Less than a month after Sydney coroner Mary Jerrum referred a provider of naltrexone implants to the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission, the Christian Democrats’ Reverend Fred Nile revealed he wants them used as compulsory treatment for opioid addicts.
Naltrexone implants are not backed by any convincing evidence but the rapid opioid detoxification [ROD], opioid blocking properties they offer appeal greatly to anti-drug crusading Christian evangelists. Long opposed to harm reduction measures and evidence based treatment of addiction, such as methadone maintenance, far right Christians and conservatives see naltrexone implants as a moral masterstroke. Muscling into the action in recent years are the profit-focused, such as Sydney’s Ross Colquhoun, director of Psych ‘n’ Soul.
I’ve previously written about Dr. Stuart Reece, who features in the video below with the same title as this post. His abuse of patients with naltrexone and Jesus saw 25 of them die in 20 months. His career is the epitome of callous faith based pseudoscience which uniquely targets evidence based harm reduction measures. When I posted on a faux “research” paper he had co-authored with other members of Drug Free Australia, I referred to an exchange on an email list hosted by the Alcohol and Drug Council of Australia. It was on this list years ago that I first read Ross Colquhoun defend naltrexone implants as “common sense”. Indeed his evidence free defence of implants led me to conclude that his “common sense” was the equivalent of the religious zealots’ “belief”.
Both individuals are signatories to Drug Free Australia’s so-called position statement which includes funding of naltrexone implants as an “urgent pro-active change to our illicit drug policies”.
Handing down scathing findings into three deaths, the coroner recommended that the HCCC consider proceedings against a doctor working at Colquhoun’s Pysch ‘n’ Soul, Dr. Jassim Daood. According to the ABC she noted, “a number of disciplinary cases have already been completed about some of the clinic’s other staff”. The scale of potential problems becomes clear when one considers the implants have never been approved for use, eager staff have little or no training and post-implant support regimes are entirely absent. For over a decade these implants have been available via the TGA’s Special Access Scheme, which is designed to allow patients access to otherwise unavailable drugs to treat conditions deemed potentially fatal in the absence of that drug.
In this case the Scheme is being exploited as a loophole whilst the implant option itself has left in it’s wake a litany of failure and fatalities. Colquhoun is unlicenced to perform ROD but ignored requests from the NSW Health Department in mid 2010. SMH wrote on October 20:
Despite this direction, Colquhoun resumed the treatments while still unlicensed between July and September of that year, only desisting when Grace Yates, a 23-year-old with a five-month-old baby, was given ROD and naltrexone at the clinic on September 29, 2010. She suffered a heart attack and died two months later, having never regained consciousness.
It’s worth considering this failed treatment option is likely to be expanded under a coalition government. As health minister in the Howard Government, Tony Abbott provided the funding for the launch of the evangelical Drug Free Australia from the Tough on Drugs/Assets of Crime kitty. Describing themselves as “Australia’s Peak Drugs Body” they failed to meet the conditions of the funding, choosing instead to sabotage related health policy basics. Without doubt they have proven to be to addiction treatment what the Australian (anti) Vaccination Network is to the management of vaccine preventable disease.
Abbott also sent $50,000 they way of Psych ‘n’ Soul in the same year, showing exceptionally poor judgement. There is little doubt with enemies of Harm Minimisation such as Bronwyn Bishop, Sophie Mirabella and Christopher Pyne on his proposed front bench, Australia’s strong evidence based approach to addiction management would suffer. As the coroner noted:
It appears that a patient only had to present at the clinic to be enthusiastically recommended for rapid opioid detoxification, no matter what their history or situation, without alternatives being discussed or considered or any information given out of the risks involved.
Another death related to the attempts at ROD Psych ‘n’ Soul is now infamous for, involved Michael Poole, 48. He was described as “delirious and delusional” after ROD and died at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney two days later. The third death involved James Unicomb, 23 who died from drug toxicity following a poly-drug overdose, which followed the ROD and occurred whilst an implant remained active. This lack of appropriate follow up of patients is perhaps the most appalling failure related to the practice of ROD and implants.
Rapid detox’ doesn’t treat addiction. It removes cravings and leaves patients open to the possibility of overdose. Often they are dependent upon high doses of benzodiazapines which raises the risk of opioid induced respiratory depression. As addiction is not treated, behaviour cannot be expected to change. It is for this reason follow up should form the most important aspect of rapid detoxification. It is for the same reason that implants have such a high failure rate in “curing” addiction.
One can only imagine the profit made and moral crusading accomplished from treating now dead addicts who were essentially exploited, not treated. Of course, testimonials abound. Whether it’s those who adore Reece for showing them the way to Jesus or Colquhoun’s (third time lucky) performer in the below video, let’s not kid ourselves. The dead cannot speak.
Alex Wodak, director of Sydney’s St. Vincents Hospital Alcohol and Drug Service observed:
How they are allowed to be used for routine purposes in several states in this country beats me. It goes against all the normal regulations and I think the only explanation I can understand is that this is allowed in this case because they’re only drug addicts. […] We really need a national independent inquiry into the regulatory failure, the serious regulatory failure that’s gone on with Naltrexone implants for over a decade.
Indeed we do.
Naltrexone implants backed by zealotry but not evidence
Last week Dr. Kerryn Phelps wrote an article for The Australian defending the view that alternatives to medicine are in fact, a type of medicine.
The article’s heading, Evidence aplenty for complementary medicines itself touched on a unique feature of the massive Wellness Industry. Semantics. We have witnessed natural medicine become alternative medicine become complementary medicine become integrative medicine or more frequently complementary and integrative medicine. These are semantic costume changes designed to market integrity. To divert attention away from the fact that evidence for the efficacy of alternatives to medicine is lacking. Simply put, this is not medicine.
Dr. Phelps criticised Friends Of Science In Medicine [FSM], suggesting their “agenda was a declaration of war”. Yet I would conclude FSM are providing a long overdue and organised response to the rise of demonstrably non efficacious and potentially dangerous practices gaining undeserved academic credence. These have always shared a hostility toward evidence based medicine and science itself.
FSM president Professor John Dwyer writes:
We strongly support sound research to determine the effectiveness or otherwise of any biologically plausible areas of ‘alternative’ interventions. We do not seek to prevent consumers from making informed choices about alternative interventions, but wish to see the public better informed and therefore protected from false claims.
