James Lyons-Weiler on the Commoditization of American Health
By Anne Dachel
Once upon a time, our manifest destiny as Americans was to produce the newest and best innovations, along with the optimal health care possible. There was no problem we couldn't solve. The whole world looked to us for latest invention and technological improvement. Life in the U.S. was clearly the envy of many other countries.
But times have changed. We've gone from a "production-based economy" to "a service economy." At the same time, we've become a nation of the chronically ill and disabled, and this is especially true with regard to our children. Incredibly, all the sick Americans everywhere are now the backbone of this new economy. More and more patients mean more and more jobs for countless millions of people on all levels. Our super-vaccinated kids are also the ones with behavioral problems, seizure disorder, diabetes, autism, GI disease, arthritis, life-threatening allergies, and asthma. They're the lifeblood of the medical-pharmaceutical complex and once they're there, they're medicated for life. One wonders whether our doctors are so busy tending to the sick they don't have time to investigate the causes of these diseases, leaving them completely dependent on authorities such as the CDC for their understanding of what causes these conditions".
James Lyons-Weiler presents an excellent summary here of our current situation. He explains how much power drug companies have over our basic freedoms when it comes to vaccines--not just the right to choose to vaccinate or not, but also the freedom to even discuss the possibility of adverse events from vaccination. Powerful forces control the science we're allowed to see. Leading experts may be producing research that challenges vaccine safety claims, but what if we're never told about it? What if the media and health officials are so completely conflicted, that they willingly look the other way? What if doctors are educated to believe that vaccines can only do good and never have real side effects?
America today is in decline, as James reports. One in 5 have an auto-immune disorder and two percent of our children are on the autism spectrum. The future can't even be imagined.
"We have to ask ourselves, what kind of America do we want in 2020?"
(James Lyons-Weiler is the author of the upcoming book, The Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism.)
Feb 17, 2016, The Commoditization of American Health
Little did we realize that major sideways shifts in our economy would obviate the need for mining of natural resources for ourselves; we could export a great deal more than we imported, including steel, copper, lumber, and other raw materials that could be transformed via cheap labor in other countries into consumables for us to want to have, to own, to use and dispose. While our factories lay silent, we spent more time and money on restaurants, entertainment, information, and travel, investing less and less in the foundation of a production-based economy. We valued our lives, our careers, our families, and our futures.
The shift to a service economy meant that much of our economy, as economies go, became increasingly propped up by non-essential activities relating to fulfilling, but not necessarily enriching, experiences in our lives. In finding what we valued most – our health – we placed a literal price on our heads....
OUR BRAINS are still America’s greatest natural resource. After the dot-com bust, a robust economy based on information, know-how, and biotechnology helped create one of the most lucrative sectors in any economy in any country in the history of humankind. The Pharmaceutical sector is poised for a good 30 years of expansive growth, as baby boomers age and demand ever-more effective medical treatments and drugs to extend their lives, and reduce the severity of symptoms. The burgeoning sector has moved from increased efficacy of treatments to treatments that are just about as good, as long as they come to market faster and in prettier packaging. Direct-to-consumer marketing has helped to keep the population up to date on the latest near-advances, and their side effects, with expensive campaigns that sends patients to their doctors clamoring for changes in drugs that might be right for them.
We are now drugged from cradle to grave. Via CDC recommendations, new born babies are now given ample protection from sexually transmitted HepB via vaccination at birth, with little information available on how long immunity lasts. That’s on the way in. On the way out, our seniors are inappropriately medicated in nursing homes for behavioral episodes, without a prescription, without family consent, to the tunes of billions of dollars paid out by Medicare. In between, ADHD overdiagnosis means psychotropic meds for children lined up in schools down the hallway, around corners for their doses at the nurse’s office.
Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.
There are more good articles at http://jameslyonsweiler.com/
Posted by: Tim Lundeen | March 03, 2016 at 02:14 PM
The iatrogenic causes Lyons-Weiler describes in the excerpt are but one of many. By themselves, they can form positive feedback loops, where getting vaccinated results in adverse effects/symptoms/diseases, which require further drugs for amelioration, which themselves produce additional side-effects, which then require more drugs/treatments, ad infinitum.
But, vaccines and other drugs are not taken in isolation. Unhealthy lifestyles, environmental and occupational exposures, and other damaging endogenous inputs enhance and amplify the iatrogenic effects. Those who participate in 1) the production of the myriad contributing factors to disease, 2) the mis-named 'healthcare' industry, and 3) the media supported by the polluting industries and the 'healthcare' industry profit handsomely from both their toxic products and their 'healthcare' approaches to the consequences of these toxic products. They have little, if any, incentive to alter the present situation.
The only stakeholders with the incentive to change this situation are the afflicted members of the electorate, and they have been dulled into complacency by a bought and paid for media and political system. We may have passed the 'point of no return', and I use the word 'may' generously!
Posted by: Ronald Kostoff | March 03, 2016 at 12:43 PM
Lyons-Weiler is a brilliant man.
Get ready for more insights from him.
Posted by: Louis Conte | March 03, 2016 at 11:46 AM
Looks fantastic, thanks James.
Posted by: Go Trump | March 03, 2016 at 11:41 AM
This looks very interesting - valuable cultural insights about how everything goes down the drain.
Posted by: John Stone | March 03, 2016 at 08:25 AM