Lebanon’s war on ‘hashish’ indistinguishable from war on the poor
A cannabis farmer in the Bekaa Valley prays as Lebanese army men come to destroy his harvest. Al-Akhbar/Rameh Hamieh
By Amer Mohsen | Al-Akhbar | November 27, 2014
The cultivation of cannabis is popular in specific areas that have special characteristics like high altitude and sunlight, similar to the Bekaa region. This differential feature of Lebanon, which can revive the Lebanese countryside, has been overcome by the alternative agricultural policies required from abroad. The health risks associated with the use of cannabis are minimal compared to alcohol and tobacco, and compared with the results of the war on cannabis cultivation which only affects the poor segments of society.
A few years ago, Lebanese organizations, including left-wing movements, launched a media campaign warning against cannabis and the risk of its spread among the youth. The intention behind the campaign was noble, but it had several flaws: The first is related to the medical claims that accompanied the campaign – which are similar to the propaganda that was disseminated in America during the forties to scare people away from marijuana – saying that marijuana drives people crazy, makes them jump out of windows, and causes delinquency and crime. The main problem was in the “central-Beiruti” mentality, which led left-wing movements to claim their devotion to the grievances of the poor and the marginalized, and thus sought to combat and criminalize hashish rather than demand its legalization and lifting the ban on its cultivation.
The issue is very clear. There is a disregard – even contempt – by urban activists for the fates of hundreds of thousands of peasants in their country. They support policies and laws that have impoverished large parts of the Lebanese countryside, either because of their focus on “more important” issues (such as the rejection of the [parliamentary] extension and the “revolt against the sectarian system”), or because of a bourgeois view aimed at preserving morality and normalcy. There is no harm in adopting or defending such a view, but not when it is at the expense of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged segments of society. To date, there are no adequate studies on the social and economic deterioration that affected the villages of Bekaa and Hermel after the prohibition of cannabis cultivation in the nineties, and others on the prosperity witnessed in the region and the local development that resulted from it, while the rest of the country – paradoxically – was experiencing the worst stages of the civil war, and so the government left the farmers alone.
From the history of cannabis
In his book about the history of cannabis, Martin Booth (who also published a well-known book about opium) says that the cannabis is one of the oldest plantations that spread in human societies. He refers to one of the three major species of cannabis today, the “cannabis sativa,” whose name in Latin means “cultivated hemp” because it reached us in its hybrid version, which means that Neanderthals cultivated and hybridized it for thousands of years until the original “wild” seed has been lost and we now have the agriculturally-improved species.
The cultivation of cannabis was widespread not only because of its narcotic effect. Archeological excavations have shown that the consumption of cannabis was also part of religious rituals, and that the plant was an economic asset and resource used in the manufacturing of cloth, linen, ropes, and oils. A conspiracy theory popular among supporters of marijuana in the United States claims that the ban on cannabis cultivation is linked to influential circles in the timber industry, who sought to exclude cannabis as a competitive resource in the paper-manufacturing industry.
We also find many references to hashish and cannabis in Arab and Islamic history, which show its spread and recreational use in our countries through the eras, such as in the writings of chronicler Abdel Rahman al-Jabarti (who talked about his meeting with a mosque orator in Cairo, who claimed to be “under the effect of hashish” to justify his lack of focus during the sermon), as well as in the fatwas of Ibn Taymiyyah, where “Sheikh al-Islam” discussed the topic of hashish and ended up outlawing most of its uses. Based on his jurisprudential arguments, it appears that the people at the time used to consume cannabis either through melting it in tea, eating it directly, or cooking it with food (since the United States had not been discovered yet, and tobacco had not yet reached the ancient world). However, the prolonged explanation provided by Ibn Taymiyyah on the topic and his detailed justification of the prohibition show that the scholars of his day did not have a clear or decisive stance on the matter.
Lebanon and the differential feature
To be able to understand the secret behind the special relationship between Lebanon and hashish, and the differential feature that characterizes the Bekaa Valley and its surrounding hills in this regard, we have to know a few basics about the cultivation of this plant. According to Martin Booth, the “quality” of the hashish – i.e., the concentration of the principal psychoactive constituent Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in the female plants – is directly linked to two factors: altitude and sunlight. Cannabis needs large amounts of solar radiation during the maturity period so the plant can grow rapidly, and the growth of its genital parts, which contain the active substance, needs infrared (IR) radiation, whose concentration in the sun increases with altitude.
