cessation nostrums to rail against smoking and to tout the usage of the products that purportedly make quitting smoking a breeze. Norman Kjono, who has been aware of the tight links between the anti-tobacco movement and the pharmaceutical industry for a very long time, takes us through the webs that operate more for the financial benefit of corporations than for public health.

February 9, 2007 - Quackery - Anti-tobacco operatives in Scotland are singing the hosannas of a brand new smoking cessation nostrum that is hitting the streets. It's made by Pfizer and its name is Champix. In the United States the Food and Drug Administration ordered the drug company to market it under a different name because of its exaggerated connotations of success. That's not the only problem with Champix, as this article makes clear including irregularity in the clinical trials. The author calls for a thorough examination of standards by the European commission before allowing predatory drug companies to hawk their wares to the public. It is also significant that Pfizer launches his Champix campaign to take advantage of Scotland's recent imposition of a draconian smoking ban. The pharmaceutical companies are the foremost proponents of smoking bans both in the United States and Europe.

February 8, 2007 - Corporate lawmaking - The public has an excellent opportunity to observe the pharmaceutical industry running roughshod over the political process on its quest to make another buck. Merck & Co. developed a vaccine against the sexually transmitted cervical-cancer virus. Well good for Merck, if it works as advertised. The company, however, is not letting the success of the vaccine speak for itself but is instead dispatching lobbyists to state capitols to persuade legislators into mandating vaccination for all girls, some as young as 11 or 12. Merck's hard sell is a tough sell for some parental advocacy groups who have a big problem with the state mandating vaccinations to prevent a sexually-transmitted disease on young girls. Merck is dealing with these concerns by installing itself in various advocacy groups, some of them frankly political. The rewards for the company would range in the billions of dollars if the vaccine is mandated by all states. With such piles of money at stake Merck is unwilling to let the normal political or market process run its course preferring instead to stack the deck in its favor. It has already bought the Republican governor of Texas. The public is not amused but in a country where money is the only recognized value the public will undoubtedly be ignored.

February 7, 2007 - The usual bullying routine of public health “intervention”

Where have you read this story before? First press reports: impressive preventive health “break-through”. Next round: “experts” debate mandatory “intervention” since the “breakthrough” is just too good to pass up (the drug company behind whatever the damn thing is usually heavily donating to both political parties). Final round: legislation to ram the “breakthrough” up everyone’s butt before any second thoughts can be entertained. Coda: oops, “safety concerns” about the breakthrough, but don’t imagine it’s any of your business -- the experts will fine-tune before anyone’s forced by a public entity or an insurance company to take this drug …

So, now we have a new vaccine that’s supposed to stop cervical cancer. In the U.S. (and the UK) health nabobs are stumbling over themselves to make it compulsory for pre-teen girls as soon as possible.

And in Texas, the Republican governor has already mandated the vaccine through executive order – he thinks it might cut the cancer rate and health costs in the future, and besides, his wife, a women’s health advocate, thinks it’s a good idea. Some parents feel they’re being sidelined, and the more socially conservative among them feeling it might send a message that early sex is okay.

Yet, as usual, no one seems to be asking the even more fundamental questions that should be emerging as we get buffeted by the (at least purported) miracle of the month. It may be that lots of vaccines — for anything from dandruff to Alzheimer’s — might be coming down the pipeline. Should they all be mandatory? Without exception? How serious should a disease be before mandatory vaccines are invoked? How much vaccination is safe? Do we know? How much is known about anti-cancer vaccines? Or do we just have to take our governor’s word for it that it’s a great thing to do because he’s hot on the idea? What about drugs — like obesity drugs and anti-depressants? Ritalin?

Should we just let ourselves be indiscriminately drugged through government executive orders at every opportunity? Where is the public reaction to this?

Real medical miracles do exist and many people are benefiting from them. Maybe the cervical cancer vaccine will prove to be a boon. But the way it’s being pushed shows the big problem with the mindset of modern public health. We’re getting not just an invitation to become a pill-popping chemically enhanced culture, we’re being coerced in this direction in a condescending and often irresponsible way.

Modern sanitation has probably been the biggest alleviator of human misery in all history. Vaccinations have also had a crucial role in pushing back some serious infectious diseases. But that does not mean that the public should be instant guinea pigs for any and all “vaccines” that get developed and slapped onto the market. When does “public health” segue into a pretext for a weird sort of social engineering?

