An Article for Independence Day: the American Revolution and Health Tyranny
By John Stone
This article is written for HealthChoice.org
I have always been drawn to United States history so I hope it will not be taken amiss if I offer an Independence Day perspective of a British citizen: we are, of course, all heirs of that revolution one way or another across the globe: more so today than ever perhaps. Immediately speaking there are two striking facets (I just had to correct the typographic error “strifing”): the incredible historic dynamism of the nation created by this event but also the great amount of thought that the founding fathers went into trying to prevent the re-emergence of the tyranny which they had just escaped. Perhaps never has so much thought gone into avoiding “oppressive government” even if many of the leading participants in the new republic still regarded it as their right to own slaves.
Nearly two and a half centuries on it is possible to see that powerful interests can buy their way into every aspect of a nation’s life defying almost every measure that was ever laid out against oppressive government. Just over half a century ago, as he left office, President Eisenhower famously warned about the military industrial complex and the domination of intellectual enquiry by commercial interest:
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific/ technological elite.
As a commentary on this whistleblowing scientist David L Lewis recently bluntly wrote in the “prologue” to his book Science for Sale: How the US govern uses powerful corporations and leading universities to support government policies, silence top scientists, jeopardize our health, and protect corporate profits:
During my thirty-plus years as a research microbiologist in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) and the University of Georgia, I experienced the far-reaching influence of corrupt special interests firsthand. As this book will describe, my dealings with civil servants, corporate manager, elected officials, and other scientists expose the ease – and disturbing regularity – with which a small group , motivated by profit or personal advancement can completely hijack important areas of research science at even our most trusted institutions.
In truth the problem of the takeover of government agencies was not new: half a century before Eisenhower’s address Woodrow Wilson in presidential election speeches was warning:
“If the government is to tell big business men how to run their business, then don’t you see that big business men have to get closer to the government even than they are now? Don’t you see that they must capture the government, in order not to be restrained too much by it? Must capture the government? They have already captured it. Are you going to invite those inside to stay? They don’t have to get there. They are there.”
But at least President Wilson could still talk about “big business men”. Coupled with the issue of the invasion of institutions and government by commercial/industrial interest is the lack – notably acute in the field of vaccines - of accountability and liability. In a valuable article of January 1999 veteran economist JK Galbraith highlighted the twin problems of the influence of powerful lobbies in government and the lack of liability for corporate fraud or failure, an insight which apart from anything else foreshadowed the banking collapse of 2008:
“The fraud also conceals a major change in the role of money in the modern economy. Money, we once agreed, gave the owner, the capitalist, the controlling power in the enterprise. So it still does in small businesses. But in all large firms the decisive power now lies with a bureaucracy that controls, but does not own, the requisite capital. This bureaucracy is what the business schools teach their students to navigate, and it is where their graduates go. But bureaucratic motivation and power are outside the central subject of economics. We have corporate management, but we do not study its internal dynamics or explain why certain behaviors are rewarded with money and power. These omissions are another manifestation of fraud. Perhaps it is not entirely innocent. It evades the often unpleasant facts of bureaucratic structure, internal competition, personal advancement, and much else…”
The lack of accountability by “business bureaucrats” is compounded by their capture of the government bureaucracy:
“A more comprehensive fraud dominates scholarly economic and political thought. That is the presumption of a market economy separate from the state. Most economists concede a stabilizing role to the state, even those who urgently seek an escape from reality by assigning a masterful and benign role to Alan Greenspan and the central bank. And all but the most doctrinaire accept the need for regulation and legal restraint by the state. But few economists take note of the cooptation by private enterprise of what are commonly deemed to be functions of the state. This is hidden by the everyday reference to the public and private sectors, one of our clearest examples of innocent fraud.”
If we, for example, consider the pharmaceutical companies today, even when companies become liable for huge fines no individual ever seems to carry the can even to point of losing their job, let alone facing criminal charges: it is simply at best a calculated risk for shareholders. With vaccines since 1986 and Vaccine Injury Act the problem has become even worse since corporations themselves face no effective liability and enjoy a substantially captive and ever growing mandated market for their products, with zero financial incentive to ensure their safety.
