A recurring theme in my work is that Big Brother and big business conspire against the interests of ordinary citizens in countless ways. And just last week, I discovered another example.
An article in a respected scientific journal confirmed what researchers have known for decades: High-dose vitamin C injections boost the effectiveness of traditional cancer therapies.
The mainstream media acted surprised. But this is old news: In the 1970s, two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling published research linking vitamin C injections to the shrinkage of malignant tumors.
You might think that the Food and Drug Administration – the agency set up to “protect” us from dangerous or ineffective drugs – would have immediately ordered clinical tests to confirm the discovery. Quite the opposite: After vigorous lobbying by the pharmaceutical industry, the FDA warned companies that sold vitamin C that they couldn’t claim health benefits for their supplements.
Subsequent clinical trials “proved” that vitamin C was of no benefit in cancer treatments. But the trials were for vitamin C administered orally, rather than by injection, and the FDA ignored this crucial difference. So, for the last 30-plus years, official government policy has been that vitamin C isn’t an effective cancer therapy.
Let me be clear: I’m not criticizing pharmaceutical companies. Their innovations have saved literally millions of lives. I don’t even blame them for downplaying the effectiveness of vitamin C. That’s to be expected – any business will focus on the benefits of its products and the disadvantages of its competition. Why should pharmaceutical companies endorse a substance from which they can’t profit and which they can't patent?
No, the problem is when a business – or an entire industry – manipulates the government to do its bidding. That’s what happened here. And it’s why it has taken 30-plus years to confirm the result of Linus Pauling’s pioneering cancer research.
Of course, it’s not just in medicine where the unholy alliance of big government and big business raises its head. The security precautions we’re forced to endure when we travel by air are another example. Research has shown that the full-body scanners deployed at hundreds of US airports are virtually useless. They can’t detect plastic explosives. They can’t even reliably detect guns.
We can thank former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff for the millions of dollars spent on this ineffective technology. After Chertoff left “public service,” he started his own lobbying company. An early client was the manufacturer of the scanning devices. Mining the rich network of contacts he had built during his years as a bureaucrat, Chertoff persuaded the Transportation Security Agency to install the devices in airports nationwide.
The government’s reaction to the 2008-2009 financial crisis is another example. The feds funneled hundreds of billions of dollars to politically connected companies, such as insurance giant AIG. This company bet billions of dollars on complex financial derivatives that came unwound in the crisis. AIG lost some of the bets, which led to its collapse. But thanks to the bailout, AIG’s counterparties in its derivative deals got paid in full.
Guess who paid the bill? American taxpayers, that’s who.
The bottom line is that big government and big business view you as a cow to be milked. Whether it’s cancer treatment, airline security, or government bailouts, the results are always the same. Politically connected businesses win. You lose.
There’s only one way the system will ever change. And that’s to force free-market solutions to the forefront.
For instance, without an FDA, consumers could choose which anti-cancer therapies they wish to employ. Sure, there would be scam artists pushing dubious treatments. But they would be quickly discredited when proven ineffective.
If we left airport security up to the airlines that actually transport us, I suspect full-body scanners would disappear the next day. The airlines would be forced to employ security measures that are actually effective. Any airline that failed to do so would quickly go out of business if a security breach led to loss of life.
How likely, do you think, is it that any of these changes will actually happen? Not very likely at all, unfortunately. The Big Brother/big business alliance is alive and well, and I see no sign that its influence is waning.
Is this a system you want to rely upon? I don’t. That’s why I have legal residence in a friendly country where I can obtain free-market and unpoliticized medical treatment. It’s also why I try to avoid domestic air travel and have reduced my exposure to the US financial system to the bare minimum.
Shouldn’t you do the same?
Mark Nestmann
Nestmann.com
A Proven Way to Legally Avoid FATCA
On July 1, 2014, the nasty regulations of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act – more commonly known as FATCA – will take full effect.
It ends financial privacy for Americans living, working, and doing business overseas once and for all.
It turns all financial companies – most importantly banks – into spies for the IRS.
And, worst of all, there’s no legal way to avoid it…
Well, almost no way.
There is still a mouse hole-sized window of opportunity to keep some of your assets totally private.
And it doesn’t matter whether you want to keep $5,000, $50,000, or even $5 million away from the IRS’s “Eye of Sauron.”
Click here for all the details (Scroll down a bit to “bonus #2” for all the details)
