Book Reviews
Book reviews by Dr. Hans Kugler:
To keep you Safe and Healthy, you must stay informed! From the Nasty
Business of the Pharmaceutical (drug) Companies, stem cells, new
alternative approaches to health and aging,the deteriorating environment, to
dealing with Terrorism - - all deserve our priority attention.
 How corrupt deals and misguided medical regulations are bankrupting America.
Get a special discount if you send extra copies to your members of Congress.
Governments collapse when ineptitude and corruption reach such egregious magnitudes that the citizenry has no choice but to revolt.
While Pharmocracy uncovers egregious FDA incompetence and abuse, Congress is the body of government that provides the FDA with enabling laws that ultimately result in needless suffering and death … while the nation descends into financial ruin.
Implementing the free-market approaches advocated in this book could spare Medicare and Medicaid from insolvency while significantly improving the health and productivity of the American public.
This book provides Congress with a rational basis to remove the suffocating compulsory aspect of health care regulation and allow free-market forces to compete against government-sanctioned medicine.
We believe if enough constituents send Pharmocracy to Congress, members of the House and Senate will be forced to read it and recognize the obvious free-market solutions to today's health care cost crisis.
We urge you to send a copy of Pharmocracy to your Congressional representatives. As such, we're offering you the ability to purchase the book at a discounted price. The cover price for each copy of Pharmocracy is $24.00. Life Extension members can obtain it at a 60% discount and pay only $9.60 per copy. If you purchase four copies, the price is only $8.00 per copy.
The special deals for this book are available at www.lef.org
Review by Dr. Kugler:
What can I say? The Best from The Best. This – 1,660 pages, Scientific Protocols that Integrate Mainstream and Alternative Medicine - is actually a text book that should be used at medical schools. The book is included in a Life Extension Membership. http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/benefits.htm
“Excellent! Superb! A magnificent introduction to anti-aging thinking.”
Dr. Hans J. Kugler
President, International Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine
To purchase this book.
A mother, a fighter, a thinker - - - wow!
The late Dr. Bernard Rimland, long-time friend, - - Child Behavior Institute, San Diego - - always insisted that autism could be defeated; his medical meetings were entitled “DAN, Defeat Autism Now.” We often discussed the importance of detoxing and immune-enhancement in the treatment of autism. This is a true success story; the book will make you want to light a candle and say: Thank you, God!”
If you have an autistic child, THIS IS THE BOOK TO READ!
Dr. Hans J. Kugler
President, International Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine
To purchase this book.
Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY should have this book as reference for achieving better health.
I have known Dr. Wong for many years, as a respected doctor and my personal physician.
There will be a time when you or a friend needs to know what to do about any one of those aches and pains; you’ll find the answer in this book. But, more important, even just skipping through the chapters, Dr. Wong teaches us how to listen to our bodies and how nature’s medicines can help us in achieving optimum health.
Dr. Hans J. Kugler
President, International Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine
To purchase this book.
A key to health – and meditation – is proper breathing. This is an absolutely magnificent audio CD! Dr. Weil not only teaches us 8 major breathing exercises, but he also informs us about basic research, like the connection between proper breathing and normal heart beat.
This is one CD you shouldn’t miss.
Dr. Hans J. Kugler
President
International Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine
To purchase this book
Congressmen are putting their wives on their campaign payrolls—so that campaign contributions are really personal bribes!
The ACLU won’t allow its own directors free speech.
Liberals want to strip us of the tools to stop terrorism.
The UN is a cover for massive corruption—and eighty countries, who pay 12 percent of the budget, are blocking reform.
Drug companies pay off doctors to write scripts—whether we need them or not.
Teachers unions block the firing of bad teachers—and battle against higher education standards!
Katrina victims are being stiffed by their insurance companies!
Special interests cost our consumers $45 billion—through trade quotas that save only a handful of jobs!
Never heard of these abuses? You won’t in the mainstream media. That’s why Dick Morris and Eileen McGann wrote Outrage. Their proposals:
- Ban immigration from terrorist countries
- Ban Congress putting spouses on their payroll
- Ban lobbyists who are related to senators or congressmen
- Ban nicotine additives to cigarettes
- Ban trade quotas that drive up prices and save few jobs
- Ban drug company bribes to doctors
- Ban teachers unions’ work rules that stop education reform
- Ban insurance companies from backing out on Katrina coverage
In Outrage, you’ll get the facts—and learn what we can do about them. You won’t read about these outrages anyplace else; too many people are working hard to cover them up. Get them here instead—and learn how to fight the special interests of the left and right.
