May 2008 Newsletter
Pain Research Institute www.healpain.net
Leading the World in Drug Free Pain Treatments that "Do No Harm"
Pain Research Warning: Medical Dictatorship
by Darrell Stoddard
Under the pretext of protecting the consumer, case law and legal precedents are now in place to enforce a medical dictatorship with the power to stop and destroy anyone who offers a health care service or product. Such laws guarantee that all new health care discoveries (questionable and also legitimate breakthroughs) will be silenced unless they are made by pharmaceutical companies.
If you offer a health care service or product or if you discover something new:
1. You can be ordered in lawsuits by the Federal Trade Commission to stop what you are doing and be fined an amount equal to or even greater than your total gross income.
2. All of your health claims will be called anecdotal and declared “false and misleading” with no burden of proof to show that they are false or misleading.
3. Even if you make disclaimers stating that your evidence is only anecdotal and not supported by double-blind placebo controlled studies, the FTC can reject your disclaimers, stop you from promoting your service or product, pronounce your guilt, and fine you for making medical claims.
4. The FTC will not need to show that even one person was harmed or receive one complaint to file a lawsuit and win a case against you.
5. Even if numerous medical doctors testify that your discovery, product, or service is effective and even if you have hundreds of witnesses declare they have been helped, you will still be found guilty and fined
Benjamin Rush a physician, Revolutionary war hero, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, predicted this would happen. He stated:
“Unless we put medical freedom into the constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize itself into an undercover dictatorship. To restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic.”
We have in the United States today an American Medical Association (AMA) dictatorship enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC has the power to sue, judge, sentence, and exact severe penalties, against anyone who has made health claims. If you make medical claims for any product or procedure, three Constitutional rights will be restricted or totally denied: 1. Freedom of speech. 2. The right to a jury trial. 3. The presumption of innocence before proven guilty.
1. In cases prosecuted by the FTC, the defendants freedom of speech will be restricted.. You have freedom of speech only if you have nothing to sell. The FTC will reject all medical claims as false and unsubstantiated unless the claims are supported by double-blind placebo controlled studies published in AMA medical journals. In my case, more than 18,000 documented treatments for pain were not acceptable evidence; even when the medical doctor, who was in charge of the clinic where I worked, stated that the treatments were successful 80% of the time.
2. There is no right to a jury trial under the Federal Trade Commission Act.
The right to a trial by a jury will always be denied. Such cases will be tried and heard only by federal judges who are appointed by and are employees of the U. S. Government. Such judges will always rule in favor of the FTC and the government. It is putting a wolf and coyotes in charge of the lambs and sheep when federal judges and FTC attorneys try a lawsuit without a jury. The FTC will always win and the defendants will always lose.
If you doubt the above, I’ll be happy to supply documentation. One defendant was fined 2 million dollars, another was fined 2.5 million, another was fined 2.75 million, another was fined 5 million, another was fined 22.5 million, and another was fined 23.3 million dollars. Each was found guilty by a federal judge without a jury trial.
3. In cases tried by the FTC, you are not innocent before being proven guilty. If you make claims, you are guilty, period. There is no presumption of innocence. The prosecution will not need to present any evidence that your claims are false. You will be found guilty just for making claims even if the claims are true. The evidence you present will make no difference. Even if you unknowingly violate the law about making medical claims, you will still be found guilty and fined. The fine can be equal to or even greater than the gross income of the goods sold.
To win these cases the FTC will not have to show that even one person was harmed. A bracelet company, whose product certainly harmed no one, was fined 22.5 million dollars. Your product can be as safe as a band-aid and pass every test for safety on the human skin that a band-aid has passed. You will still be pronounced guilty and fined.
On the other hand, the FTC will conveniently overlook many medical procedures (no matter how harmful they may be) if they are performed by medical doctors. Decompression spinal surgery for herniated disks or pinched nerves is just one example. There is zero evidence based on controlled blinded medical studies to support such surgery. See: http://www.healpain.net/articles/Unproven.html Blinded studies for surgical procedures have been done and the studies have shown that some common surgical procedures are no better than a placebo. For many more unproven practices overlooked by the FTC see: http://www.healpain.net/articles/MedPrac.html Medical doctors are most often spared from prosecution by the FTC even when much of what they do is unproven and unsubstantiated. Who is the FTC protecting – the public or medical doctors?
What would the reaction be if spinal surgeons were ordered to stop doing surgery and fined the amount of their gross income from surgery (because their surgery is unproven and unsubstantiated)? I received just such an order, judgment, and penalty (6 times more than my gross income for the claims I made). Spinal surgeons are not limited in any way.
Maverick medical doctors who deviate from approved AMA medical practices may also be targeted by the FTC to keep everyone in line.
The FTC has won every case they have filed against those who make medical claims.
Please tell me if this is not an absolute medical dictatorship. In the year 2008, we have in the United States, alive and well, the “Bastille of medical science.” Is this an overstatement of fact? Is the FTC/AMA alliance un-American and despotic? Please read http://www.healpain.net/articles/DictJudg.html and then answer my question. Darrell Stoddard E-mail: stoddard@healpain.net Phone: 801-377-3891
If our legislators passed a law restoring the constitutional right to a trial by jury, this one simple legislative act could limit the powers of the FTC/AMA and stop oppressive actions by the government. The wording of the legislation should read: “A trial by jury shall not be denied in any lawsuit wherein the Federal Trade Commission or a United States Government Agency is acting as plaintiff or defendant.”
