PharmacyWitchcraft
Drugs:
Medical Mischief
Drugs have been used for thousands of years. The oldest known written record of drug use is a clay tablet from the ancient Sumerian civilization of the Middle East. This tablet, made in 2000 B.C. era, lists about a dozen drug prescriptions. An ancient Egyptian scroll names more than 80 prescriptions containing about 700 drugs.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the demand for drugs remained high and pharmacies became increasingly common in Europe and the Arab world. The modern-day drug revolution began about 1800. Since the 1800’s scientists have discovered thousands of drugs. In 1806, morphine became the first plant drug to be isolated. Within a few years scientist had isolated quinine and several other plant drugs.
The pace of the drug revolution quickened in the 1900’s. Most of the major drugs used today have been discovered since 1900, such as hormones, antibiotics, and sulfa drugs.
WHAT ARE DRUGS?
Pharmacologists call all chemicals that affect living things to be drugs. Stedman’s Medical Dictionary defines a drug as “a therapeutic agent; any substance, other than food, used in the prevention, diagnosis, alleviation, treatment or cure of disease in man and animal.”
The truth is drugs are passive, inert substances, which have no magical powers to impart life and health to a living organism. Drugs are poisons and can do harm even when taken in small quantities.
BIG BUSINESS
The manufacture and sale of drugs is a business that is so incredibly gigantic that few of us can even begin to comprehend the staggering sums of money that is generated. Back in 1977 80 billion dollars was spent on drugs, prescription, over-the-counter drugs, etc.
The United States leads an overwhelming lead in the production and sale of drugs. In 1997, prescription sales alone rose 12.5% a total of $27 billion dollars.
With 5,000 new drugs being created each year, it would only be logical that we should all remain healthy to a very ripe old age; and yet why are there so many diseases surfacing that cannot be controlled. Also, unknowingly to many unsuspecting people, dangerous drugs have been, and are being marketed each year.
Some of you may remember the drug “thalidomide.” The William S. Merrel Company, merged with Vick Chemical, marketed thalidomide as the “tranquilizer of the future.” The children of mothers who took it were born without arms or legs; some had flippers for arms.
In 1978, a Tokyo court found 3 drug manufacturers guilty of selling drugs containing clioquino which caused roughly 39,000 cases of blindness and/or paralysis and thousands of deaths. The manufacturers were permitted to stay out of jail, provided they pay adequate indemnities to the victims or their survivors. Medical doctors at the trial testified that Clioquinol (sold under 168 different labels) was not merely useless against diarrhea, which it was advertised to heal, but that it could actually cause diarrhea when taken preventively, as the manufacturers recommended.
Another firm offering “proven” drugs is Smith, Kline Beckman, which made its initial millions from the drug known as “speed” through prescriptions from doctors, the notorious Dexedrine and Dexamil. Executives of Smith, Kline Beckman have pled guilty to 34 charges of covering up 36 deaths and cases of severe kidney damage in patients using their drug Selocrin, which was finally removed from the market.
Many pharmacologists freely admit that they don’t know how their drugs act, or how their drugs achieve their therapeutic effect or that they act it at all. In fact they have not even bothered to try to prove that drugs act (cure).
THE DISEASE CALLED
IATROGENIC
The taking of drugs is so prevalent, that there is a disease that is created by the ingestion of too many of them. It is called iatrogenic disease. It is a disease caused by physicians prescribing prescriptions. Sometimes it is referred to as “diseases due to medical progress.” Quinine, mercury, arsenic, bismuth, potassium, iodides—to name but a few cause a number of different maladies ranging from deafness to brittle bones to blindness. All produce their own characteristic iatrogenic disease. And astonishingly enough these problems are treated with even more drugs.
Drugs will relieve pain by dulling sensation, they will move the bowels through irritation, they can cause perspiration through stimulation of the skin, they can increase the output of water through the kidneys, they can cause vomiting, or sedate an irritable stomach, but to cure, to improve conditions in the slightest degree, there is not one ounce of evidence favorable to this idea.
DRUG DAMAGES ARE LEGION
The damages caused by drugs are legion and many volumes could be filled with their terrible effects. Even most physicians are ill-informed about the adverse reactions of drugs.
It is known that about 40 percent of the people undergoing medical care suffer side-effects from the medication given them.
A physician is naturally reluctant to think that his treatment contributes to a patient’s disability. It is easier to attribute new symptoms to an extension of an underlying disease than to obvious drug toxicity. Too frequently, laboratory data or new symptoms that do not “fit” into the anticipated course of a disease are ignored.
