A question

[J tikari]

I've been reading on and off of the bad effects on ones heart if one
takes the various HBP lowering meds. on a long term basis.
This is completely refuted by the allopaths - one and all - who
claim there is no bad effect at all of these drugs. In fact they claim
that if not taken, HBP (even in the range of 170/90) will kill you with
a brain stroke.
Would Sherry or anyone else please elucidate?
Jeff Tikari

[R]

All you have to do is read the side-effects of the various hbp drugs
which are available easily online.
There are dietary, excercise & supplement steps you can take to manage blood pressure that are effective and much better for you long term.
Short term lifestyle disruption for long term benefit. Cheaper too.

Roger

--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, "J tikari" wrote:

[Shannon Nelson]

Jeff--do you have any specific names of hpb drugs?

[Tanya Marquette]

I listened to a video tape of Robert Kennedy Jr online about vaccines.
The most important point of the video was how the CDC in cahoots with
the drug companies held secret meetings on 'neutral' territory so they
would not have to provide the information of the meeting to the public.
The information being withheld was a report on the connection between
vaccines and autism. The report indicated a relationship.
So what did the secret meeting concern itself with? How to spin the marketing;
how to hide this information from the public; how to do other research that
woudl manipulate the results!!!!!!!
This is par for the course, as they say. More and more Md's are coming
out of the medical closet on drug dangers. They take a level of risk at
exposing this information and becoming branded as a 'quack.' In case
you don't know, Big Pharma maintains a list of doctors that speak out
against them and they employ their own goon squads to intimidate the
practitioners as well as find ways to cost them their licenses.
It is not just homeopaths and nutritions who are on their sh..t list!
Now why would you trust anything an allopath says about the safety of
any drug? Only 20% of drugs are even tested for their use and efficacy
studies are limited, manipulated, and marketed to the FDA and the public
regardless of side effects. Have you ever seen a drug ad on tv that
doesn't list, at auctioneer speed, the list of side-effects at the end of the
ad? How could any Md say there are no problems with a drug!
tanya

[Dale Moss]

Kennedy had a long piece on this in Rolling Stone Magazine a few years ago. I was surprised it never caused much of a storm -- it should have!
Peace,
Dale

[Tanya Marquette]

thanks Dale, I know that piece and read it at the time. but there are pieces in his
article and on this video which are on the level of earth shattering and they are not
raising many eyebrows, much less an outpouring of outraged activism!
tanya

[Shannon Nelson]

We sure need a lot more "outraged activism" on a whole lot of fronts!
The shenanigans of drug companies...
Well, what would be appropriate reactions? I love the boycott idea.
But those of us who already think drugs are not good medicine, are already boycotting them. Those who feel drugs are necessary and appropriate, well, they might have a harder time. Unless somebody knows of a "socially responsible pharmaceutical company" that could step in to fill the void.

Got any suggestions?

[Tanya Marquette]

People tend to get angry when they hear about corporations lying, deceiving and manipulating behind
the scenes at the public's expense. The problem is getting some group together who can push a
movement forward. Just think about Moveon.org and what they have done. 4 young people sending
an e-mail to some friends and beginning a discussion which grew. They now have an online membership
of 4 million (last I heard).
Also, groups like Care2 reaches enormous numbers of people on given issues.
The main problem is getting a core group to begin with who can put in the time and energy to keep up
to date with information, get it out there and begin to grow some activist actions. ANSWER is another
organizing group that has been involved in getting over half million people out onto the streets.
For some reason the health issue doesn't move people as much as a war on the other side of the world,
You would think that something so close to one's personal survival would awaken that rage but it doesn't.
People are totally subsumed by Big Pharma and the seduction of medical insurance. The cognitive
dissonance they evidence is really difficult to surmount. It seems to take a tragedy like watching your
2 yr old regress into autism to wake people up. Even getting cancer doesn't do it.
I had an interesting experience this week. A long time friend of mine called to tell me he is sick and
they dont know what is wrong with him. He is in his early 80's (I think) so you know they are already
writing him off. I told him to get his Vit D levels checked, warning him that the doctor would likely not
want to do it, but that he needed to persist. I also told him they would not know how to interpret the
results, use too low a standard and want him to come back for another office visit, for another fee,
before giving him the results. To make a long story short, he called to tell me that everything I warned
him about happened. He couldn't believe it. The doctor wanted another paid office visit, didn't know
why my friend wanted a Vit D test, the doctor never does them. He thought it strange. I thought he went
along with it because he is beginning to hear 'something' about Vit D now being important.
Now, after 40 yrs of listening to me, he finally believes what I tell him. With this kind of time span
needed to convince someone, a friend at that, we know what it will take to raise public ire. So we
have an issue on our hands.
I think we need to build coalitions with other alternative healing professionals. I think we need to
push for a perspective that says we all survive together or we sink separately. One thing that we
can all do is write letters to state legislators about our issues. Further, we can put out petitions in
our offices and/or encourage clients to write letters. This is easy stuff. But it will take more energy
to get the issues to rise up to mass public consciousness in a way that generates ire.
tanya

[Dale Moss]

Speaking of boycotting: when I reached That Age at which one signs up for Medicare in the U.S., I was offered the Drug option -- and strongly urged to take it. If you don't sign up for it from Day 1 and pay those monthly premiums even though you take no drugs, you are heavily penalized when & if you do need meds. (Interesting how the assumption here is that inevitably you'll need them.) The more enrollees, obviously, the happier the drug companies.
At any rate, my response was, No thanks. There's nothing drugs can do that I can't do better and more cheaply with homeopathy.
Peace,
Dale

[Dale Moss]

Tanya,
Folks like your elderly friend who may have difficulty getting a doc to perform certain tests should check out the Life Extension Foundation, which offers a host of blood tests, including some very advanced and sophisticated ones, without need of a doctor's prescription.
Peace,
Dale