HIDING YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND IS DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH by Gurli Bagnall
"…the reduction of intelligence is an important factor in the curative process. I say this without cynicism. The fact is that some of the very best cures one gets are in those individuals whom one reduces to amentia [simple mindedness]." - Dr. Abraham Myerson
As human beings we have the tendency to hide our heads in the sand when something unpleasant looms on the horizon. Nowhere is that more true than in the medical field and for those who think it will never happen to them, it is time to wake up and pay attention to what is happening to others before it is too late.
There was a time when we rarely heard of adverse consequences to medical treatments, but with the introduction of the internet, the reporting of medical scandals has increased to the point of being a daily event.
The latest to come to light here in New Zealand, was the subject of this week's TV documentary, "60 Minutes". It told the story of a 56 year old farmer who had been diagnosed with swine flu. He was extremely ill and the hospital informed the family that the life support that had kept him alive for three weeks, was to be disconnected. There did not appear to have been any discussion; it was simply a bald statement of intent.
To add to the family's woes, was the discovery that during the three weeks on life support, the patient had developed leukaemia.
As a last effort to salvage the situation, the family asked that before disconnecting life support, the doctors administer high doses of Vitamin C intravenously but the request was rejected outright. When asked what harm it would do since the doctors intended to remove life support anyway, they reluctantly agreed to give it a try.
The lung xrays had been "misted" to the point where no details of their structure could be seen. Two days after commencing the high doses of Vitamin C, the lungs were clear. Not only that, but there was now no sign of the leukaemia.
One would expect that members of the healing profession would be ecstatic about the results and their international implications. Instead this body of people whose business is health and fighting disease, gave every indication of displeasure and that it would have suited them far better if their patient had die.
The family kept a vigil and documented everything. To their dismay, they found he was once more deteriorating and on investigation, were amazed and angry to discover that when the dramatic improvement became apparent, the doctors stopped the Vitamin C.
To cut a long story short, the family called in the legal heavy-weights and the hospital felt it prudent to recommence Vitamin C and slowly the patient started once again to recover - slowly, because the doctors were still flexing their muscles and abusing their powers by refusing to reinstate the initial high dosage.
Should there have been a criminal prosecution? If there had been no doctor involvement, would the perpetrators face some sort of charge? Attempted murder perhaps? There is a sinister aspect to cases like this which make parents who withhold life-saving treatment from a child on religious grounds a negligible offence by comparison.
Watch the documentary on the following URL and ask yourselves what the medical agenda was. Certainly it had nothing to do with restoring and preserving a healthy life. Could it be something to do with the death of the patient being more convenient to the vaccine-pushing authorities than publicity about the curative properties of Vitamin C?
http://www.3news.co.nz/Living-Proof/tabid/371/articleID/171328/Default.aspx
The man who had been destined to die, was restored to his family and to full health with all that goes with it.
Regrettably, where health is concerned all are open to dangers which can mean anything from genuine, unintended and deeply regretted error, to murder carried out with utmost cruelty for some self-serving purpose
Historically, sufferers of conditions such as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) and Gulf War Illnesses (GWI), are amongst the victims who have with cold deliberation, been subjected to medical abuse for many years.
Healthy people seem unable to envisage themselves in such a situation and while they may be momentarily horrified when reading about it, they quickly move on to the next item on their daily agenda.
When the axe falls unexpectedly and with agonising sharpness, the subject is faced with medical hostility as the blame for their loss of health, earning capacity, mobility and even life itself, is placed squarely on their own shoulders.
In the ME community psychiatrist, Simon Wessely, is well known for his activities in this regard; he and his colleagues are responsible for the denial of appropriate care and financial support, and outright cruelty - especially towards seriously ill children.
Since the mid 1900s, the situation has worsened and become more bizarre with every passing year. The level of professional honour and ethics is such that those who have suffered at the hands of medical ignorance and abuse turn to their peers for support - peers whose only training is personal experience in having survived one or more disastrous medical interventions .
Just as the Catholic Church lied and cheated from top to bottom in an effort to cover-up the wide-spread paedophilia within its ranks, so the medical profession protects its wrong doers and woe betide those who try to work within ethical guidelines or blow the whistle on blatantly damaging behaviour and treatments.
Without the help of those who have already been through medical trauma or witnessed loved ones go through it, there would be a far higher incidence of suicide than there currently is.
But that is not the end of the story for those who abused at every level of the medical system, infiltrated some of the support agencies rendering them useless at best and dangerous at worst. We have seen it in ME where one faction is set against another causing serious internal upheaval.