Dr. Hans J. Kugler
President
International Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine
To purchase this book.
A Man to Admire: Book review by Hans J. Kugler, PhD.
“The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief” by Francis Collins, MD, PhD, Free Press 2006.
What a magnificent book! Every paragraph is worth reading/quoting; so, where do I start?
Who is Francis Collins? In his first years in college Collins found biology boring and therefore studied chemistry. More interested in how chemistry connects to life - - I can surely attest to that - - Collins became a physician, then a gene hunter at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and today oversees a giant research empire at the National Institute of Health, the National Human Genome Research Institute in Washington. He is considered the nation’s top geneticist.
In his book he explains the human genome project, what genes are and how they function, what a HapMap is, and how that can help us learning about diseases. But, more important, I appreciated his philosophy about the connection between the views that there is only science and the idea that an intelligent being directs human affairs.
When asked about being a devoted Christian who accepts therapeutic cloning, Collins responded: “There is a difference between doing research on an embryo that was generated by sperm and egg coming together, which is the way human beings are created, versus the very bizarre laboratory phenomenon of taking a nucleus from a skin cell or the udder cell of a sheep and putting it into an environment that takes it back in time to its stem cell state. In public discourse, they’re both called embryos. Even though the somatic cell nuclear transfer approach is a very different biological phenomenon, in many people’s minds it has been all blurred together. As a result we’ve really missed out on a chance for a much more thoughtful, nuanced discussion.
This book is not only fascinating science, but also stimulates you to think about life and, if you are honest with yourself, will bring you to a point where you are more at peace with yourself.
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"The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It ", by Marcia Angell, former New England Journal of Medicine editor, now at Harvard Medical School (Random House, 2004) - -
- - The scathing critique of the pharmaceutical industryby former New England Journal of Medicine editor Marcia Angell, now senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School.
Many Americans have wondered why prescription drugs have become so expensive while advertising for those drugs seems to grow exponentially. Former New England Journal of Medicine Editor Marcia Angell has some answers. The pharmaceutical industry, according to Angell, is fraught with corruption and doing a disservice to customers, the federal government, and to the medical establishment itself. In The Truth About the Drug Companies , Angell explains how a huge portion of the revenue generated by "Big Pharma" goes not into research and development but into aggressive marketing campaigns to sell their product. She describes how, even though the drug companies claim that it costs them an average of 802 million dollars per drug to develop new medicines, that figure is obscenely inflated since it factors in marketing as well as expected interest the company would have received had they invested the money in the open market. Meanwhile, Angell says, most of the R & D work is done by colleges and universities funded by the government. There are also problems with the drugs themselves, Angell indicates, since a majority are "me-too drugs", slightly modified versions of existing products which meant to address concerns of consumers most likely to spend money on pharmaceuticals. Thus, the market is filled with remarkably similar drugs to treat depression and high cholesterol while potentially life-saving medicines for diseases afflicting third-world countries are discontinued because they aren't profitable. In the books most damning passage, Angell tells of the high-priced junkets offered to doctors, ostensibly offered as educational opportunities that seem to constitute little more than bribes. The prognosis for reform is a grim one, Angell indicates, due to the massive cash reserves and lobbying efforts of "Big Pharma." Indeed, that lobby was hard at work trying to discredit her claims immediately upon the book's publication. But for anyone who's paid a pharmacy bill, The Truth About the Drug Companies is a fascinating read. --John Moe
From Publishers Weekly
In what should serve as the Fast Food Nation of the drug industry, Angell, former editor of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, presents a searing indictment of "big pharma" as corrupt and corrupting: of Congress, through huge campaign contributions; of the FDA, which is funded in part by the very companies it oversees; and, perhaps most shocking, of members of the medical profession and its institutions. Angell delineates how the drug giants, such as Pfizer and AstraZeneca, pay physicians to prescribe their products with gifts, junkets and marketing programs disguised as "professional education." According to Angell, the cost of marketing, both to physicians and consumers, far outweighs expenditures on research and development, though drug makers invoke R&D as the reason drug prices are so high. In fact, says Angell, with combined 2002 profits of $35.9 billion for the Fortune 500's top 10 drug companies, the drug industry is America's most profitable by far, thanks to disproportionately high prices, generous tax breaks and manipulation of patents to extend exclusive marketing rights to blockbuster drugs like Prozac and Claritin. Angell mounts a powerful case (and offers specific suggestions) for reform of this essential industry--a case worth bearing in mind as "big pharma" continues to oppose importing cheaper drugs from Canada. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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"ON THE TAKE, how medicine's complicity with big business (the drug companies) can endanger your health," by Jerome Kassirer, M.D. , ($ 18.48 at Amazon), another former medical journal editor, arguing that doctor's decision-making (which drugs to prescribe, if necessary to prescribe at all) is influenced by anything from ski vacations to thousands of dollars in "consulting fees" the drug companies lavish on doctors.
