Originally published June 20 2008
Do Pharmaceuticals Make You Healthy? Health Ranger Announces $10,000 Health Challenge to Big Pharma
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
(NaturalNews) It is the position of Big Pharma that pharmaceuticals make people healthier. That's the whole point of taking them, of course -- to enhance your health in some way that the human body apparently cannot achieve on its own (if you believe the drug ads, anyway). The drug industry's direct-to-consumer advertisements further imply this cause / effect relationship between pharmaceuticals and health by portraying drug consumers to be happy, healthy and fit. Taking medications, these ads imply, will make you happy, healthy and fit!
The conventional medical community further supports this idea by insisting that medications alone can treat disease, cure disease or enhance a person's health. Nutritional supplements, they claim, are worthless and provide no health benefits whatsoever. No medical doctor in America can legally prescribe herbs, nutritional supplements or even healing foods for any health condition whatsoever!
Remarkably, this is also the official position of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration which claims that any nutritional supplement with any biological effect whatsoever is no longer a "supplement" but is magically transformed into an "unapproved drug" and therefore can no longer be legally sold in America. Only inert substances, according to the FDA, can be sold as nutritional supplements.
Through the exaggeration of pharmaceutical benefits and the ongoing campaign of censorship against functional foods, superfoods and nutritional supplements, the conventional medical industry has managed to convince the majority of health consumers that medications keep them healthy while nutritional supplements are dangerous. Yet I say the opposite is true: Medications destroy your health, and nutritional supplements enhance and protect your health!
But rather than argue these points with a room full of corrupt, on-the-take scientists who work for Big Pharma and have intentionally engineered clinical trials to discredit nutrition while touting the rigged results of their own fraudulent drug trials, I've come up with a much simpler way to counter the lies and deceptions of the entire pharmaceutical industry: I've decided to put their claims to the test with a public challenge.
The Health Ranger's $10,000 Health Challenge to Big Pharma
On behalf of the natural health community and all the free citizens of our world who have had their health freedoms stolen from them by a corrupt, dishonest and utterly criminal pharmaceutical industry, I hereby challenge the drug companies to produce a single medicated person who can beat me in a contest of strength, endurance, flexibility, coordination and adaptability.
I'm offering $10,000 to any drug company that can produce a single person taking eight "health enhancing" pharmaceuticals (see below) who can beat me in the competition described here. If they beat me, I write them a $10,000 check out of my own personal bank account. On the other hand, if I win, they have to donate $10,000 to the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center, where I will direct the funds to be spent on providing nutritional supplements for low-income expectant mothers.
Watch the YouTube video of this $10,000 health challenge here: http://www.naturalnews.com/023475.html
The drug companies, you see, claim that the more drugs you take, the healthier you become! Cardiovascular drugs, they say, improve the health of your cardiovascular system. Antidepressant drugs improve the health of your brain, and blood thinning drugs improve the flow of blood through your veins, they insist. So shouldn't a person taking five, six, or even eight drugs be healthier than a person who takes no such drugs?
According to the messages broadcast in Big Pharma's television ads, I should be the least healthy person alive today because I take no drugs whatsoever: No prescription drugs, no over-the-counter drugs and no recreational drugs. If you believe Big Pharma's position that drugs make you healthier, then it should be a very simple matter for Big Pharma to come up with somebody who has better cardiovascular health than myself, right?
Think about it: There are over 300 million people in America. More than half of them take prescription drugs. That's over 150 million people from which Big Pharma can choose in order to beat one guy (me) in a contest of physical health.
And yet, as you're about to find out, there is no person on these medications who exhibits excellent physical health. They simply don't exist. And why? Because drugs make you sicker, not healthier, and the more pharmaceuticals you take, the sicker you get!
Rules for the challenge
My challenge is extended to any pharmaceutical company with more than $250 million in annual sales. Subjects selected for the competition must be taking the following pharmaceuticals (and must have been taking them for one full year in order for the "health effects" to fully kick in):
• COX-2 inhibitor (anti-inflammatory)
• Blood thinner drug (like Coumadin)
• Blood pressure drug (like Toprol)
• Statin drug (anti-cholesterol)
• SSRI drug (antidepressant)
• Sleep drug (like Ambien)
• Hypertension drug (like Norvasc)
• Antibiotic (like Amoxicillin)
Furthermore, subjects cannot be taking any nutritional supplements or eating superfoods, since these are precisely the things that conventional medicine insists have no health benefits whatsoever in the human body. So I'll be taking all the nutritional supplements, and the drug company participant will be taking all the medications.
Participants will have to sign a full disclosure relieving me of any responsibility for their own death, since the level of physical exertion in this competition may very well be enough to cause a medicated person to die of a heart attack or stroke. (After all, these drugs kill 100,000 people a year, and most of those people aren't even exerting themselves...)
Furthermore, given the overwhelming advantage of allowing the drug companies to select any person from among 150 million drug-taking American consumers, I'm giving myself the relatively minor advantage of choosing the five events of the competition, which will be revealed when the challenge begins.
To prove they are serious in this challenge, any participating pharmaceutical company must deposit $10,000 with the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center, which will keep their deposit if they lose the competition. If they win, the Consumer Wellness Center will return their deposit, and I will personally write them a check for an additional $10,000.
