The Convenience of Evidence Based Research and the lies we are told
Have you ever considered Evidence Based Research has the same function as your local Convenience store?
Like the local Convenience store, that place we can quickly and easily pick-up fast-food options to satiate our cravings for junk food, conveniently there is also such a thing as convenience-based evidence. A wealth of research and knowledge, some of it true and some of it not, can be shopped from the shelves of countless journals that can be used to explain and or justify a choice of behaviour, action and or stance.
It is a well-known fact that research can be manipulated to suite whatever outcome the researcher is looking for. There is a plethora of information and research available to us - and it is up to us to discern what is true and what is not. Science is not everything it is said to be. Science like all things can be manipulated to suit whatever agenda is at play.
If we do not discern, we are allowing ourselves to be lied to.
A snapshot of just some of the lies “evidence-based” research has told us:
SNAPSHOT ONE
“A pack a day keeps lung cancer away” and
“a harmless pastime up to twenty-four cigarettes per day”.
These phrases were coined by medical practitioners, MacDonald MD and Garland MD, who also just happened to be Chairman (MacDonald) and Secretary (Garland) on the Committee of Cancer Research, at the American Medical Association. Point of interest, The American Medical Association at the time of these two men coining these phrases, owned millions of dollars in tobacco stocks (1).
Today this would be called a conflict of interest. Medical practitioners promoting a product that they were to make direct financial gain from. But it is worse than this, they did not just promote the product, they used “evidence-based research” to lie and state that smoking was good for us and in the process gave many the convenient evidence to justify their choice in a habit that was slowly killing them.
To add further insight into the depth of the deception, in 1963 it was discovered that these same two Doctors, MacDonald and Garland, in 1953, falsified summary data regarding laetrile. Laetrile is a Vitamin B compound, that has been shown to be highly effective in treating people with cancer. It was found that McDonald and Garland had purpose-fully lied and falsified their report to discredit laetrile and its effectiveness. (2)
In summary,Doctors were found to promote a product that they were profiting from, the product was found to cause cancer, and the same doctors lied about the effectiveness of treatments that had been found to heal cancer.
Why would this be?
There is a great deal of money to be made from people being sick, in short, the medical industry does not make money of healthy people (7).
It could be suggested that their interests in the tobacco industry and Cancer Research had to do with protecting their investment in the Sickness Industry rather than in researching a cure.
Below are some real-life examples of how Cigarette smoking was advertised, promoted and endorsed as “good for us” by medical practitioners using the so-called “evidence” of the time;
SNAPSHOT TWO
Institutional Corruption of Pharmaceuticals
It has been found that pharmaceutical companies actively engage treating physicians to propagate misinformation, as in, they pay them to generate “evidence-based research” to validate the lies they wish to propagate (3). Case in point the lies told about cigarette smoking as presented above. Due to court findings and the increasing attention given to the misuse of research and physician bias, physicians are no longer permitted to be used to advertise products for pharmaceutical companies or any other companies. However, although this type of blatant advertising by Physicians is no longer permitted, behind the scenes this still goes on today (3).
An increasing number of lawsuits are exposing this fact, court findings are ruling that pharmaceutical companies do in fact, hide, ignore, and deliberately misrepresent evidence (3).
Today this is achieved by directly mis-informing medical practitioners.
To do their job and to keep up with current medical advancements, medical practitioners rely on peer-reviewed medical journals, to do their job effectively and safely. However, it has been found that these medical journals are not free of corruption.
It is well known that ghost writing exists in the field of medical research.
Confessions of Pharmaceutical Ghost writers
“I agreed to do two reviews for a supplement to appear under the names of respected ‘authors.’ I was given an outline, references, and a list of drug-company approved phrases. I was asked to sign an agreement stating that I would not disclose anything about the project. I was pressured to rework my drafts to position the product more favorably.” (4)
And
“I was told exactly what the drug company expected and given explicit instructions about what to play up and what to play down. (4)
If this is not enough to make your head spin, google “pharmaceutical lies” and you will start to see the depth and breadth of the corruption – as the saying goes “evil knows no bounds”
More on this topic to come in further articles.