There are further troubling aspects to this: generally speaking the government bureaucracy and the medical profession are even less frank about the risks of the products than the manufacturers: they enjoy a revolving door relationship with the manufacturers, notably when Centers for Disease Control director Julie Gerberding left her post to become head of Merck’s vaccine division in the space of less than a year . The CDC is itself affiliated to the pharmaceutical manufacturers through non-profit organizations such as the CDC Foundation and Task Force for Global Health . The debate about autism and vaccine apart from anything else may well have been influenced by the fact that the most prominent autism charity, Autism Speaks, was endowed at its inception by CDC Foundation board member emeritus and billionaire Bernie Marcus to the tune of $25m. Marcus, founder of DIY empire Home Depot, also stated in an interview in 2006 :
The worst thing I could imagine is to be the CEO of a pharmaceutical company today. I can’t think of an industry that has done more to alleviate suffering and improve the human condition than pharmaceuticals. Yet the industry is under a withering assault from plaintiffs’ lawyers and is depicted by some in the media as a pariah. I don’t think that Jonas Salk could have developed the polio vaccine in today’s legal environment.
This was a remarkable claim when pharmaceutical domination of the media was at its financial peak (see below) and effective litigation over vaccine damage had not been possible for 20 years.
The allegedly independent Institute of Medicine Review of 2004 of vaccine safety only slightly masked a complex of conflicted and corrupt relationships. Not only did it turn out that the CDC had instructed the IOM not to find anything , the IOM commissioned flawed and fraudulent studies in themselves controlled by the CDC by various means, notoriously studies co-ordinated by Danish indicted financial fraudster Poul Thorsen . None of these studies has ever been retracted, including a British study which made blatantly false claims about mercury exposure in the developing world in order to endorse World Health Organization vaccine schedule. They were recently cited again without irony before Congress by Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee chairman Thomas Insel, not only as if they were in any way valid but as if they were new science .
On top of this we need to consider the initiative of the Food and Drugs Administration under President Clinton in 1997 to substantially deregulate 'direct to the consumer' pharmaceutical advertising enabling the industry at a stroke to buy out the media. According to one source pharmaceutical advertising rose from $700m in 1996 to $5.41b in 2006 . This may have tailed off to about $4.5b in 2008-10 but the source of revenue would have been ever more critical to an ailing industry. The result of a government agency initiative – never even apparently discussed at a democratic level – was to lead either the exclusion of dissenting voices or organized hate campaigns against anyone who dares speak out of turn notably Andrew Wakefield , Jenny McCarthy and Katie Couric .
Meanwhile, the industry can buy or isolate virtually every politician out of the petty cash.
Happy Independence Day everybody, Happy American Revolution!
Independent Science News lately reported on David L. Lewis work . See : How EPA Faked the Entire Science of Sewage Sludge Safety: A Whistleblower’s Story
http://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/how-epa-faked-the-entire-science-of-sewage-sludge-safety-a-whistleblowers-story/#more-1892
Posted by: Fièvre | July 06, 2014 at 08:01 AM
Speaking of health tyranny Justina Pelletier gave a recent interview on FOX about the ordeal Boston Children's Hospital put her through. People seem to never upset by this.
Posted by: Justina Pelletier in | July 05, 2014 at 04:19 PM
Hi Joy,
I though it already was a precis!
What can I say. All the wit of the Federalists could not prevent every aspect of the body politic being bought out and controlled by corporate interests. They could buy up the agencies, the politicians, the academic faculties and the media. And what we have is just corporate interest masquerading as scientific truth, with very few safeguards. Actually, with all their endeavours there is a great deal of science which contradicts the official propaganda, but it just gets dismissed by the organs of government and the scientists (and celebrities) who don't kowtow are persecuted, lose their jobs, have their integrity publicly attacked etc. The media aid it, the politicians stand by. The checks and balances have proved ineffective and we do not have safe science. No one is answerable, and the buck is being passed faster that anyone can see.
Additionally, I might say - why would anyone believe that our governments are incapable of behaving that badly. They often been seen to do so, and vaccines are no exception.
How about that?
John
Posted by: John Stone | July 05, 2014 at 02:28 PM
joy B
It takes time with family and patience. He has been brain washed -- so was I.
It will take you spoon feeding him for a long while.
You will be seeing him a lot -through out the years, and slow fed information not mentioning vaccines might eventually set him up to a more open mind.
You are going to have to know the ends and outs of the Dr. Wakefield stuff - so when some one says fraud -- you can ask them to explain how it was fraud. When they come up blank -- tell them about the birthday party deal and ask them why they would think it was wrong to use those kids as controls.
Know a few other things - about it because I promise you = they won't know why it was fraud other than the Lancet (if that much) or some higher ups said it was fraud.