In the header are three recent articles about the cervical cancer vaccine. Taken together, they demonstrate the confusion of a typical modern public health dog-and-pony show: the great discovery hailed, the executive order, the after-thoughts. No wonder the public is confused and mistrustful. It’s time to slow down the top-down political-medical miracle work and start seeing the public less as low-rent lab rats and more as citizens and voters.

February 2, 2007 - Legislature Takes Smoking Down to the Millimeter - The pharmaceutical corporations, on high looking down on the Washington State legislature, issued a new order and, lo, it was obeyed with the utmost alacrity. This time the lawmakers are furthering the smoking cessation racket by requiring the cigarette companies to alter their cigarettes so that they won't burn. No burning cigarettes, no accidental fires but best of all smokers will abandon the distasteful "fire retardant" cigarettes and take up smoking cessation nostrums. Norman Kjono explains how the pharmaceutical companies and their handmaidens in the legislature pass ever more intrusive laws to further the mercantile agenda of Big Drugs. Law making ain't pretty but this bit of sausage making is truly revolting.

February 1, 2007 - Anti-smoking groups look to Big Drugs for money - It's old news to Forces and our readers but we are truly delighted that the press is finally examining the financial ties between so-called anti-smoking organizations and international pharmaceutical corporations. Behind every anti-smoking measure, whether smoking bans, tobacco taxes or anti-smoking propaganda, there is a huge pile of cash provided by the same drug companies that manufacture and sell smoking cessation products. Sometimes the drug companies themselves pass out the cash and sometimes a drug company front group, like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, pays the bill but rest assured without drug company money anti-tobacco activism would wither and die. The so-called health charities who are funded by Big Drugs while never noting who their sugar daddy is, go to great lengths, when caught, to proclaim their independence. As the editor-in-chief emeritus of the New England Journal of Medicine notes: "Would the pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars a year if they didn't think it was valuable? Of course not."

January 31, 2007 - Going too far - The hubris of the anthropogenic climate preachers may finally be bearing fruit as this articles indicates. As the level of hysteria ratchets every higher the outrageous claims are finally getting the attention they deserve. Hurricane Katrina, for instance, is being used as proof that man is heating up the climate despite the fact that hurricanes have devastated the gulf of Mexico coast line forever. There are plenty of hurricanes' that were far more powerful than Katrina. This articles highlights how dramatic pictures and wild claims now set the tone for what should be a sober examination of natural phenomena and how it responds, if at all, to the presence of mankind. The predictions have become so lurid and horrendous that the panic-mongers have painted themselves into a corner that will fall off the cliff if their dire forecasts don't come true, soon.

January 24, 2007 - Poor Pfizer - Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is closing plants and laying of thousands off workers. Quel dommage. The company's latest problems coincide with its halting development of a cholesterol drug but its malaise runs deeper than one aborted attempt to foist yet another drug upon the public. Pfizer, through subsidiaries, is a big time player in the smoking cessation rackets and recently introduced a nicotine receptor blocker, a product that appears designed to ensnare the smoker who believes that nicotine is bad. Other smokers are offered a panoply of produces infused with "good" pharmaceutical nicotine. The bottom line for all these nostrums is explained by Norman Kjono who has studied the mercantile machinations of anti-tobacco extensively.

January 19, 2007 - Restrictions lifted on NRT for pregnant women – That the ministries of health pimp for the pharmaceutical industry is no news at all. Here then is another sign of the complete control recently taken by Big Pharma over the British “public health” prostitutes: Nicotine Replacement Therapies (NRTs) are now available to all – including those (such as pregnant women) for whom junk science has said that they were counter-indicated (and in fact, in the same page of the publication we are linked to there is a “study” that says just that). Huh? But if it is junk science, hasn’t British “public health” done the right thing? No, it did not – for it is in blatant contradiction with its own false advertisement on the effects of nicotine on pregnant women. Think about it. The (arguable) postulation is that nicotine is harmful to the baby -- there is no scientific evidence about that of course, but let’s keep it as the postulation nevertheless. But now we learn that nicotine from NTRs becomes magically harmless to the baby. Is there a mechanism that allows the reproductive system to differentiate between inhaled and transdermal nicotine as far as the baby is concerned? No, there isn’t. Once again we are facing the same “miracle” that makes inhaled nicotine extremely “addictive” while pharmaceutical nicotine gets rid of your addiction – take the word of the Ministries of Pharmaceutical Promotion – oops sorry, ministries of “health”. What’s the real difference between the two “nicotines”? Only this: who, when, why, where and how much somebody gets paid off in the “public health” structures to con the public.