In other words, high-quality cannabis needs high-altitude mountainous areas, which are, at the same time, hot and exposed to the burning sun during the summer, which is rare in the world. For this reason, the cultivation of cannabis is prominent in specific areas that combine the characteristics of altitude and sunlight, like the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, the hills of Afghanistan … and the Lebanese Bekaa. This is a “geographic gift” that cannot be cloned or bought with money. It is limited to a few regions in the world – Booth says that the best and most expensive types of hashish are grown in India, on the foothills of the Himalayas and over-3,000-meter heights, and due to their rarity are preserved in special leather bags. These qualities have made Lebanon’s Bekaa and Hermel a center for cannabis cultivation since ancient times.
The charming town of Yamuna, which lies in a small internal valley in the highlands of Lebanon’s western mountain range, acquired its “market” reputation in the production of cannabis not because of its special soil, or the magic touch of al-Sharif. It is simply due to its high altitude in the barren areas and abundant water sources, which allows the cultivation of cannabis in perfect conditions. If the Hermel heights – which are rain fed areas today – were covered by irrigation projects – as it was supposed to be decades ago – the whole area would have been like Yamuna.
Lebanon’s gold
In the past two decades, new varieties of marijuana were bred in the West, and plantation techniques were developed in closed spaces under controlled lighting and temperature conditions to produce crops in which the concentration of the psychoactive constituent exceeds any product grown in nature.
However, this pattern of agriculture (which supplies the medical and commercial marijuana market in the West) requires the consumption of large amounts of energy for each plant separately. It is also less competitive – in the commercial sense – compared with lands that are, by nature, ideal for the cultivation of cannabis, and have been inherited by farmers over long years. Millions of meters of these lands can be cultivated at a low cost, and by relying solely on the generosity of the sun and the sky.
From here, we conclude that any kind of agriculture is – naturally – ideal for the marginal areas of Lebanon, and some have real differential features on a global level. A quick look at the labor force working in Lebanon, the price of land, and state policies is enough to understand that Lebanon’s competitive commodity – which will eliminate rural poverty and create development in rural areas – is most likely not potatoes or wheat. In addition, a main characteristic of agricultural property in eastern Lebanon is that [owned lands] are relatively small and fragmented. Also, most farmers own their land, which prevents the emergence of feudal and semi-feudal cartels (as in Afghanistan and South America), or huge agricultural companies that would exploit the peasants as laborers and monopolize profits for the benefit of major landowners. A significant part of proceeds from the cultivation of “contraband” plants in the Bekaa traditionally went to farmers.
This question should be raised, while the country that pressured and forced Lebanon to ban the cultivation of cannabis – the United States – has legalized the use of hashish in several states. The governments of the West no longer have a moral or legal excuse to impose such policies on our country. The general direction in the West is heading toward the legalization of cannabis derivatives, or at least not criminalizing it and prosecuting its users. But Lebanon is required to arrest its farmers who are seeking to avoid hunger and migration.
War on the poor
One of the reasons that triggered the wave of marijuana legalization in the West, even for recreational use, is the absence of a convincing medical argument – i.e. a threat to “public safety” – to justify the prohibition of hashish while allowing the sale of other “drugs” like alcohol and tobacco, which are far more dangerous and harmful than marijuana. As Professor As`ad AbuKhalil once wrote, if whiskey was produced by the countries of the South, while hashish was monopolized by the West, wine would be forbidden and frowned upon in Lebanon while ads by hashish companies would have filled the streets.
Science has become clear in this regard. Serious proven tests have shown that the consumption of cannabis may have side effects and can be dangerous for people who suffer from certain neurological problems. Also, heavy consumption can cause addiction and dependency in one out of 10 cases. However, these risks are insignificant compared with those of alcohol and tobacco, or even stress. Tobacco combustion may be the most dangerous thing in a “marijuana cigarette.” During the writing of this article, I consulted with a professor and researcher of Lebanese origin at Harvard Medical School, who graciously provided me with scientific studies and summaries. He expressed his opposition to the criminalization of cannabis cultivation, adding that its advantages in medical use are “very real,” and that the greatest harm results from the war on cultivation, as evidenced by the American experience, since it mainly affects – in Lebanon, as in America – the poorer classes, which do not have a voice in society.