Lawsuits prosecuted by the FTC are now heard only by federal judges who base their decisions on former legal precedents and case law. The government, will always, 100% of the time, win such cases. Attorneys will not file a case against the FTC or the government because they know they will lose.
A jury knows nothing about case law and legal precedents. With a trial by a jury, there is a chance for the decision to be based on evidence, justice and truth, not legal precedents, case law, and past history. When these facts sink in, we have to recognize the absolute brilliance and wisdom of our founding fathers. Without the right to a trial by a jury, we can not be free from the tyranny of an oppressive government in medical matters or anything else.
I do not want my criticism of the FTC/AMA to diminish the fact that modern medicine has saved my own life many times: at least once a year or more in the last few years. Pneumonia that was once a death sentence for older people, for me personally can now be completely cured in five days with one course of antibiotics.
I do not want anyone to forget that modern medicine has eliminated smallpox from the face of the earth, that our hospitals do not have wards full of iron lungs (one of which contained my cousin). If you were born after 1940, you have probably never seen the unbelievable goiters that we saw in the 30's. Huge tuberculosis sanitariums like the one I remember from my youth no longer exist in this country. I will receive cataract surgery this month. For this and many more miracles of modern medicine, we should thank God every day.
With this said, I cannot forget that the very thing modern medicine has told us for fifty years to prevent heart attacks (using margarine, shortening, and hydrogenated vegetable oils, known as trans fats instead of saturated animal fats) is precisely what causes heart attacks and strokes, including the death of our 44 year old son. (See: http://www.healpain.net/articles/No1Killer.html People need to know that the killer (trans fats) still exists in every grocery store and is used in almost all baked goods and all restaurants in the United States. The Harvard Medical School and New England Journal of medicine reports that vegetable trans fats (not saturated animal fats) cause between 72,000 and 228,000 heart attacks and strokes in the U.S. each year.
See: http://www.healpain.net/articles/Killer%20in%20GS.html
If it had been a war that killed and disabled so many people, it would be front page news and everyone would know about it. Most people do not even know what trans fats are because the media will not reveal that medical doctors have been so totally wrong, and doctors will not admit that they were wrong. We protect medical doctors almost the same as East Indians protect the sacred cows of India.
I cannot overlook the fact that medical doctors prescribe more than 2 million dollars worth of antidepressants in the United States each day. Such drugs have been linked to more than 1200 exaggerated acts of violence against self or others, including, mothers killing their children, Columbine High School and the shootings at Virginia Tech. A must see is documentation of the more than 1200 senseless acts of violence at: http://www.ssristories.com/index.php
How long would something stay on the shelves of health food stores with this record?
If the above is not bad enough, Dr. Malcolm Bowers of Yale, found in the late 90's that over 200,000 people yearly are hospitalized with antidepressant-induced manic psychosis. Most go unrecognized as medication-induced, remain un-hospitalized, and a threat to themselves and others. Did you get that? The very drugs prescribed to prevent depression, causes more than 200,000 cases of drug induced manic psychosis each year. For a better answer than harmful drugs for depression see: http://www.healpain.net/articles/depression.htm
Doctors may be the most reliable source of health information. Still they prescribe and defend the sale of more than 50 billion dollars worth of pain medications in the world each year. All such medications can and do lead to loss of function and death. Just one such drug, Vioxx recently recalled, killed an estimated 26,000 to 55,600 people (six to thirteen times as many people as the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq). This was just one pain medication. Because of new research on over the counter pain medications, the American Heart Association recently warned that NO pain medications should be used because they all can lead to heart attacks and strokes. Deaths from today's war in Iraq pale when compared to deaths from pain medication.
Side effects of pain medications (prescription and over the counter) include: gastro intestinal bleeding; liver and kidney failure; bowel and respiratory suppression, dependence, addiction, abuse, and eventually death from heart attacks and stroke. A common side effect of pain medication that is almost totally overlooked is loss of function. Millions of people loose the ability to walk and are limited to walkers or wheel chairs from long term use of pain medication.
It is hard to believe that modern medicine has not found better answers for pain than medications which are harmful, crippling, and fatal. Suppressing the pain signal with drugs (which is treating the symptom not the cause) is the only answer medical doctors have for pain because they do not know the underlying cause and physiology of pain. See: http://www.healpain.net/articles/NoClaim.html
I am committed to changing the way pain is treated and offer this challenge: Let me see 10 patients that are scheduled for decompression spinal surgery for pinched nerves or herniated disks – patients that have exhausted everything modern medicine has to offer for their pain without success. I will guarantee to make 6 of them better (without drugs or surgery) with one or two treatments. I would welcome the opportunity to do this on radio, TV, before a judge, a jury, or anyone else. The relief from pain can be immediate. If I can do this and if my methods were applied nationwide, it would reduce health care costs more than 36 billion dollars a year.
