How many plants are being unnecessarily synthesized and sold over the counter as wonder drugs to an unsuspecting public? We ask that question in our book MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: The $ickness Industry, Big Pharma and Suppressed Cures.
The basis of many a drug or medicine, of course, is a plant or plants. These plants range from herbs, flowers, roots and leaves to common and uncommon weeds.
According to one (unconfirmed) source, there are 120 or more important drugs currently in use that have been sourced from plants. These drugs include the likes of morphine, camphor, papain, hesperidin, quinine, codein, ephedrine, strychnine and thymol.
The plant chemical quinine is another example of a plant that has been synthesized by lab technicians; the resulting chemical drug is used to treat malaria – just as the natural extract from the bark of the tree it originally came from was once used.
The following excerpt from Medical Industrial Complex addresses this very issue:
Remember, the pharmaceutical companies cannot patent anything that occurs organically in nature. So there’s no incentive for them to harvest, develop and sell herbs, leaves or any other plants. Far more profitable to synthesize or copy those plants, patent the resulting drugs and medicines, and then sell them.
What if those patented drugs and medicines are less effective in the treatment of diseases and illnesses than the actual plants they are derived from? Think of the cost-savings – not to mention the health benefits to be gained by ingesting or applying natural substances as opposed to toxic chemicals.
Has that occurred to anyone else?
It occurred to us during our research for this book when someone very close to us – let’s call him Mr X – sought treatment for the very common solar keratosis, or sunspots, at a local skin clinic. Mr X was attracted by the clinic’s advertised use of a new drug, Picato, which is an extract of milkweed – also known as radium weed and cancer weed.
Said to work considerably faster than other topical medications, dosing is completed in just two to three days (compared to two to four weeks for competitive products). As you can imagine, the skin’s reaction to such a powerful medication is quite dramatic. Users suffer drastic reddening of the skin and often painful blisters.
Turns out the Picato treatment is very expensive – and quite toxic. Like the better known and more widely used Efudex treatment (for sunspots), Picato is potentially harmful to the liver and therefore the recommended dosage per treatment is wisely limited.
The logic put forward by the skin specialists concerned is the alternative (to Picato or Efudex) could be fatal. They refer of course to deadly melanoma or skin cancer.
That logic’s hard to argue with. But Mr X wondered why he couldn’t simply use milkweed to treat his sunspots. So he did some research.
Turns out milkweed in its natural form is very effective for treating sunspots and potential skin cancers. Users simply break the stem of the plant and apply the milky sap to the skin.
Of course, plants can be toxic, too, and milkweed’s no exception – depending on the variety. For starters, like Picato and Efudex, it must not come into contact with the eyes.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) warns that “Milkweed may be toxic when taken internally.” On its website, USDA reports that Native Americans used milkweed as a food source, and several tribes used the sap to remove warts, for ringworm, and for bee stings.
However, it was a Daily Mail article that clinched it for Mr X. Dated January 26, 2011, the article quotes scientists who claimed that the sap from milkweed “can ‘kill’ certain types of cancer cells” and that “it works on non-melanoma skin cancers”.
The article states, “For the first time a team of scientists in Australia has carried out a clinical study of sap from Euphorbia peplus (milkweed), which is related to Euphorbia plants grown in gardens in the UK…The study of 36 patients with a total of 48 non-melanoma lesions” found that “After only one month 41 of 48 cancers had completely gone”.
Mr X now treats his sunspots with milkweed, which he grows in his garden. Last we heard he’s still alive and well!
That said, the Mr X case study was hardly scientific and therefore should not be used as a blueprint for managing the treatment of sunspots should you have any. As always, our advice must be: Consult your doctor first.
However, it does illustrate the point we were trying to make – that we suspect there are plants, vitamins (à la Vitamin C) and minerals out there that are safer, more effective and a whole heap cheaper than the toxic, synthesized alternatives being developed and marketed by the pharmaceutical companies.
If we are even half right then we’d suggest that would mean natural medicine and alternative treatments are worth exploring, right?
You have been reading an excerpt from Medical Industrial Complex. The book is available via Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/MEDICAL-INDUSTRIAL-COMPLEX-Suppressed-Underground-ebook/dp/B00Y8Y3TUM/
*************************************************************
Morcan Books & Films 