This is one of the issues that will not be of concern to civil society organizations, and will not receive financing from European governments and institutions. However – unlike a lot of campaigns created by these organizations to justify their existence – it is achievable and can change – in the actual direct sense – many people’s lives.
It is possible to imagine a different future for large areas in Lebanon that are marginalized and disadvantaged today, in which farmers will be able to live in dignity and prosperity in their areas, and land and production will have real value.
The people living on the coast may migrate to internal areas, this time, in search of work and opportunities.
EU chief calls for decentralization and federalization of Ukraine
RT | November 27, 2014
To solve the current crisis in Ukraine, the country should become decentralized and federalized, Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, announced in his political anniversary speech in Paris this week.
Quoting “1,000 deaths” in the country since the cease-fire agreement was reached in Minsk on September 5, Van Rompuy said he could no longer call the situation a cease-fire. And a new cessation of conflict, if controlled by the same players, would have the identical outcome, the politician said in his speech, marking his five years presidency of the European Council.
Urging a “global solution,” the EU chief said a way for Ukraine to become a “decentralized (or federalized) country” must be found. He called for the country’s closer ties with the EU. However, he also said, “Europe has become unpopular among Europeans” in the past five to six years.
Kiev should “establish a correct relationship with Russia, its neighbor, with which it shares history, culture and language,” Van Rompuy said, adding that the interests of minorities in Ukraine should be respected.
Sharing his EU “experiences and perspectives” with students at the Sciences Po institute of political studies in Paris, he pointed out that the current crisis in Ukraine is “the most grave geopolitical crisis we’ve experienced in Europe since the end of the Cold war.” What makes it even worse, according to the Rompuy, is the fact that the “war” is happening on European soil.
Van Rompuy is not the first European politician to suggest Ukraine’s federalization. Earlier in August, Germany’s Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, who is also the country’s economy minister, spoke out for federalization to be introduced in Ukraine once the conflict in the east of the country is resolved.
The same measures to help settle the crisis in eastern Ukraine have been voiced by Moscow. However, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko keeps ruling out such political changes, saying the country’s federalization is out of question.
Zionist Attorney-General Refuses to Answer Questions About “Anti-Terrorism” Laws
By Joshua Blakeney | Non-Aligned Media | November 27, 2014
Recently Israel’s department for her colonies of Australia and Canada dispatched new “anti-terror” legislation which will make it illegal for Australian and Canadian subjects of the Israeli Empire to “condone” so called “terrorism”.
In the above video Australia’s Zionist Attorney-General, George Brandis, can be viewed enabling such farcical anti-free-speech laws to be foisted upon the people of Australia without oversight, by refusing to answer critical questions from senators about the controversial legislation.
That Canada and Australia are governed out of the same colonial office in Tel Aviv was suggested when it was revealed that Prime Ministers John Howard and Stephen Harper had been given the same pro-Iraq-war script to read in 2003 (see below).
US helping Israel boycott Geneva summit on occupied territories – diplomatic sources
RT | November 27, 2014
Switzerland is under diplomatic pressure from Israel, the US, Canada and Australia, which are trying to prevent an international conference in Geneva from taking place in mid-December on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, Haaretz reports.
Delegations from nearly 200 countries are expected to head to Geneva to discuss the situation in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Yet, according to Haaretz, Israeli and Western diplomats are ready to go for broke to prevent the gathering from taking place.
Switzerland, as the main sponsor of the summit, is bearing the brunt of diplomatic pressure from all sides.
Israeli authorities told the media outlet that Palestinians and Arab states are also pressing Swiss officials to send out letters of invitation to the conference within a matter of days, the Israeli daily reported on Wednesday.
It was in early April when Israel announced plans of constructing 700 new houses in occupied East Jerusalem, a move that pushed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to ask 15 international conventions to join them in the name of the Palestinian state.
One of those was the Fourth Geneva Convention (signed 1949, came into force 1950), which specifically addresses protection of civilians in war zones and territories under military occupation.
