Good and Bad Christmas News

December 2014

In my newsletter from September 2014 I mentioned Professor Peter Gøtzsche´s revealing book Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How big pharma has corrupted healthcare. Recently he received an award for his book from the British Medical Association. Here is a quotation from a BMC reviewer:

”I would say that this book should be compulsory reading for medical students and junior doctors to make them aware of these issues”

You can read more about that on ”Mad in America” which also includes a 15 minutes talk by Professsor Gøtzsche. (There are a few silence interruptions, but stay on and listen to the full talk)

For those who haven´t read his book I have made a table showing the types of crimes committed by the drug companies and their fines according to Peter Gøtzsche:

And the drug industries continue with their criminal activity. Every other year Access to Medicine Index publishes a detailed report about the activities of the drug companies, both the positive and the negative ones. In the most recent report (page 58) you can read the following:

”18 out of 20 companies were the subject of settlements or fines for corrupt behaviour, unethical marketing or breaches of competition law. Collectively, companies were found to have been accountable for almost 100 separate breaches…The majority of these (89%) concerned improper marketing, bribery and corruption”

Please note that this regards only the two recent years. Figure 22 on page 62 shows that the worst crimes are committed by Pfizer, Sanofi, Bayer and Merck.

A book to recommend.

More and more people have realized that the official dietary advice to avoid saturated fat is a dangerous myth built on pure speculation. If you are stil in doubt. then read Nina Teicholz´ book The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a,Healthy Diet. This book has been named in Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Kirkus Reviews as one of the best non-fiction books of 2014!

A video to reommend.

In my October 2013 newsletter I told you about the brilliant Australian television program ”Heart of the Matter” produced by Maryann Demasi and in May 2014 why ABC television drew back the program because of irrelevant objections from various ”authorities”. But Demasi hasn´t given up. A month ago a new video, ”Low-Carb Diet; Fact or Fiction?” produced by her was published by ABC and it is still available!