Each year, 400,000 people die from the effects of smoking cigarettes. That is nearly four times as many Americans, in one year, as died in Vietnam, Korea, and all the other conflicts around the world since World War II. Thousands of studies – literally, not an exaggeration - have shown a clear link between smoking and dramatically increased chances of dying from lung cancer and cardiovascular events like stroke or heart attack. Yet the tobacco companies are treated like honored pigs at the trough – especially at the Bush trough (formerly known as the U.S. government). A little over a week ago, a judge in Bush’s brother’s “kingdom” of Florida stood with the tobacco companies against the American consumers/cancer patients and handed the death barons a major victory against said American consumers/cancer patients. This “corporate-sponsored judge” ruled that the 700,000 plaintiffs in the case had no right to such “excessive” punitive damages: $1.45 billion dollars. Oh, really, Judge Marlboro? How do you figure that, when the cost of medical treatment of these patients in their last, miserable months on Earth will likely exceed $70 BILLION (at a modest estimate of $100,000 per patient). Oh, but that’s right, as a corporate-sponsored judge for the corporate-sponsored U.S. government, it is your duty to uphold not only the profits of the tobacco industry, but the profits of the medical insurance and pharmaceutical industries, as well. After all, these two industries are also highly honored pigs at the Bush trough. And, of course, healthy Americans are extremely bad for business.

Think about it!

Two of the biggest industries in the United States, the two perhaps most favored by G. W. Bush (after the oil industry) rely on a steady supply of sick – not just sick, but VERY sick – Americans. There is no profit for the pharmaceutical industry or the medical insurance industry in healthy people. If people became too healthy, they might not be fear-driven enough to keep anteing up the inflated price of Blue Cross/Carefirst, etc. They would not need high-priced heart/cholesterol drugs or the astronomically priced chemotherapy drugs. This administration and its core of corporate sponsors thrive on a diseased and fear-ridden America. They cannot survive on a healthy, bold and confident America. As a result, they will continue to take every step possible to insure that Americans remain in a state of perpetual fear, reinforced by the terrorist and/or disease risk alarm of the week, convinced they are always just on the verge of being mortally ill or blown to bits.

To keep an unhealthy self identity superimposed over America, the media works hand and glove with the the drug and tobacco industries, as well as their corporazi pals in Washington. Not one news show lets a single week go by without at least one or two segments on the latest health risk (one mad cow in Canada is enough to keep them going for nearly a month!) or terrorist threat (code orange…no, yellow…make that red!). The medical industry uses corporate-funded “studies” to keep making the guidelines for what constitutes “healthy” harder to meet – at least without the aid of expensive drugs. Case in point: Recently, no doubt dismayed by the fact that Americans, on average, had actually lowered their blood pressure levels to healthier levels, the medical industry came out with new “guidelines” that lowered the recommended “healthy range” for BP to near-comatose levels to insure a continued stream of hypertension medicine users (these are among the priciest of drugs). Yet studies in Europe in the past several years, including one of the over-65 group in Sweden, have shown that BP guidelines for older people are far too low – that the elderly naturally need to maintain a systolic BP closer to 140 to maintain normal cognitive function. But, then again, elderly people with dementia are good for business, too! Afterall, the nursing home industry is one major goldmine not just for home operators but for the drug companies..

In terms of campaign dollars, Republicans – especially since G. W. Bush appeared on the field – are the top recipients of donations from all three industries: In 1992, 52% of the drug industry’s campaign dollars went to Republican candidates and committees. In 1996, once the GOP’s “Contract for America” corporate Ponzi scheme was in full swing, this among had skyrocketed to 71%. In 2000 cycle, nearly 80% of all drug industry campaign dollars were showered on Republican candidates. Can you imagine what kind of money these industries will throw at Bush in 2004? It staggers the imagination. To show you the degree of cynical manipulation at work, here’s an unbelievable-but-true tidbit: Over $10 million dollars each year of drug industry lobbying bucks are funneled to the US Chamber of Commerce to produce pro-industry ads. That’s right – your very own chamber of commerce is on the take in the name of keeping you sick, America!