Othere than that you can say -- hey - guess what I just read a study that said when they replace all the bone marrow of mentally sick mice they stop pulling out their hair -- that is where the immune system starts - itn't it.
Or There was just a recent study that says that mice that did not have any microbes in their gut were showing signs of mental illness -- and when they added wild type bacteria it stopped.
Skirt the question on vaccines -- get them to start thinking about what all the thousands of things a hypothalamus effects. That includes the cat experiment that one side damaged makes a cat starve the other side damaged makes the cat really fat.
These things are going to have to be linked to the immune system -- the way the hypothalamus communicates with the gut. That takes you spoon feeding your brother-in-law - staying away from the subject of vaccines -- for a while.
Posted by: Benedetta | July 05, 2014 at 01:57 PM
What we need now is a precis of all of this for the layman. And I mean ALL of it.
I feel like whenever I try to broach the subject irl it feels ridiculous bc the audience may or may not have enough background in history or politics or even human nature to grasp the implications and motivations, so the facts remain out of context.
It's feeling like the dark ages, and I'm not even kidding - if we don't get on this, the entire country is going to end up 'slow' and worse. It's all around us. My new BIL always presses me on my opinions bc I think he knows I am 'anti'. He's a psych, his views on the whole thing are mainstream. I decided not to go there with him when I fully realized his stance(things like calling the local DAN and his wife 'Quacks', frequently talking about how 'many' kids he sees 'like this' and then in the next breath denying that there's been a real increase). If he were a nice guy I would definitely give all I had clueing him to the racket, but he's a real jerk. Are they all jerks, or what?
Posted by: Joy B | July 05, 2014 at 01:16 PM
John,
Here is a 1978 Wall Street Journal letter by Senator James Abourezk recognizing Dr. Morris, his warnings about the Swine flu vaccine, and his subsequent persecution--http://mspbwatch.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/letter-to-the-editor-by-senator-james-abourezk-the-wall-street-journal-mar-6-1978.pdf .
Posted by: Jim Thompson | July 05, 2014 at 10:09 AM
Thank you everybody for your kind and informed comments. Jim, by coincidence, the Washington Post has just published an obituary for J Anthony Morris, formerly chief vaccine officer of the Bureau of Biological Standards who began to be persecuted when his department was transferred from the NIH to the FDA. I excerpt some of the WP's story:
"He argued that research carried out by his unit demonstrated that there was no reliable proof that vaccines were effective in preventing influenza, and he accused the government of basing its mass vaccine programs for flu primarily on claims made by pharmaceutical manufacturers.
"The issue came to a head in 1976 when President Gerald R. Ford signed a bill appropriating $135 million to vaccinate 140 million people against swine flu that fall and the next winter. Dr. Morris was outspoken in his opposition to the inoculations.
"Subsequent events seemed to support Dr. Morris’s skepticism. The 1976 swine flu vaccinations were fraught with problems, and the government discontinued the inoculations after 49 million had received the vaccine.
"The incidence of swine flu among the vaccinated was seven times greater than it was among those who had not been vaccinated, according to news reports. In addition, 12 Americans who had been vaccinated against swine flu died of complications related to Guillain-Barre syndrome, a polyneuropathy affecting the peripheral nervous system. More than 200 were paralyzed, news accounts said.
"The swine-flu episode coincided with continuing long-term insubordination proceedings against Dr. Morris..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/vaccine-specialist-j-anthony-morris-dies-at-95/2014/07/03/e786b9b8-0228-11e4-8572-4b1b969b6322_story.html
So having experienced very similar bullying and victimisation to that described by David Lewis his career came to an end. The crooks and liars had taken over. I suppose it is beyond the scope of an obituary to draw conclusions about such matters, but the lesson goes on not being learned. The people who destroyed the careers of Morris and Lewis are still in office, or their successors are, watching only for the interests of corporations and not the public. And the Washington Post is usually no better. The harassment of Morris may be three and a half decades ago, but all we have had is more of the same. All we have is a sciency front to blatant self-interest and corruption.
The reason why the Washington Post reports this story accurately now is presumbly because it did then (the era of Woodward and Bernstein). It shows that what is at stake is not really scientific understanding but the necessity to keep a watchful eye on institutions. This is exactly what David Lewis is also telling us below, when he quotes from Thomas Paine. But the Post has given up and so has mostly the rest of the mainstream media.
