Joseph Herrin (09-11-09)
I want to call your attention to an absurdity of staggering dimensions. I want to draw your focus to a startling abnormality. There is something so out of skew, so overemphasized and prevalent in American society today (and in all other nations who conform to the same pattern), that a rational man who is unaccustomed to it would immediately be alarmed. Yet this aspect of our society is so ubiquitous, and it has been present for such a length of time, that most people do not even notice it, though it is all around them.
What I am speaking of is America’s dependence upon, addiction to, and appetite for, drugs, pills, or pharmaceutical products. Consider for a moment how many drug stores there are in any city in America. Any town of at least 10,000 citizens is bound to have several drug stores, such as Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, Eckerd’s, Rexall, etc.. Then there are the department stores and grocery stores that sell drugs, many of which have in-house pharmacies that are fully staffed.
The website www.drugs.com provides information on more than 24,000 prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Government statistics from the year 2004 show that more than 91% of seniors in America rely upon prescription drugs, while 61% of non-elderly adults take one or more prescription medications. These numbers are bound to be higher now that Medicaid is paying for prescription medications. Government statistics show that Americans spent over $200 billion dollars on prescriptions in the year 2005.
Pharmaceutical companies are the most profitable in the world. One of the reasons for this is that there is no real relationship between the cost of a prescription drug and the cost of manufacturing. The policy for setting drug prices is “whatever the market will bear.” People are more willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money for drugs they are convinced by their doctors are necessary for their continued life and health, than for non-essentials, and the drug companies have capitalized on this knowledge. In 2002 a report came out relating the cost of certain prescription drugs to the actual value of their ingredients. Following are some examples.
Celebrex 100 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $130.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.60
Percent markup: 21,712%
Claritin 10 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71
Percent markup: 30,306%
Keflex 250 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $157.39
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.88
Percent markup: 8,372%
Lipitor 20 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80
Percent markup: 4,696%
Norvasec 10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $188.29
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14
Percent markup: 134,493%
Paxil 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $7.60
Percent markup: 2,898%
Prevacid 30 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $44.77
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.01
Percent markup: 34,136%
Prilosec 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $360.97
Cost of general active ingredients $0.52
Percent markup: 69,417%
Prozac 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $247.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.11
Percent markup: 224,973%
Xanax 1 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.024
Percent markup: 569,958%
Zithromax 600 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $1,482.19
Cost of general active ingredients: $18.78
Percent markup: 7,892%
Zocor 40 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $350.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63
Percent markup: 4,059%
Zoloft 50 mg
Consumer price: $206.87
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75
Percent markup: 11,821%
Of course, these figures do not take into account the typical business expenses involved with such products, such as research and development, advertising, packaging and distribution, but even with these expenses factored in the profits generated by these drug companies are obscene.
It should be noted, that one glaring absence from President Obama’s Health Care Reform Bill is any attempt by the government to attain a cost savings in purchasing prescription drugs. From the inception of this bill it has been announced that the government will NOT seek to bargain with the pharmaceutical companies for a better price.
It is also interesting to note that at a time just prior to the American economy taking a sharp downturn, President George W. Bush successfully pushed for changes to be made in Medicaid that included paying for prescription drugs. When people have less money, they pare their spending, and many end up choosing between food and drugs. Consequently, a certain percentage will buy less drugs. The government is controlled by a global elite who have a great interest in keeping people using drugs, even when the economy takes a downturn.
Is it not peculiar that a President from the Republican party, a party known for its platform of “less government” and free market capitalism, would, at a time when the budget was encountering vast deficits year after year, push forth the largest increase of government social spending in decades?
On December 8, 2003 President Bush signed the Medicare (Prescription Drug Act) into law... Weeks after the signing, the White House's 2004 budget request estimated the price of the Act at over $540 billion.
Thus, at its inception, the government budgeted an amount equivalent to $1,800 for every man, woman and child in America. This money was to go directly to the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies. Beyond any question in my mind, there is tremendous financial corruption present in these activities. Yet the ultimate agenda behind getting a majority of the population dependent upon prescription medications, then positioning the government as the dispenser of these drugs, is control.
In 1961 Ronald Reagan made the following statement in a speech.
"One of the traditional methods of imposing statism, or socialism, on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it.”- Ronald Reagan
Rick Joyner, the head of Morningstar Ministries, in a recent Special Bulletin commenting on President Obama’s massive new Health Care Reform Bill, stated:
It is beyond anything I thought I would ever see in my lifetime that such a bill could ever be seriously considered in the U.S. Congress. This bill has the potential for totalitarian control to be imposed on America to a degree that Hitler and Stalin could not have even imagined. With the technology available now, totalitarian control can very quickly be imposed to a degree far beyond what was attained by either the Nazis or the Communists, and this bill has provisions in it for just that. It mandates the sharing of all of your personal information, from just about every conceivable source, with the new health care bureaucracy being set up to implement this national health care system. The penalties for trying to escape this web are serious. This would actually make America into a national concentration camp, and we can be sure that ultimately it will be a national death camp...
In the early 1990s, myself and a few other prophetic friends were all shown separately, but at the same general time, that the same evil that gained access to Germany in the 1930s was going to seek access to America. I have shared this often since then, and have made many trips to Germany to seek to understand what happened there. Col. Eugene Bird became one of my dearest friends, and I spent many days with him listening to what he had learned about this, which was considerable. Col. Bird was the U.S. Commandant of the Spandau Prison that held the Nazi war criminals, and ultimately became the one many considered to be the foremost authority on Nazi Germany. Bird’s insight into how evil can gain entry into the human soul and into governments was remarkable, but I always had trouble seeing a connection that would allow what happened there to actually happen in America. Bird often chastised me for this, warning that it could easily happen in America (Col. Bird lived most of his life in Germany, where he became loved and esteemed by that nation, but he remained a patriotic American to the end). Bird often explained how the evil spirit of death that took over Germany gained entry through its health care system. Now it is easy to see what he was talking about in what is being proposed by the Obama Administration.