SNAPSHOT THREE
Did you know scientist and British Professor of nutrition John Yudkin in the 1970's warned us of the dangers of sugar in our diets? He released a book called "Pure, White and Deadly".
At the time of the release Professor Yudkin was a well-known and respected scientist. Not long after the release of his book, his professional life was destroyed. Companies invested in the need for sugar, I will leave you to research what companies I am referring to for yourselves, employed other scientists to not only discount Professor Yudkin’s work but to discredit and destroy his career totally and utterly.
Not long after Professor Yudkin’s research on the deadly impact of sugar on our bodies, counter research surfaced, funded by industries invested in the protection of sugar. This funded research asserted that it was in fact, fat that was harmful to our health and not sugar. Upon the release of this “research” the food industry began a widespread 'low fat' food campaign, leading to many eating low fat foods that were high in sugar. Today this 'research' has been proven incorrect, and not just because of the flaws in the "scientific evidence" but because of the actual evidence of our own bodies. The negative impact that high sugar, low fat has had on our health is now impossible to ignore. High sugar diets have now been found to be directly related to high blood pressure, inflammation, weight gain, diabetes, and fatty liver disease, all of which, are directly linked to increased risk of heart attacks and strokes (8).
How many people could have avoided these debilitating illnesses, if Professor Yudkin's research had not been shut down? (5)
The extent of the misinformation campaign about Yudkin's research around sugar has been characterised by some as a Crime Against Humanity. Considering that 3 people die every minute from diabetes alone I would tend to agree, it was, and is, no less than an act of war on people's health and freedom to choose (11).
How many deaths have occurred because we have been lied to?
This war may not involve weapons, such as guns, canons, and missiles, but these intellectual lies are no less deadly and cause just as much mass destruction as any bomb ever could.
To further the point:
The fact that we now have a global population of people with Diabetes, so many so that they would fill the worlds 3rd largest country (6). Of interest, China is the 3rd largest country in the world, its current population is 1,439,3233,776 (10).
and
The WHO has reported that cardiovascular diseases, including stroke and heart disease, are the leading causes of death globally, that is approximately 17.9 million people EACH year. They further state that the biggest contributor to heart disease and stroke are due to “unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, tobacco use and harmful use of alcohol” (9).
Unfortunately, I had to stop myself from continuing on with this section, this could literally end up being thousands and thousands of pages, the point being the corruption and deceit in so many areas and industries is endless.
I won’t even start on food companies that know their foods are harmful and cause countless numbers of physical and mental ill health conditions, yet they continue to spend millions and millions of dollars annually to make food more and more addictive.
Where to from here? Let us come back to the ultimate science – our own bodies.
Your body is your greatest evidence, point proven by the following advertisement advocating that smoking was not harmful.
The Camel 30 day challenged “research” found
One lady, advertised in the study stated:
So… she stated
she did NOT need a “Doctor’s report” to know Camel cigarettes were not harmful to her throat.
Case in point
even evidence-based research knows that our bodies are our greatest evidence.
Why else would they feel such a statement by one woman would be so powerful.
Notwithstanding the fact that this 'cigarette testimonial' is no different to the 'pharma reviews' commissioned and paid for by pharma, the error they make in this advert is that this one body can speak for the all, as in that one woman’s body is evidence for all other bodies. "My body is okay with Camels so yours will be too". This is a total lie.
As I note myself, when I had my first “puff” of a cigarette, Camel brand or not, my whole body convulsed in revulsion – every single cell in my body screaming, “do not do that again”. But for my own reasons I did, to the point that many years on, even though I never forgot that first feeling, I overrode it to such a point that I was able to lie to myself and override my body and state that it was, “okay” and “not that bad, to smoke every now and then”. If I had been born in the 50’s I would have loved that evidence that said smoking was good for you as it would have given me the convenient truth, the suitable lie to not look at why I was smoking. I can just hear my mum saying, “don’t do that it is bad for you” and my quick and convenient response, “but the doctor said it was good for me”. And for a real-life example, my father who did have heart disease, diabetes, ongoing gout and many other ailments, was told by his specialist, that, “it was okay to have a drink of alcohol every day ???” All of his conditions were directly related to lifestyle, including addiction to alcohol, poor diet, smoking and no exercise.