I do not doubt for a moment that Dr. Phelps and many other GPs who support alternatives to medicine are above reproach. Nor am I suggesting that all naturopaths and chiropractors (for example) are incapable of establishing a meaningful patient-focused reciprocal relationship with conventional medicine. What I am suggesting is that they are a minority and it is thus in error to suggest alternatives to medicine are generally based on evidence. Dr. Phelps’ insistence that these practices “compliment” or effectively “integrate” with conventional medicine is simply wishful thinking.
I strongly agree with Kerryn Phelps in that individuals taking more responsibility for their health is positive. I support and defend the right of patients to have more choice in managing their health. What I find deeply troubling is that once these two conditions are met, patients and wellness consumers are faced with bogus claims, unnecessary expense and a cornucopia of charlatans. That this is in no small part due to paper tiger regulation reflects that the system itself is broken and failing Australians.
That 19 of Australia’s 39 universities offer courses in scientifically implausible practices is alarming. The role of FSM in highlighting the perils of affording academic credibility to these practices is vital. It can be argued, as Dr. Phelps has previously, that universities will ensure rigid standards are met. Or as now, that FSM should support “an increase in university-based education for practitioners”. Sound reasoning to be sure. Until one considers that these very practices depend upon denial of the scientific method and graduates often emerge highly defensive of an ideology.
There is also an inescapable convolution of practice, integrity and accountability. A belief system associated with one modality may open the way for increasingly absurd practices. The anti-science, anti-medicine, post modernist culture so crucial to new age chiropractic is conducive to opposition, not integration.
This convolution raises the question of where the line is drawn. Few understand what constitute homeopathic principles beyond assuming they provide a “natural” therapy. Yet I would be surprised and disappointed if Dr. Phelps agued it had a role in medicine beyond placebo. Basic chemistry confirms there is no ingredient at all in homeopathic products, beyond expensive sugar. For those who seek to understand more about this “informed choice” there await increasingly bizarre claims most often concluding quantum physics will one day reveal all. This is the same mechanism behind theta healing – even remote theta healing.
For the purposes of this post it’s important to focus primarily on Dr. Phelps’ defence of chiropractic. But what type of chiropractor? John Reggars is past president of the Chiropractors Registration Board of Victoria and present vice president of the Chiropractic and Osteopathic College of Australasia. Focused on science, he is concerned by the rise of “ideological dogma” and the anti-scientific fundamentalist training that FSM have identified as problematic. In a paper by Reggars published in May 2011 he notes that in Australia the 1990s saw a resurgence of “chiropractic philosophy” and with it the belief in VSC, or Vertebral Subluxation Complex.
Reggars is highly critical of such chiropractic pseudoscience, pointing out misuse of diagnostic treatment, schemes to “double your income”, selling the notion of lifelong chiropractic care “to an ignorant public” and locking patients into contract plans. He also writes:
For the true believer, the naive practitioner or undergraduate chiropractic student who accepts in good faith the propaganda and pseudoscience peddled by the VSC teachers, mentors and professional organisations, the result is the same, a sense of belonging and an unshakable and unwavering faith in their ideology.
Belief in the unseen VSC is accompanied by the insistence all disease – including infectious disease – has its origin or cure in the spine. Chiropractic is the invention of 19th century magnetic healer Daniel David Palmer. Perhaps nothing reinforces the value of Friends Of Science In Medicine better than this modern scam of chiropractic. Represented in Australia by the Chiropractor’s Association of Australia [CAA] its aim is:
To achieve a fundamental paradigm shift in healthcare direction where chiropractic is recognised as the most cost efficient and effective health regime of first choice that is readily accessible to all people.
In other words they seek to displace the GP as the primary care physician. It is impossible to broach the many areas of medicine or do the same with the many pseudosciences chiropractic endorses to elaborate on this. Yet from vitamin therapy to homeopathy new age chiropractors have a positive word. Efficacy matters not. The CAA seem to instill fear and confusion about conventional medicine as a key mechanism in their “fundamental paradigm shift in healthcare direction”.
When we understand what seeking to usurp the family doctor entails, we can see that FSM can scarcely be accused of declaring war. The article Recent Controversies in Chiropractic and RMIT courses/clinic provides exceptional insight into the very concerns FSM seek to address with quackery in universities. Palmer argued humans have “a god-given energy flow” which when disrupted leads to illness. Exhuming such nonsense and contending that the doctrine is “evidence-based education and practice”, as suggested by Dr. Ray Myers, head of RMIT University’s School of Health Sciences is shameful.
To better understand why we must travel back over 100 years. In 1909 D.D. Palmer’s son, Bartlett Joshua (or B.J.) Palmer wrote (Ref; 2003), (Ref; 2014):
If we had one hundred cases of small-pox, I can prove to you where, in one, you will find a subluxation and you will find the same conditions in the other ninety-nine. I adjust one and return his functions to normal… . There is no contagious disease… . There is no infection… . ♠
Herein lies a major problem for Dr. Phelps who is under no such illusions about vaccination. As seen above Meryl Dorey has hitched a ride on Dr. Phelps’ reputation. On another email list Dorey simply copied the entire article and sent it off with the opening line, “If only we could get her to look at the vaccination issue as well… <sigh>”.
As well?! Dr. Phelps opined in The Australian about the “us and them” attitude. Yet these two words reflect just how rusted on and integral to many who entertain alternatives to medicine the “us and them” mindset is.
Some months back Dorey was also using Phelps’ prior role as AMA president, in the AVN attack on all conventional medicine. I wondered if Dr. Phelps knew of her unofficial patronage.
Past president of the CAA, Simon Floreani, has promoted homeoprophylaxis, showcasing Isaac Golden. Anti-vaccine activist and “paediatric chiropractor” Warren Sipser went as far as testifying in the family court against the immunisation of a five year old girl. Sipser informed reporters at the time “there is credible evidence they [vaccines] may do more harm than good”.Nimrod Weiner of Newtown Chiropractic ran anti-vaccine workshops using information garnered from the same AVN to whom Dr. Phelps is “diametrically opposed”.
Weiner informed pregnant mothers at a public talk that homeopathic immunisation (water) was superior to regular immunisation. That Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent paper attempting to causally link MMR to autism was “scientifically good”. Last July Dr. Phelps tweeted:
WIN News Wollongong recently aired a comment from Meryl Dorey claiming that “all vaccines” are linked to autism in the medical literature. This is complete opportunistic nonsense and is now quite properly the subject of a complaint to ACMA. As Jonathon Holmes observed on Media Watch“there’s evidence and there’s bulldust” and that “Dorey’s claim about the medical literature linking vaccination and autism is pure, unadulterated baloney.”