The general modus operandi for the government and drug industries under Bush goes like this: Create a crisis (health danger or terrorism alert), and then appear to ride to the “rescue”. And, to return to the main theme, one of the “created crises” is the epidemic of smoking-related terminal disease. These companies will pay millions to maintain their power to inflict crises. Perhaps the most telling fact I can offer is that a 2001 report showed that the top three industries in terms of lobbying dollars spent in Washington are the insurance, pharmaceutical, and tobacco industries, in that order. This is a true pyramid scheme if ever I saw one! At the bottom of the pyramid, you have the millions of smokers, feeding the tobacco industry. The payoff comes when these smokers become ill, then the next tier of the pyramid, the pharmaceutical industry reaps its payoff in the sales of astronomically expensive chemotherapy drugs, the drugs required to offset the effects of chemotherapy, hypertension drugs, etc. Then, at the top of the pyramid, the medical insurance industry scoops in dollars from both the sick smokers and the drug industry. With a scheme like this going, do you really think these industries will leave anything to chance? I doubt it! Extremely strong evidence that the wheels of the pyramid scheme are greased came out just this week. A new survey of cigarettes manufactured in 13 different countries now reveals that American cigarettes, as represented by the quintessential “all American redneck” smoke, Marlboros, in general, pack nearly twice the cancer-causing wallops of cigarettes produced locally in other countries. From the BBC:

“The Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, compared the level of the carcinogen nitrosamine in Marlboro cigarettes - chosen for their availability across the globe - with local brands in 13 other countries, including Japan and Germany. It found that in 11 of the countries, the local brands had much lower levels of the chemical than Marlboro cigarettes, in some cases less than half the amount. “

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2951770.stm

What’s this suggests to me is that the American pharmaceutical companies are not be above colluding with the “cancer industry” (the tobacco industry’s real main product) to insure a steady stream of chemo users. Consider the facts: The bill for a lung cancer victim’s last few years or so of chemo drugs before, inevitably, dying, can run in to the hundreds of thousands of dollars. An estimated 400,000 people die of cigarette-related lung cancer each year. Multiply 400,000 X $100,000…you get FORTY BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR!!! That’s quite an industry – in fact, that is probably one of the five most lucrative industries on planet Earth: treating lung cancer patients. So, dismiss it as a “conspiracy theory” if you will…but if 11 out of 13 nations can produce cigarettes with half the carcinogenic effect, then why is it that America, with all its supposed scientific know-how is producing butts that seem almost DESIGNED to induce cancer?

But, you argue, what about those much-publicized collaborations between the pharmaceutical industry and “tobacco free” initiatives by WHO and other organizations? Simple. PR insurance and a slick technique for throwing the public off the scent of the real core collaboration: the drug and tobacco industries. After all, Phillip Morris spends millions on TV spots that appear to be anti-teen-smoking – meanwhile continuing to spend ten times that to recruit new teen smokers, both here and abroad (this flagrant game was part of the complaint made in the Florida case). In addition, the drug industry is now cashing in big time on “quit smoking” aids, including the extremely expensive Zyban (which reportedly only helps temporarily – permanent quitting would apparently require a very long term prescription of $100/month Zyban – and then the results are dubious). So, to summarize, you have a product packed with both an addictive substance and a whopping dose of carcinogen. Get ‘em hooked and keep ‘em hooked long enough to make a killing!

Further evidence of the underlying pro-tobacco industry position of the pharmaceutical barons is their failure to campaign seriously to ban the sale of cigarettes – though perfectly aware that the product kills 400,000 people every year. However, by sharp contrast, look how very vigorously the same pharmaceutical barons go after products they fear may take profits AWAY from them! Ephedra has been linked conclusively to only a few dozen deaths. Yet you would think from the drug industry’s outcry against it and against all “unregulated” herbal aids that these products were the equivalent of cyanide! They are, in fact: cyanide threatening to kill drug industry profits. This stand is also further proof of the determination of the drug industry to keep Americans unhealthy and entrenched in the “I am at risk of dying from everything so give me a new drug” mindset.

Further evidence of the drug-tobacco industry collusion: many tobacco barons sit on the boards of major cancer foundations and facilities, helping to determine which treatments get preference. As we all know, this always works out to the most expensive treatments and never include less costly non-drug-oriented alternatives.

