I have recently been writing posts about the difficulty of finding the truth about things that are not good for people, but are very profitable. This is so about things spiritual, mundane, political or in the field of human health.

I am writing this article about truth in the week of Senate hearings about political chicanery, and everyone knows that the truth is never going to come out of investigations of this administration.

Its representatives have never spoken the truth until they retired, and those who did try to do while in office were fired.

From Iraq WMD’s through Katrina and the firing of the eight attorneys who wouldn’t prosecute the right people, we are ruled by a group of pathological liars. They are incapable of saying “I was wrong!”

It is important for spiritual seekers not to ignore this, because, like it or not, the people at the top, whether scum or not, serve as examples of how the rest of the country is run by people at the top of their respective heaps, whether CEO’s, school superintendents, or bishops.

And you all know recent examples of each who reflect the culture of deception and secrecy trickling down from above.

The climate of authority is of lying for the sake of it. And habitual lying leads to a culture of corruption. Even colleges now are recommending loan sharks to their students based on the donations received from the loan companies.

Let’s not be superior about this simply because we follow a spiritual path. Everybody, except those already living in cosmic consciousness, has a price. “Make him an offer he cannot refuse,” applies to all of us, until we genuinely are aware that we are in everything and there cannot be anything to want that we not already are.

Alertness is paramount. We must integrate our own dark side to gain energy for the light, not repress it to eventually explode in ‘non-typical’ behavior.

Official obstruction of truth is of course not a new phenomenon. It is centuries old. But let's go back only to the last century.

In the seventies, when I began writing health articles in the Contemporary Times, it was often hazardous to publish known and verified facts, i.e. truth, because of special interest groups.

For instance, more than one health writer was sued for saying that taking vitamins would improve the health of the person who did that. The AMA lawyers managed to twist that advice into prescribing without a medical license, and some people who actually SAID the heresy on radio were forced to recant in public, and say that they had not been telling the truth.

Of course they had, but it was that, or go to jail, or fight the huge legal resources of a wealthy, ruthless group, well practiced at distorting alternative methods.

Now, of course, just a few decades later, physicians act as if they had been suggesting vitamins all along. I remember being told by a physician that Linus Pauling, the double Nobel prize laureate was a senile old man, and that his advice about taking vitamin C just produced expensive urine, like taking any other vitamins. These were comments given to the doctor by the drug sales people.

The doctors knew no better. There were no obligatory nutrition courses in the medical colleges. What you ate wasn’t considered of any importance. What drugs you were taking was the important thing. And the thirty six hour continuous duty schedules of the medical interns ensures brain washing into the allopathic paradigm. It’s the method used by the Reverend Moon and many others.

Nowadays, some doctors do know as much about nutrition as their Weight Watcher receptionist, which wasn’t the case in the Seventies. But truth had its martyrs.

Now the censorship, to keep matters unknown to the public has taken new forms since the blatant legal arm twisting of the AMA which is, I am happy to say, losing thousands of members to physician’s organizations that represent those who treat the whole person rather than those that rely on dealing only with symptoms, using drug, cut or burn.

But those of us who knew all this stuff years before there were ANY obligatory courses on nutrition in medical schools, and years before Prevention magazine caved in under a new editor and began advertising drugs, have been looking at and using dietary supplements and treatments used in other countries for a long time.

The obscene profits of the pharmacological industry, sometimes in the thousands of percent, are not enough for them. Now, through their well known subsidiary called the FDA, they are trying to get every supplement into the box of “only available by prescription,” and of course they are succeeding because big money talks loudly in this country, and truth has to whisper. Those of the public who could phone or write to the FDA are often content to sit in front of the TV and do nothing.

Here are a few tid-bits that will give you the general idea of how truth is kept from the public because of the bottom line, and by whom, and for whom.

It isn’t done in the public interest, ever. And the chicanery has been going on since the AMA was formed in the 19th century as a trade union to protect the pocket books of its members from those dreadful homeopathic physicians, whose non-poisonous remedies were preferred by the public.

In 1991 for example, David Steinman used the Freedom of Information Act to get the Federal reports on tests of foods sold in America. It may surprise you that these reports were not made known widely to the public, whose tax money paid for them. On the basis of the official figures that were unknown to the public at large, he wrote Diet for a Poisoned Planet.

In the book he mentioned that the FDA had tested 16 samples of raisins and had found residues of 110 different chemicals and pesticides. Now this was absolutely true.