We have seen the hi-jacking of support groups by funding bodies - mainly from the pharmaceutical industry, with medical and political backing. Typically and as an example, on the one hand, the "funding body" manufactures carcinogenic toxins and on the other hand they produce the "treatments" for the cancers when they occur. The object of those who orchestrate such groups is sales and profits. It has nothing to do with patient welfare.
The winners are the drug companies and others with conflicts of interest; it is they who call the shots and bank the cheques. Their lackeys who front the groups, are there with hands outstretched, ever ready to do their master's bidding for a cut of the spoils.
The losers are the many group members for whom the advice on offer, sometimes represents a long-term to life-long illness/disability, or a death sentence.
The major medical journals prefer to white-wash scandals if at all possible, so when they actually publish concerns about the widespread incidence of medical error the rest of us had better pay attention.
It is rare for medical articles to discuss the effects that iatrogenic (doctor caused) disease, disability or death have upon the victims and their families. The main concern is that those responsible should not be named, blamed and shamed; that the "error", having occurred, will be a lesson learned.
Unfortunately that is rarely the case for such "errors" are repeated over and over again, accumulating one victim after another.
Those of us who are already adversely affected by medical treatment, have learnt that none can afford to ignore the lesson. No one has immunity.
On 7 October, 2000, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) published a paper entitled "Uncomfortable Viewing" and it had this to say about medical harm. "It is estimated that 320,000 adverse medical events occur in the United Kingdom each year. Of these 40,000 result in the death of the patient, a figure 10 times greater than the number of people dying in road traffic accidents." It should be noted that these figures are based on hospital records only and are far from complete.
In the same year, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) had this to say about doctor caused (iatrogenic) deaths [Quote]: "...225,000 deaths per year constitutes the third leading cause of death in the United States, after deaths from heart disease and cancer." (Is US Health Really the Best in the World?, Vol. 284, No.4, July 26, 2000)
It is not so much the odd doctor like Myerson whose self-serving beliefs make the blood run cold. It is the fact that views of this nature are shared by so many within his field. The assault upon the brain of a patient and the immorality of reducing that patient to a vegetative state is bad enough, but when that patient has had a physical condition misdiagnosed as a mental disorder, what hope does he have to escape permanent damage?
Regrettably psychiatrists are not renowned for their diagnostic skills and particularly so when that which is at stake is the maintenance of personal status, wealth and power. All it takes is a stroke of a pen, to lobotomise a patient by chemical, surgical, insulin or electrical means. Those who are seriously damaged or killed along the way, are of no concern to such "operators".
One would hope it were not so, but unfortunately the voices of those in the mental health field who practice with due regard to ethics, compassion and integrity, are rarely heard. The old adage about empty drums making the most noise is certainly true here. Those falling into this category are devoid of intellectual thought, logic and common sense. The treatment they dish out to children who suffer ME, is particularly heinous.
Common complaints are the snatching of children from their homes and sick beds for incarceration in mental institutions where they may or may not be allowed parental visits. There desperately sick children are forced to attempt tasks beyond their physical capabilities; to put it bluntly, many of them are literally tortured by psychiatric staff.
The opening paragraph of: "THE PSYCHOPATH - The Mask of Sanity" states: "Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken." http://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/psychopath.htm Add stupidity and arrogance to that definition and see how well the whole melds with the majority of psychiatrists.
The realization of the philosophy espoused by Myerson became blatant during the reign of George Bush Jr. in the USA. He and like minded senators pushed for legislation to test and treat every man, woman and child in the country for mental disorders. Further, legislation was enacted to protect the pharmaceutical and allied industries from being sued. To believe that the large financial stake the Bush family and other senators had and have in the pharmaceutical industry is a co-incidence, stretches credulity too far.
Bush plans to screen whole US population for mental illness. (BMJ)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/328/7454/1458
Stop Mandatory Psychiatric "Mental Health" Testing
http://www.conservativeusa.org/mentaltesting.htm
Bush to Impose Psychiatric Drug Regime
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2004/06/23/bush_to_impose_psychiatric_drug_regime.htm
A smart smack on the behind or an investigation into allergies and a host of other possibilities, was largely successful in dealing with the bad behaviour of children in previous generations. Now Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has become a diagnosis pinned to a huge percentage of children, particularly in the US where teachers have been trained to diagnose it and to insist parents take their children to a psychiatrist for treatment.
