Lessons from the big city

Dear Editors,

This is a warning to people who think Durango is too expensive. I lived in Durango for about 2½ years before recently moving to Cincinnati, Ohio. I adore the town of Durango and couldn’t think of a better place for me and my family to live. Unfortunately, we thought that with what employers pay and landlords charge that we couldn’t afford that happy lifestyle. So, we packed up and moved. 

Biggest mistake of my life.

Lest you forget what a big city is like, let me familiarize you once again. 

It is a BIG city. And unless you live close to work, you are spending a lot of money on gas. The transit system takes too long to get to and fro because it is a BIG city. In Durango, how long does it really take to get across town? 

In Cincinnati, I worry about my family’s safety. The doors are always locked at my house and in my car. I cannot go outside and just go for a walk. I have to drive to a park to be able to do that ... and I am the only one there. I have heard so many times that they “don’t like to be outdoors.” What?? How do you not like to be outside?? 

Then, if you are in the city don’t forget there is all sorts of shopping. It is very easy to spend money. 

People in Durango complain about the lack of conveniences, but don’t forget you are not wasting your hard-earned money.  I miss the mountains, trees and clean air.  

So, please take into consideration what moving will cost you monetarily and emotionally. Hopefully we will be returning sometime soon. And if anyone has a job opening out there … let me know.

- Jennifer Rawls-Glover, via e-mail  

Death by medicine

Dear Editors,

Following doctor’s orders has become synonymous with danger. Every year, FDA-approved drugs kill twice

as many people as the total number of U.S. deaths from the Vietnam War. Death by medicine flourishes because deceit, not science, governs a doctor’s prescribing habits. As an ex-drug chemist, I witnessed this first-hand.

This deceit comes in many forms. Medical ghostwriting and checkbook science are the most prominent.

Doctors rely on peer-reviewed medical journals to learn about prescription drugs. These journals include theLancet,British Medical Journal,New England Journal of Medicineand theJournal of the American Medical Association. It is assumed that these professional journals offer the hard science behind any given drug. This assumption is wrong. Medical journals can’t be trusted thanks to medical ghost writing.

Medical ghostwriting is the practice of hiring PhDs to crank out drug reports that hype benefits and hide negative side effects. Once complete, drug companies recruit doctors to put their name on the report as authors. These reports are then published in the above mentioned medical journals. The carrot for this deceitful practice is money and prestige. Ghostwriters can receive up to $20,000 per report. Doctors receive prestige from having been published. Ultimately, patients get bad drugs disguised as good medicine.

As deplorable as medical ghostwriting sounds, it is more common than you think. The world’s most influential medical journal, theNew England Journal of Medicine, has admitted that 50 percent of their drug articles are ghostwritten.

The editor of theBritish Journal of Medicine has acknowledged that medical ghostwriting has become a serious problem for his publication: “We are being hoodwinked by the drug companies. The articles come in with doctors’ names on them, and we often find some of them have little or no idea about what they have written.” Consider the testimony from deputy editor of The Journal of the American Medical Association: “This (journal articles) is all about bypassing science. Medicine is becoming a sort of Cloud Cuckoo Land, where doctors don’t know what papers they can trust in the journals, and the public doesn’t want to believe.”

Other weapons of mass deception exist – checkbook science. As defined by Diana Zuckerman, PhD, checkbook science is research intended not to expand knowledge or to benefit humanity, but instead to sell drugs. It has stolen the very soul of university research, scientific method and the patients who serve as human subjects.

Drug companies use checkbook science to sponsor their own drug research via the halls of academia and government institutions. Money is used to design their own studies, interpret the results and stuff negative data under the drug-rug. The drug-rug is a behemoth rug. It has to be. A myriad of negative drug data exists.

Like medical ghostwriting, checkbook science is more common than you think. A third of academic professors have personal financial ties to drug makers. Called the “Stealth Merger” by the LA Times, top scientists at the National Institutes of Health also collect paychecks and stock options from the drug industry. This has been going on for over 20 years. Known as the Bayh-Dole Act, U.S law was amended in 1980 to allow for these flagrant conflicts of interest.

This calculated deceit is scandalous. Hopefully the line at the pharmaceutical trough gets shorter as this scandal becomes public. Though, drug makers have an insurance policy for this – direct-to-consumer advertising. The oft repeated “ask your doctor” ensures that the herd instinctively embraces drugs, drugs and more drugs.  

Understanding medical ghost writing and checkbook science explains why medical doctors have been hypnotized into drug worship – they only see the positive. It also explains why modern medicine is more deadly and lucrative than war – the danger has been silenced with the pen and money.

Drug companies do not take responsibility for the wonton prescription drug deceit. Instead, victims have been made invisible - dehumanized. They are not recognized as children, or men with significant contribution to society. Their deaths are simply shrugged off and attributed to sickness or aging.

Those who profit from prescription drugs should hold some sort of record for having the most reckless disregard for human life. If the deceit continues the prescription drug leviathan will silently kill more people than Napalm dropped on Vietnamese villages.

- Shane Ellison,via e-mail

The right questions

(Editors’ note: The following letter was submitted in reference to last week’s story, “A Shooter in the Great War,” by John Rehorn.)

Dear Mr. Rehorn,

Thank you for the wonderful piece on my uncle, Lawrence Craig.

He is truly an exceptional man and a fine human being. You learned things about his war experience that none of his family knew – because he wouldn’t tell us! I guess he just needed someone to ask the right way.

We all appreciate your efforts.

– Craig Cummins, via e-mail