At once, the California Raisin Advisory Board put up $558,000 to counteract the book. That was a heap of money in 1991. Sun Maid of California retained a law firm to persuade Random House, the publisher, to pull copies out of bookstores, and to cease shipment of future copies.

Then the food and agricultural industries hired PR firms to intercept talk show interviews that major networks were planning with Steinman.

Then the American Council on Science and Health, which is actually a disguised pro-pesticide lobby for the industry, got help from John Sununu, then the White House Chief of Staff, to encourage the EPA to investigate how one of their own scientists dared to write an introduction to the book. Note the words…persuade and encourage to describe the blatantly anti-public interest activities of the groups.

Our protectors the USDA began to work with the National Food Processors Association to make what they termed “Low Key” calls to anyone likely to review the book in the Washington or New York Press or on the Today Show

To further ensure the public safety, the USDA then began to mail to its national spokespersons confidential background material about Steinman, and advice on how to refute any connections between pesticides and cancer. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

No attempt was made to fix the real problem…poisonous raisins.

The general rule always followed then and now is to treat it as a PR problem, not a matter of fact and error. Stop the word getting out if possible, by any means, and if it does get out then overwhelm the facts with spin talk, extensively and expensively broadcast in every media, until the soft voice of truth is drowned in the bought noise.

Even the very obtuse are beginning to realize that this technique has been followed for years by the current administration to disguise the true facts about the war in Iraq and many of its other activities. All it needs is an acquiescent media, and we certainly have that. The paid for and bought high circulation publications are currently due for a big break on their postage rates. The small, truth telling publications are due for an increase in postage that may close some of them down. And the enemies of truth work day and night, and never give up.

You have probably heard too about the machinations of Montsanto, the folks who gave us the toxic gift of Nutra Sweet in the 70’s. When President Reagan removed the man who was holding up the agreement to call it safe, and replaced him with his own man on the FDA, the process of certifying its safety accelerated.

The makers then were Searle. Shortly after the agreement was made, the Reagan appointee left the FDA and went to work for Searle, his true employer.

The product immediately went into more than 1200 food items, but the main effect was in the soft drink industry. The sales of the diet soda grew five times faster than the sales of regular sodas.

Now Searle, the originators of the product had submitted the results of 100 of its own tests to the FDA. The FDA, to its credit this time, held out against approval because of many other independent tests that showed the dangers of the product.

The clever political chicanery of the President soon fixed that, and the new appointee overruled his own committee and the result was that the FDA agreed by fiat on the safety of aspertame, the chemical name of NutraSweet.

I have written a long description of this affair in the Health Matters manual. These drinks are a serious threat to health, but nobody seeing or reading the ads would get that message. The advertising is so pervasive that people who question it are considered weird.

Dr. Wurtman, professor of neuro-endocrinology at MIT raised very serious questions about the safety of the chemical. A public board of enquiry was set up to check out the tests submitted by Searle.

The board was headed by Dr. Nauta, the professor of brain science at MIT. The board examined the Searle’s tests and said that they were scientifically deficient and recommended that the product not receive approval.

The common political trick used to seem to be doing something was that this eminently qualified committee had no real power. It could only recommend, not enforce, so NutraSweet went on the market and made millions. Therefore it must be OK. Anything that makes millions must be OK.

The aspartame in diet drinks, breaks up above about 86° into two dangerous chemicals, that affect several systems of the body, particularly the vision and the nervous system. There is a strong possibility as far as I am concerned that the reason the Gulf War Syndrome is not being taken seriously is because of the money of the soft drink industry.

I don’t doubt that the troops drank a lot of aspertame that had been exposed to temperatures way above 86°. Many of the symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome sound like aspertame poisoning. The stalling tactics are the same as those used in the fluoride disgrace and the Agent Orange mess. Hang in there muddying the issues with bought and paid for PhD’s until everybody concerned is dead, and then find out, maybe.

But do notice please, if you are still going to drink the stuff, that some gas stations have cases of pop outside in the hot sun to act as ads for the product. If you must buy the stuff then buy from cans that have not been outside in the sun.

As far as sodas go you probably know about Coca Cola which began its life containing a habit forming drug.A great way to ensure return business. Now it’s what emergency vehicles use to clean up blood stains on the pavement. And the British Navy use it to keep the insides of the copper tubing in their submarines free of verdigris. You can dissolve a steak overnight in it, leach the calcium from a bone until you can bend it like a piece of rubber, and remove corrosion from your car battery terminals. None of these fine properties are among those advertised to the public. Bon appetit!