Quite right. Which raises my point on convolution again. Where do we draw the line? Of the 222 listed professional members of Dorey’s anti-vaccine group over 60%, or 135 are chiropractors. The next largest is homeopaths with 16 members, or a comparatively small 7%. Naturopaths number 15 members. Then kinesiologists, then acupuncturists with 5 and 4 members respectively. Aside from one physiotherapist and one occupational therapist, all “professional members” sell alternatives to medicine of some description.
A US study published in Vaccine showed that parents who deny their children vaccination are four times more likely to see a chiropractor as the primary care physician. When Floreani was CAA president his chiropractor wife wrote of their newborn son’s pertussis. Including [bold hers]:
We performed chiropractic checks on our baby daily and utilised a whooping cough homeopathic. I dosed myself with an array of vitamins to boost his immunity via breast milk and kept him hydrated with constant breastfeeding. Whooping cough is often slow to develop and may respond well to conservative management, including chiropractic, osteopathy, homeopathy, herbs, acupuncture or acupressure.
Magically, it resolved within two weeks. Which means it wasn’t pertussis but a self limiting infection and all that woo did nothing but correlate to the illness. But I am sure Dr. Phelps would be the first to agree herbs, acupressure, homeopathy and so on would do nothing to manage pertussis. It is very dangerous misinformation with potentially fatal consequences.
So not only are unvaccinated children more likely to see a chiropractor and be subject to such abuse, but by not seeing a GP they are unlikely to become a recorded notification. Officially whilst only 5% of 0-4 year olds in Australia are not fully vaccinated for pertussis they make up 27% of cases. Thus, this figure may well be conservative. Dr. Phelps must ask herself; If vaccine deniers will choose chiropractors, might chiropractors influence parents to reject vaccination? The above rubbish is by Dr Jennifer Barham-Floreani – B.App.Clin.Sci, B.Chiropractic after all.
Are naturopathic and complementary healthcare providers reinforcing parental concerns and ‘anti-vaccine’ opinions or promoting exemptions, or are they providing healthcare without emphasizing vaccinations?
I hope Dr. Phelps is asking herself that question also. As I stress above I’m sure Dr. Phelps and her colleagues are above reproach. But that’s not the point. The larger message being advanced here is that alternatives to medicine not only complement but “integrate” with conventional medicine. Not only does available evidence show this is not true but to generalise is to lend credence to dangerous charlatans.
This post has focused primarily on chiropractors, because they not only serve as a hub for health focused pseudosciences, but also seek to replace the family GP. I will contend that my point on convoluted overlap is valid. Once a patient is referred to one pseudoscience how does the referring GP control for pollution as it were? More material on the dubious ethics of new age chiropractic, including catastrophic neck injury and paediatric “improvement” by parental proxy can be found here.
St. John’s Wort seems to be trotted out in almost every article claiming alternatives to medicine have an evidence base. What is forgotten is that hyperforin, the antidepressant extract of St. John’s Wort, and other extracts are both inducers and inhibitors of P450 cytochrome enzymes. These liver cytochromes are involved in the metabolism of over 50% of marketed medication.
In the case of opioid pain relief studies have demonstrated a decrease of blood plasma levels of oxycodone of up to 50% and reduced half life of 27%. In the case of alprazolzm (a benzodiazapine), prescribed for anxiety and panic attacks a doubling of clearance rate has been documented.
Chronic pain is associated with depression and depression with anxiety. Opioids and benzodiazapines are causally linked to respiratory depression overdose death. Hence the clinical significance of any “integration” of serious pain management with a herbal choice for the depression it may cause is likely to be anything but “complementary” for the patient. Many patients choose not to inform their GP of herbal supplements.
Proper diagnosis following treatment with medication will be hampered by St. John’s Wort. Excessive doses of actual medication may be prescribed. Should a patient cease St. John’s Wort whilst on opioid, benzodiazapine or both medication regimes a spike in blood plasma of the active metabolites will ensue. More likely, as St. John’s Wort is improperly regulated and dose concentration varies widely a patient may unwittingly expose themselves to respiratory depression and possibly death with no change in their daily medication/St. John’s Wort routine.
In short whilst the concentration (dose) of actual medication is stable, the drug interaction outcome due to St. John’s Wort mimics an unstable medication dose. Patients may easily find themselves unsuitable to drive, work, operate machinery, bathe or sleep without potential for disaster. Consequently many medication regimes may be deleteriously effected by St. John’s Wort.
Thus the wider picture of evidence pertaining to St. John’s Wort is not quite the basis for “integration” proponents of alternatives to medicine would have us believe.
My response to the ongoing insistence that placebo effects derived from acupuncture constitute evidence is likely to be here in Acupuncture: essential facts about a major scam. Over and again it emerges that subjects who think they are receiving acupuncture, whether they are or not, demonstrate a response.
Findings aside, how would Dr. Phelps explain meridians, invisible forces, chakra or vital energies? It is too easy to point to apparently positive findings when the mechanism by which they arise is implausible, unknown or assumed to be related to endorphin release. The technology to manufacture acupuncture needles did not exist until the 1600s and the only nation to seriously try to ban acupuncture was China under the Chinese Nationalist Government. Western marketing has done much for this “traditional” Chinese medicine.
What of naturopaths who insist on Black Salve [2]? Or who use herbal balls from China with high levels of elemental mercury, arsenic and lead? What of poor hygiene and bacterial infection from acupuncturists or masseurs? The astonishing story of Monika Milka and non-sterile syringes used in biomesotherapy, leaving her patients seriously infected with mycobacterium chelonae?
Tragic cases like Penelope Dingle and Isabella Denley indicate that the notion of integration or proper supervision is seriously flawed. One point raised repeatedly by FSM is that whilst ill patients waste time being exploited by pseudoscience acting as a health choice, the chance of genuine care, full recovery or even survival is lost.
These are the real issues Dr. Phelps could constructively help Aussies understand before raging at FSM. How is it that so many various practices have come to exist that are beholden to ideology, not evidence? How is it they can convince parents to withhold treatment from their children and in doing so undermine the health of our entire community?
FSM exists to address an unacceptable situation in our educational institutions. They have taken a stand because those in a position to defend academia seemingly chose to act unethically. When it comes to “informed choice” there is an excess of non evidence based, expensive pseudoscience. It is pervaded by a combative, arrogant anti-science and anti-medicine mindset. It is amply equipped with scams.