November 18, 2006 - Drug company pulls funding after conference criticism - One of the biggest problems of today's public health as a whole is its almost complete dependence on Big Pharma for funding of all kind. Antismoking activists are fond of pointing out even the slightest connection with Big Tobacco, but they themselves are heavily dependent on Big Pharma, which heavily influences even the highest health authorities in the world (such as the WHO). For all intents and purposes, Big Pharma runs the public health show at the planetary level. The article we are connected is yet another denunciation of the shameful micromanagement of the industry on the issues, politics and even arguments concerning medical practice. No wonder we have smoking bans - and you ain't seen nothing yet!

November 8, 2006 - Public health for sale - When it comes to smoking, drinking, eating and other health lifestyle issues, it becomes clearer every day that health departments and "public health" in general have reduced themselves to nothing more than some sort of auction marketplaces for political prostitution to this or that pharmaceutical multinational interest. With the usual by-passing of democratic process through regulations, health authorities implement policies that are literally purchased by the drug giants through grants and other forms of influence. And if this is not criminal enough, these "authorities" make abundant use of public money to promote those special, private interest policies against those who contribute the money through taxation.

As we all know by now, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is famous for this kind of public policy auction, which it is shamelessly pursuing. However, even more shameless is the pursuit-prostitution of public health authorities for RWJF money. Clearing The Air shows the umpteenth proof of this whorish behaviour by the health authorities. Do you think it's just a coincidence that the New Jersey Health Dept receives funding from Nicoderm... and then promotes smoking bans? Click here to see a $160,000.00 grant from Nicoderm interests to NJ Department of Health and Senior Services.

November 3, 2006 - Patient groups special: Swallowing the best advice? - The unlimited and uncontrolled expansion of the pharmaceutical industry in every aspect and activity of our lives is well described in this article from Newscientist.com. Interestingly enough, however, the very numerous criers against the interference of Big Pharma in anything from commercial ads to scientific journals, research and patient associations, go utterly silent when it is pointed out that exquisitely public entities such as those of the WHO or ministries of health are penetrated by Big Pharma for antismoking purposes as well, and that BP is by far the largest private financer of endless antismoking "grass root" groups. Once again we are spectators of a very selective sense of justice and fairness, so typical of our times, without a moral compass. The expansion and corruption of this industry is absolutely revolting and it must be fought. But not when it comes to smoking, of course, because fraud and corruption are just fine against smoking and smokers, so is wise to look elsewhere. After all, these criers must behave in a "socially responsible" manner, and do their part to curb the smoking epidemic -- for which not even one death can be scientifically demonstrated.

October 13, 2006 - New FDA craziness - The dilemma concerning the utter control of the medical, scientific and public health institutions by the pharmaceutical multinationals is at the basis of the antitobacco problem but, of course, it's not limited to it. The tentacles of this industry are everywhere. Institutional politics and policies all over the world (up to the World Health Organization) are literally controlled by Big Pharma. The institutions have turned into a tool for behaviour control, elimination of choice and for the marketing of pharmaceutical products of all kinds - "for our own good". In this video, Dr. Mercola tells us about how the Food and Drugs Administration has been itself transformed into a tool of BP at the expense of real health. That is why it is important that tobacco and nicotine do not fall under the control of the FDA - because, for all intents and purposes, that would mean that BP would have total control of cigarettes and nicotine, and force us all to become nicotine inhaler consumers.