Well, the patent on NutraSweet ran out in 1992 so Monsanto, which had bought Searle, needed to come up with some other great products to go with the 2,799 they already marketed in 70 countries.

One of them has become famous as rBST, the growth hormone that is given to cows to raise their milk production 20%. It does this, and also ensures that the cows have a much greater incidence of udder infection, which leads to more antibiotics in the milk, not to mention pus. And this insanity occurs in an industry that had a SURPLUS of milk when they started marketing.

Strangely enough, there are some among us who don’t want to drink milk with penicillin, pus, and growth hormone in it. But the lawyers of Monsanto who say anything they are paid to say, with the help of the FDA, which has been called the Monsanto employment agency, made it illegal for any dairy to advertise that their milk was free of rBST. You may like to know the legal reason that they pushed through. Doing this was to be considered as deceptive advertising by the dairies that didn’t use it!

They have used similar tactics in regard to their genetically modified seeds and food, though people in Europe and India at least have begun to wake up about the dangers.

Not to be outdone, Proctor and Gamble, the folks whose own research proved, what every chemist knows, that the sodium fluoride that they put in their toothpastes was a toxic chemical with a chronic effect, have now given us the ultimate diet food. You have probably seen it. The fake fat Olestra, the brand name Olean. It cannot possibly be called a food, so the FDA used another legal trick, and approved it as an additive, suitable for putting in snacks.

Since it is a fat that can’t be digested it has been touted as a godsend for people who just must eat lots of fat but don’t want to stay obese. The taste, without the problem, so to speak. The side effects were disguised by such inspired phrases as ‘ anal leakage’ instead of diarrhoea.

The real danger is that it dissolves all the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K that it touches, and there is a lot of it in the snack food. One Olestra potato chip contains about a third of its weight in olestra. It’s a great way to sell vitamin deficiency, a slogan I give P and G free of charge.

You can view the ongoing fight about it on the Web. Just type Olestra into your google.com. I don’t expect the good guys to win in a battle where armies of lawyers and millions of dollars are arrayed against them, in a country where there is little justice but lots of law.

The public are always too involved with the latest celebrity scandals to pay any notice to the real dangers surrounding them. You cannot tell anything important to people with a twenty second attention span.

Thousands of people have been made sick with Olestra, and committees set up to investigate it are refusing to remove permission to use the words ‘Fat Free’ on the labels.

It contains great amounts of fat, but the fat is indigestible. The Committee for Science in the Public Interest is fighting on behalf of the public. They point out that the other committees are using news of health damage from Olean very selectively, and are totally avoiding the nutritional deficiency angle.

We all know about cherry picking your evidence don’t we. And some folks are convinced that the whole thing was a set up between the AMA and Proctor and Gamble. If so, it wouldn’t be the first time they have been bed-fellows, just as the AMA held shares in tobacco companies long after smoking and cancer were related.

The MD editor of the Journal received honoraria from tobacco companies that exceeded the salary of the President of the United States. Trust your doctor!

There are of course many other great products on the way for you, all with official approval, like peppermint flavoured Prozac, but by now you know the value of official approval of them. Zero. Caveat emptor, buyer beware, more than ever.

I used to believe the adage,“Great is truth and will prevail.” Maybe elsewhere. Nowadays with both law and huge amounts of money arraigned against it, and the public media a willing accomplice because of the money from advertisements, I am beginning to have my doubts.

Only an informed electorate can help govern a country, and the current electorate apparently prefers being entertained to being informed. Government of the people by the corporations, for the corporations, doesn’t show much sign of vanishing from the Earth, and only benefits shareholders, unless the CEO is another of the covey of recent crooks who have milked their companies for obscene amounts of money. Greed conquers all inhibitions.

Some of you know about the current (2007) efforts of the FDA to have all alternative health remedies put by law into the “needs a prescription” box. Health writers and small publications have been warning their aware readers about this for over a year.

This is a much more important matter to the public than who is going to be removed from American Idol. But I have little doubt which matter will receive most public attention, or media coverage.

Those of us on spiritual paths have to find a way to integrate that part of us which is fascinated with the negative aspects of life without succumbing to it. Or maybe to develop a mental threshold way above the possibility of such things intruding into the personal life. More about that possibility later. Happy Trails.