Natural Hygiene

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Hygienic Review

Vol. XXVII May, 1966 No. 9

Hygienic Position Verified

Herbert M. Shelton

Many times during the past several years I have told my readers that all drugs

are poisonous and that it was folly to expend time and money investigating each

drug when it is possible to discard them all in one blanket condemnation. I am

happy to be able to present some confirmation of the view from authoritative

medical sources. I am going to quote from an article entitled, " Toxicology and

the Biomedical Sciences " which appeared in the June, 1965, issue of Science, the

official organ of the American Association For The Advancement of Science. This

article was jointly authored by Bernard B. Brodie, M. D., chief of Laboratory of

Chemical Pharmacology in the National Heart Institute; J. Cosmides, M.

D., program director, Pharmacology-Toxicology Program, National Institutes of

Health; and P. Rall, M. D., associate scientific director for Experimental

Therapeutics, National Cancer Institute. The high standing of each of these men

assures us the last word on the subject.

To begin with they say, " The number and variety of chemicals that affect man has

increased at an alarming rate and created a public health problem of major

proportions. We are confronted with a profusion of chemicals in the form of

industrial and municipal wastes, air and water pollutants, herbicides,

pesticides, cosmetics, food additives, as well as drugs administered over

extended periods of time, and yet we do not know what these substances do to

biological systems. In effect, we are thrust into global experiments for which

we are not prepared.

" For some of these hazards, such as automobile exhaust fumes or cigarette smoke,

we are unlikely to find more compelling evidence of their deleterious effects.

It remains for industrial and governmental bodies to utilize in the public

interest all the information now available, and for the scientific community to

continue experimentation on the basic mechanisms of their effects and to find

ways of preventing or attenuating their hazard.

" There remains, however, a major problem with the vast number of chemical

compounds whose possible poisonous effects are not known or cannot be predicted.

It is this area which is the subject of our article. "

Then it is that these authors confirm my position that it is futile to test

chemical substances, one by one, when it is known that all of them are toxic.

Concerning this they say: " It seems futile to record one by one the biological

effects of millions of chemical entities without the development of unifying and

simplifying generalizations. It is evident that new means must be sought to

accelerate the acquisition of new knowledge on the effects of chemicals on

living materials, and to develop a system for the rapid dissemination of such

information, In this article we outline some of the problems in toxicology and

offer recommendations as to how these problems should be approached. "

While it is fully acknowledged by the authors that our modern chemical

environment is a mass of toxins, that new toxic substances are being added to

our environment daily, they do not offer anything so simple as the

discontinuance of air pollution, water pollution, food pollution, and

country-side pollution with insecticides, but have taken for granted that the

increasing poisoning of our environment is to continue and that the so-called

researchers are to continue testing the various toxins to determine the effects

of each. In their article, they practically ignore environmental pollution after

the initial admission that it exists and constitutes a serious problem and

largely confine their attention to drugs.

Of drugs they say: " Investigations of drugs are frequently complicated by the

difficulties of eliciting their subtle, often unusual deleterious effects, and

of evaluating these effects against the beneficial actions. Even members of a

single species can vary in their response to a particular substance, yet large

numbers of people may be exposed to a drug on the basis of toxicity in

relatively few animals. "

A recent example of the manner in which human beings are subjected to drug

dangers after relatively slight animal testing is that of a new birth control

drug, NK-665, manufactured by the Merck Company. While the drug was still being

tested on animals, large numbers of women were used in so-called clinical tests

on the same drug. When it was found that it produced cancer in the test animals,

testing on women was immediately discontinued. Whatever else we may say about

drug and drug testing, it does seem that all animal testing should be completed

before a new drug is tested on human beings. In saying this I do not mean to be

understood as having anything against the animals. I pity these poor victims of

" science " the same as I do the poor human guinea-pigs who are submitted to

drugging, whether for test purposes or for therapeutic purposes.

I do not put any value in the medical stupidity that drugs that have usual or

unusual deleterious effects may also have " beneficial actions. " Drugs are

simply poisonous, and the only effects they can have are harmful ones. These

authors say: " At present, a potential therapeutic agent is first screened for

biological activity in laboratory mammals. If the substance shows potentially

useful pharmacological or therapeutic activity, then the toxic effects are

determined in experimental animals before the substance is tested in man. Thus

the pharmacological and toxic effects exerted by a drug must he predicted from

the effects in laboratory animals. Our modern system of drug development,

therefore, depends on the assumption of a high degree of correlation between

effects in animals and man. That such predictions are often unreliable raises

serious questions regarding these tests. "

Concerning this same difference between effects following drugs when given to

animals and when given to man, they say: " In the past, variations among species

in the response to a drug were attributed to differences in the sensitivity of

receptor sites, and the prospects of obtaining data from animals that would be

applicable to man were bleak. However, variation in drug metabolism within and

between species is now known to be the rule rather than the exception... "

Here again we have these men stupidly referring to the biological activity of

chemical substances and to drug metabolism. It is becoming quite common for

pharmacologists and physicians to discuss the metabolism of drugs, when they

should know that there is no such thing as drug metabolism — not any more than

there is such a thing as biological activity of chemical components. Loose

language of this type indicates loose thinking, or else it indicates a

deliberate misuse of terms in an effort to deceive, to create confusion, and in

an effort to deceive readers. Another frequent expression of these men of

so-called science is " drug receptors. " They regard the various organs and

tissues of the body as receivers of drugs when in reality they reject them.