This madness must stop and Dr. Kerryn Phelps is most welcome to clearly state just what aspects of non conventional medicine are high risk ideology and what is safe, effective and backed by evidence. Real evidence that can be trusted alone.
In a nation awash with health scams that pitch themselves as natural alternatives to medicine, it’s less common to find scams that position themselves as “medical”.
Even further apart are the medical tricks that prey upon vulnerable members of the public, such as Dr. Death Sartori. Or those that position themselves in a predatory manner, ready to strike when average Aussies suddenly find themselves vulnerable and in unfamiliar territory.
This definition easily applies to the one third of Aussie men aged over 50 who deal with sexual dysfunction or erectile dysfunction every year.
Enter Advanced Medical Institute whose defence against The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for “false and misleading” conduct goes back at least to 2003. The man behind the scam is Soviet Era trained doctor, Ukrainian Jack Vaisman, unregistered in Australia. He apparently also earned a PhD from the USA which enables his title as “Doctor” to get a misleading airing.
Another company he earlier owned, On Clinic led Professor David Handelsman head of andrology at Concord Hospital’s ANZAC Research Institute to remark under oath in 2009:
I’ve got to say, one of the most scarifying experiences as a medical practitioner I’ve had [was] seeing just how low quality this sort of medical care can be,” he said. ”It really shouldn’t occur in Australia in the 21st century … It goes back to a pre-thalidomide type of regulatory standards.
Professor Handelsman was referring to his mid 1990’s encounter with Vaisman. At that time Professor Handelsman was sitting on a Health Care Complaints Commission inquiry into On Clinic, called by the NSW Government. In 1996 the company pleaded guilty to charges of illegally importing individual constituents of Vaisman’s penile injection concoction. Each component was unregistered with the TGA, mixed in unregulated conditions then provided to patients with a syringe and instructions.
In March 2003 another company Vaisman (below) had acquired, Australian Momentum Health Pty Ltd, was convicted of supplying unregistered therapeutic goods. Even before AMI kicked off the last person Aussies needed dealing with male sexual dysfunction was Jack Vaisman.
Advanced Medical Institute gamble on blokes being too embarrassed to seek recompense for ineffective and outrageously priced off label use of dangerous or common and cheap medications. These are sold under long term contracts costing thousands of dollars in a practice described in 2009 as “pernicious, nasty and unethical”.
Of serious concern also is that erectile dysfunction may be an indicator of diabetes, kidney dysfunction, drug interaction, neuroses, neurological disorders, blood pressure irregularities or cardiovascular disease, prostate problems, penile conditions and other chronic conditions.
By hitting below the belt as it were with the famous “Longer Lasting Sex” advertisements, Vaisman was both targetting a symptom in older men and appealing to vanity or anxiety in younger men. A phone call was all it took.
Clearly, as the most cursory checkup – for example taking BP or physical examination – cannot take place over the phone, patient health wasn’t, and still isn’t part of the deal. This practice of “consulting”, diagnosing and prescribing medication ensuring locked in contracts over the phone at break neck, Gish Galloping speed, was the subject of a House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing on August 25th, 2009. The litany of bogus science, cruel treatment and vile scheming is as extensive as the witnesses are impressive.
A lively exchange took place the next day between 2UE’s Mike Carlton, self appointed director of the deceptively named Australian Centre for Sexual Health, Richard Doyle and Jack Vaisman. An AMI shareholder Doyle (who also acted as Vaisman’s legal defence) is close to hilarious, suggesting everyone else is stupid for not keeping up with the latest science, including a remarkable study (not cited) showing that a phone call is superior to an actual consultation. Vaisman himself must be remembering a different inquiry.
Ian Turpie admitted in 2006 he had lied about AMI “advanced technology” nasal spray. Vaisman had raged “Who gives a f**k?”, when AMI’s General Manager had asked if the advertisement was indeed a sham. The spray contains apomorphine, a drug used to treat Parkinson’s disease, and has been shown a dismal alternative to traditional solutions such as Viagra. AMI or it’s doctors did not advise clients of the superior alternatives.
Apomorphine is deemed ineffective by over 70% of doctors and it’s use for erectile dysfunction has been largely discontinued. In fact in cases that AMI would attract it is contraindicated. It’s mode of action works by increasing desire – not improving erectile function. In any case it is not worth thousands of dollars.
Vaisman was getting away with breaching TGA laws that render his spray a second-line therapy only if commercial alternatives are not available. Still, TGA impotency is hard to miss over the 20 or so years Vaisman has scammed Aussies. His “compounded products/prescriptions” came under TGA regulations that have exempted him from having to run any clinical trials.
Kelly Burke wrote in November 2009 following the report released by the Standing Committee on Health and Ageing:
By AMI’s figures, about 15 million nasal sprays, lozenges and sundry potions have been sold to the gullible and desperate over a decade. Yet not a single one has been subject to the administration’s quality control and safety requirements.
Vaisman has been permitted to exploit a regulation that allows doctors to prescribe individually tailored medications for patients for whom no alternative effective treatment is commercially available. […]
The vague wording of the National Policy for Technology-based Patient Consultations also needs to be tightened. […]
Close the Therapeutic Goods Administration loophole and tighten the telemedicine regulations as proposed in the report, and Australians will be able to wave goodbye to the screaming billboards, excruciating radio ads and tacky late-night television campaigns. And Jack Vaisman will be out of business.
By 2010 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) had taken an new interest, raiding Vaisman’s offices in February. In December 2010 the same day the ACCC began legal proceedings against AMI, Vaisman placed the company into voluntary administration. The ACCC had launched proceedings against Vaisman, Advanced Medical Institute Pty Ltd, AMI Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, and two doctors.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has started fresh proceedings in the Federal Court alleging that the company, famous for its billboards and radio advertisements promoting ”longer-lasting sex”, has failed to inform its customers that it is insolvent, and may not be able to provide medication for which some of them paid thousands of dollars.
AMI had continued trading since the time it went into voluntary administration. In a shifty move the business was sold to NRM Corporation Pty Ltd and NRM Trading Pty Ltd [collectively NRM], and very shortly after went into voluntary liquidation. NRM continues to conduct the AMI business.
The Australian Consumer Law (Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010) had Unfair Contract Terms provision added in July 2010. This has allowed the ACCC to pursue a case against AMI for alleged unconscionable conduct. This is a significant move in consumer protection.
