Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen
Big Pharma, as the “drug” industry is known, has for years funded, and operated, a covert group commonly known as the “quackbusters” whose purpose is to stomp out competition to “drug therapies.” The operation is run out of a New York ad agency. Previously successful, the “quackbuster” operation is now, not only facing stiff resistance, but is itself, facing attack.
The State of Connecticut is one of the newest battlegrounds for the future of North American health care. There, the once unbeatable “quackbuster” operation, is attempting, one more time, to try and stamp out EDTA Chelation Therapy – and a practitioner who would dare to offer this, and other, amazing, and wildly successful, non-drug protocols. They are using, and abusing, the Connecticut Department of Health (DOPH) to do the deed.
In an earlier article about the Connecticut health care war, “The “Health” Battle in Connecticut…”, I wrote that DOPH, for what-ever reason, has decided to ignore the fact that “according to the “Death by Medicine,” study, 2,036,884 Americans (23,968 in Connecticut) die UNNECESSARILY each year, due to the policies and procedures of “accepted” medical care. The number of people “harmed” by “accepted” medical care is estimated at 20 times the death number. The “status quo” in health care is definitely harming America. And NOTHING is being done about it.”
That’s right – NOTHING…Instead of dealing with these important issues, the DOPH is acting to protect the “status quo” in health care and is using its powers, those delegated to them by the people of Connecticut, to attack those health professionals who are trying to solve those problems of health care.
The “quackbuster’s” target, using DOPH, is Orange, Connecticut MD Robban Sica, a cutting-edge physician who treats those patients who fall through the cracks in the conventional system – those who’ve been everywhere else, find “conventional” health care wanting, and are willing to pay out-of-pocket for a version of health care that far exceeds what health insurance companies, US Medicare, or Health Canada are willing to offer.
Sica, and thousands of others like her around the world, have abandoned “Five Minute Medicine,” in favor of actually looking for, and finding, what’s really wrong with patients – and fixing those problems.
“Five Minute Medicine,” we know, except for Emergency Room Services, is ALL that the conventional “medicine” system, totally reliant on “drug therapy,” offers. Doctors like Robban Sica MD represent a significant threat to the system.
Five Minute Medicine?…
The term “Five Minute Medicine,” has come to represent North America’s frustration with the reality of conventional health care. The term is used to describe two common situations in “medicine:” (1) where a patient waits two months for an appointment to see a doctor, waits an hour in a waiting room, then twenty minutes in an examining room. to “consult” with a doctor who spends five minutes listening to their problems and one minute writing out three new “prescriptions” for drugs, whose “co-pay,” at the pharmacy, is equivalent to the price of groceries for two senior citizens for a whole week. (2) The term also refers to the amount of time a patient can expect to actually interact with a licensed health professional during a week’s stay in any North American hospital – five minutes.
Everybody knows the North American health care system is broken. North Americans, for a number of years, have been spending their health dollars outside of the normal conventional system seeking “health” care, as opposed to “medicine.” 88% of US adults use, and believe in, some form of what’s been labeled“Alternative Medicine,” to the point where, now, over 50% of the total US health dollar is spent on those alternatives. “Alternatives” are not paid for by insurance, Medicare, or Health Canada. People pay out-of-pocket` for them.
Why is the North American health care system broken? Because it is centered around the use of prescription “drugs,” as the do-all, be-all, therapy. And, the“drug” companies are by far, and beyond belief, the most greedy and corrosive, of multi-national industries. They are draining the blood out of the North American economy. Just in the last few years, with no good reason, big Pharma has quadrupled the price of prescription “drugs” in North America.
Big Pharma, as the “drug” industry is known, has for years funded, and operated, a covert group commonly known as the “quackbusters.” The “quackbuster’s” purpose in life, is to stomp out competition to “drug therapies.” For years they were very successful. But not any more.
The North American Health Freedom Movement found out what they were up to, and decided to go nose-to-nose with them – and it has gotten very interesting. In fact, the “quackbuster” operation has been beaten, kicked, punched, and just-plain-mauled for a couple of years now. It’s been embarrassing for them. So, now, they are changing tactics.
Why are they changing tactics?…
The “quackbuster’s” flagship, the so-called National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF), currently run out of a hair removal salon in Braintree, Massachusetts, lost so many Court battles in California, that they owe an unending amount of attorney fees (they can’t afford to pay) the Courts awarded to their victims.
Most of the “quackbuster” losses can be credited to their “expert witness” testifying program. Now laughable, quackbuster “experts” claiming expertise in virtually everything in health care, like NCAHF president Bobbie Baratz, “quackwatch.com” author Stephen Barrett, walked into traps set for them in Courtrooms, and were blown out of the water, when their “real” resumes were brought into the light. Those “experts” were not expert in anything. Lies and misdirection were their game. They got caught at it.
So the “quackbuster” operation has had to change tactics. It looks to me like the real “quackbuster” operation, the one run out of the New York ad agency, has had to step in, and take charge and are now are relying on a gambit, that heretofore has been used only sparingly – the “liar for hire” ploy.