Washington finally accepted that its efforts to extend peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been torpedoed. Several weeks later, Palestinians and the Arab League sent an official request to Switzerland to hold an international conference of the Fourth Geneva Convention signatory states on the issues of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, together with the damage caused by Israel’s armed forces to civilians in Gaza.
The last time the signatories to the Fourth Geneva Convention gathered in regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was in 2001, after the outbreak of the second intifada. That conference was boycotted by Israel and the United States.
After that summit there have been four fruitless attempts to gather the Fourth Geneva Convention on the issue of Israeli-Palestinian relations. Even the bloody Israeli military Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip in 2009 failed to raise broad international support for holding such a conference, according to the Swiss Foreign Ministry at the time.
The necessity to call the new conference has been not evident this time, too, so Swiss diplomats asked every Fourth Geneva Convention signatory separately whether the time had come to hold a summit.
What the Swiss diplomats have proposed is a three-hour conference at an ambassadorial level, no discussions and no media coverage except for a final press statement. The conference is set to be focused on implementation of the international humanitarian law in troubled Israeli-Palestinian relations.
“We made it clear we didn’t want a political event or debate club, or a conference that would blame or criticize one of the sides,” a Swiss diplomat said.
However small the scale of the proposed event is, Israel strongly objected to it. Israeli diplomats reportedly conducted negotiations in Bern and Geneva, trying to persuade Swiss counterparts to call off the initiative and threatening to boycott it anyway.
“They told us that holding the conference would help a one-sided Palestinian move intended to make Israel look bad and attack it in an international forum,” the Swiss diplomat said.
The US and Canada told Switzerland they are going to boycott the conference, too.
“We strongly oppose the convening of the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions and have made our opposition unmistakably clear,” a spokesman for the US State Department, Edgar Vasquez, told Haaretz.
It is true that the conference will have no authority to make any binding decisions, yet its work could engender further international criticism of Israel’s settlement policy on the occupied Palestinian territories.
Besides that, once Israeli diplomats received an updated draft of the conference’s proposed contents, they found out that the updated draft text had been phrased in a politicized way, directly naming Israel and going into detail on the issue of West Bank settlements.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has reportedly been ringing colleagues around the globe, attempting to talk them into declaring a boycott to the conference. Part of this work has been delegated to Israeli ambassadors worldwide.
With all due support on the part of the US, Canada and Australia, these efforts are likely to be in vain, and the Swiss diplomacy is decisive to go on with the plan and announce the conference officially soon.
The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits harming those uninvolved in a conflict, be they civilians, wounded soldiers or POWs, as well as obliging the occupying side to maintain human rights and decent living conditions of an occupied civilian population.
Israel joined the convention, but has never ratified it legislatively. The Israeli government regards the West Bank and East Jerusalem as ‘disputed’, not occupied, areas, therefore considering Israeli settlements as not violating the treaty.
Ebola’s Racial Disparity
By Kwei Quartey | FPIF | November 26, 2014
American healthcare workers Nancy Writebol, Kent Brantly, Craig Spencer, and Rick Sacra, as well as NBC cameraman Ashoka Mupko, were all beneficiaries of the medical sophistication of the U.S. hospital system.
All of them contracted Ebola in West Africa and lived to tell the tale, emerging from the hospital Ebola-free and appearing remarkably robust. They benefited from early diagnosis, prompt evacuation to the leading U.S. special isolation centers, and in some cases, treatment with convalescent serum and the experimental drug ZMapp.
The story is quite different for some other high-profile Ebola victims.
Martin Salia, a legal and permanent Maryland resident, was the medical director of Sierra Leone’s Kissy United Methodist Hospital and its only full-time physician. As one of a shockingly small number of doctors in that country—a mere 136 for a population of 6 million—Salia was a rare breed of physician capable of treating anything from orthopedic injuries to myocardial infarction.
In Africa, physician scarcity often precludes the luxurious medical division of labor in the West. I once visited a mid-sized hospital in rural Ghana and foolishly asked the medical director how many other doctors shared his on-call schedule. “There aren’t any other doctors here,” he replied in bewilderment.