Returning, however, to the difficulties of extrapolating the effects occasioned

by a drug in one animal to another animal, let me quote further from these

authors. They say: " In tests of subacute and chronic toxicity, differences

between animals and man in rates of drug metabolism are particularly important.

Despite a large variability in metabolism, the acute lethal toxicity of many

barbiturates (administered intravenously) is almost identical in various

mammalian species because of the short time lapse between administration of drug

and death, On the other hand, the lethal toxicity of a drug will vary

considerably if time elapses between drug administration and death. A substance

metabolized in rats 50 times more rapidly than in man may have the same acute

toxicity in both species, but the chronic toxicity may be vastly different

because of drug cumulation. Phenyl-hutazone, an antirheumatic agent metabolized

much more rapidly in the rat than in man, causes the retention of sodium. Rats

given a single dose of drug do not show this effect. To maintain the drug at a

plasma concentration that produces sodium retention in man (about 150 ug/ml),

the rat must be given a total daily dosage of 400 milligrams per kilogram of

body weight compared with the 5 to 10 milligrams per kilogram required in man.

" Much of the research on the teratogenic effects of thalidomide in animals is

difficult to interpret. The drug is said to produce a long-lasting sedation in

man and the horse but only a fleeting effect in most other species. We know of

no studies that relate the plasma concentration to the teratogenic effects. From

the short-lived sedative action in the rat, one would suspect that this animal

might inactivate the drug much more rapidly than does man.

" Thus, in toxicity studies it is important to compare in the various species the

plasma or tissue concentration at which a drug elicits an adverse effect. Until

this has been done with a variety of agents we cannot know to what extent

species variability in toxicity depends on differences in rate of' drug

metabolism or differences in inherent toxicity. "

By drug metabolism and inactivating the drug they mean the same thing. They have

in mind only the means employed by the body in defending itself against the

" inherent toxicity " of chemical substances that are foolishly introduced into

the body.

After all the testing on men and animals has been done, there still remains the

variability between men and women. For example, these authors say: " A common

cause of toxic reactions arises from 'overdosage' because of person-to-person

variability in rates of drug metabolism; the same daily dose of a drug may cure,

cause severe toxicity, or have no effects whatsoever... Each person seems to

have his own pattern of metabolism for these drugs. (They have previously

mentioned certain drugs) The consequences of individual differences in drug

metabolism are exaggerated in long-term therapy... "

It may be well to consider a few more statements of theirs concerning the

harmfulness of drugs. They say: " Drugs used medicinally may produce adverse

effects by causing biochemical lesions and cellular damage, rather than by

exaggerating the actions of physiological control systems. "

" Some drugs will invariably produce cellular damage if the concentration in the

plasma is high enough. For example, isoniazid at almost the same plasma

concentration in animals and man reacts with pyridoxal to produce adverse

effects on the nervous system. In fact, isoniazid produces a neuropathy in

patients who, by genetic predisposition, (a mere supposition—author) metabolize

the drug excessively slowly and therefore receive the maximum antituberculous

effects of the drug. "

They tell us that certain drugs cause delayed toxic reactions and that cancer

production is among the important aspects of chemical toxicity. While certain

drugs which are classed as cyto-toxic agents (cellular poisons) cause necrosis

of the liver, others produce irreversible but fatal lesions in the kidneys, and

certain others produce cataracts. They point out that tissue damage is related

to drug accumulation and say that small amounts of some drugs may be retained in

the body for months and even years. Thus, if they are prescribed for regular

use, they tend to accumulate in amounts that cause great damage and death.

To the intelligent individual it would seem that men, viewing all of these

dangers produced by drugs, would warn against their use. But these men issue no

such warning. They are medical men engaged in prescribing drugs and in promoting

the use of drugs. Their interest is not in discrediting drug usage but in

increasing the drugging practice. Were it suggested to either of these three men

that it might be more advantageous to the sick to provide them with helpful

things, rather than ply them with destructive chemicals, they would indignantly

characterize the one making the suggestion as a member of the " lunatic fringe. "

They would be on the alert to protect their racket and would be among the first

to denounce as an ignoramus and quack any man who should dare to challenge the

validity of a system that seeks to restore the sick to health by poisoning them.

Yet there is no more sense in poisoning the sick than there is in poisoning the

well. Why should we pollute the human blood stream any more than we should

pollute our water supply or our atmosphere? Why should we pollute our cellular

structures any more than we should pollute our foods? The growing problem

confronting mankind, consequent upon the effort of chemists to take over human

life and deal with it as though it could be handled in a test tube, cannot be

solved by any amount of drug research. Human life will be safe only when the

last physician has been strangled with the guts of the last chemist.

--

Peace be with you,

Don " Quai " Eitner

" Spirit sleeps in the mineral, breathes in the vegetable, dreams in the animal

and wakes in man. "

Nearly all men die of their remedies, and not of their illnesses. ~Jean

Baptiste Molière, Le Malade Imaginaire

The obstacle is the path. ~Zen Proverb

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