I also recall a "liberal" attack by the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, on the institutional and financial perversion of science in the New York Review of Books 'The Dawn of MacScience' which coincided with his dumping of Andrew Wakefield. Within months the chapter had been recycled in his book 'MMR Science and Fiction' (it was largely the latter) with the hovering implication that Wakefield was the exemplification of the problem. The contortions of Horton are particularly extraodinary.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/12/smoke-and-mirrors-dr-richard-horton-and-the-wakefield-affair.html
http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/01/best-of-aofa-.html
Posted by: John Stone | July 05, 2014 at 05:07 AM
John:
Thank you for the excellent analysis of the corruption in our federal government. Free speech is one of the blessings of our constitution. It currently is jeopardized by pharmaceutical corporate control. In that light, I re-post this comment from May 3,2014 on Anne Dachel's article about media corruption in the U.S at http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/05/dachel-media-review-low-blow-from-lipson.html .
"Recently a Washington Post opinion writer provided a link to a CDC site containing errors and omissions. The writer stated 'The belief that vaccinations cause autism or brain damage is wrong and dangerous.' See http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-the-enduring-benefits-of-vaccination/2014/05/01/30bc6c84-d143-11e3-9e25-188ebe1fa93b_story.html .
The CDC site referenced states 'CDC supports the IOM conclusion that there is no relationship between vaccines containing thimerosal and autism rates in children.' See http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/Autism/Index.html .
This is an error. The CDC gives the basis for this incorrect statement on a 2004 IOM review which actually finds studies providing evidence for a relationship. See http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10997&page=R1 .
But it also finds studies that fail to provide evidence. Then it concludes that "the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal–containing vaccines and autism."
This is illogical and unsafe. If, for example, some bridges with cracks collapse while others do not, wouldn’t the conclusion be, based on safety, that this evidence does not favor the rejection of a causal relationship between cracks in bridges and their collapse? See Richard Feynman’s bridge safety analogy at http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Appendix-F.txt .
Also the current CDC site omits the fact that one of the studies that assisted in the IOM’s unsafe conclusion was a study in which Poul Thorsen played a significant role. That study is given by the IOM as Madsen KM, Lauritsen MB, Pedersen CB, Thorsen P, Plesner AM, Andersen PH, Mortensen PB, 'Thimerosal and the occurrence of autism: negative ecological evidence from Danish population-based data.' Pediatrics 112(3 Pt 1):604-6. 2003. See http://www.pkids.org/files/pdf/PEDSarticle.pdf .
Currently Poul Thorsen is a fugitive from the US Justice Department and listed as one of the most wanted list! See http://www.justice.gov/usao/gan/press/2011/04-13-11.html and https://oig.hhs.gov/fraud/fugitives/profiles.asp .
So while the CDC revises the words 'the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal–containing vaccines and autism' to mean 'there is no relationship;' and a while a writer for the Washington Post says a belief that there is evidence that vaccinations may cause autism is wrong and dangerous; the Washington Post remains silent on the fugitive Poul Thorsen.
No dots here folks, nothing to see, move along now."
Posted by: Jim Thompson | July 05, 2014 at 12:19 AM
Lamictal should not cost 2000 dollars a month.
Who knew that the snake oil salesmen would some day control the world.
There were signs though even in George Washington's time
When George Washington became ill; Dr. James Craik, was summoned. Craik diagnosed the condition as life threatening, and hastily assembled a team of doctors for aggressive treatment. They bled him of five pints of blood, burned his neck, and gave him calomel, a mercury compound used as a purgative but which probably did little more than induce mercury poisoning.
They still give us stuff to make us sick only now they have some medicines that after they make us sick -- to make us feel a little better.
Posted by: Benedetta | July 04, 2014 at 10:55 PM
You may be interested in this:
- Reforming America: steps to political change
http://fabiusmaximus.com/america/political-reform-67124-2/
http://fabiusmaximus.com/2014/07/04/independence-day-celebrate-america-69675/
Posted by: Rosycurler | July 04, 2014 at 10:32 PM
Thanks so much for your insights, John. As the federal government here takes more of our freedoms away in the name of protecting us, I'm continually reminded of Thomas Paine's admonition that even common sense tells us that the power that endeavors to subdue us is "of all others, the most improper to defend us." David Lewis
Posted by: David L. Lewis | July 04, 2014 at 09:53 PM
Well written, thank you John.
The only reason we ended up with George Washington was that his father's British ship sank on this side of the pond, and he stayed around for a while.