Salia, who was deeply religious, believed his calling was to serve the people of Sierra Leone, where Ebola continues to surge. Although he was not working at an Ebola treatment center, Salia could easily have been exposed to the disease through contact with surgical patients.
When Salia first fell ill in early November, his Ebola test returned negative. Three days later, a repeat test came back positive. But unlike white Americans Writebol, Brantly, Spencer, Sacra, and Mupko, Salia was not promptly transferred to the United States.
He began receiving convalescent serum in Sierra Leone, and five days elapsed before he was sent to an Ebola isolation center for treatment in the United States—around a week later into the illness than his white American counterparts. It seems clear that delays in Salia’s diagnosis and treatment resulted in his deterioration to a point beyond repair. By the time he arrived in the United States on November 15, his raging infection had already rendered him too ill to be saved.
But even worse was another Ebola case involving an African physician for whom therapy was withheld outright. Sheik Umar Khan, a Sierra Leonean specialist in viral hemorrhagic fever, was diagnosed with Ebola last July and admitted to the Ebola Treatment Center in Kailahun, Sierra Leone.
The team of physicians from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the World Health Organization who took care of Khan reportedly “agonized through the night” over whether to administer ZMapp to him.In the end, without discussing it with Khan, they decided against it. “What they really didn’t want to do was kill Dr. Khan with their attempt at therapy,” Armand Sprecher, a public health specialist at MSF, reportedly said.
But surely the converse question should also have been posed: what if they cured Khan? Sprecher, who is involved in procuring drugs for MSF, further offered what from my perspective as a physician was the flimsiest of excuses: that Khan’s virus levels were so high that it was believed the drug would “probably not work.”
So which is it? That the team thought that the ZMapp would do nothing for their patient, or that it would kill him? It cannot be both.
Khan died several days later, and the very ZMapp that had been denied him was later sent to Liberia and used instead for Writebol and Brantly, who recovered admirably (though we cannot say for certain how much ZMapp contributed to their survival). In addition, Spanish officials confirmed that they too had obtained a supply of ZMapp for a third patient—a 75-year-old Spanish priest who died after having been evacuated to Madrid from Liberia.
In the now infamous story of Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan—who died in a Texas hospital after contracting Ebola in Africa—Duncan’s nephew Josephus Weeks has raised the possibility that racial bias entered into the decision to send the febrile man home from the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital emergency room on September 25. Similar broad ethical questions arise about whether the treatment of Ebola victims is being stratified on criteria of national origin, making some “more equal than others.”
The physicians who have cared for these patients themselves would deny that any racial bias ever consciously entered into their decisions over choice of therapy. That, however, is exactly the trouble. Most racial bias among doctors is unconscious, meaning we must carefully consider whether our medical decisions reflect a double standard in the treatment of our patients—Ebola-infected or otherwise.
Kwei Quartey M.D. is a crime novelist and physician who grew up in Ghana. He is now based in Los Angeles. His fourth novel, GOLD OF THE FATHERS, will be published in February 2016.
The Politics of Thanksgiving Day
By William Loren Katz | November 5, 2014
Thanksgiving remains the most treasured holiday in the United States, honored by Presidents since Abraham Lincoln initiated the Holiday to rouse patriotism in a war that was not going well.
Thanksgiving has often served political ends. In 2003, in the current age of US Middle East invasions, President George Bush flew to Bagdad, Iraq to celebrate Thanksgiving Day with U.S. troops. He sought to rally the public behind an invasion based on lies. A host of photographers came along to snap him carrying a glazed turkey to eager soldiers. In three hours he flew home, and TV brought his act of solidarity and generosity to millions of US living rooms. But the turkey the President carried to Baghdad was never eaten. It was cardboard, a stage prop.
Thanksgiving 2003 had a lot in common with the first Thanksgiving Day. In 1620 149 English Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower landed at Plymouth and survived their first New England winter when Wampanoug people brought them corn, meat and other gifts, and taught them survival skills. In 1621 Governor William Bradford of Plymouth proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving – not for his Wampanoug saviors but his brave Pilgrims. Through resourcefulness and devotion to God his Christians had defeated hunger.
We are still asked to see Thanksgiving through the eyes of Governor Bradford. But Bradford’s fable is an early example of “Euro think” — an concoction by Europeans that casts their conquest as heroic.
