US
Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis, 1932: "It is one of the happy
incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if
its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and
economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."
You governors are now seeing, whether you like it or not, a competitive situation developing among the states.
Some states are loosening the COVID restrictions; others are tightening them.
In this ongoing process, for example, a remarkable exodus is occurring---from New York to Florida. From lockdowns to freedom.
Some
of you governors who demand lockdowns, masks, distancing, immunity
certificates, etc., are betting the federal government will somehow
intercede, back you up, and force the free states to fall in line with
your brutal COVID tactics---thus “leveling the playing field.”
This
is unlikely to happen. The White House and the Congress understand
there is a limit to how far they can push the states, without fomenting
uncontrollable rebellion.
That means you’ll be caught with your pants down, as your citizens emigrate, in ever larger numbers, to freer states.
What
business owner wouldn’t prefer to set up shop in an open state economy,
rather than shutting down and descending into bankruptcy in your state?
And
if you believe the brigades of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and
YouTube users who demand the harshest COVID policies are going to win
the day, you’re entertaining a delusion.
You’re going to stand by and watch your economies continue to shrink, while other states flourish.
Believe
it not, this is one of the eventualities the Founders foresaw, when
they enshrined the federal/state structure in the Constitution. Limiting
the power of central government meant that various individual states
could choose their own paths.
This is happening now.
It
is happening, regardless of media moaning, regardless of Fauci-ist
objections and CDC pressure to conform to suicidal COVID policies.
If
you governors of freer states have the courage to double down, and do
something that will lift your economies to even greater heights, I have a
suggestion.
Push
through a law that permits any healing practitioner to treat patients
for any given condition, as long as his remedy creates no greater harm
than the orthodox treatment for that same condition.
You’ll
see a huge influx of practitioners and patients to your state. It’s
called Health Freedom---and it’s a policy that welcomes adults who are
willing to take responsibility for their own health choices. Health
Freedom also booms the economy.
It’s the opposite of forced medical mandates.
And
when, five years from now, that new law provokes an upsurge in the
overall vitality of your citizens---with no significant downside---you
will have proven something more than the absurdity of the COVID
restrictions.
You
will have proven that the overall medical apparatus out of which those
restrictions flowed is, in fact, inherently biased, undeservedly
monopolistic, financially driven, scientifically corrupt, inhumanly
cruel, and politically motivated as a covert means of controlling the
lives of The People.
You will have restored a great portion of the freedom for which men and women have fought, for centuries.
Isn’t that a goal worth pursuing?
CODA:
As evidence for my assertions about the US medical system, I’m printing
here my 2009 interview with the late Dr. Barbara Starfield, a revered
public health expert who spent many years at the Johns Hopkins School of
Public Health.
Her
conclusions: Every year, in America, the medical system kills 225,000
people. 106,000 as a direct result of the administration of FDA approved
drugs; 119,000 as a result of mistreatment and errors in hospitals.
Extrapolate those numbers out to a decade, and the death toll is a staggering 2.25 million people.
Here is my email interview with Dr. Starfield:
What has been the level and tenor of the response to your findings, since 2000?
The
American public appears to have been hoodwinked into believing that
more interventions lead to better health, and most people that I meet
are completely unaware that the US does not have the 'best health in the
world'.
In
the medical research community, have your medically-caused mortality
statistics been debated, or have these figures been accepted, albeit
with some degree of shame?
The
findings have been accepted by those who study them. There has been
only one detractor, a former medical school dean, who has received a lot
of attention for claiming that the US health system is the best there
is and we need more of it. He has a vested interest in medical schools
and teaching hospitals (they are his constituency).
Have
health agencies of the federal government consulted with you on ways to
mitigate the [devastating] effects of the US medical system?
NO.
Since
the FDA approves every medical drug given to the American people, and
certifies it as safe and effective, how can that agency remain calm
about the fact that these medicines are causing 106,000 deaths per year?
Even
though there will always be adverse events that cannot be anticipated,
the fact is that more and more unsafe drugs are being approved for use.
Many people attribute that to the fact that the pharmaceutical industry
is (for the past ten years or so) required to pay the FDA for reviews
[of its new drugs]---which puts the FDA into an untenable position of
working for the industry it is regulating. There is a large literature
on this.
Aren't your 2000 findings a severe indictment of the FDA and its standard practices?
They
are an indictment of the US health care industry: insurance companies,
specialty and disease-oriented medical academia, the pharmaceutical and
device manufacturing industries, all of which contribute heavily to
re-election campaigns of members of Congress. The problem is that we do
not have a government that is free of influence of vested interests.
Alas, [it] is a general problem of our society---which clearly
unbalances democracy.
Can you offer an opinion about how the FDA can be so mortally wrong about so many drugs?
Yes,
it cannot divest itself from vested interests. (Again, [there is] a
large literature about this, mostly unrecognized by the people because
the industry-supported media give it no attention.)
Would
it be correct to say that, when your JAMA study was published in 2000,
it caused a momentary stir and was thereafter ignored by the medical
community and by pharmaceutical companies?
Are
you sure it was a momentary stir? I still get at least one email a day
asking for a reprint---ten years later! The problem is that its message
is obscured by those that do not want any change in the US health care
system.
Are
you aware of any systematic efforts, since your 2000 JAMA study was
published, to remedy the main categories of medically caused deaths in
the US?
No
systematic efforts; however, there have been a lot of studies. Most of
them indicate higher rates [of death] than I calculated.
What
was your personal reaction when you reached the conclusion that the US
medical system was the third leading cause of death in the US?
I
had previously done studies on international comparisons and knew that
there were serious deficits in the US health care system, most notably
in lack of universal coverage and a very poor primary care
infrastructure. So I wasn't surprised.
Did your 2000 JAMA study sail through peer review, or was there some opposition to publishing it?
It was rejected by the first journal that I sent it to, on the grounds that 'it would not be interesting to readers'!
Do
the 106,000 deaths from medical drugs only involve drugs prescribed to
patients in hospitals, or does this statistic also cover people
prescribed drugs who are not in-patients in hospitals?
I
tried to include everything in my estimates. Since the commentary was
written, many more dangerous drugs have been added to the marketplace.
---end of interview---
Dr.
Starfield’s published JAMA review, and this interview, raise
mind-bending implications. Among them: prestigious medical journals
routinely print glowing reports on many drugs which are, in fact,
killing and maiming patients in great numbers. This means that the
journal reports, and the studies on which they are based, are rank with
fraud and corruption.
In that regard, here is a comment from a doctor who has, no doubt, perused as many such studies as any person in the world:
Dr. Marcia Angell, NY Review of Books, January 15, 2009, “Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption”:
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical
research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted
physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in
this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two
decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”
This is the overall system that sustains the leading lights who sell COVID policy and “science.”
Let the buyer beware and rebel.
~~~
(The link to this article posted on my blog is here -- with sources.)
(Follow me on Gab at @jonrappoport)
No comments:
Post a Comment