ADDITIVES AND DYES
Additives and dyes are added to the drugs making one wonder if not more dangers are lurking in the shadows for drug users. Dyes and artificial flavorings are routinely added to drug compounds. Colorings are added because there are so many thousands of drugs that there is no other way to differentiate them from one another. Artificial flavorings are added because the drugs taste so awful. These chemical additives can cause irritation, discomfort and dangerous reactions in some cases.
To date no extensive studies have been undertaken as to what effect these additives in conjunction with the drug have on the organism once ingested—one can only speculate—and, unfortunately the general public remains the guinea pigs.
According to the industry reports, in 1977 chemical companies produced $185,000,000 of flavoring and coloring additives, and that is only the amount of additives used just in drugs.
Americans are swallowing pills and taking other medications in record amount. Between 1950 and 1976 per capita consumption of over-the-counter and prescription drugs have nearly tripled from 2.4 drugs per person to 6.9 drugs per person. The percentage is even higher today.
DRUG TESTING
What a horrible state of affairs for a country that boasts it has the biggest and best of everything, including medical facilities, physicians, hospitals, the latest medical technology, and the newest “wonder drugs.” Is this what we have to expect from the foremost super-power country in the world?
Has the time arrived when “adverse reactions” to drugs are worse than the various forms of disease for which they are employed?
In a survey of 1,014 medical admissions at Yale University’s teaching hospital, 10.3 percents of patients had a drug reaction; in 1.4 percent the reaction threatened the patient’s life; and in 0.4 percent the patient died as a result of the reaction. A similar survey at John Hopkins of 714 medical patients revealed 17.1 percent had reactions and 1.55 percent were fatal. Even if only one-tenth of one percent of all admissions died of drug reactions, the deaths would approach 29,000 per year. Deaths due to drugs would be a major public health problem comparable in importance to the infectious disease, cancer and nephritis as a cause of mortality.
As we see more and more serious side-effects from these drugs: we see a greater number of deaths from “allergy” to drugs than in the past; we see a greater army of chronic sufferers, with an ever increasing incidence of degenerative diseases; and at the same time we see less and less attention to prevention of disease and health building, and more and more attention is being devoted to patching up symptoms until another day!
Our generation is the recipient of the feedback of modern technical process of drug production.
WHAT TO DO IN PLACE OF
TAKING DRUGS
Sickness is the body’s attempt to heal itself. The goal in obtaining health is to eliminate poisons from the system, not to introduce new ones. But the medical profession does the exact opposite by prescribing poisonous drugs to heal the sick. When a person is sick, the laws governing the living organism and the needs of the system are ignored. Instead, a course of drugging is adopted which diametrically opposes the welfare of the system.
People do not become well if the causes of their illnesses are not discontinued and their modes of living are not corrected. Enervating habits cripple their functioning powers so that they remain toxic. They can get well as soon as they cease to build disease.
Should the sick be poisoned? One might also ask, should the well be poisoned? Is there any more reason the sick should be poisoned than there is that the well should be poisoned? If drugs are not the proper thing with which to preserve health, why should they be thought of as the proper thing to which to restore health? If drugs make the healthy man sick, what do they do for the sick?
ASK YOURSELF THE
FOLLOWING:
Am I eating the proper diet of fruits, vegetables and eliminating animal products, sugar, white flour, and junk foods?
Do I consume pure water?
Do I breathe fresh, clean air day and night. Most people sleep with their windows closed in their bedrooms at night.
Do I get sufficient rest and sleep?
Do I get enough exercise? Daily exercise is very important for maintaining good health. Set aside a certain time every day for exercise, walking gardening or what is most enjoyable for you. About 30 minute to one hour a day is most sufficient.
Am I exposed to the sunlight at least a few minutes each day. Sunlight is beneficial and the main source of vitamin D, but be careful not to over do it as excessive sunbathing can be harmful. Remember the quantity and the quality.
Am I constantly under stress? Stress can also be listed under abstemiousness. We may not always be able to avoid stressful situations, but it is possible to learn how to deal with the situation when the problem is taken to the Lord.
Most importantly, faith plays a major roll in not only good physical health, but good mental health as well.
By following these natural laws our bodies can stay healthy, or if sick, they can heal faster and without drugs, but the proper conditions must be provided. Remember these conditions include proper diet, fresh air, pure water, sunshine, rest and sleep, exercise, abstemiousness, and trust in God.
It is estimated that 2 million American women are victims of prescription drug abuse. They are addicted and in need of help. It has become a major social problem. A U. S. Food and Drug Administration survey of doctors in 1982, found that they had issued one prescription for every patient seen the previous week.
Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.
1Corinthians 10:31
Katy Chamberlin