Bradford claims Native Americans were invited to the dinner. A seat at the table? Really? Since Pilgrims classified their nonwhite saviors as “infidels” and inferiors — if invited at all, they were asked to provide and serve and not share the food.
Pilgrim armies soon pushed westward. In 1637 Governor Bradford sent his troops to raid a Pequot village. As devout Christians locked in mortal combat with heathens, Pilgrims systematically destroyed a village of sleeping men, women and children.
Bradford was overjoyed:
“It was a fearful sight to see them frying in the fire and the streams of blood quenching the same and horrible was the stink and stench thereof. But the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice and they [the Pilgrim militia] gave praise thereof to God.”
Years later Pilgrim Reverend Increase Mather asked his congregation to celebrate the “victory” and thank God “that on this day we have sent six hundred heathen souls to hell.”
School and scholarly texts still honor Bradford. The 1993 edition of the Columbia Encyclopedia [P. 351] states of Bradford, “He maintained friendly relations with the Native Americans.” The scholarly Dictionary of American History [P. 77] said, “He was a firm, determined man and an excellent leader; kept relations with the Indians on friendly terms; tolerant toward newcomers and new religions….”
The Mayflower, renamed the Meijbloom (Dutch for Mayflower), continued to carve its place in history. It became one of the first ships to carry enslaved Africans to the Americas.
Thanksgiving Day celebrates not justice or equality but aggression and enslavement. It affirms the genocidal beliefs that destroyed millions of Native American people and their cultures from the Pilgrim landings to the 20th century.
Americans proudly count themselves among the earliest to fight for freedom and independence. On Thanksgiving Americans could honor the first freedom fighters of the Americas – those who resisted foreign invasion – but they were not Europeans, and they started long before 1776.
Long before Pilgrims landed at Plymouth thousands of enslaved Africans and Native Americans united to fight the European invaders and slavers. In the age of Columbus and the Spanish invasion they were led by Taino leaders such as Anacoana a woman poet who was captured and executed at 29; and a man Hatuey who in 1511 led his 400 followers from Hispaniola to Cuba to warn of the foreigners, and was captured and executed the next year.
Before the Mayflower, thousands of runaway Africans and Indians in northeast Brazil had begun to unite in the Republic of Palmaris, a three walled maroon fortress that enabled Genga Zumba’s 10,000 people of color to defeat Dutch and Portuguese armies. Palmares lasted until 1694, almost a hundred years.
These early nonwhite freedom fighters kept no written records, but some of their ideas about freedom, justice and equality found their way into a sacred parchment Americans celebrate each July 4th.
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Psychiatric drugs kill 500k+ Western adults annually, few positive benefits – leading scientist
RT | May 13, 2015
Psychiatric drugs lead to the deaths of over 500,000 people aged 65 and over annually in the West, a Danish scientist says. He warns the benefits of these drugs are “minimal,” and have been vastly overstated.
Research director at Denmark’s Nordic Cochrane Centre, Professor Peter Gøtzsche, says the use of most antidepressants and dementia drugs could be halted without inflicting harm on patients. The Danish scientist’s views were published in the British Medical Journal on Tuesday.
His scathing analysis will likely prove controversial among traditional medics. However, concern is mounting among doctors and scientists worldwide that psychiatric medication is doing more harm than good. In particular, they say antipsychotic drugs have been over-prescribed to many dementia patients in a bid to calm agitated behavior.
Gøtzsche warns psychiatric drugs kill patients year in year out, and hold few positive benefits. He says in excess of half a million citizens across the Western world aged 65 and over die annually as a result of taking these drugs.
“Their benefits would need to be colossal to justify this, but they are minimal,” he writes.
“Given their lack of benefit, I estimate we could stop almost all psychotropic drugs without causing harm.”
Gøtzsche, who is also a clinical trials expert, says drug trials funded by big pharmaceutical companies tend to produce biased results because many patients took other medication prior to the tests.
He says patients cease taking the old drugs and then experience a phase of withdrawal prior to taking the trial pharmaceuticals, which appear highly beneficial at first.
The Danish professor also warns fatalities from suicides in clinical trials are significantly under-reported. … continue
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