Challenge participants can be of any age over 18. Yes, at the age of 38, I will gladly compete with challengers half my age, as long as they are on the required medications.
If any participants have the gumption to show up, this event will be filmed and broadcast on NaturalNews.com, YouTube, Google Video and other online video outlets. Further details of the participation requirements and legal contract are available by contacting NaturalNews through our feedback form: http://www.naturalnews.com/feedback.html
There are quite a few other details to this, such as travel arrangements, who pays for the blood tests, video broadcast rights, and so on, so if any drug company seriously wants to step up to this challenge, contact us for full legal details.
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: Isn't this just competing with sick people?
Answer: No, pharmaceutical companies sell drugs to people who are not sick! Many of the marketing messages for these drugs today emphasize that you don't have to be sick or diseased to benefit from taking these drugs! They're often prescribed on a "preventive" basis, with the claim that they "prevent disease!" Thus, I'm only competing with people who have been told their health would be enhanced by taking pharmaceuticals, regardless of whether they are actually sick or diseased.
Question: How do you know you can win this challenge?
Answer: I know I can win because I pursue an extremely high-end diet of superfoods, fresh juices, nutritional supplements, herbs and other edible plants. I do not eat junk foods, processed foods, microwaved foods or animal products of any kind. Thus, my body is in such a high state of human health (which is actually just a "normal" state for a human being) that no person consuming junk foods and pharmaceuticals can possibly keep up. I'm so confident in this fact that I'm willing to back it up with $10,000 of my own money. There is no medicated person in America who can out-perform a drug-free, raw foods individual like myself in a competition of physical fitness, regardless of their age.
Question: Isn't this cocky to claim nobody can beat you?
Answer: Somebody had to stand up and declare The Emperor Wears No Clothes! Rather than waiting around for somebody else to state the obvious, I've decided to state it myself. This isn't about me, it's about defending the credibility of the natural health community and demanding that the drug companies either put up, or shut up. If their drugs really make people healthier, then they should have no problem finding someone to beat me, right? Meanwhile, there are lots of people in the raw foods community who have greater endurance, strength and stamina than me. Note that I am intentionally not challenging all the raw, living foods consumers with this! (Because people who eat lots of superfoods are really, really healthy and fit!)
Question: You don't look very strong. How can you challenge anybody in a contest of physical strength?
Answer: I do not approach strength training from a cosmetic standpoint. Rather than building bulky-looking muscles, I focus on building functional strength, which is deep in the skeletal system. Besides, my physical strength my surprise you: In the gym, I regularly out-lift hulking "gym apes" on all kinds of exercises. Size does not equal strength. Just ask Peter Ragnar (www.RoaringLionPublishing.com)
Question: What exercises will be included in the $10,000 health challenge?
Answer: That's up to me. There will be five exercises, with one focused on each of the five areas: Strength, endurance, flexibility, coordination and adaptability. These exercises will not be revealed until the day of the competition.
Question: How will you know that challengers are really taking those eight medications?
Answer: We require blood tests in the months leading up to the event in order to document their consumption of the eight required pharmaceuticals. We fully expect drug companies to try to cheat in this competition, since that's the way they routinely conduct business with the world. But we'll do our best to prevent them from cheating.
Question: What do you eat?
Answer: I now eat a 100% plant-based diet. (Until recently, I did eat some oily fish, but now my diet is 100% plant-based.) My diet is about 80% raw, living foods, and 20% cooked foods (cooked veggies). I do not drink cow's milk or eat cheese, hamburgers, pizza, donuts, white bread, fried foods, sodas, refined sugars or any other similar items. My breakfast is a superfood smoothie, my lunch is a delicious blend of fresh fruit and vegetable juices, and my dinner is made from fresh, plant ingredients. I take over 20 nutritional supplements a day, I get hours of direct sunshine on my skin each day, and I exercise regularly.
Question: What's with the Health Ranger name? Do you think you're some kind of superhero or something?
Answer: Most humans have crippled their health with medications, junk foods and toxic chemicals in their homes and personal care products. Most people live their lives as little more than a shadow of what they're truly capable of, both physically and mentally (not to mention spiritually). I do not claim to be superhuman, I only claim to be maintaining the normal state of health that all human beings were meant to achieve. Anyone can achieve the same level of health I have achieved by simply eating what I eat and doing what I do. Achieving an extremely high level of human health is not a mystery (unless, of course, you're a medical doctor, in which case the whole universe of nutrition is a great mystery to you...)
Question: What do you have against Big Pharma, anyway?
Answer: Big Pharma is committing chemical atrocities against the human race. By medicating children, adults and senior citizens with medically unnecessary (and downright dangerous) drugs, Big Pharma has become the single greatest threat to the health and safety of the citizens of our world. It is an industry based on lies, deception and criminal conduct, and it is time that someone stood up to the industry and called them to the mat on their lies.
Since the mainstream media has hopelessly sold out to Big Pharma, and government regulators have become the unabashed promoters of patented pharmaceuticals, it is up to independent health journalists like me to stand up and question the credibility of this entire drug industry. Because, when you really look at it, you'll find that the entire system of modern, drug-based medicine is based on fraud. Drugs simply do not work. They do not make people healthier, period.
See the $10,000 Health Challenge video: http://www.naturalnews.com/023475.html
This "challenge" is void where prohibited by law.
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