September 27, 2006 - IARC and antitobacco: a fraud delivery device - Read the abstract below. Those who doubted the existence of a mercantile plan to replace cigarettes with Nicotine Replacement Therapy now have a response from the pharmaceutical promoters of “mainstream nicotine” -- in their own words. Some of the statements in the study are simply explosive as to a clear declaration of intent. This study is a statement of self-fulfilling prophecy for tobacco control. It is also what legislators will be aware of when considering new bills. Now, keep in mind that the quasi-religious statement so common in this kind of antismoking trash "study" is not demonstrable for two reasons: the scientific un-demonstrability of smoking-related deaths; even in the assumption that "tobacco kills", it is impossible to calculate the number of deaths/diseases because of the multifactoriality, thus we are talking about the usual epidemiological fraud. Add to that the passive smoke fraud - and now you see the stage set for a world-wide pharmaceutical nicotine monopoly with the complicity of criminal health "authorities". This is not a public health plan: it is marketing plan for the benefit of pharmaceutical multinationals, extremely influential with IARC and WHO, and with the complicity of ministries of "health" interlinked by the international antitobacco treaty. It must be stopped.

September 14, 2006 - A Grim Day for Big Pharma - It is unquestionable that the largest single private source of financial fuel for the antitobacco enterprise is the pharmaceutical industry, which pours hundreds of millions a year into the false propaganda against cigarettes and smokers, supporting both junk science and rabid antismoking activism. It's "pull" on the public health structures (even at the political level through powerful lobbies) does not need pointing out. We recommend the reading of this very interesting piece that describes enormous violations of legal and moral law, day after day, year after year. And these crooks are going to define the “appropriate behavior” for consumers such as people who smoke?

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation invested hundreds of millions lying to lawmakers about secondhand smoke.....to get smoking bans passed. But the payoff is now close at hand... good thing RWJF's parent company Johnson & Johnson recently bought Pfizer and their new smoking cessation drug Chantix.

August 16, 2006 - Patent nonsense: evidence tells of an industry out of social control -This interesting paper in the medical journal CMAJ is worth reading because it describes an industry out of control. The word "smoking" is not mentioned once in this paper, which concerns itself with the prices imposed on drugs and the formidable power of this industry. As we know, Big Pharma is definitely the largest single engine behind the statistical frauds on smoking, the resulting formentation of public hysteria and thus the smoking bans. BP has at its disposal (and under its control) many of the scientific journals, much of the mass-media (advertising budgets) and a lot of corrupt health "authorities". Indirectly, many people in good faith are influenced by the misinformation and propaganda on smoking that is relentlessly pumped out by antismoking groups largely financed by BP.

Strangely enough, a lot of people don't like BP - they hate it, in fact. But when it comes to antitobacco, those who have been brainwashed by BP's own propaganda welcome its interference. It is the idiotic mentality that pervades society today: "I love you, but I hate your smoking" (message: dissect your personality, I only want what I like of it), or "I love BP's antitobacco, but I hate the industry". In short, they want to have their cake and eat it too - and they don't understand that it cannot be done.

April 17, 2006 - Partnering with Big Pharma - Washington DC will host the International Tobacco Control Conference this July. From throughout the world planeloads of zealots, thugs and shakedown artists will converge on our nation's capital during the month we celebrate our rapidly disappearing freedom.

We don't know whether Michael Siegel is invited but he has taken a look at the guest list and finds that two of the lead sponsors are huge international pharmaceutical corporations. Their presence doesn't indicate an altruistic impulse to improve the world's health. Nope, they are their to push their smoking cessation products. As Dr. Siegel notes discussions about the efficacy of smoking cessation treatment are useless when the conference is dominated by two corporations that make tons of money peddling their questionable products to a captive consumer base that, though smoking bans and high taxation, is compelled to forego cigarettes in favor of the pharmaceutical nicotine, or worse, manufactured by Big Drugs. Maybe next year the conference will include Philip Morris, the cigarette manufacturer that is developing its own smoking cessation devices in a big way.

March 27, 2006 - Big Drug wins again - To no one's surprise the multi-national pharmaceuticals prevented the Food and Drug Administration from imposing warning labels on the dangerous drugs that are overly prescribed to America's youth. This may be a Pyrrhic victory since more and more experts are demanding that the promiscuous labeling of boys as suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder be curbed. Social engineers and the pharmaceuticals will fight tooth and nail any attempt to halt the drugging of our nation's children.