Nasty, deplorable, pernicious, predatory and coercive were the terms used during the House of Representatives Standing Committee inquiry into Vaisman’s conduct. His abuse of clients from 17 to 87 years of age is despicable. Unconscionable Conduct sounds about right.
The ACCC reported on it’s website last September that the Federal Court had granted orders to add NRM as respondents in the ACCC case against the AMI for unconscionable conduct and granted leave for the ACCC to pursue action “against the AMI companies in liquidation”:
The ACCC alleges that AMI engaged in unconscionable conduct in breach of the Trade Practices Act 1974 and NRM is engaging in or proposing to engage in unconscionable conduct in breach of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. The ACCC also alleges that Dr Lonergan was knowingly concerned in AMI’s conduct and Mr Vaisman being a former director of AMI and a current director of NRM was and is knowingly concerned in the conduct of those respondents.
The ACCC further alleges that NRM is in breach of the Australian Consumer Law by entering into long-term agreements for the treatment of male sexual dysfunction which contain unfair contract terms in relation to the termination of a contract.
Incredibly, so it came to pass. Under Vaisman’s shady direction NRM took “control” of AMI and continued to lure customers into unconscionable long term non efficacious rip off contracts with zero regard for consumer health.
You may have noticed the shift from Sniff and Stiff the piano playing penises on late night TV to the Genie who magically cranks up libido using a strip on the tongue. As noted by genuine experts in 2009, these advertisements are “destructive… a carefully constructed legal fiction.”
In his judgment, Justice North said “It is immoral to seek to harness the fears and anxieties of men suffering from ED [erectile dysfunction] or PE [premature ejaculation] for the purpose of selling medical treatments. To target the patient’s vulnerability in this way is to use an unfair tactic and that is a possible marker of unconscionable conduct”.
Justice North also stated “The technique of frightening men by telling them of the dire adverse consequences of not agreeing to treatment and assuring them that the treatment was effective was part of the business system of AMI and NRM. It was formulated by management and imparted in an organised fashion through scripts and training sessions.”
His Honour also found that NRM further breached the Australian Consumer Law by entering into long-term agreements for the treatment which contained unfair contract terms in relation to the termination of a contract.
The Court declared that the conduct of the respondents was unconscionable and made orders:
requiring that NRM compensate a number of the patients whose evidence was considered by the Court
permanently restraining NRM from:
making agreements with a patient or in respect of the supply of medications for the treatment of male sexual dysfunction unless the patient has a consultation with a qualified medical practitioner
making any statement about the efficacy of NRM treatments or the patient’s need for those treatments unless that statement is made by a qualified medical practitioner
making an agreement with a patient for the supply of medications or medical services for the treatment of male sexual dysfunction without providing a written statement of the terms of the agreement and termination rights;
making an agreement with a patient for the supply of medications or medical services for the treatment of male sexual dysfunction unless that agreement has a cooling off period and can be terminated by giving 14 days’ notice.
restraining Mr Vaisman from continuing his main role in the business of NRM which was involved in the unconscionable conduct for a period of seven years
requiring corrective advertising.
For further enquiries contact the Media Team on 1300 138 917
END UPDATE
It also emerged in a January 2011 article in The Age Business section, that a “silent partner” in this failed venture is behind Astarra Strategic Fund, which resulted in Australia’s largest superannuation theft. In fact the “partner” is a network of “dodgy brokers” headed up by John Flader the supposed master swindler of the Astarra theft.
Meanwhile the AMI swindle rolls on. The last notable action involving AMI was a directions hearing in Melbourne in October 2011. A feature of the pre NRM AMI if you will, was the inability for customers to cancel their contract until they’d tried every single treatment AMI could dream up. Whilst boasting high success and ensuring that every unsatisfied customer received a full refund, the reality was virtual theft from customer bank accounts.
The only way to stop AMI withdrawing money from an account is to have the account closed and another opened with new details.
Recently AMI wheeled out a Debt Collection department. Their job is to chase up clients who still “owed money” on the futile contracts before AMI went into voluntary liquidation. The problem here is any liabilities accrued by AMI then become those of the liquidator. Not AMI and certainly not NRM.
Despite “NRM Corporation Trading As AMI” actually not being liable for any so-called contract debts the threats to “go legal” and destroy any non-compliant customer credit ratings is standard. For 15% of the outrageous contract total NRM will allow clients off the hook. But only if clients bring up the possibility first, or happen to laugh heartily down the phone at NRM’s new take on post liquidation liability. They will not inform customers who don’t raise dissent. From the ACCC site:
NRM patients are required to provide 30 days’ written notice to NRM to terminate the contract and must also pay a number of fees including a fixed administrative fee of 15 per cent of the original contract price. The ACCC alleges that each of the fees had the effect of penalising a consumer who gave notice of termination and therefore causing a significant imbalance in the parties’ rights under the contract.
There are cases where clients – who are in fact patients – eventually consult their GP and then a urologist, cardiologist, oncologist or another specialist. Information is passed to AMI specifically stating they can do nothing to improve the condition. Indeed many “treatments” are dangerous and have exacerbated serious medical problems for months. AMI go through the motions of ensuring a refund for expenses paid. They have been known to then debit bank accounts to the tune of the total contract cost.
Of course, there is no written contract that clients sign outlining any of these eventualities. The famed refunds are a scam from day one because they do not exist. There simply is no document wherein lies any customer contract. Clients should remember this in the event of AMI Debt Collectors calling to terrify. You are thus still waiting on the official contract.
If clients have been clever enough to realise the scam and ditch their bank account AMI Debt collection ring to intimidate, threaten and bully. To “go legal” as they say. Exactly what ageing, ill and often pension dependent patients need.
At this point getting consumer and legal advice, alerting and perhaps lodging a complaint with the ACCC and making some well advised choices about taking that 15% option is in order. After you’re certain that they can effect your credit rating. Remember that AMI are engaged in unconscionable conduct, and NRM intentionally set out to engage in unconscionable conduct.
There is no evidence the so-called Debt Collection isn’t another scam, and it alone is unconscionable conduct by extension. The ACCC will confirm this. As I note above, any debt AMI accrued pre June 2011 is not legally theirs to recover. With luck they will soon be shut down and prosecuted. If contacted clients should not hesitate to summarise this ACCC entry.
Medications sold via their contracts include SSRI’s like fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Aropax or Paxil), escitalopram (Lexapro), sertraline (Zoloft) etc. These were introduced over the late 1970’s – 1980’s with Lexapro introduced some years later.