(Quote): "It is unjustifiable to misdiagnose over a million children with ADHD. Psychiatry claims ADHD is a serious disease like cancer and our schools have become a marketing distribution channel for this false data." (Sheila Matthews, co-founder of AbleChild)
Spearheading this move, were the wealthy and influential who had direct or indirect financial interests in the pharmaceutical industry. They pushed to have smacking outlawed claiming that it was abuse. Thanks to them, bad behaviour in children is no longer regarded as a normal nuisance to be endured and dealt with as best able.
We are all different; we are individuals. There will be the bad, the good, those who respond to a smack and those who don't. It is not logical to lump all "bad behaviour" behaviour together and label it as a mental disorder to be "treated" by dangerous, toxic and highly addictive chemicals. What does that say about adults?
In many places, parents who refuse to expose their children to such drugs, are threatened with expulsion of the child and/or their own prosecution for neglect.
Do those who go through the psychiatric hoops at a personal level ever wonder how the doctor knows they have a chemical imbalance in the brain when no blood, or tissue has ever been taken and tested for it? Do they ask themselves how the doctors can be so sure it will take a month for the drugs to "kick in"? Answer: It will probably take that long for the patient to become hooked.
Pregnant women in particular were and are targeted and once they are addicted, new born babies start life enduring the agonies of drug withdrawal and the neuronal damage that that process inflicts.
If this is not fulfilling Myerson's cherished dream, what is?
Almost every unpleasant event one can think of, has escalated from occasional to epidemic proportions during the last decades. It takes very little investigation to discover that psychiatric treatment is involved in most of these cases. Apart from the induced aggression that triggers school yard and work place massacres, there are side effects involving the central nervous system as well as heart failures that have killed a number of children and adults alike.
Violence and Psychiatric Drugs.
http://www.ritalindeath.com/Violence-Drugs.htm
The Link Between Psychiatry, Drugs and Suicide.
http://www.teenscreentruth.com/psychiatry_drugs_suicide.html
What You Should Know About Psychiatry and Psychiatric Drugs.
http://www.outlookcities.com/psych/
Psychiatrists sit in judgement on the characters and behaviours of others often resulting in catastrophic outcomes for innocent people. Yet, amongst its practicing members, this branch of medicine alone harbours more irrational behaviour and criminals than any other. Broken marriages/relationships, suicides and addictions are commonplace; there is no shortage of cases of sexual abuse of patients including children, and fraud in billing practices etc.
Here in New Zealand, the psychotic behaviour of psychiatrist, Colin Bouwer, as he plotted and carried out the murder of his wife has recently been dramatised - probably because he is nearing the end of his prison sentence. It is a story of arrogance, stupidity, manipulation and more. Once again I emphasize the word "stupidity" for doctors are generally considered to be amongst society's most intelligent citizens.
Bouwer's stupidity was such that he lectured students on the art of committing the perfect murder and then went on to "prove" it by putting it into practice.
Featuring prominently in this sad sage, was a female colleague with whom Colin Bouwer had had an affair and at his sentencing, she vowed she would wait for him. The prospect of a long wait lost its appeal apparently for within a few weeks, she took off to greener pastures with a new lover.
What personal qualities do such people have that could possibly qualify them to judge the behaviour of others?
The final paragraph in a report published by the New Zealand Herald, put the situation in a nutshell.
"I t is chilling enough when a husband poisons his wife, and watches her suffering, with such cunning premeditation. There can be no greater personal betrayal. But it is a public betrayal, too, when that man is also a doctor with that profession's power over life and death, a power Colin Bouwer so schemingly abused."
The Colin Bouwer case: a fatal betrayal
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=229850
It was and continues to be the influence of those who preach mental disorder for it is their false judgments that cut off medical and financial help. It was and continues to be their actions that forced the blade to cut, the noose to choke and the drugs to stop the functioning of the heart and lungs. And like all psychotics, they simply couldn't care less.
Medical torture has been kept under wraps but during the last years, information on this shameful subject has the headlines. The following is a quote from: The Lancet, Volume 357, Issue 9268, Pages 1609 - 1611, 19 May 2001.
(Quote): "Torture still exists today. Modern torture is becoming more scientific, often with doctors' help or complicity. Anniversaries of anti-torture declarations are proudly celebrated despite the fact that torturers are still at work. Explanation of the original function of torture will clarify why doctors have been involved in torture since the 16th century and how the former role of doctors differed from their present participation in torture."
Chemical torture for the political dissident is identical to the chemical "treatment" of those deemed to be mentally disturbed, be they infant or octogenarian. Ingested chemicals do not generally leave visible bruises or abrasions .
