Superbug named New Delhi to make westerners afraid of offshore medical tourism

Sunday, February 20, 2011 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: New Delhi, superbug, health news

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(NaturalNews) The industry of western medicine is steeped in corruption, dishonesty and dirty tricks. One of those dirty tricks became apparent recently when it was revealed that a superbug discovered by western researchers was given the name "New Delhi" in order to make westerners fearful of medical tourism in India.

Medical tourism, you see, is hurting the profits of western hospitals and medical clinics who vastly overcharge for their services. By traveling to India or other countries, patients from western nations can receive virtually identical medical care at a small fraction of the price normally charged in America or other western nations. But the conventional medical industry cannot tolerate people having a free choice about much of anything, so they engage in dirty tricks to scare people into buying health care services at monopolistic prices.

One of the more recent dirty tricks involves the discovery of a drug-resistant superbug in several UK patients. Because some of those patients (but not all) had traveled to India, the UK researcher decided to disparage India's medical tourism industry and name the superbug "New Delhi." Or, more specifically, "New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase 1 (NDM-1)."

The name of this superbug was chosen to link "superbug" with "India" and "medical tourism," thereby scaring people away from even thinking of traveling to India for medical tourism.

Scare stories link India with superbugs

It wasn't long before one of western medicine's greatest propaganda publications, The Lancet, jumped on board and began to spread the scare story by linking cosmetic surgery medial tourism to the "New Delhi" superbug. (http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/art...)

Mainstream media outlets began parroting the propaganda (as they always do) and spreading the fear. The classic example comes from CBS News, which said on September 14, 2010:

Experts worry that people who travel to developing countries for inexpensive medical treatment may be placing us at risk.
(http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20016...)

Did you catch that? "Experts" -- whoever they might be -- are saying that if people travel to India for medical tourism, they might bring back superbugs that kill us all! Run!

This is from an article entitled, believe it or not, "Is Medical Tourism Spreading Scary Germs?" There's a unjustified fear-mongering headline if I've ever read one. It even uses the word "scary" right in the title just in case you didn't catch the implied fear.

This is all, predictably, a pretext for banning medical tourism. Legislators could simply announce "medical tourism is a threat to our safety" and outlaw the practice. The naming of this superbug "New Delhi" is just one step in this process of shutting down medical tourism altogether.

As further evidence of the real agenda behind this story, CBS News refers to offshore procedures as "cheap medical treatments," not "low-cost medical services." This is also an indication of their attempt to discredit the entire practice. ("Cheap" implies lower quality and is a derogatory choice of phraseology.)

How to protect the medical monopoly

Western medicine routinely attacks anything that competes with its profits or questions its mythology. Witness the viciousness of the ongoing attacks against Dr Andrew Wakefield, the vaccine researcher. The effort to discredit his work goes beyond any routine "science" and enters the realm of desperation.

The vaccine industry is truly "desperate" to discredit Wakefield in order to save their vaccine monopoly and make sure parents dismiss any links between vaccines and health problems in children. We'll cover that in another story, of course, but it's just one example of how the western medical system viciously attacks anything that threatens its monopoly power base.

Getting back to the New Delhi superbug, The Lancet was the first medical journal to report on it, and by using the "New Delhi" name in its report, The Lancet is responsible for cementing this name in medical history, thereby stigmatizing an entire nation and spreading irrational fear about medical tourism. When confronted about this, Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, actually offered an apology. "We didn't think of its implications, for which I sincerely apologize."

Hogwash. I believe Richard Horton knew exactly what he was doing. Remember, The Lancet is one of the most widely respected scientific journals in the field of medicine. Its editor is scientifically trained to consider multiple levels of implications of every action. The explanation that he failed to recognize that the phrase "New Delhi" was the name of a city in one of the most prominent and important nations on our planet is, frankly, unbelievable. A far more likely explanation is that Horton recognized the phrase "New Delhi," and realized this name would have the effect of discrediting India but chose to go ahead and use it anyway.

Does anyone seriously think Horton would have allowed a superbug to be named "London" without considering the implications? Of course not. So why would he use the name "New Delhi" which is the geopolitical equivalent?

India's politicians are accusing westerners of using this name precisely for the purpose of casting doubt on the safety of medical tourism. And even now, after the apology in The Lancet, the lead researcher who discovered the superbug said he has no intention of renaming it. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-1...)

So there you have it: A superbug named to discredit medical tourism, a weak apology from a medical journal editor but no action to change the name. So this superbug will continue to be called "New Delhi" and it will continue to discredit the entire nation of India which, of course, was the whole idea to begin with.

Score another point for the evil, corrupt and intellectually dishonest industry of conventional medicine.

Propaganda: 1
Actual science: 0