February 10, 2006 - Long overdue - A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel voted that drugs such as Ritalin should carry strong warnings that usage may be linked to an increased risk of death and injury. The drugs, methylphenidates, are prescribed for children, mostly boys, who exhibit behaviors not conducive for our passive times. The syndrome they treat is known as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a condition that didn't exist a generation ago. More than 2.5 million American children are on these drugs enriching the pharmaceutical industry $3.1-billion in 2004. A mere four years ago only $759-million of these drugs were sold.

While most advisory panel recommendations are adopted by the FDA the pharmaceuticals can be expected to oppose mandatory warning labels and their clout is formidable. The politically wired industry will not accept any threat to their enormous profits without a fight.

January 23, 2006 - Sky high mark ups - The predatory practices of the pharmaceutical corporations ensure that this industry is far more unpopular than the tobacco industry. While drug company front groups lobby relentlessly to tax cigarettes out of existence, the prices they charge for their own products, including their lousy smoking cessation products, are astonishingly high. While this particular story is two years old it's a safe bet that the astronomical mark ups have only gotten higher. Certainly the price of cigarettes continues to rise as drug companies work overtime lobbying politicians to raise the taxes on cigarettes to effect their goal of driving the tobacco industry, their competitor, out of business.

January 23, 2006 - The payoff - Nearly half the population in the United States are currently on or have recently been on prescription drugs. It's no wonder that the drug industry is the richest on earth. Certainly the scheme to saturate the airwaves with seductive prescription drug advertisements is paying big dividends. With so much business it is sheer swinishness of Big Pharma to monopolize the nicotine market.

November 30, 2005 - Nicotine replacement therapy - It is obvious that the pharmaceutical industry is neck deep into anti-tobacco activism. Millions of dollars are bestowed upon an army of "researchers" to produce studies "proving" smoking tobacco leads to death, "proving" secondhand smoke to be hazardous and "proving" that smokers are bankrupting the health system. What the drug companies get out of financing such "research" is an entree into the nicotine market. Each smoking ban enacted is a marketing opportunity for drug companies to tout their wares to a consumer base that has seen its choices diminished.

But how effective are these supposed smoking cessation treatments? Michael Siegel, who agrees with much of the anti-smoking agenda, takes a look at the research on nicotine replacement therapy and finds methodological problems there as well as a failure rate that should give public health pause. More importantly he finds a huge conflict of interest with a key member of a committee that is egging the federal government to pressure the tobacco industry to fund the distribution of pharmaceutical nicotine products to smokers.

April 4, 2005 - Conjuring up illness - A House of Commons inquiry this week will claim that the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry has turned the United Kingdom into an over-prescribed society that believes there is a pill for every ill. Labeling the drug industry "disease mongers" the inquiry finds:

This list of malfeasance applies to the United States as well except that the drug companies several years ago ended the advertising prohibition for prescription drugs on television and radio. We can only hope that the US Congress will some day examine the drug industry as is being down across the Atlantic. It's long over due.

April 4 -2005 - Riding the fat "epidemic" to riches - "Everybody is just foaming at the mouth to make money" from obesity drugs, said Dr. Donna Ryan, an obesity researcher affiliated with Louisiana State University, which has received millions of dollars in government and drug-industry grants.

Which came first? The fat epidemic or drug company schemes to grow rich drugging the overweight? The smart money puts drug company greed as the primary motivating factor that created an epidemic where one doesn't exist. Just a few years ago the federal government jiggled a few numbers and, presto, millions of people woke up to find themselves miraculously overweight and even obese.

Just as tobacco became increasingly dangerous in direct proportion to how aggressively the drug companies developed and marketed their lousy smoking cessation devices, so the pharmaceuticals are orchestrating the panic that is greeting the discovery that America, in fact the whole industrial world, is full of fat victims that need expensive anti-fat drugs.

February 28, 2005 - Drug co. marketing effort foretells smoking ban -The so-called global tobacco treaty kicked in yesterday and the huge multinational pharmaceutical companies are celebrating their success by launching massive smoking cessation campaigns around the globe. As they did with Ireland and Italy, the drug companies are hoping to impose smoking bans in India, one of the largest countries on earth.

Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and other peddlers of smoking cessation nostrums and dangerous drugs, such as Zyban, hope to reap huge profits as governments do their part by banning smoking. The World Health Organizations global tobacco treaty, not yet signed by the United States, will not improve public health one iota but will transfer billions of dollars from smokers into the pockets of the most predatory business on earth.