And here is how the new tactic works…
One of the key “quackbuster” players, according to James Carter MD’s authoritative book “Racketeering in Medicine,” is the so-called American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), According to Mindfully.org, and other watchdog groups, “ACSH is heavily financed by corporations with specific and direct interest in ACSH’s chosen battles. Since it was created in 1978, it has come to the enthusiastic defense of virtually every chemical or additive backed by a major corporate interest. “
The ACSH, which no longer publishes a list of its paying clients, previously admitted to representing a myriad of North America’s major environmental polluters, and a slew of foreign owned pharmaceutical giants. The ACSH has been continuously accused of maintaining a “liar for hire” program – where their doctors and scientists seemed to testify to virtually anything ACSH’s clients were willing to pay for.
So, What’s Happening in Connecticut?…
Several things.
One of the biggest “liar for hire” programs in North America centers around insurance companies seeking ways to deny health claims. There is a whole coterie of“testifying whores” who’ll prostrate themselves for insurance company mega-bucks. Insurance companies will pay generously for favorable testimony – for if they don’t – they’ll pay dearly when a jury of twelve finishes looking at what their insured did to a victim.
One of the biggest issues, and one of the most argued by insurance companies, is exposure to chemicals.
Not too long ago, Robban Sica MD testified in Court on behalf of a patient of hers, making claim against an insurance company. The patient, because of Sica’s testimony, received a settlement. The next thing Sica knows, the opposing witness working for the insurance company, Marc Bayer MD, is “evaluating” Sica’s practice of medicine for the Connecticut Department of Health (DOPH), for the purpose of revoking her license to practice that medicine.
The insurance company, and apparently, Bayer, don’t want Sica testifying any more. Isn’t it nice that insurance companies can use a government licensing agency (DOPH) to eliminate those that would testify against their interests – sarcasm intended.
Bayer, who claims an affiliation with the University of Connecticut, is one who repeatedly testifies that “there is no such thing as Multiple Chemical Sensitivity or Chronic Fatigue.” Examining Bayer’s testimony in this, and other, cases makes me wonder what planet this guy is from.
Several important issues popped up…
(1) What is really disappointing is the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DOPH) management’s complete inability to see through this insurance company ruse to deny Connecticut citizens adequate health care, after an injury, by using DOPH to remove doctors who could, and would, testify to an honest medical opinion that would force those insurance companies to pay a claim. Apparently, insurance companies call the shots at DOPH.
(2) I attended Sica’s Federal Court “Motion for Temporary Injunction” hearing in Bridgeport Connecticut on October 5th and 6th. I was scheduled to testify about a number of things relating to the quackbuster operation, and their association with this case. Why was I there to testify? Because, in legal discovery, who should we find sending EIGHT letters to the DOPH attorney, but sleazy little Bobbie Baratz, the current president of the Courtroom discredited National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF), the “quackbuster” flagship.
The opposition attorneys to the Federal Motion went out of their way to keep me from testifying. It was clear they simply didn’t want the volumes of information I’ve gathered about Baratz and his poisonous friends, entered into the Federal Record. Part of their gambit was to cross-examine the DOPH attorney in charge of the Sica case, who testified that “Baratz was looking for a job, and I had no intention of hiring him.”
(3) What is really interesting about Sica’ Federal Motion hearing was that the testimony of the DOPH management, including an Affidavit from the Commissioner of Health, Robert Galvin, himself, shows that there is NO DECISION TREE, and no guidelines, at Connecticut DOPH. Attorney prosecutors in Connecticut, like Wisconsin, answer to NO ONE in terms of who to prosecute, or for what. They, like prosecutors in Wisconsin, are simply not supervised. Although “Accusations,” that go to an Administrative Hearing, must be signed-off by DOPH supervision and management, the Federal Court testimony showed that that management merely signs the documents for approval, doing no investigation of their own. Not even a cursory one. They don’t even ask ANY questions.
Sica has been falsely charged, and is being forced to stand trial, solely because of the accusations made by Marc Bayer MD, a man she testified oppositely to in an insurance claim case – who has NO expertise, what-so-ever, regarding Sica’s practice. As Will Shakespeare said “Something’s rotten in Denmark…”
Sica has a VERY large support network, very well organized, and very well motivated. Things are going to change in Connecticut – by sheer, brute force, if necessary.
Connecticut DOPH, by the Sica case, has indicated that it has a policy in place to intervene in a difference of medical opinion, by siding in an issue, and removing the license to practice medicine of the one it disagrees with. Well, if this has now become the public policy, then let’s use it. Let’s turn the tables.
Considering the policy above, one of my recommendations, in this case, is that Sica’s support network actively seek to question Marc Bayer’s professional ethics regarding his attack on Sica. And, if he fails that test, and actually is a “liar for hire,” then it is time to take Marc Bayer MD’s license to practice medicine away from him.
In the last few years the “liar for hire” program has come under national scrutiny by the industry itself.. The North American Health Freedom Movement, outnumbering the quackbusters 100,000 to 1, needs to exercise its power. The “liar for hire” program has to go. America needs health care – not pharmaceuticals.
Stay tuned…
Tim Bolen – Consumer Advocate