From Publishers Weekly
"Some physicians become known as whores." This is strong language in Kassirer's mostly temperate but tough look at how big business is corrupting medicine--but according to Kassirer, one doctor's wife used the word "whore" to describe her husband's accepting high fees to promote medical products. Such personal anecdotes distinguish Kassirer's look at the conversion of America's health-care system into a commercial enterprise. Kassirer, former editor-in-chief of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, notes the range of conflicts of interest between profit-centered business and people-centered medicine, such as the drug industry's huge expenditures (in the billions) for courting doctors to use their products, for recruiting physicians to tout their drugs or, more slyly, to present seemingly objective medical discussions that, on closer examination, do favor the company's product over others. Kassirer also covers the abuses of both fee-for-service (which can lead doctors to perform unnecessary but lucrative tests and procedures) and HMOs (which reward doctors for keeping costs down). The author calls for more scrutiny of the health-care industry by Congress and a "sustained public outcry against inappropriate practices"; the banning of industry gifts to medical personnel; and--difficult to imagine--disclosure to patients by doctors of financial incentives they are receiving. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Nuclear Terrorism, by Harvard University Anti-Terrorism Expert Professor Graham Allison. A Times Book, $ 24.00.
Introductory comment by Dr. Hans Kugler: " Fast forward some time. A bipartisan commission is conducting hearings in Washington to determine why we were asleep at the wheel when terrorists set off a nuclear device in one of our major cities. The attack killed 300,000. The new commission has established - - - that one of the reasons we failed to prevent this tragedy was that the 9-11 investigation spent too much time assigning blame and looking backward - - - . It unwittingly contributed to a malaise that military historians have long studied: fighting the last war rather than preparing for the next one." L.A. TIMES 4.26.04. Excerpts from an article by Amitai Etzioni.
Logic Discarded?? While during the last elections even President Bush and John Kerry agreed that a nuclear threat, with more than 10 key findings by anti-terrorist agencies around the world supporting this conclusion (see Defeating Terrorism, this web-site), IS the highest risk the US is facing from terrorists, the absolute majority of people are totally unprepared. Example: A nuclear act of terrorism would release radioactive iodine into the air that can cause deadly harm as far away as several hundred miles via depositing the radioactive iodine in the thyroid, thus killing people by inducing cancer. A simple pill, Potassium Iodide, when taken before exposure occurs, will saturate the thyroid with iodine, thus preventing the deposition of radioactive iodine, and thus preventing cancer. Even though recommended by the government, people do not have potassium iodide pills readily accessible in at least three places, home, car, and at work. Spending $ 14 on a bottle of potassium iodide is too much to be prepared? When nuclear terrorism happens, it will be too late; ordering it then won't get it to you on time.
About the book, NUCLEAR TERRORISM:
A leading strategist opens our eyes to the greatest terrorist threat of all -- and how to prevent it before it's too late.
Americans in the twenty-first century are keenly aware of the many forms of terrorism: hijackings, biological attacks, chemical weapons. But rarely do we allow ourselves to face squarely the deadliest form of terrorism, because it is almost too scary to think about -- a terrorist group exploding a nuclear device in an American city.
In this urgent call to action, Graham Allison, one of America's leading experts on nuclear weapons and national security, presents the evidence for two provocative, compelling conclusions. First, if policy makers in Washington keep doing what they are currently doing about the threat, a nuclear terrorist attack on America is likely to occur in the next decade. And if one lengthens the time frame, a nuclear strike is inevitable. Second, the surprising and largely unrecognized good news is that nuclear terrorism is, in fact, preventable. In these pages, Allison offers an ambitious but feasible blueprint for eliminating the possibility of nuclear terrorist attacks.
The United States once relied on the threat of mutually assured destruction to deter the Soviet Union from launching a nuclear strike. But in today's fragmented world, a new strategy is needed, especially with nuclear material vulnerable to theft or sale through black-market channels.
The choice is ours: to grab this beast by the horns or to be impaled on those horns. We do not have the luxury of hoping the problem will go away, and Allison shows why.
