Social Destruction or Conspiracy Theory?

Big Pharma, Medical and Food Industry and Media

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but who benefits most when the majority of our population is disease ridden?

If our population is overweight and develops diseases because of their obesity, and big pharma has solutions for these symptoms (but never a solution for the problem itself), they can continue to sell their high priced proprietary drugs to help the population manage their diseases.

Follow the money.

Then Big Pharma enlists the media to advertise their products on the big screen, TV and radio so you can ask your doctor about whatever ails you. The little purple pill for heartburn, a statin drug for high cholesterol, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, you name it – there’s a drug for everything.  Pay no attention to the side effects or the fact that some of these drugs will actually kill you prematurely. This is so much easier to swallow than a complete diet change to improve your health.

Back in the 1990s when the FDA began pushing low fat diets as a healthy alternative, I knew that fat was not the problem, it was sugar. I knew because my eastern European ancestors ate wholesome healthy meals with fats, and did not have diabetes, cancer or heart disease, maintained their slim physiques, and lived happy healthy lives well into their 80s and beyond. Also, many have investigated why the French, who consume fats and drink wine, stay slim and healthy their entire lives.

Even the medical community jumped on the band wagon and identified saturated fats as the enemy that must be eradicated. But to make these “so called healthy” low fat products taste better, the food industry added sugar wherever it could. So began our addiction and over consumption of sugar.

Now 20 plus years later, the United States is faced with the worst obesity, diabetes, cancer and heart disease rates of any industrialized nation on the globe. Why is this?

Is the Food and Drug Administration still pushing a diet that fattens cows and pigs for slaughter on the US population as a healthy diet? A diet that may have worked for our hunter gatherer forebearers who were constantly on the move but certainly not for our mostly sedentary office worker population.

We sit at the office, we sit in our cars to get to our office, then we sit at home to eat dinner and sit to watch TV or play video games. Is it any wonder our population is overweight? And most tragically that our children are overweight too?

Morning begins with sugary breakfast cereals and mucous causing dairy, or danish, donut or bagel that turns to sugar in the body within 30 minutes of ingesting, helping to overtax the pancreas. Or a foo foo coffee drink with gobs and gobs of sugary goodness to start your day.

Regular or diet sodas throughout the day to fill us up because we just can’t pull ourselves away from work also overtax the pancreas with too much sugar in the body.

New scientific research has shown that the human body’s insulin response to sugary sodas or diet sodas is nearly the same. And certain artificial sweeteners are worse than others for spiking insulin.

No lunch during the day or a salad with croutons and sugary salad dressing dumps more sugar into the body. Or even better, a quick trip to a fast food establishment to buy the least nutritionally complete meal ever!

Dinner of meat and potatoes, pasta salad, bread or roll, and very few veggies completes our evening meal.  Then a beer (or 6), a bag of potato chips or chocolate chip cookies in front of the TV or your computer before bed.

Sit, sit and sit all day every day.  Is it any wonder we are so overweight and the obesity rate in the United States is climbing?

But we can’t really blame big pharma for all of this. Let’s take a look at the food industry and what they have done.

Wheat has been so modified that it has no nutritional value and is just a filler that keeps our appetites and cravings up.

If you start to look at labels for bacon, mustard, even frozen chicken, you may be surprised to see that nearly everything has sugar added as a filler or preservative.

You must be vigilante to reduce the amount of sugar you put in your body, not just because sugar makes you fat but because sugar is a poison to the human body. The body reacts by creating inflammation to insulate the poison and try to prevent it from doing so much damage. This results in mucous in the gut, the sinuses and the chest.

And we can’t forget about the beer, tequila, scotch, whiskey, vodka, and other ads that push alcohol to make your feel better about yourself, your job, your life choices.

It’s always about the money but is there more? Here’s where the conspiracy theories abound.

What else could be the motivation for these actions by our medical community, the food industry, big pharma and the media?

Are these honest mistakes or planned steps toward causing a fully dependent American society with no free thought about their choices?

What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.

Whole30

Two weeks on the Whole30 and I have never felt better!

By eliminating alcohol, legumes, sugar, dairy, and all grains, my body is finally able to heal itself.

My asthma seems to be decreasing (meaning I need my inhalers less) and my sinus infections have diminished noticeably.

After sinus surgery 2.5 years ago, my battle with sinus infections began.  Rather than fix the problem I was having, the surgery gave me a new problem – MRSA.

After months of antibiotics and feeling like crap, I found a naturopathic doctor whose process supported my research into natural solutions to eliminate my symptoms.

Coupled with the Great Taste No Pain program to relieve digestive issues, my education into improving my life through natural solutions deepened and expanded.

Once I understood my symptoms were a result of inflammation, I began eliminating those things that increase inflammation like dairy and gluten.