AMI also favour old style tricyclic antidepressants such as Clonipramine. This cutting edge technology has been around since the 1950’s with clonipramine added to common tricyclic antidepressants in the 1960’s. The pain killer Tramadol is another.
Their super advanced Path Breaking Research and Development also includes, as mentioned, the Parkinson’s drug apomorphine via lozenge, nasal spray or tongue strip. Apomorphine has been around since the 1940’s.
Why these drugs? SSRI’s and tricyclic antidepressants have a side effect in prolonging time to ejaculation. This effect may persist or may be prove to be transient. Remembering the conditions they are prescribed for, and the side effects they already carry I’ll leave you to consider the value of such off-label use.
The shocking aspect here is rather than pay $250.00 per month and be locked in for two years patients could consult their GP and pay around AU $20.00 per month. For those on a pension or any benefit it’s $5.80 per month. No contracts, no threats and no gambling with side effects.
It gets worse. Men have been scammed into a $3,000 contract and bullied into payment long after the penny dropped, only to report they were already on an SSRI reaping any potential benefit of “lasting longer”. In these cases they need not have spent a cent.
A major drawback with SSRI and tricyclic medications is the interaction with some migraine specific medications or even pain killers such as Tramadol. Serotonin Syndrome can be a serious and potentially life threatening reaction to using two or more of these drugs.
A major cause of premature ejaculation is fast neurological response time in pelvic muscles. Guys can even save that $20.00 per month and learn pelvic floor exercises known as Kegel Exercises. Searching for those key words will provide millions of hits. In cases of erectile dysfunction consult your GP to be sure it’s not a more serious problem.
In conclusion do keep in mind that Advanced Medical Institute is neither “advanced” or an “institute”. It’s a scam run by professional parasitic predators who pressure vulnerable, ill and everyday Australian men out of their money. They can offer nothing to improve sexual health – quite the opposite.
In researching for this post I was appalled, infuriated and disgusted by the tactics creatures such as Vaisman use to scheme struggling Aussies who conduct themselves with dignity, strength and poise. To be unwell is one thing, to make a less than ideal decision and be scammed is another. Yet to navigate the resultant quandary with optimism and humour takes a trait I hope I have, somewhere deep inside.
One hopes the ACCC get to use the unconscionable conduct laws with gusto.
ACCC resources. Keywords – “Advanced Medical Institute”
We hear so much about what alternatives to medicine are not doing, it’s perhaps worth pondering what they might be doing.
Beyond producing a placebo effect, which I stress is nothing to sniff at, it seems we can articulate other accompanying features we would do well to understand. One usually thinks of prescription writing conventional doctors upon hearing expressions like “we expect a pill for every ill”. This is not without good cause. As we saw medicine leap forward and family consulting rooms multiply, the gap between symptom severity and seeking attention quite naturally narrowed.
Yet whatever was going on in our minds that modified our part in closing that gap is a restless beast indeed. Part worry, part suspicion, part urgency, part ignorance, part arrogance, part fear, part expectation, part assumed knowledge and more, it can play a role in convincing us we’re ill – or far more ill than we are. Doctors now know that pandering to this aspect can lead to over-prescription, self medication and hypochondriacs. As a result the medical profession has learned how to manage certain traits with placebo and/or skilled bedside manner.
However, the industry to far and away exploit the sole notion of people needing attention for absolutely no reason is the so-called Wellness Industry. It is aptly named, proffering entirely useless or arguably harmful potions, rituals, observances, gizmos, pokes, prods, states of mind and more, to the entirely well.
But why? As one woman informed ABC’s Lateline some time back as they examined the scams used by chiropractors, It’s “…maintenance… making sure everything’s working properly, making sure everything’s working at its best”.
Sure enough the chiropractor asked her to bend to the left, then right. “How that going for you?”, he asked in the tone real doctors might use when examining an actual problem. The woman gets a check up every 4 to 6 weeks. The question we need to ask is about the driving force for her to ask someone if she is in good health. Is it a type of hypochondria? Is it a type of “self medication” in which one seeks out excessive treatment? Is not this chiropractor simply pandering to a psychological state, when his best advice would be to encourage less dependence?
I’m sure she felt better after paying, because just like with Cold Reading all the action occurs within the patients mind. In this case a complex array of cues, sciency stuff, repetition, anatomy posters and models, machines that go “Bing!”, tones of voice and even payment lead up to a nice squirt of dopamine upon completion. The woman is simply conditioned to associate the entire hanky panky with feeling good and thus, better health.
Of course take away this experience without the woman’s consent, and the more time that passes the more anxiety will mess with critical thinking and the usual creaks and twangs she’d ignore become directly attributable to not making it to her “maintenance”. This is the truly brilliant aspect of Wellness Scams. Even when their “patients” are well away from them the urge to return is steadily growing.
People don’t need chiropractic rituals as “maintenance” of health. Thus to continue to exploit this woman is unethical abuse simply for monetary gain. Get them hooked on this notion and it’s easy money. When challenged for evidence of efficacy these visits are trotted out, as if volume of attendance equates to success.
This is why chiropractors, shady nutritionists, reflexologists, reiki magicians, homeopaths, traditional therapists/masseurs work so hard at reinforcing “hits” between their scam and the patient verbalising an association. In the case of New Age diagnostics – often combined with a “therapy” (say iridology and vitamin therapy) – it’s quite simple to create a syndrome that just might be about to run amok.
“Hmmm. We’d better double the selenium, calcium and vitamin E and get you to come in at least twice a week. Let’s see if we can’t nip this in the bud, shall we?”.
It is actually a welcome trait seeing individuals wanting to take more charge of their own health. Certainly that plays a role in the viability of ongoing pseudosciences that masquerade as health services. Perhaps combined with the highly visual and ritualised capers pretending to offer health people are feeling in more control of their health than with brief doctors consultations. It may be that in our present uncertain world of such frequent change to once permanent features, that one seeks out modes of reassurance.
What is certainly a concern is that as people seem intent on taking more control over, and playing more active roles in their own health management, there are charlatans highly skilled at taking advantage of human needs. Nothing is too difficult for them, nothing cannot be understood, all can be managed and all will be well.
At the top of the scam pyramid reign chiropractors, at once tuning, “diagnosing” and “curing” entirely made up syndromes that engender fear, anxiety, poor decision making and dependence upon ritual in innocent people. So good are chiropractors at this that pregnant patients, fed lies about the needs of newborns, express an impatience for delivery. All so that their neonate can begin chiropractic and thus, start to overcome the abnormalities they believe all children are born with.