February 10, 2005 - Cessation giant scrutinized - A consumer group is charging that pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Inc. buried a study suggesting that its painkiller Celebrex boosts the risk of heart attack and stroke. Pfizer is heavily involved in manufacturing and promoting smoking cessation devices. It opposed in court the tobacco companies' appeal in the federal case that recently removed the multi-billion damages that had faced the cigarette industry. Pfizer should stick to improving the safety of its products rather than lobby for anti-smoking legislation and higher cigarette taxes.

February 10, 2005 - Drug co. misdeeds threaten tort reform - Although President Bush vows to address the out-of-control medical malpractice system, his job has been made harder by the antics of Big Drugs. Those opposed to reforming the ruinously expensive medical lawsuits are citing the recent drug scandals involving Celebrex and Vioxx. Just one more reason to hate these huge multinational behemoths.

January 28, 2005 - Bad drugs - Up to 140,000 extra heart attacks may have been caused in the US by the recently withdrawn drug Vioxx since its launch in 1999, suggests a new study. And millions of people may have been exposed unnecessarily to the risk of heart attack by taking Cox-2 inhibitor drugs, including Vioxx, when they did not need the medicines, according to a second study.

No wonder pharmaceutical corporations such as Merck, the maker of Vioxx, are basing their financial fortunes on smoking cessation products. They may be ineffective and overpriced but, with the exception of Zyban, most haven't been shown to kill those foolish enough to take them. The horrors of Vioxx and smoking ban legislation are predictable results when huge corporations form "partnerships" with the government that is charged with representing the citizens' interest.

Vioxx was touted incessantly on mass media outlets, prompting millions to demand prescriptions of a drug that was ultimately yanked from the market. The lax standards governing drug advertising are the result of David Kessler, the former director of the Food and Drug Administration, opening up television advertising to rapid-fire drug pushing. Smoking bans from California to Maine are enacted to push the lousy smoking cessation products that companies like Pfizer hope will replace the tobacco market. How many must die and how many hospitality venues must go broke before government realizes that it also is culpable in the trail of deaths and bankruptcies?

January 21, 2005 - Big Drugs, Big Clout - While the scandals over Vioxx and Celebrex receive superficial coverage by the rabidly anti-tobacco press, the big picture of pharmaceutical power and influence buying receives scant attention. With drug company advertising revenue keeping many media outlets afloat it's not surprising that the emergence of Big Drugs as a powerful political player is brushed under the carpet.

What is surprising is how extensive the pharmaceutical tentacles intrude into the rarified world of medical and research publications. Even more disturbing are the ties multi-national pharmaceutical corporations enjoys with federal agencies such as the Center for Disease Control and the National Institute of Health. It's a story that needs telling and this eye-opening article is a good place to start.

January 12, 2005 - Why smoking is banned - This story could never be printed in the United States. The pharmaceutical industry wouldn't stand for it. What is reported is not news to us but it does break new ground in candor for a mainstream publication.

Monday Italy woke up to an oppressive smoking ban. One day earlier the Financial Times printed a story announcing the launch of a GlaxoSmithKline marketing campaign that will saturate Italy. The product being shilled is the drug company's NiQuitin nicotine replacement gums and patches. Note the word "replacement," for that is precisely GSK's intent. Replacing tobacco with pharmaceutical nicotine is not the result of the smoking ban, it is the purpose.

This story rightly refers to GSK and the tobacco industry as rivals and gleefully reports that the tobacco industry is losing. Smoking bans have nothing to do with health. They are merely marketing tools to beef up the bottom line.

The politicians who serve the multinational pharmaceutical industry by passing smoking bans may be innocent dupes. If they are they should be removed. If they are cashing in and fattening up their "pensions", they should be jailed.