As you may know, our first President died of a sore throat, followed by 3-4 pints of bloodletting they performed to try to get him back to health. That was the beginning of the end of that medical wisdom I believe.
Freedom of the press is long gone in the USA as the entire news media is all owned by only 6 corporations.
The health tyrants are not difficult to locate, they keep working in hospitals even after they are indicted... and our medical intellects still adore his studies as the "cutting edge science" of vaccine safety.
We live in a nation that after 20 years.... cannot figure out why our Autism rates are 100 times higher than other countries.
Posted by: cmo | July 04, 2014 at 07:30 PM
The first anti trust regulations were introduced during the 1890s in response the the monopolies that had been gaining strength following the spread of the rail networks and telegraph which had first allowed a single business to dominate beyond its local area. Woodrow Wilson was influenced by Louis Brandeis who once said:'We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both'; and greatly strengthened the regulations to the point that market share was effectively restricted to just a few percent in most cases.
Many of the regulations introduced at that time are still in place, but in the 1980s the method of their enforcement changed dramatically, with barely any debate, to allow corporate takeovers where there was no obvious threat to the public interest, and the result now is plain to see with a tiny number of big players dominating every major market.
A return the philosophy of strict limits on the power of single business entities is a vital element of curing the polotical problems facing the country.
Posted by: Science is pure. People are corrupt. | July 04, 2014 at 07:06 PM
Thank you, John Stone!!
Posted by: Twyla | July 04, 2014 at 03:32 PM
So true, Louis Conte.
Posted by: Twyla | July 04, 2014 at 02:55 PM
John writes of ..
" ... the great amount of thought that the founding fathers went into trying to prevent the re-emergence of the tyranny which they had just escaped. Perhaps never has so much thought gone into avoiding “oppressive government” ....
I think the Founding Fathers were brilliant in their division of powers .. between three equal branches of government .. Legislative, Executive and Judicial .. deliberately designed to make it extremely difficult for a "political oppressive government" to rule over time.
Unfortunately, I don't think our Founding Fathers perceived a fourth branch of government .. an entrenched federal regulatory bureaucracy .. that is "appointed rather than elected" .. thereby making it completely separate and unaccountable to the people.
That fourth branch of government is controlled by industries that contribute enormous financial money to BOTH political parties .. and so .. to them .. it does not matter which major political party occupies the Oval Office .. either Democrat or Republican.
The only offices those industries seek to control are the Chairmanships of that entrenched federal regulatory bureaucracy .. the FDA, CDC, HHS, EPA, NTSB, FAA, on and on.
The question remains: How do the people regain control of the "regulators".
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | July 04, 2014 at 02:18 PM
Yes, wake us up to every assault and weakness you see! I'm sure you know we have the same enemies in many ways. I'm mentally flying the flag at half mast. I have been for several years on the 4th. I never thought all our leaders were angels, but it took seeing all "checks and balances" institutions working to protect the poisoners of our children and persecute the promoters of truth to get me to look a little more closely at other areas where the same patterns appear, and there are many.
There are several good principles in the Constitution, and a return to them seems essential.
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | July 04, 2014 at 01:36 PM
Its a sad day for the UK as well because it has to happen in the US before even a ripple is felt through the iron grip the UK is held in by big business controlling all the political parties ...every political party had its chance..and did nothing except take the 30 pieces of silver.
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | July 04, 2014 at 12:17 PM
John:
Thank you for this. Your perspective is spot on.
Most Americans now look to national politics from the perspective of economic issues; the President of the United States has mutated into the President of the Economy of the United States. Science, as Dr. David Lewis tells us so brilliantly in his book, has morphed into the science of Corporate-Government interests. Science that supports the hegemony stands - no matter what.
So Poul Thorson is a non-issue, regardless of his fugitive from justice status while Andrew Wakefield is attacked endlessly in the media as though he had slaughtered thousands.
What has happened is that America is no longer "the land of the free." Quietly, insidiously, we have been taken over by an elite who inflict their policy interests on us simply because they have the economic resources to do so.
A new revolution is necessary. The good news is that many here are begining to see the hypocricy and corruption. People are recognizing this menace for what it really is.
Revolutions, by there very nature, require sacrifice. We must be speak out against this threat when ever and where ever we can knowing full well that we will be attacked for doing so.
It is the only way to end this.
Louis
Posted by: Louis Conte | July 04, 2014 at 10:33 AM