Chiropractors run workshops on increasing income. The malleable state of women in a state of hormone flux either side of gestation is well understood. Not for the “patients” benefit. For the benefit of profit born of maternal anxiety and parental fear. It becomes a matter of urgency. The longer left, the more “abnormal” the child will be. Antivaxxers make use of the maternal instinct also, as do renegade home birth groups.
It’s a trait that has served our species well. If mum receives bogus input suggesting the foetus or bub is under threat, no harm comes to either if mum acts upon it. But if mum hangs around to weigh up the risks or ignores constant cues for some time and the risk is real, the chance of this remaining as a successful evolutionary trait is zero. The strength of this trait is notable in that addiction to harmful substances can overrun it. Yet this is following changes in the reward-pleasure centre of the brain, that then initiate neuronal projections into the frontal lobe that serve to inhibit reasoning, decision making, self control and inhibition of behaviour.
Antivaccination lobbyist, AVN member, anti-medicine advocate, homeopathic immunisation promoter and chiropractor Simon Floreani who has children making up 60% of his client base once told Today Tonight:
Babies often come directly from the hospital. They’re referred from the obstetricians, the doctors, the pediatricians, the nurses because chiropractic care’s so safe for them. Many of the current medical procedures just don’t work and parents aren’t silly. They’re looking for good alternatives from people that care and are prepared to look into diet and lifestyle.
As one time Skeptic of the year, Loretta Marron contends, “what they are is faith healers”. Traditional chiropractor John Reggars insists it’s a case of self limiting conditions or perceived changes. From an evidence viewpoint there’s nothing to support chiropractic – even with sore backs.
Update: In fact studies of infant crying and chiropractic therapy suggest treatment reduces crying have a high risk of performance bias. Indeed as parents are the assessors the results may be shared by parental belief. This Cochrane review of infantile colic and chiropractic notes (p.2);
However, most studies had a high risk of performance bias due to the fact that the assessors (parents) were not blind to who had received the intervention. When combining only those trials with a low risk of such performance bias, the results did not reach statistical significance. Further research is required where those assessing the treatment outcomes do not know whether or not the infant has received a manipulative therapy.
There are inadequate data to reach any definitive conclusions about the safety of these interventions.
It’s important to realise that this review concluded the above based on “most studies”. It has consulted this RCT by Miller, Newell and Bolton (see p.25 of Cochrane review), and still found data to be inadequate to reach definitive conclusions.
Thus potentially, if parents think the infants are getting treatment they may be reporting improvement even if there is none. Conversely if they believe the child is not being treated when it is, they may report adversely. /Update
SCIENTISTS spent $374,000 recently asking people to inhale lemon and lavender scents to see if it helped their wounds to heal. It didn’t.
The National Centre for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the US also outlaid $700,000 to show that magnets are no help in treating arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome or migraines.
The centre spent $390,000 to find that old Indian herbal remedies do not control type 2 diabetes and $406,000 to prove coffee enemas do not cure pancreatic cancer.
It’s the same story around the globe. One by one, weirdo treatments are being exposed as bunkum.
Why are people so gullible, handing over their hard-earned cash for unproven alternative therapies?
Why do usually sane people get sucked in by pseudo-scientific fiddle-faddle such as homeopathy, reiki, reflexology, naturopathy, aromatherapy, iridology and crystals? […]
Chiropractors have now been discredited by every reputable medical organisation from the Royal Society down, yet people still spend up on these bone-crunchers and state and federal governments seem unwilling to shut them down.
Recently I reported on two experts on alternative medicine who reviewed all the evidence and concluded chiropractic was “worthless”.
Professor Edzard Ernst and Peter Canter found no convincing data to support claims the technique was effective.
With the possible exception of the relief of some back pain – where spinal manipulation is as good but no better than conventional treatments – the technique is worthless, the review in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine concluded.
Another impacting feature is the “legitimising” tricks buffering complete rubbish. “Diplomas” in homeopathy. “Degrees” in chiropractic. The meaningless but very powerful use of the term Doctor. Flashy titles given to Boards or National Bodies. Misleading titles such as The Australian Vaccination Network that supports zero vaccines calling them “instruments of death”. “Pro-choice” groups. All this is strictly designed to mislead from the outset.
Yet I’m not sure asking only about gullibility is enough. Gullibility persists often due to a conscious decision to not examine criticism of what has become a comforting belief or set of beliefs. More so we are hard wired to seek out information that confirms what we think we know as fact and associate with people who reinforce our beliefs. Even internalising contradictory information about our beliefs can in time lead to reinterpretation that reinforces the opposite of the information we took in. Cognitive bias is a powerful master.
An admirable foe to conventional medicine who pops up here, Meryl Dorey, completely dismisses the findings above. Yet, when criticising vaccines she relies upon respect for the same scientific approach. “The gold standard of scientific research”, she argues, is the Randomised Controlled Trial. As RCT’s mow down alternatives to medicine Meryl insists that until vaccines are subject to RCT’s they cannot be regarded as “properly tested”. Although Meryl is beyond reason (as evidenced by this level of ignorance about how RCTs work) it’s a fine example of how belief can eliminate respect for evidence.
Perhaps we should be asking more about what leads people to internalise so much misinformation about the world we live in and the basics about how it works. So much of the market sustaining disproved alternatives to medicine also accept without question that our environment is highly toxic, it pollutes our health and natural new age “cures” are needed. They also believe conventional medicine, hiding the truth about “natural cures”, is irrevocably corrupt, peddles poison as medication and is ironically creating a world of sickness from which it profits.
Much of this is provided to them from so-called “alternative practitioners”. Detox’ is necessary. No, it’s quite dangerous. Medicines treat the symptoms not the cause. Quite true, I hasten to add in many cases. I’m just not sure why this is assumed to be a blanket flaw. Figures on medical mishaps draw concern. Yes real doctors are accountable and mishaps are still a small percentage. Adverse reactions from drugs prove medicine is lethal. Quite wrong. Primarily ADR’s underscore patient error, and again given the millions of scripts dispensed is another small symptom of accountability.
The truth is, Conventional Medicine is not peddling sickness and keeping you ill for profit. But Alternatives to Medicine are profiting from the false belief you need maintenance and from keeping you splendidly ignorant.