November 11, 2004 - Big Pharma On The Move - Now that the pesky elections are out of the way the media can get back to its primary purpose; hawking the wares of Big Pharma. One week after the nation trekked to the polls in what was described as the most important presidential election in decades the papers are filled with aggressive marketing campaigns financed and produced by the international pharmaceutical industry. From Pfizer, the maker of a nicotine patch, comes a study that finds normal blood pressure just isn't good enough. Instead of taking satisfaction in keeping the pressure low, Pfizer's "research" indicates that even those with low pressure need a drug to stave off strokes and heart attacks. As always a stooge finds the predictable result of a drug company producing research that leads to increased drug taking "an eye-opener." What's an eye-opener is the transparency of corporate greed. A few months ago a "study" found that people with low cholesterol could benefit from taking a drug, just in case. When a con works well, the conmen start working. The tobacco industry used to sell glamour, sex and sensuality. Big Drugs is reduced to selling its product with hysteria.

THE ANTI CRUSADE AGAINST THE ELDERLY - Antitobacco has already demonstrated that it will not stop for anything - and that includes the indirect murdering of people - to advance its agenda, and satisfy its pharmaceutical masters. This article of Wanda Hamilton shows, unquestionably, how the pharmacartel finances with heavy grants antismoking terrorism and death to bend people to quit and buy its deadly cessation products. This unethical practice is also extended to the elderly who, after a lifetime of work and social contribution, are forced to quit smoking, the alternative being injury, neglect, and death. What is most appalling is that the people continue to be indifferent to the carnage of bodies and freedoms that a well paid-off minority, the antismoking cartel, perpetrates on millions. It would be simple to stop the activities of antitobacco; all it takes is some action, powered by healthy anger coming from a sense of basic morality, a value, however, which seems all but lost, sacrificed on the altar of health and material wealth.

SMOKELESS STATES ANNOUNCES FIRST ROUND OF GRANT RECIPIENTS - USA: more pharmaceutical money going to states. The announced goals for the funding are to raise tobacco taxes, to reduce exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and to get public and private insurers to cover the cost of cessation products.

In other words, these millions are to be devoted to increasing the sales of such products as Johnson & Johnson's nicotine patch and inhaler. Sales will presumably be increased if the price of cigarettes is driven up so that they are more costly than such nicotine delivery devices as Johnson & Johnson's Nicotrol. Sales will also be up if further smoking bans result in more smokers either try to quit using nicotine replacement products, or if smokers use them temporarily, for occasions when they cannot smoke. And, of course, sales at inflated prices (and profits) for Johnson & Johnson and other pharmaceutical companies' "cessation" products will certainly be enhanced if private and public health insurance pays for them.

In this way pharmaceutical product sales are promoted via a feel-good foundation which derives virtually all its billions from stock in Johnson & Johnson, and it doesn't even count in J&J's promotional and advertising budget. The institutionalisation of false medical information on the effects of tobacco on human health, combined with the taxpayers-funded free advertisement provided by servant states & institutions is the most brilliant marketing innovation any industry has been capable of. Too bad that it's based on state corruption.

EU TO FORCE ITALY, SPAIN TO INCREASE TOBACCO TAXES - "Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal and Luxembourg will have to increase taxes on cigarettes under European Commission plans to cut down on fraud by reducing differences in tobacco taxes in the 15-nation European Union." The pharmacartel pull the strings of Europe to force those countries that are late to comply with the directives of the multinationals: increase the cost of cigarettes so that our products can be more competitive. Not even national sovereignty is a concern for an industry that has no limits to its power, and no scruples whatsoever.

ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION: HOW ITS GRANTS INFLUENCE COLORADO'S STATE HEALTH POLICY - Although quite long, this article by the Foundation Watch provides massive information about how Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Johnson & Johnson's political arm) undermines parental control, forms political movements to raise tobacco taxes, and dictates public health policy. This is a must-read to realize how the pharmaceutical industry actually controls and dictates public opinion. No wonder why no amount of evidence, reason, truth, arguments about integrity, freedom and choice - even compassion - are relevant to the health nazism steam roller; the pharmaceutical giants buy everything and everyone.

THE REAL DRUG PUSHERS - "Last year U.S. pharmaceutical companies spent an unprecedented $2.3 billion advertising to consumers, up 28% from 1999 and 40 times the $55 million spent on mass media ads in 1991." "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permitted the recent rapid growth in mass media marketing of prescription drugs when, in 1997, it made it easier to launch TV campaigns by, for example, dropping the requirement to print pages and pages of prescribing information on the screen. Americans now see an average of nine prescription ads per day on television."

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