In Bed With The Drug Cartel

Thank you for an informative story about hospital marketing (“If We Didn’t Advertise We’d Go Broke,” Cover Story, June 25). Our hospitals are in the front lines in fighting the population’s health problems. We can see the open competition. In order to secure the faith of the people, hospitals should advocate for the health of the people. They can do this by not aligning themselves with the doctors’ union (American Medical Association) and the drug monopoly, both of which are generally regarded as advocating for their members and stockholders rather than for the health of the people.

One way to gain credibility with us is to reject the monopoly of allopathy and include naturopathy in your mix of accepted treatment protocols. Sure, you would have to stand up to the FDA and their government guns, but that is part of the education: acknowledge that the FDA is a rubber stamp for Big Pharma and actively suppresses all competing practices and products.

Hospitals are the logical nexus for grassroots efforts to diversify the modalities of disease prevention (as if there is any prevention employed now). The research in natural healing theories and practices is exploding; and if it wasn’t for the AMA and FDA and Big Pharma suppression of media reporting, everyone would be well aware of the breakthroughs. But because natural products can’t be patented and distribution restricted to MD prescriptions, there is no profit for the AMA and the drug cartel, so naturopathy must be destroyed.

The FDA and the Codex Alimentarius are proceeding to do just that. Already, many food supplements have been banned, and they won’t stop until nothing is available except synthetic drugs. Since drugs only mask symptoms, the people remain ill and eventually end up in your hospitals. Fine, good business — if they can pay. But the trend is toward fewer covered payers and more charity cases. This will kill the hospitals, and you know it. That is why advocating for maximum diversification in preventative health modalities is in the hospitals’ interest.

Don’t think that the inevitable national health-care plan will cover hospitals’ real costs. It won’t for two reasons: One, they won’t pay enough. Two, they will extend the economic monopoly of allopathy to a legal monopoly; meaning, nondrug modalities will be outlawed. This is evident in the current enforcement of the Codex in various countries already, and it was a component of the Clinton health plan 15 years ago, ostensibly, to placate the AMA and the drug cartel.

Without a cheap alternative for the people, especially the working poor (80 percent of the population), to pursue natural health maintenance at home, the hospitals will be flooded with the poor, suffering from the side effects of our killing diet and of the drugs themselves. The solution for preserving the viability of hospitals is to advocate for keeping these teeming masses out of your ERs. The AMA, FDA, and their master, the drug cartel, don’t care about hospitals. So why should you be loyal to them? Be loyal to your constituency, the people who live around you. Advocate for their ownership of their own bodies. The state does not own their bodies, despite the wishes of the three entities listed above.

Pat Palmer
Normal Heights

Aggregate Is Everywhere

I appreciate your coverage of the proposed Liberty Quarry conflict (“Fallbrook’s Mine — A Hit or the Pits?” “City Lights,” June 25). I am a resident of Rainbow and one of the 500 citizens who attended the LAFCO hearing on June 4. I spoke on behalf of saving this pristine wilderness area for posterity, since it is a one-of-a-kind place equivalent to Yosemite National Park in uniqueness.

Although the employees of Granite Construction would have you believe there are no other sources of aggregate in our area, one of the speakers at the hearing had a projected map image showing the areas in San Diego and Riverside counties that are aggregate sources, and there are dozens. Choosing the site they have chosen is purely the company’s way of having an easy access to highway 15 without regard to the devastating effects a mine would reap on the surrounding area’s ecological system and infrastructure. You mentioned Rosemary’s Mountain, which is Granite Construction’s most recent mine acquisition in the Rainbow area. This new mine is already being prepared and will be an aggregate source for the next 20 years.

One group in opposition to the Liberty Quarry that also made a very poignant 15-minute presentation at the LAFCO hearing was the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians. The proposed quarry site is sacred land for this Indian tribe. It marks the very spot where their creation legends tell of the birth of their peoples.

I realize that a journalist is required to present both sides of a conflict situation such as this, and you did a commendable job. I just felt that since you had not mentioned the Indians’ request to have their sacred lands protected from devastation that you may not have been aware of this added contention in the dispute.

Marilee Ragland
Rainbow

Dope Sex

I’m writing about the “Stringers” article entitled “La Policia Scare the Pants Off Prostitutes,” page 16 of the June 25 issue. I work in Tijuana, and my girlfriend is a licensed sex-care provider in Zona Norte, in accordance with Mexican laws.

First of all, “prostitución” is a Mexican legal term meaning “any sex involving children, narcotics, pain, bondage, white slavery, rape, animals, the dead, orgy, weapons, and/or sadism.” Selling sex for money is not “prostitution.” That is “sexual surrogacy” and is legal but licensed.

Police routinely raid women with no health licenses (because they have HIV) and bars that do not check the licenses of women they admit. And, in Mexico, police raids are brutal. Mexican Immigration gets involved because there are many U.S. women working illegally in the sex trade, and most of them sell dope on the side.

The Federales (Mexican FBI) never get involved in the sex business, unless “prostitution” (as opposed to merely selling sex) is taking place. Police seized heroin and crack cocaine, plus thousands of dollars coming from narcotics sales.

A friend of my girlfriend was present in one of the raids and presented her license, suffering no consequences. Those caught with dope got a different treatment, including patrons. Dope sex is “prostitution” and illegal in Mexico. ¿Comprende?

John Kitchin
via email