This continued misinformation about real medicine takes up an exorbitant amount of the message coming from the supposed “complimentary”, “alternative” or “integrative” chapters. From antivaccination messages to the vast bulk of alternatives to medicine the claim of “efficacy” is buoyed upon a childish notion. “We are good, because they are bad”. The more “bad” squeezed in the less the need for evidence to show Theta Healing could possibly work or that oscillococcinum isn’t plain nonsense.
Still this doesn’t explain everything and I don’t imagine I could. What causes one mother to accept antivaccination hogwash in a maternal embrace and another to sink her teeth into its carotid artery, so to speak? Personal experience can shape belief but even here outside forces tend to be the final decider. Certainly scientific literacy and the awareness that one must trust experts in certain fields is crucial to good decision making.
Alternatively, having “researched” every crackpot self affirming, disreputable source whilst avoiding reputable – indeed any source – material is intellectual sabotage. Likewise being affluent and highly skilled in one area doesn’t immediately make a person “educated” as the media insist on telling us.
At best one could argue that so many scams continue to attract patronage because they offer an emotional and psychological package of oneself taking control. Lengthy consultation sessions provide for bonding and a sense of loyalty.
Much of the practice or ritualised session is designed to instil reliance and dependence upon the so-called practitioner. Bogus symptoms and syndromes are tacked on whilst alienation from conventional medicine evoking feelings of betrayal and self-superiority sinks in. Reading material and other patrons readily reinforce this.
Some charlatans often claim their Wonder Woo is suppressed by Big Pharma, as was the case with Francine Scrayen, Dr. Death Sartori charged in multiple countries and QLD MMS wielding cancer curing, scam artist Jillian Newlands. Although most often this is announced to the very desperate and the most ill.
Ultimately it appears that if we are to push down this bubble of bogus practices we need to understand just why so many of us are seeking attention to our state of being. It is not last ditch desperation or even seeking treatment for obvious illness. People need attention and in seeking it they are being sold dependence.
Dependence upon forces, rituals, cleanses and superstitions they previously never knew existed. That so much of this comes with ready packaged insults toward conventional medicine instills distrust of the very regulators who must act for the public good.
Perhaps as more and more scams are shown to be clinically useless, those that have depended upon them need to be educated in how they’ve been manipulated.
Clearly it’s a “thing”. Dictionary.com include the notion of “self containment”. We might include distinct and being independent in existence. Other definitions note an entity is a part that has broken away from the whole. In business or in geography, such as a subcontinent.
But when it comes to describing “Monika’s Entity“, things get more challenging. Described as “a potion peddler” conducting “quackery of the first order” by Today Tonight, I’m sure we can do better. Clearly, Monika is also a Thing. In fact I’d reckon Monika is a Distinct Thing. Monika has also broken away from the “whole”, as it were, of humanity, existing quite independently from everyday traits and characteristics. However it appears Monika has jettisoned the notion of self containment from her Entity.
I rush to add dear reader, this does not make Monika a Distinctly Subhuman Thing bereft of self containment. Nay! I have only one response in defence of Gentle Monique:
Monika created Hugh Jackman’s physique and can cure cancer
As Monika’s Number One Fan, I confess to some concerns about her health. You see I’ve been banned from her Facebook page ever since I started asking questions about her breaching the Public and Environmental Health Act 1987 (S.A.). The S.A. Dept. of Health issued a Mesotherapy Alert after Monika charged $500 a shot to inject patients with saline solution and “other substances”. She was curing cancer by “killing the worms” responsible, amongst other things. A few developed “multiple symmetrical skin abscesses on their calves, buttocks, thighs, abdomen, shoulders, face and neck”.
Some developed mycobacterial infection. This required Monika to be using tap water and/or sewerage contaminants in her solution which she injected into people for whom she’d promised she could cure cancer. Page 42 of this Report into Bogus Practitioners includes:
In 2005, my husband, Ross, was diagnosed with cancer of the bile ducts. After surgery and various courses of chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments failed to halt the diseases, my husband sought the help of Monica Milka who did ‘alternative therapies’. Monika assured my husband that she could cure him and commenced treating him with all types of sprays, medicines and injections. The many injections she gave to his stomach were to ‘kill the worms’ that were causing the problem but in fact left him very sore. She also took photos of his eyes and then showed him those supposed images on a computer screen, pointing out the ‘areas of improvement’ and telling him how well he was doing. Ross paid Monica over $500 per week. Initially he paid by visa card so received a receipt for this payment but later on he began to pay cash and no longer received any receipts.
Sadly, in their haste S.A. Health ordered Gentle Monique not to administer any substances to any person. They then ordered her to not provide substances to another person, unless that substance is a commercial product. Are they insane?! Curing cancer with sewerage contaminants isn’t like hit and miss allopathy. Just to show them she had no regard for this regulatory hogwash, Monika began selling water and ethanol in 150 ml bottles for $150.
The misunderstanding Monika and I had, followed my foolishly pointing out she was still the subject of health restrictions and providing yet another scam for human ingestion actually breached the order to not provide any substance to any person. Anyway, today Monika plonked this post on her page.
I was shocked. Gentle Monique? Just two days ago, Monika invented, posted, then deleted this story:
The suspect nature of this “confession” was all too apparent. As a poster observed, even if this mysterious confessor had zero mortgage the return on $100,000 at even twice what we expect in today’s market is only $10,000 before tax. Thus the idea of “a very healthy income” becomes laughable.
Monika was caught red handed lying to her readers, inventing stories to besmirch the name of others she included in her tirade. Oh my.
This was of course, an example of being “visciously (sic) attacked & bullied & harrassed (sic)…”, for bringing the joy of sewerage injections and impure water and ethanol magic to humanity. Still, in the cloak and dagger world of unmasking BigPharma Trolls paid gazillions to bring down Gentle Monique, anything is possible. Even deleting the entire story and proffering this excuse:
As you can see, I have good reason to be concerned over Monika’s state of mind and health. As her Number One Fan, it is my job to worry. Nonetheless, Gentle Monique was on the ball. The best way to fight off accusations of making stuff up, is to… make more stuff up:
Monika is very grumpy with Today Tonight who plot and plan with all of us BigPharma Trolls. When she made up the story that she later deleted Monika included:
I do hope Monika’s lawyers, in whose hands everything lies, are advising her of how she conducts herself online. You know…. without prejudice… ♥
I suppose ultimately all we can conclude is that Monika Milka of Monika’s Entity is not a Distinctly Subhuman Thing because all the evidence points to her being a Distinctly Bogus Subhuman Thing who appears to have lost the knack of self containment.
Losing In The Lucky Country 