Whole30 helped me understand the science behind the program and I have never been happier to discover such a wonderful process to eliminate my symptoms of inflammation.

Many diseases are a result of inflammation inside the body, like asthma, diabetes, arthritis, skin issues, and others.  If you eliminate the inflammation, you may eliminate the underlying diseases.

Stories abound about people quitting their diabetic and rheumatoid arthritis medications after eating the correct way for a period of time.

Obesity is on the rise not only among adults but most tragically among children. It’s high time we, as a society, find solutions to these pressing health issues.

The Whole30 program harkens back to the 1950s, before fast food, when meals were composed of real food, tasty and satisfying. Time to step back in time to take advantage of what’s good for us.

Remember the old adage from the 1970s – we are what we eat? This is still true.

The amazing thing about Whole30 is I don’t feel like I’m depriving myself of anything.  Eating nutritionally complete foods leaves me satiated and happy without any cravings.

And making high quality meals is fun and easy.  Starting with the best ingredients and experimenting with spices is very rewarding.

This should be called the WholeLife program as it is a complete life change to improve your body and mind.

I highly recommend this program to anyone suffering from obesity, depression, skin problems, asthma, diabetes (or pre-diabetes), arthritis, digestive issues, even heart disease and a host of other inflammation caused diseases.

Give Whole30 a try. It’s just 30 days that could quite possibly change your life.

Legacy systems still preoccupy IT people; training seen key for Part 11; from Validation Times, June 2002

Written by Judy Cziprian

I travelled to Southern California to attend a conference where I gathered the information for this article back in summer of 2002.

IRVINE, CA – Trying to make legacy computer systems compliant with FDA’s electronic signature/records regulations (21 CFR Part 11) is still the leading concern among information technology staffers in the drug industry, according to a recent survey. In the first quarter of 2002, 93 IT engineers, system owners and regulatory/compliance officers in the pharmaceutical industry were polled by AFAB Media Services, which publishes magazines on local area networks. The results, disclosed last month here at a Drug Information Assn. (DIA) meeting, show as follows:

• 37% stated that 25% of their systems were compliant with Part 11.

• 27% stated they have plans for compliance developed, but there was no internal funding.

• 46% either did not answer the question or had no plans for compliance.

The biggest industry concerns for these folks were making legacy systems compliant (43%), said Joseph Mardesich, principal consultant of QC2 Consulting, Albuquerque, NM. He said implementing e-signatures ranked at 15%, effective use of audit trails (15%), and managing data archival and retrieval (15%).

“The statistics are telling of the thousands of clinical investigative sites across the country and their implementation of electronic/computer systems to maintain and substantiate patient/subject data,” Mardesich said.

Primarily addressing Part 11’s applicability to clinical sites, Mardesich said that while many web-based service providers and data management firms are available to provide electronic subject record-keeping, trial documentation, and site record-keeping information, clinical sites must remember to meet the site record-keeping requirements as stated in 21 CFR Part 312.62: “…accurate and adequate case histories that record all observations and other data pertinent to the investigation…Case Histories include Case Report Forms (CRFs) and supporting data including…medical records, including for example physicians’ progress notes…individual’shospital charts, and nurses’ progress notes.”

While Part 11 is primarily of concern to manufacturers, Mardesich argued that when it comes to clinical trials, “it is the responsibility of the hospital/clinic to validate systems and ensure that these systems are working correctly.”

Mardesich said training is key, noting the regulations require training for all those “…who develop, maintain, or use electronic records/electronic signature systems.”

Mardesich said anyone involved with the computer system, database design or validation, and monitor and site staff who may enter data or interact with the system should be adequately trained in all aspects of data entry, data retrieval, electronic signature fields and processes for obtaining them.

He argued that training must occur before a single patient/subject’s data is entered. Training sessions can be scheduled anywhere and should be scheduled as often as necessary to ensure that all individuals who will be using the electronic systems are fully trained.

“People who are designing systems should train those using the systems,” he added.

All training sessions should be documented and proficiency in what was covered should be assessed for critical user training, i.e., passwords are not used unless successful test run has been accomplished. Specific training and certifications must be provided for anyone using E-signatures. Staff should be made fully aware of Part II requirements as they apply, added Mardesich.

Every study is different and documentation must be tailored. It is important to maintain an audit trail.

One of the biggest obstacles to implementing and utilizing electronic systems is lack of training. Make certain your site staff is properly and adequately trained. If your system is being designed for you, a complete understanding and analysis of the organizational processes and needs involved to successfully conduct clinical trials must be determined and carefully outlined prior to starting any programming or database work.

The biggest problem with Web-based systems are no testing or not enough testing of the software to fully validate that the system works all the way through the process from start to finish.