US Bioterror Concern: Good for Pharmaceuticals and Bad For Natural Treatments

The Associated Press reported recently that the nation's federal health officials are worried about biological weaponry treatment stockpiles. There is a stockpile of 60 million 60 day anthrax treatments, small pox vaccines, and adapted small pox vaccines for the uncompromising but there is a growing concern for the preparation for a number of other illnesses. As a result of this pressure, pharmaceutical companies are now drawn to a push for the development of multipurpose*treatments in order to expedite the preparation process. What will this new multipurpose drug fad yield?

An example of a multipurpose treatment would be broad spectrum antibiotics, which have saved lives in the worst of situations while being vastly over prescribed to others causing a nationwide epidemic of candida and multiple other issues as a result. Among the new broad spectrum developments is a possible antiviral that could be used for anything from the flu, to AIDS, to the Ebola virus. The selling point on this is that when the next SARS outbreak occurs, treatments will be ready and waiting instead of having to be developed from scratch.

The idea of an all around virus fighter is not a new idea. There are plenty of these existing in nature and alternative therapies such as garlic and colloidal or ionic silver. Knowing whether or not treatments like this could be effective on modern day plagues would be dependent upon the quality and number of research studies done, and the availability of the studies to the public via reputable medical journals. You may have heard the stories of the "Four thieves formula," for surviving the black plague, which consisted of oils of herbs like clove, wormwood, and garlic. Nostradamus himself may have survived the plague and treated many others with natural therapies like these. Research is needed to determine what our modern renewable, cheap, readily available, low risk treatments are.

The unfortunate issue today is that the system does not embrace the idea of using such natural alternative possibilities and study them thoroughly, which would save billions of dollars for the American government and potentially save millions more lives in developing countries. This money instead goes to pharmaceutical companies that are interested in developing treatments which can be patented for steep profits, and short term cures don't bring in nearly as much profit as long term treatments.

According to the previously mentioned AP release, the U.S. has invested $67 billion in bio-security since 2001. What did these beneficiary companies yield in profits out of these investments and subsequent drug developments? What if the U.S. invested that money into universities, or gave grants to individual scientists to allow them to find a more readily available cure all? Perhaps one that could be grown from a seed would make treatments much cheaper. With our current system that will be a treacherous since many of the medical journals are run by and overrun with pharmaceutical giants. Such studies are done all of the time at universities (if the ideas survive rigorous approval processes) but are then buried in the lost sea of alternative therapies that just aren't profitable enough.

Another of these new developments is an immunoglobulin used to help with the toxic overload some people's bodies endure from such illnesses. In an example given by the AP release, immunoglobulins were taken from the blood of an anthrax vaccinated soldier. It is disturbing that the blood of a vaccinated soldier was used to create this immunoglobulin treatment, which in its defense, seemed to work for the unfortunate tourist mentioned who was infected with anthrax. Are our soldiers guinea pigs for the pharmaceutical industry now? Experimenting on soldiers is not a new idea either. Soldiers have been used for bio experiments for decades, from LSD to new vaccines.

The experimentation with life does not even end with soldiers. Private companies will stop at nothing to find a profitable answer to disease, while disregarding the sanctity of life, such as the animal-human hybrid experiments recently discovered in the UK. Once uncovered, the living victims of these experiments were murdered after their cruel existence resembling that of The Island of Dr. Moreaux. Were they just embryos, fetuses, or living creatures? The article from the Guardian that reported this incident did not specify. If you have any specific information about this, please comment on this article.

All of these issues are the result of patent laws that reward synthetic drugs and inhumane experiments all the while disregarding natural, readily available, cheaper, more renewable treatments. Perhaps if there were laws to legalize treatments using natural alternatives, investments would redirect toward them instead of synthetics, research would flourish, doctors and other health professionals would implement them, and medical costs such as that $67 billion, plus Medicare, and Medicaid would greatly diminish. It's just too bad the drug companies won't let that happen.

Antibiotics have their place (although with well researched natural medicine they would not be necessary) and broad spectrum antivirals may have theirs one day too (once again they wouldn't be necessary if natural treatment research was fully explored). The question is what will the backlash of this synthetic "cure all," be. For antibiotics it has been an epidemic of opportunistic fungal infections, weakened immune systems, super bugs, food allergies, digestive disorders, and these with prolonged weakened immune systems, eventually cancer is a possibility. For the antiviral counterpart, only time will tell.