This will really date me, but how many of you remember the Vietnam War? Do you remember the college students and other people protesting? We even had crazy street preachers protesting. We lost about 58,000 people in the war over a period of 10 to 12 years. Looking back it was not an easy time and some good folks died too early. I lost several classmates to death or who were mentally messed up forever.

You may ask why I am dragging this up. Well, we have a more serious problem today and no one is protesting - not even crazy street preachers. Someone needs to speak up and I guess I have elected me to stir up the waters.

The AMA - American Medical Association - has admitted that 100,000 people have died needlessly due to mistakes in hospitals. Some of these are drug interactions, some are wrong medications, some are nurse mistakes, and some are doctor mistakes. This death toll estimate by the AMA is considered way low by other groups.

The Ralph Nader group claims that 300,000 die needlessly and another 300,000 are permanently disabled to some extent. The poster child for screw ups is the guy who had the wrong leg amputated in a hospital. The bad leg had the gangrene and the doctor and staff left that one attached!

According to the medical report "Death by Medicine" by Drs. Gary Null, Carolyn Dean, Martin Feldman, Debora Rasio, and Dorothy Smith, 783,936 people die in the US every year as a result of conventional medicine mistakes. This is the equivalent of 6 jumbo jet crashes a day for an entire year.

Since 2001, 490,000 people in the US have died from prescription drugs. If deaths from over-the-counter drugs are also included, then drug consumption leaps to being 32,000 percent more dangerous than terrorism; and conventional medicine viewed as a whole is 104,700 percent deadlier than terrorism.

The problems are primarily those of money and ethics; drugs are over-prescribed and surgeries are over-recommended in order to increase the profits of the medical industry. The FDA is there to protect drug companies, not the public. Fifty five percent of salaries in the FDA are reported to be paid by drug companies - this is somewhat equivalent to putting the fox in the hen house.

Medicine supports or hides behind the double-blind placebo studies to support using drugs. The truth is that these studies are fixed to get the results that drug companies want so they can sell drugs. Take mind-altering drugs that are used for depression. The drug companies are only required to have two positive studies and the FDA grants approval. There may 10 to 15 negative studies, but these are not brought to the attention of the FDA.

Did you know there has never been one, double-blind placebo study done for any type of surgery in this country (or another country for that matter)? There has never been a study to see if heart bypass surgery is effective (there are some studies that are questioning this procedure today), no studies on tubes in the ear, the list goes on and on!

My wife is a nurse and has said for years there will never be a cure for cancer or heart disease because there is no money in cures. If we cured cancer today, 20% of the medical community would be unemployed in the very near future. The government is not about to be part of such a loss in revenue.

Obesity is another part of this. All sorts of people are getting on the band wagon to get rid of obesity, but the truth is that food companies don't want skinny people - skinny people don't buy as much food as fat people. Drug companies don't want skinny people because skinny people don't get as sick or need chronic drugs. Insurance companies don't want skinny people as they would not need as much insurance, and the government doesn't want skinny people! How would the government profit from obesity? If obesity causes Type II diabetes and heart disease and the life expectancy decreases from 77 years to 72 years (which has been predicted recently), then the drain on Social Security will go down. It might not save Social Security but it will surely help.

What's a person to do? Educate, educate, educate! You must learn how chemicals cause disease. You need to learn how chemicals prevent you from losing weight. You need to learn how to supplement on the short run and how to find healthy food in the long run. Life is great, but you must be in charge - not a food company, or drug company, not a doctor, not a dietician - just you, your family, and friends.

I have lost over 70 pounds and feel better today than most people my age. I ride a bike and do things my father couldn't do at my age.

I will share what I have done so you too can look younger, feel better, and live longer, but remember - given half a chance your doctor will kill you! I am not suggesting that you never go to doctors; I'm merely saying you should learn to prevent problems and only go when necessary. With prevention, you won't have the need for medical intervention.