Here’s are some eye-opening facts divulged by Ralph Moss, former Assistant Director of Public Affairs at Sloan Kettering Memorial Cancer Center:

· The people on Sloan-Kettering’s Board of Directors were a "Who's Who" of investors in petrochemical and other polluting industries. In other words, the hospital was being run by people who made their wealth by investing in the worst cancer-causing things on the planet.

· CEOs of top pharmaceutical companies that produced cancer drugs also dominated the Board. They had an obvious vested interest in promoting chemotherapy and undermining natural therapies.

· The Chairman and the President of Bristol-Myers Squibb, the world's leading producer of chemotherapy, held high positions on MSKCC's Board.

· Of the nine members of the Hospital's powerful Institutional Policy Committee, seven had ties to the pharmaceutical industry

· The Hospital itself invested in the stock of these same drug companies.

· Directors of the biggest tobacco companies in the U.S., Phillip Morris and RJR Nabisco held places of honor on the Board.

· Six Board Directors also served on the Boards of The New York Times, CBS, Warner Communications, Readers Digest, and other media giants.

Not surprisingly, profits from chemotherapy drugs were skyrocketing and the media glowingly promoted every new drug as a "breakthrough" in cancer. I kept all my notes in my filing cabinet at work. I had no idea what I would ever do with them. I just knew that I had to get to the bottom of it, for myself. "

I think if anyone could access the info, they would find that a shocking percentage of tobacco barons have big chunks of stock holdings in the pharmaceutical companies that produce chemotherapy drugs. It may also be that the tobacco companies themselves have well-buried financial ties with these drug companies. But will anyone investigate. Not bloody likely. Too much silver crossing too many palms.

Now, to drive more nails into the coffins of hundreds of thousands of Americans – some may turn out to be your mother or father, an uncle, aunt, sister, brother, kid (they are getting lung cancer younger now, you know), a cousin or a friend – the pyramid scheme may, thanks to the Bush FCC, soon contain a new tier: the corporate media. If the FCC removes the last barriers to corporate control of the media, the media will become a much more easily manipulated tool of the biggest advertisers. With mega media comes mega advertising influence. And who are the mega advertisers? The drug companies and, perhaps soon, the tobacco industry. If the FCC succeeds in overriding public opinion to pander to a few media barons like Rupert Murdoch, who is to say advertising barriers will not be next to fall? As it is, images of smoking are being slipped into TV movies and dramas with increasing frequency – keep your eye out and you’ll see what I mean. Couple this with the pro-tobacco industry stance the Bush federal judges are taking and the future looks like one long round of smoke-chemo-and-die.

But ask any tobacco or drug industry CEO or PR spokesman if they are in cahoots, and they will no doubt answer with self-righteous indignation and denial. However, you may recall that the CEOs of all the major American tobacco companies were quite willing to lie under oath, on film, and on the record for millions of Americans to witness just a few years back as to their knowledge of nicotine’s addictive power. In light of the evidence, do you REALLY believe they are unaware that their products are the equivalent of inoculation with cancer? And, in light of their product’s proven effect, that there is NOT a strong ulterior motive behind insuring this effect? If so, there’s some stock in this company called ENRON I’d love to sell you.

In closing, I will say this: The next time you see yet another retrospective on the 3,000 Americans killed by terrorists, think about the 400,000 Americans who will die from smoking, aided by chemotherapy, this year. Then ask yourself: Who are the REAL terrorists?

Tobacco industry quotes revealing the extent of awareness of nicotine’s effects and the behind the scenes scheming to insure people become and stay hooked.

http://www.tobacco.org/Documents/documentquotes.html

Defendants charge that US tobacco companies lied about cigarettes’ cancer causing power

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2863775.stm

Judge under in Bush’s brother’s “kingdom” stands with tobacco companies against American consumers

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3048053.stm

Tobacco Industry Misconduct: What they did and did not do

http://www.gasp.org/misconduct.html

Moss Report on Sloan Kettering: http://www.cancerdecisions.com/beatcancer_frm.html