Sometimes you just have to question the intelligence of so-called intelligent beings.
Are you shocked yet! It is hard to allow yourself to feel and believe that this level of corruption, deceit and let’s call it for what it is – evil, exists, but it does.
A tendency for human nature when faced with such blatant evil and corruption is to either withdraw or to fight.
We can do Neither
Don't get me wrong, we cannot give up and withdraw, as the blatant-ed-ness of the corruption is taunting us to do. Basically, laughing in our faces, "What are you going to do about it. You are small fry and I own everything"
True empowerment is staying true to what you feel and not allowing yourself to be swayed by the magnitude and volume of the lies.
I was a young woman when the lies of the low-fat movement came out. I remember hearing the counter arguments that low fat food was full of sugar which was not good for us. I remember feeling relieved at hearing that information, as it made sense to what I had been feeling. So, I stayed away from the low-fat high sugar foods, and my body and my health thanked me for it. To those who were willing to speak up, I thank them.
Evil is not powerful; it is only given power by the masses silence and capitulation.
As the Edmund Burk saying goes...
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (and women) to do nothing."
It would seem that "good" is not "good" at all!
Denying our feelings serves no one, including ourselves.
Or we could say it serves those that want to control at the expense of others.
But this is not just about the systems that are corrupt, in fact the corruption is very close to home.
Based on all that has been exposed and discussed above, is it possible that we use evidence as a convenience to justify and support what choices we decide to make for ourselves in life, often at the expense of our own bodies?
Just like we go to the local convenience store when we are in need of something quickly, so too do we go to the convenience of evidence when we need it.
So, a question… Can we actually be lied to? Or do we buy the lies as a means to justify our behaviours and deny the intelligence of our body's raw data?
REFERENCES:
(1) HarperCollins Publishers. Harvey Diamond. (2004, Feb, 25). Fit for life not fat for life.
(2) The “People Power” Health Superbook: Book 12. Cancer Guide (Conventional and Holisitic Cancer Treaments. Tony Kelbrat 2014
(3) World Health.Net. (2018, October, 11). Profit To Be Made In Sickness And Poor Heealth. Retrieved from https://www.worldhealth.net/news/profit-be-made-sickness-and-poor-health/
(4) Institutional Corruption of Pharmaceuticals and the Myth of Safe and Effective Drugs Harvard University, Edmond J.Safra Center for Ethics Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics vol. 14 No.3 (2013)
(5) How Big Pharma Lies to Doctors about the Medicine you are taking. Retrieved from http://webperfection.co.in/Projects/tpc/how-big-pharma-lies-to-doctors-about-the-medicine-you-are-taking/
(6) Harvard Health Publishing. (2019, November 05). The sweet danger of sugar. Retrieved from https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/the-sweet-danger-of-sugar
(7) The Guardian. (2016, April 07). The sugar conspiracy. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin
(8) South China Morning Post. (2019, November 08). Diabetes kills three people every minute: so what in the world can we do to fight it? Retrieved from https://www.scmp.com/native/lifestyle/topics/fighting-global-epidemic/article/3036922/diabetes-kills-three-people-every
(9) Vasey RSL Care. (2016, July 10). If Diabetes was a country, it would be the world’s third largest (Diabetes Australia). Retrieved from https://www.vaseyrslcare.org.au/news-and-events/if-diabetes-was-a-country-it-would-be-the-worlds-third-largest-diabetes-australia/
(11) World Health Organisation (WHO). Cardiovascular diseases. Retrieved 2021, August 06 from https://www.who.int/health-topics/cardiovascular-diseases#tab=tab
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