"Graham Allison's Nuclear Terrorism is absolutely first-rate. Our survival as a civilization may well depend more than anything else on our heeding the recommendations of this chilling and superbly crafted book."
--R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence
"Graham Allison is a latter day Paul Revere, calling citizens to arms against the real and rising threat of nuclear terrorism. In clear, readable words of wisdom, Allison tells us 'everything we ever wanted to know about nuclear terrorism,' but he also tells us what we must do to prevent nuclear terrorism. For everyone from national security specialists trying to define a strategy to parents who want to leave their children a world worth living in, Graham Allison's book is essential reading."
--Sam Nunn, former U.S. Senator and co-chairman, Nuclear Threat Initiative
"Graham Allison has produced a book that it is truly alarming about the danger of nuclear terror -- yet optimistic about our prospects if we do all that we could and should. One only hopes it is read and heeded."
--Richard Haass, president, Council on Foreign Relations
Graham Allison , founding dean of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government.
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OVERDO$ED AMERICA: The Broken Promise of American Medicine, by John Abramson, M.D . A Harper-Collins Book.
Review originally published by STROKESURVIVORS INTERNATION. I couldn't have said it better. www.strokesurvivors.org . Dr. Hans Kugler.
Dr. Abramson has exposed how the pharmaceutical industry dominates and controls the medical health system in America, in its ruthless pursuit of ever-more greedy profits.
He shows that optimum health for Americans is not a priority of the health care system. But rather, profits for the pharmaceutical industry prevail as the highest priority. In easily readable format, Dr. Abramson explains, in detail how this deceit has been accomplished.
There are many examples given throughout the book explaining how doctors and other health professionals, and even huge teaching hospitals and national health institutions, have been manipulated and misled.
We learn in the book, of a detailed analysis of some of the highest selling drugs in America today, and how the results can be manipulated, to favor the pharmaceutical industry.
How some of these "new" drugs are no better than much older cheaper drugs, and how in some cases the new drugs may even be detrimental (and cause harm eventually). Huge advertising campaigns (via television, magazines, inundation of doctors offices by drug super-salesman leaving free samples) ensure success of drug sales. In reading about how these trials are conducted and manipulated, I was left with some very chilling thoughts. The same can be said for the super-marketing of medical equipment, begging the questions: Do we really need an MRI for every ache and pain; or an implanted heart defibrillator? The same can be said for expensive, and sometimes unnecessary medical procedures. Urged on by industry, patients often demand the new drugs, and procedures. Doctors are trained to trust drug information reported in their medical journals when making decisions about their patient.
The book documents the HRT debacle. Premarin, approved in early 1940's was finally "not approved" in the late 1990's. In fact, it was determined to be useless in halting osteoporosis in post-menopausal women, and could lead to a susceptibility for increased cardiovascular events. Menopause, it was finally realized, was a natural event rather than a disease! The cholesterol mania is also fully explored in the book.
The pharmaceutical industry gets involved very early, from the time of doctor-training, and most pharmaceutical companies provide continuing education seminars and conferences for doctors. Many of the scientific and government health experts, supposedly overseeing clinical trials, or shaping policies, have financial contracts with the drug companies as "consultants". How can they not be biased in favour of the corporation who is providing such financial, and often more material benefits (expensive trips, dinners, gifts)?
The book offers some incredibly simple solutions to correct and restore the ailing health care system of America; to wrest it away from the greedy pharmaceutical corporations, and put matters back in the hands of unbiased and independent scientists.
The author suggests that health professionals (primary care givers, particularly) place more emphasis to counseling their patients on lifestyle changes (stop smoking, exercise more, eat nutritionally) as a first approach. There are too many "specialists" and not enough family doctors. The government needs to provide incentives to attract more general practitioners. America has far too many "specialists" in proportion to family doctors.
Dr. Abramson provides compassionate stories about some of his own patients. He provides a daunting amount of source notes, and there is an impressive bibliography at the back of the book. Finally, an index for easy reference.
Conclusion:
Any American concerned with health and ever-rising costs of health would be enlightened and shocked by reading Dr. Abramson's carefully researched and well written exposure of deceit and manipulation of the health system by the pharmaceutical companies. Primary Care Givers, Health Care Professionals, and Politicians would find the findings exposed as this book as "eye-opening." After reading this book, patients will question every pill and medical procedure recommended by their doctors and specialists. Can the incredible damage caused by the commercial exploitation of the health system be fixed? Dr. Abramson thinks it can, and he offers some believable and fairly simple solutions, if we all take responsibility for our own health, and urge our political leaders to act in our interests to accomplish needed changes.
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