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The new Business of generating patients and making you feel sick [image: diagnosis, doctors, medical profession, free checkup camps, medical examination, sickness merchants.] *Reminiscent of Medici and charlatans of medieval times, sickness merchants today actually go out hunting for patients through ‘free’ checkup camps. As a result, doctors are made to believe that a healthy person is one who has not yet been thoroughly examined!* The title of this article is from the German book *“The Disease Inventors”* by Jörg Blech, original in German, translated by my friend, Herbert Nehrlich, a family physician in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, especially for my use. The contents of this article rely on that translation. Like the “free” check up camps in India, there were traveling healers roaming the countryside in Germany. They also do not ask for any payment. They used to come in their vehicles stopping in public squares or churchyards. They lure people into their vans and examine them thoroughly only to release many of them as patients! The gleaming bone-white Osteoporosis Research Mobile went on its maiden voyage in the summer of 2002, from Hamburg to Erfurt, through much of Germany. Women over 60 were urged to have a thorough preventive check-up done, with bone density measurement included. With this method, the aim is to find and identify those female citizens, who suffer from age-related deterioration of the bone structure: the so-called Osteoporosis. This search for sick women is not entirely devoid of self-interest. It is sponsored by a foundation and by fourteen pharmaceutical companies and makers of medical equipment and products. Men were not spared, either. Workers from Pfizer crisscrossed the country, visiting about 30 cities in their blue-white truck. “The Healthy Man” is displayed on the truck in large letters. The truck’s platform can be extended so that the space on the ground floor is tripled in size. Inside are five examination cubicles as well as an “information bar”. There, the assessment of visitors and passers-by is done inside of 10 minutes. Medically trained personnel measure cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure and weight. “If the man doesn’t come in for his check-up then the check-up must visit the man”, so says Pfizer. *Near a large golf tournament, for example, 6,297 normal men were processed through the diagnostic vehicle. And, see the result: half of the men showed increased blood pressure and in 44% the blood test results were outside of normal limits*. The Osteoporosis Mobile and the Pfizer Truck seem like messengers for a medical profession that wants to permeate all of society. *Reminiscent of Medici and charlatans of medieval times, sickness merchants today actually go out hunting for patients*. The fact that they apparently find sick people everywhere affirms the nature of the situation. While it is true that Germans today are quite alert and long-lived, as never before in their history, they do not fit into the norms of modern medicine. *The medical risk factors have been deliberately set so that everyone can potentially be sick*. And it works like this: A laboratory test is performed on a large number of healthy people, for example on blood donors, military recruits or sport students. The next step is the calculation of the average of all the measured results. The 95% in the middle are then arbitrarily declared ‘Normal Value’ and the 5% outside of this –up or down - are declared “conspicuous”, even though all subjects were healthy people. It follows that one can label all of mankind as ill: If always 5% of a population shows an abnormal lab value then every subsequent testing raises the number of “suspects”. After 20 measurements only 36% of the subjects will be regarded as healthy. And, after 100 procedures this number shrinks to less than 1%. Doctors deduced from this a malicious result: *A healthy person is one who has not yet been thoroughly examined!* Some risk factors, however, were set from the outset in such a way that not 5% but large segments of the population are instantly affected. Take cholesterol, where several years ago in Germany, the margins were determined so that people with ‘normal’ values were in the minority and those with abnormal values were in the majority. How can this be? A large study of one lakh Bavarians resulted in an average cholesterol value of 260 mg/dl. The “National Cholesterol Initiative”, a private interest group of 13 medical professors, nevertheless recommended in 1990 an upper limit of 200 and was able to have this accepted. The doctors of this “Cholesterol Initiative” represent lobbying groups, among them the industry-friendly “German League against Blood Pressure” as well as the “Lipid League” and the “German Society for Lab Medicine”. In a “strategic paper”, they demanded an aggressive expansion of the diagnosis. “Every doctor ought to know the cholesterol values of his patients”. Through the dedication of financially interested medics, the majority of the German population has been declared risk patients. In the 30–39 year age group, according to the arbitrary upper limit, 68% of men and 56% of women displayed abnormally high cholesterol. In the 50–59 year age group this rises to 84% for the men and 93% for the women. The absurd consequences of such margin limits: The patients alleged to be at risk, feel healthy and fit. The Viennese satirist Karl Kraus is right: *“The DIAGNOSIS is one of the most common diseases”.* Pre-occupation with cholesterol values is widespread, promoted and encouraged vigorously by certain doctors and institutions because of the immense profits that can be earned. One example: the National Association of Practicing Cardiologists, together with margarine manufacturer Becel and pharmaceutical company Pfizer, as well as Roche Diagnostics regularly undertake “Health Initiatives” which are designed to persuade many people to have their cholesterol tested. In a brochure, available to anyone visiting a pharmacy, it states: “Starting at age 30, everyone ought to know his cholesterol level and have it re-tested every two years.” The motto is: An increased cholesterol level is one of the most important risk factors for heart and circulatory diseases. The “New Pharmacy Journal” designates cholesterol as the *“TIME BOMB” for your health. Yet, this wax-like substance is an essential part of life; it is needed in large amounts by the brain, which consists of 10–20% cholesterol (dry substance). Most cells of the organism can manufacture cholesterol if it is lacking in the food, which is fortunate, as without this devilish molecule the cells would be doomed.* *However, many people become fearful of facing an early fatal heart attack at the mere mention of the word cholesterol*. It spoils the breakfast egg for many and causes concern at the thought of buttering their bread rolls and having a piece of sausage. Driven by a guilty conscience, over one million people have had their cholesterol tested in 2001 as part of a “Health Initiative”. Not unexpectedly, over half of the ones tested showed values above the arbitrarily set figure of 200. The participating doctors and companies of this “Health Initiative” reap giant dividends, robbing the hapless patients across the globe. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
