The Great American Con Game:

“Health” Care in America

Rick Malter, Ph.D.

www.malterinstitute.org

rickmind@cableone.net

© 2008

America’s “health” care system is full of contradictions. On the one hand, emergency medicine often performs outstanding life saving actions with some people. Organ transplants frequently seem miraculous. On the other hand, a great deal of medical and psychiatric practice seems to be mindless and robotic as one prescription after another is written to “treat” elusive diseases and vague diagnoses. Much of medical practice and “health” care today seems to be offered with little evidence of sound scientific data or thinking that makes any sense. There seems to be little understanding of what is really occurring with the health problems and concerns of people. Many doctors and psychiatrists practice as if they were wearing blindfolds and earplugs. They really don’t see their patients and they don’t listen to them. These health care professionals practice as if they were programmed to operate on a reflex level simply to write prescriptions for powerful and toxic drugs and medications based on the flimsiest “diagnosis.” Mindlessly writing prescriptions for toxic and dangerous drugs has become the “standard of care” in medical and psychiatric practice as if these toxic and dangerous drugs really had scientific data supporting them.

The FDA has been maneuvering to re-define dietary supplements as "drugs" so the FDA can take over total control of supplements that most of us use for maintaining good health. By this semantic change, they hope to place dietary supplements entirely within "medical" practice. The FDA historically has used its semantic manipulations to create new laws without Congressional oversight and action. “Only a drug can cure, prevent, or treat a disease” has been the watchword of the FDA to protect the market for drug companies. This statement is patently untrue, but it serves as one of the primary foundation pieces for the health care con game. For too many years, Congress has allowed the FDA to act as a rogue federal agency to set health policies like this that assure high profits for drug companies at the expense of people's health. One way they do this is to knock out competition from dietary supplements by re-defining them as "medical." Another agenda of the FDA is to push the passage of highly restrictive CODEX standards for limiting the dosage of vitamins, minerals, and herbs to such low levels as to render these supplements virtually useless for maintaining good health. CODEX is on an international level and would be tied to World Trade Organization (WTO) policies.

The number of vaccines that are either mandated for children or strongly recommended has increased dramatically over the past two decades as rates of autism have substantially increased during the same time period. The CDC in its infinite wisdom, grandiosity, and just plain blatant corruption keeps mandating more and more vaccines with only the flimsiest of scientific data to support such dangerous “health” policies. Congress and state legislators buy into this health care con game by passing legislation to mandate vaccinations supposedly in order to “protect” the public health. Press releases and the media support and participate in this great American con game by putting out “news” reports lending credence to this con game.

In the great American con game involving health, disease, and people’s well being, it is money, profits, power, prestige, and insatiable greed that trump everything else. Caring, honesty, integrity, safety, effectiveness, and real science are glaringly absent. Disease mongering is an essential part of this incredibly corrupt system that is presented to the public and politicians as “health” care. Inventing diseases and using scare tactics are integral components of this con game. The safety and effectiveness of drugs and vaccines are grossly exaggerated while anything related to nutrition is viciously and maliciously attacked as “quackery,” a hoax, a waste of time and money, and lacking in any “scientific” support. Junk science is often used to get FDA approval of dangerous and toxic drugs while junk science is used to discredit nutrition and dietary supplement products. The news media is complicit in touting the results of junk science in medicine and psychiatry and playing a significant role in the great American con game.

“Bio-psychiatry” has taken over the entire mental health field with the expanded DSM series of diagnostic manuals. In my view, over the past 40 years, the development of the psychiatric diagnostic manuals -- the DSM-III and then the DSM-IV -- has resulted in a "dumbing down" of mental health diagnosis from a highly sophisticated diagnostic system that was developed right after World War II, primarily by clinical psychologists. This "dumbing down" diagnostic process has produced what I call the "Psychiatric Thinking Disorder" (PTD) that leads to mindlessly prescribing extremely dangerous and toxic drugs to be given to young children. There is also a strong grandiosity associated with this thinking disorder. As for child bipolar disorder and the "Psychiatric Thinking Disorder," it's sometimes hard to tell which psychiatrists and Medical Schools, Universities, and Hospitals are just blatantly corrupt and evil, and which ones are just grandiose, believing that they are doing valid diagnoses of children's “psychiatric” problems.

In the great American con game, more government regulation of dietary supplements is sold as an urgent necessity in order to “protect” the public health from being conned by supplement manufacturers, health food stores, and, of course, non-medical health practitioners. The medical “standard of care” is the gospel that is used to enforce drug and vaccine treatments and other toxic and dangerous medical practices. Intimidation and threats are used to enforce compliance with these ineffective and/or dangerous practices. Legislation by ignorant and/or corrupt politicians is passed in order to put teeth into these coercive fascist marketing practices to sell more and more dangerous toxic drugs, vaccines, and other risky medical interventions. “Evidence based” medicine is the latest term to be added to the public relations arsenal of the great American con game. As politicians argue about what needs to be done to deal with problems in the health/disease care system, “evidence based” medicine is sure to be thrown into the mix.

Scott McClellan’s new book What Happened about the Bush administration and the selling of the Iraq war is quite revealing about how politics involves the use of deception, manipulation, and deceit to get what is wanted no matter what the costs are in lives lost or destroyed. What he reveals about the inside view of politics in Washington, D.C. can also be applied to the great American con game related to the health and disease system. Until the domination of the big drug companies over the American Health/ Disease system enterprise is broken, we will continue to see millions of Americans victimized by an incredibly corrupt and dangerous system. Not only does this great American con game take their money, but this con game often poisons them, taking a horrific toll on their health and, in hundreds of thousands of cases, even their lives. Congress and state legislatures continuously legitimize this con game and empower it with unwarranted legal status.

Fortunately, the internet provides some truthful information and resources that the public is able to use to avoid being taken in by this massive health/disease care con game. Medical doctors like Russell Blaylock, MD, a neuro-surgeon, write highly informative health newsletters that shatter the cholesterol myths and explain the dangers of statin drugs; he also clearly explains the fraud and the dangers of vaccines. Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, publishes a highly informative health newsletter www.NaturalNews.com that comprehensively exposes the junk science, fraud, and disease-mongering that permeate allopathic medicine and psychiatry. Many other resources are now available to help break up the great American con game that is marketed as our “health” care system. However, it is important to be aware that some on line internet health and medical web pages appear to be fronts for the drug companies in their aggressive marketing strategies to sell their toxic and dangerous drugs and vaccines. Medline and Web MD appear to be fronts for drug marketing. However, some good information about diseases and health disorders may be obtained by selectively reading these web pages. The health consumer must be extremely vigilant in obtaining health related information. When government health agencies and politicians claim to be interested in pushing an agenda or piece of legislation to “protect” the public health, the word “protect,” especially in regard to mandated policies, should be a red flag that the coercive power of the government is going to be used to force public acceptance of dangerous drugs and vaccines. This is another example of drug company profits trumping anything else related to maintaining good health with healthy food, dietary supplements, and exercise.