The Red Pill and the Shot

I am not necessarily one who looks for a conspiracy around every corner, but I have come to believe - over many years of research and investigation and study - that conflict of interest is a huge factor in almost everything.

Just as it operates in my day-to-day life - as it does in yours - so it operates, on a much wider scale, in most of the industry, and government, and business, and institutions that operate around us.

What drives me crazy is that people seem to be willing to separate themselves from this understanding and simply believe whatever the medical community tells them, as if there is no conflict of interest present at any level within the medical or pharmaceutical communities.

It is as if every player in that arena is presumed to be a "good 'ol Doc Baker" (a favorite from our family's Little House on the Prairie viewings) whose only motivation and ultimate purpose is unquestionably the good of his patients... to the point of working at his own expense. Certainly no one ever presumed (and rightly so) that Doc Baker was "out to make a buck" at the expense of his client; rather, Doc Baker would work for no pay - or for the barter of a chicken or a quilt or a meal of stew. He would make house calls. He was like a member of the family, and there was not a bone in his body inclined toward greed or financial aspiration or dishonest gain.

How and when did we transfer that level of trust to our contemporary society's medical and pharmaceutical establishment? And on what basis do they deserve unquestioning, unflinching devotion and assumption of good will?

I have many good friends who are doctors, and I do believe that they believe they're doing the right thing when they do what they do. Based on what they've been taught, they are most often practicing medicine in the manner they're convinced is the best thing for their patients. So we trust them.

My first foray into not trusting my doctor with absolute carte blanche authority, doing whatever it was he told me to do, came fifteen years ago when I was pregnant with my first child. But that is another story for another day, if you ever care to hear it. For now, let's just say that I continue to be shocked - weekly - at "just how deep the rabbit hole goes"* in the arena of deliberate deception, conflict of interest, and dissembling - when it comes to medical information in general, but vaccination science and policy in particular.

If you have the stomach to handle "the red pill,"* listen to this interview with CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson. What she continues to uncover regarding medical, pharmaceutical, and governmental conflicts of interest, particularly as relates to H1N1 (swine flu) reporting and recommendation, will likely shock you, especially if you're still very prone to presume good 'ol Doc Baker is looking out for you when he recommends that you get that shot. "Pharmaceutical money is behind many strings that are pulled in Washington government," she notes.

"Let me begin by saying that this was the same kind of stonewalling that I received under the Clinton administration, under the Bush administration, and now under the Obama administration, by CDC, FDA; it's very common..."

Thankfully there are still a few investigative journalists out there willing to stick their noses into things, and then to stick their necks out to report what they find. I think you will find it interesting and enlightening.



(You can find links to the other parts of the interview in the right-hand sidebar at the YouTube site, or you can listen to Part 2 of the interview here. Here are Part 3 and Part 4.)

For more information about this and other investigative reporting that Sharyl Attkisson has done on this subject, see this CBS report containing her interview with Dr. Bernadette Healy, former director of the National Institutes of Health and current health editor for US News & World Report.

*The references to "the red pill" and "how deep the rabbit hole goes" are from the 1999 film The Matrix.