Much could be written about the deleterious health effects of prescription drugs. People who choose not to use public medical services may have good reasons for doing so. It is estimated that in excess of 100,000 people die annually from errors committed by health professionals. This figure comes from Lucian Leape, M.D., as he provided testimony before Congress. In his testimony he shared the following:
Findings from several studies of large numbers of hospitalized patients indicate that each year a million or more people are injured and as many as 100,000 die as a result of errors in their care. This makes medical care one of the leading causes of death, accounting for more lost lives than automobile accidents, breast cancer or AIDS.
Concerning just the single issue of medication errors, the following Washington Post article is cited:
Medication Errors Harming Millions, Report Says
Extensive National Study Finds Widespread, Costly Mistakes in Giving and Taking Medicine
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 21, 2006; Page A08
At least 1.5 million Americans are sickened, injured or killed each year by errors in prescribing, dispensing and taking medications, the influential Institute of Medicine concluded in a major report released yesterday.
Mistakes in giving drugs are so prevalent in hospitals that, on average, a patient will be subjected to a medication error each day he or she occupies a hospital bed, the report by a panel of experts said.
[Source: www.washingtonpost.com]
Then there are the adverse effects of the drugs themselves. Following is a trailer for the movie Generation RX which focuses on the great evil being done to an entire generation of children who are having mind altering drugs pushed upon them. The effect of this numbing, and dumbing down of a generation is to produce a population whose minds are more easily controlled by government, and who are dependent upon the government for drugs that promise them some sense of peace and security.
Generation RX Trailer
Link:
A couple years back as I was researching the Columbine High School killings, I came across a website that had compiled a large collection of similar accounts that were all related to people committing violent acts after being placed upon mind altering prescription drugs, or having their prescription altered. Eric Harris, one of the shooters at Columbine, had recently had his prescription to Zoloft canceled, and was prescribed Luvox in its place. Sudden changes in these prescriptions have been shown to lead to violent and suicidal tendencies. The following website contains a collection of more than 7000 news stories where violent behavior and mind altering prescription drugs are linked.
There are a wealth of resources on the topic of America’s prescription drug obsession. Corporate advertising, the medical profession, and government form three sides of a pyramid that all work together to drive the population to a drug dependent state.
Those who live in America are so immersed in a pharmaceutical culture that they are led to think such a dependency is normal and beneficial. Drive down the road and you will see drug stores in abundance. Go into Walmart, or your favorite grocery store, and there is a pharmacy and a section for over-the-counter drugs. Turn on the television, or open a magazine, and there are an abundance of ads for every conceivable type of drug. If you have a problem, the drug companies offer a solution.
Can’t sleep at night, take Ambien, Lunesta, or Sonata.
If your child has too much energy at school and will not settle down, give him/her Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall, Vyvanse, or Focalin.
Are you depressed, anxious, or worried, there is Prozac, Lexapro, Effexor, Paxil, or Cymbalta.
With more than 24,000 drugs listed in the Physician’s Desk Reference, such a list of problems and designer drug solutions could go on for hundreds of pages. Most drugs do little to address the cause of a problem. They only deal with symptoms, and the side effects can be much more serious that the original problem.
Christians are citizens of the Kingdom of God. As such, they should not adopt the ways and methods of the world. Christians are called to be aliens and strangers in this world. They have one who is the Great Physician who can reveal to them the root of a problem, and prescribe a true solution.
Yes, God will at times use physicians and drugs to heal His children. I do not deny this, nor am I seeking to create a general doctrine that says all medicine and medical practice is evil. There are some truly helpful and beneficial treatments prescribed by the medical field today. But it is a very leavened field. There is gross evil mixed in with the good.
What I am advocating, and have practiced for many years in all areas of life, is that a child of God should seek to know the mind and will of the Father in all things. Very few do. They have adopted the pattern of the world, and they run to the arm of the flesh whenever there is a need. Rarely do they even consider that God might bring healing in another way.
In the book of II Chronicles Yahweh sent a prophet to rebuke King Asa for falling into this pattern. Asa had seen the power of God in his youth. He had trusted God when an immense enemy came up against the land, and Yahweh delivered him. Yet, later in his life when another enemy came against the land, Asa did not look to God to deliver him. Instead he hired the armies of one of his neighbors to protect him.
How easy it is to fall into the pattern of the world and to look to man for our deliverance rather than to God. Should a Christian not pray and seek the counsel of God before he chooses a course of action? Should they always default to leaning on the arm of the flesh, since man’s solutions are ever at hand and so many depend upon them?
II Chronicles 16:7-13
At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, "Because you have relied on the king of Aram and have not relied on Yahweh your God, therefore the army of the king of Aram has escaped out of your hand. Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim an immense army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet, because you relied on Yahweh, He delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of Yahweh move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. You have acted foolishly in this...”
Having fallen into a pattern of unbelief, failing to seek God for his needs, Asa later became diseased in his feet and turned to the doctors rather than to Yahweh.
II Chronicles 16:12-13
And in the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa became diseased in his feet. His disease was severe, yet even in his disease he did not seek Yahweh, but the physicians. So Asa slept with his fathers, having died in the forty-first year of his reign.
Satan promises many things through his pharmaceutical bag of tricks, yet he does not seek the welfare of mankind.
Parables Blog: www.parablesblog.blogspot.com
Mailing Address:
Joseph Herrin
P.O. Box 804
Montezuma, GA 31063
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