To Your Good Health and a Life Free of Pain,
Darrell Stoddard, Founder – Pain Research Institute www.healpain.net
Author, Pain Free for Life, Email: stoddard@healpain.net Phone 801-377-3891,
266 East 3200 North, Provo, UT 84604 U.S.A.
I was fined $112,617.20 by the United States Treasury after we were told by an FTC attorney that there would be no financial penalty. No evidence was presented that my claims were false. My freedom of speech to make health claims was restricted. There was no presumption of innocence before being judged guilty. It was not possible for me to be heard by a judge or a jury, and it is not possible for me now to appeal the judgment. See: http://www.healpain.net/articles/DictJudg.html
More than two years after we stopped airing the infomercial in which I made the medical claims and more than two years after I made a concerted effort to comply with every aspect of the law regarding medical claims, FTC attorney Edward Glennon informed us that there was nothing I could do to be in compliance with the law, then I was fined. Stopping those who make claims and obtaining compliance is not enough. Violators must be destroyed.
Is there any question that “power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely”? Why should we be concerned about a medical dictatorship even when it is benevolent? The New England Journal of Medicine traces the digression of German society from medical doctors who were given more power than they should have had, down to the abject horrors of the Nazi Holocaust. Is this hard to believe? See: Science Under Dictatorship (NEJM, 1949). I've summarized the NEJM article as a footnote below if anyone is interested.
The judgment and the fine I received is my problem. The power of the FTC to silence new discoveries and destroy anyone who makes health claims, limits the medical freedom of everyone. Thomas Jefferson said: "If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as the souls who live under tyranny."
Efforts were made to stop Chiropractors several years ago. Under the medical dictatorship that we have today and without a jury trial, Chiropractors would loose their right to practice. Semmelweis, Lister, Harvey, Lind, Jenner, and Fleming** would be rejected and silenced (as they were in their day). Times have changed but human nature has not.
With a trial by jury, legitimate health claims can be heard, and we can still be protected from those who are self-deceived and from those who make deceptive, fraudulent, or dangerous health claims.
If you want to restore our constitutional rights and if want to limit the unbridled power of the FTC to control everything in heath care, ask the congressmen from your state to pass a law returning the Constitutional right of a trial by jury. To do this, you can find the E-mail addresses of your legislators by going to http://www.visi.com/juan/congress The wording of the law should read: “A trial by jury shall not be denied in any lawsuit wherein the Federal Trade Commission or a United States Government Agency is acting as plaintiff or defendant.”
Please forward this message to as many people as possible. "Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, they are the only ones who ever have." Margaret Mead
**Footnote: Resistance to New Ideas:
By John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Molecular and Cell Biology
In the early 1950s, I had a visit in our lab from Professor Sir Howard Florey of Oxford University, a co-winner of the Nobel Award for the discovery of the use of penicillin. Dr. Florey wanted to arrange to have Dr. Gervase Mills of his staff spend several months in our laboratory to learn ultracentrifuge lipoprotein techniques. In commiserating about the resistance to new ideas, Professor Florey said (as nearly as I can recall his words):
"Let me tell you about a good one ...On the wall above my desk is a framed copy of a letter from the Surgeon- General of the U.S. Army during World War Two. We had offered to share our limited supply of penicillin with the U.S. Army, in appreciation for your country's participation in the war. The Surgeon-General's letter was instructing field offices that under no circumstances should this new stuff called penicillin be used in the treatment of any United States' military casualties!" And Professor Florey added, "So I know something about resistance to new ideas."
(Penicillin was discovered by Sir Howard Florey and Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928. The U.S. entered World War Two in 1941. Fleming and Florey received the Nobel Prize for penicillin in 1945. It took 17 years before penicillin was widely accepted.)
* Footnote: Summary (by Darrell Stoddard) of Science Under Dictatorship,
New England Journal of Medicine, 1949
It seems preposterous and will be difficult for all people to face the fact that the Nazi Holocaust began with medical doctors who were given more power than they should have had. The power led from doctors who had absolute control of all things medical to doctors who decided what lives should be saved and which lives were not worth saving. The power then digressed to decisions about the lives of those who were considered unfit to live and eventually to decisions about whole classes of people they felt had no right to exist. The next step was that such people should be mercifully killed for the good of everyone. Thus a whole nation was led carefully down to the unspeakable hell of the systematic annihilation of millions of people in the death camps of Dachau, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka. The prospects of such a horror happening again are no less frightening than that it happened at all. Our rights have slipped imperceptibly away. We now have firmly entrenched in the United States the first step of the same medical tyranny that existed in Nazi Germany.
"The same vehemence that led Galileo to be condemned by the Church for his theories, in spite of scientifically demonstrable facts, is now being used by medicine to reject any thesis that is contrary to its own dogmas." -- Olivier Clerc
Power Disease
"There exists a group of people in the world that have a disease. I call it the "power disease." They want to rule and control other people. They are a more dangerous plague than cancer, pneumonia, bubonic plague, tuberculosis, and heart disease put together."
- John Gofman, M.D., Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Molecular and Cell Biology
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