Drug industry choking cancer victims?

By WND Staff

By Marilyn Barnewall

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The business of medicine is big. Our diseases and the treatment of them have become a major part of the American economy. Cancer, for example, is a $1 trillion “business.” Unfortunately for those stricken with this dread disease, it costs far more in pain and suffering.

As you read this article, please keep in mind that President Richard Nixon declared “War on Cancer” in 1971. According to Definitive Guide to Cancer (W. John Diamond, M.D., W. Lee Cowden, M.D., with Burton Goldberg; Future Medicine Publishing, Inc.), a century ago one in 33 people had cancer. Today, “it is more than one in three and growing.”

Definitive Guide brings together the recommendations of 37 leading cancer physicians. You will not hear their names in the media or at traditional cancer treatment centers, however. They use alternative and complementary therapies to treat cancer. The book includes 55 documented patient case histories. I believe it is an important book.

Probably the most shocking thing I read in this book can be seen on the first page of Chapter 26. These cancer expert physicians and authors believe that “A powerful conglomerate of government agencies, international drug companies, and major cancer treatment hospitals put profits first. They do not want the public to learn about and pursue effective alternatives.”

The doctors who wrote this book do not mince words.

The real eye-opener in Chapter 26 has to do with the history of the pharmaceutical industry. The story starts in 1926 with I.G. Farben, a company located in Frankfurt, Germany. Farben was not so much a drug and chemical company as it was “an inter-locking web of dozens of companies around the world.” By 1940, Farben was Europe’s largest industrial corporation and the world’s largest chemical manufacturer. It operated in 93 countries.

In the U.S., “Farben had commercial interests in dozens of major companies, many of them in pharmaceuticals, such as Bayer, Proctor and Gamble, Monsanto Chemical, Dow Chemical, Lederle Laboratories, Hoffman-LaRoche Laboratories and Squibb and Sons Pharmaceutical,” says Definitive Guide.

By the 1860s, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., owned the world’s largest refinery. By 1879, he owned 90 percent of America’s oil refinery capacity. According to Definitive Guide, Farben and Rockefeller cut a deal in 1929: “Farben would stay out of oil outside of Germany, and sell only chemicals.” Farben received two percent of Standard stock worth $35 million. In essence, the “deal” struck by these two giants of industry positioned them to control both drugs and oil in the world.

The history of using chemicals to treat cancer is a story straight from the World Wars. “Farben was the prime manufacturer of the poison mustard gas used to kill soldiers, and of Zyklon B, the nerve poison used to kill six million Jews in the concentration camp of German-occupied Europe,” say the authors. “In a bizarre development, poison mustard gas was simultaneously researched for its ability to kill cancer tumors and soldiers.”

If the alternative medicine sources quoted in Definitive Guide are as effective as case studies document them to be, why do we still use chemotherapy and radiation as our only cancer treatments? I do not suggest in any way that there is anything wrong with chemotherapy and radiation as treatments for this dread disease. I do, however, suggest that there is strong evidence generated by highly respected experts in the treatment of cancer that equally good alternatives to chemotherapy and radiation exist.

When we add to this grim description of pharmaceutical industry control of the business of medicine and its refusal to accept proven alternatives to cancer treatment, the looming dangers of Codex become even larger.

Codex Alimentarius translated from Latin means “food code.” The United Nations gave this title to a group that functions within the World Health Organization. What is frightening (especially if the material contained in Definitive Guide is accurate) is the Codex Ailmentarius Commission desires to establish world guidelines that limit consumer choices in access to vitamins and herbs.

For example, until 1996 the average German citizen could buy 500 mg vitamin C tablets – or, 400 I.U. capsules of vitamin E. In Germany today, the highest dosage of vitamin C available without a prescription is 200 mg. Vitamin E is available in 45 I.U. doses.

In Norway, citizens can purchase 2.4 mg of vitamin B1, 2.8 mg of B2, 4.2 mg of B6, and 32 mg of niacin. Any dosage for these vitamins that exceed this level requires a prescription.

In Canada, any herb making health improvement claims is classified as a drug. In Europe, the European Economic Community (EEC) has said if an herb is medicinal, it is medicine and should be sold as a drug. The supplements tryptophan and L-carnitine, once available to Canadians for $14 per 100 capsules, are now only available by prescription… and cost from $120 to $190. Some cynics might think a deal giving Canadians low cost pharmaceuticals was made between the Canadian government and pharmaceutical companies to get the Codex legislation approved by the Canadian government. I would never say such a thing… but I anticipate responses to this article and know some cynical readers will.

The original proposals for the limitation amounts came from Germany via a panel sponsored by three giant drug companies: Hoechst, Bayer and BASF. These companies are the children resulting from the disbandment of I.G. Farben after World War II. I have always questioned if it was possible to disband such a giant, carefully woven web as I.G. Farben created.

BASF (of Germany) and LaRoche Holding AG (of Switzerland) pleaded guilty to the largest antitrust conspiracy as yet uncovered by investigators to fix vitamin prices. Each paid hefty fines. I’m sure that made abused consumers who needed access to their vitamins and herbs feel much better.

Plans exist to bring these same extreme measures to America’s vitamin and herb supplement business. Our legislators tell us that Codex is a non-issue because federal statutes like the Proxmire Vitamin Act and the dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 protect us from what WHO refers to as “the harmonization” of international standards.

If this were true, it is doubtful that Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) would have felt it necessary to introduce the American Sovereignty Restoration Act HR1146. The same is true of federal statutes 19U.S.C. 3512(a)(1) and (a) (2) that are supposed to prevent the “harmonizing” of American vitamin and herb laws with those of the rest of the world.

“Harmonizing” appears to be the new buzz word used by those working to establish a “New World Order.”

How many hours of study of non-chemical alternative health solutions do medical students in America get in school? Whatever the amount, I can say with assurance I know more about alternative medicines than 90 percent of the physicians I have personally seen. These “experts” will, if all goes as planned, control via prescription our access to herbs and vitamins because the World Health Organization considers all dietary supplements as “drugs.”

This topic is deserving of an article in its own right and I will do that when I have time to do more research. Until then, remember that Codex decisions override decisions of individual countries. And severe trade restrictions can be used by the World Health Organization to help twist the arms of other nations into compliance.

At the current time, our economy could not withstand such restrictions.
 

Marilyn Barnewall, in 1978, was the first female to be named vice president in charge of a major loan and deposit portfolio at Denver’s largest bank. She started the nation’s first private bank, resigned to start her own firm and consulted for banks of all sizes in America and other countries. In June 1992, Forbes dubbed Barnewall “the dean of American private banking.” Author of several banking texts, she has written extensively for the American Banker, Bank Marketing Magazine, and was U.S. consulting editor for Private Banker International (Lafferty Publications, London/Dublin). Article originally appeared in the Grand Junction Free Press. Marilyn can be reached at [email protected].