A Nickel for My Thoughts?

Yep! For a nickel you can now get several years of research and the contents of hundreds of research articles read by someone who is not on the payroll of pharmaceutical companies. That would be in the form of a used copy of my book Before You Take That Pill, purchased on amazon.com. Or if you want a new book that might have an overstock mark you can pay $2.78.

You might want to do it fast though because with all of this free publicity the book has been getting lately it might go fast. At this point either the book, or me, will be going fast I think.

If this seems like gratuitous self promotion, that’s because, well, it is. If you aren’t interested in the book you might want to buy it as an act of solidarity since my university refused to issue a press release and otherwise squashed publicity and my local paper the Atlanta Journal Constitution refused to write about it even though I only said that drinking a sugar added beverage each day would make you gain five pounds a year, and didn’t actually use the word “soda” (OK, I said it).

Here is a recent amazon review from Carolyn, July 6, 2009 (no I don’t know her)

Now that every other commercial on television is urging us to “talk to your doctor about” and dispensing marketing disguised as bogus medical advice, we need objective information if we are to avoid the pitfalls of being over medicated for no good reason.

You can read this book cover to cover, as i did, even though i take no medication or you can look up the chapters that apply to you. here’s a perfect example: i sent the book to my 85 year old father to read. for some reason, he had been put on simvastatin. after reading the chapter on cholesterol lowering medication, he decided to stop taking it. when he told his cardiologist, the doctor said “i don’t know why you were ever on it to begin with!”

Obviously, another doctor had prescribed it a long time ago and no one was keeping track. so aside from helping to keep the country’s wildly out of control medical costs in check, my dad also noticed that a mysterious rash he had developed went away, in addition to muscle aches which he had attributed to his age.

He also quit his advair and has had no problems so far without it.

Now he is like any normal healthy 85 year old living in a country that doesn’t ram drugs down people’s throats to keep stock options soaring- he mows his own lawn, trims his hedges, treated his garage for termites and is getting ready to rehang all the windows in his house.

Yes, some people need drugs for short periods to fight infections and save their lives. but this chronic use of drugs for everything and forever is nonsense. we are certainly no healthier for it and certainly way poorer.

That a doctor was willing to examine his profession objectively and point out this very big weakness is something we must be grateful for.

Thank you, Dr Bremner

You’re welcome, hon.