Wikipedia describes it this way:
Medical torture (also known as a medical interrogation ) describes the involvement and sometimes active participation of medical professionals in acts of torture , either to judge what victims can endure, to apply treatments which will enhance torture, or as torturers in their own right. Medical torture may involve the use of their expert medical knowledge to facilitate interrogation or corporal punishment , in the conduct of torturous human experimentation or in providing professional medical sanction and approval for the torture of prisoners. The term also covers torturous scientific (or pseudo-scientific) experimentation upon unwilling human subjects.
The above barely scratches the surface of what is called medical "error". As already mentioned, such error can range from genuine mistakes to criminal offences. Doctors who carry out acts which would land a lay person in prison, rarely get as much as the proverbial slap on the wrist
Lack of funds is the common excuse for poor service but the truth is that the profession creates almost half of its own business through "error". It is left to the unaware tax payer to pick up the tab and clean up the mess.
The system needs to change. Doctors need to be held accountable and for their own protection, patients and/or their families need to be alert and to ask questions. If the doctor 's response makes you feel like a fool, consider who the fool was in the case of the farmer with swine flu.
Finally, we cannot afford to ignore the BMJ when it states: " …the more closely we examine patient care, the more error we find. No setting is free from hazards and no specialty is immune, and patients are at risk no matter what their age, sex or health status. " ("Epidemiology of medical error" British Medical Journal, Volune 320, 18 March 2000.)
Gurli Bagnall
New Zealand
18 August, 2010
End Note:
I wish to express my sincere appreciation to those within the medical profession who do their utmost to live up to the oath they took at the beginning of their careers. We have seen many face career-destroying retribution for so doing.
I would like to thank Tom Kindlon for his recent Co-Cure postings on quotes from Dr. Bill Reeves (of CFS research at the CDC) and his second in command, Dr. James Jones.
BILL REEVES Reeves compared his ruptured quadriceps tendon to ME - or CFS as he chooses to call it. The point he was trying to make in claiming to have found CBT useful as he struggled to get about on a crutch is not clear. Perhaps the message meant, if it was good enough for him, it should be more than good enough for a bunch of lay-abouts and people who only imagine they are ill. The point that he neglected to mention, is that, first and foremost, without argument or even question, Reeves' physical injury was treated appropriately. Had this not been so, instead of boasting about his “cleverness", he would either have kept quiet or created an uproar. If, after the appropriate treatment he still needed a shoulder to cry on in the form of CBT, that was his business and personally I couldn't care less. In fact it leaves one almost speechless to think that he, as a doctor, " did not understand what was happening, how to cope with it and what to expect." In the UK, an ME sufferer is offered CBT, GET, mind altering drugs and nothing else. What they WANT is the same right Reeves took for granted -appropriate treatment. As for CBT, after years of practice in coping alone, most already know what is happening and what to expect; the offer of the mind bending services by "therapists" who don't know their ME from their jackboots, is both ludicrous and offensive. My message to Reeves would be: "Spare us!" He demeans people who suffer a severe, painful and incurable neurological disease so what sympathy can he expect for an injury that will heal in a few months?
JAMES JONES Dr. James Jones is Reeves' second in command. They share the same views on ME and both know those views are false. No ifs, buts or maybes! They know. I base this on the assumption that having graduated from medical school, they must surely have IQ levels that allow understanding of the physical significance of the scientific findings regarding ME. Instead and like a broken record, they persist in bombarding all and sundry with their theories and along with like-minded colleagues, frequently become angry, sulky and petulant when patients, carers and ethical researchers, refuse to accept that their "opinions" over-ride the scientific findings. Such behaviour is not the result of consideration for the well-being of sick people, but rather of self interest with associated profits/gains. Jones labours under the delusion that whatever garbage comes from his pen, providing it is pretentious and gives the impression of being scientific, it will impress. He is wrong. The reality is that if ten of his colleagues were picked at random and asked to analyse the article from which the quotes were taken, the result would be ten very different versions and even then, most would be left scratching their heads as they continued to thumb their way through their dictionaries. For example, Jones stated:
".the odds for CFS was quite different between females and males, particularly with high allostatic load variables. The odds ratio was 5½ if the allostatic index was greater than 6 in females, it was 2.3 in males, but - in other words when we do our population studies and we look for illness and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, we are really measuring a syndrome or are we simply measuring - studying individuals who have had marked accumulated life stress and are developing the illnesses that one develops when you're 50 years of age or more?"
In charitable mood, I thought if I understood the meaning of the word “allostatic" I might make some sense of it. There was however, a major stumbling block; I consulted several references but none of them listed “allostatic". The closest was allopathy, a noun from which it MIGHT have been derived. Even so, it still made no sense.
If it exists, someone will no doubt alert us to a reference which contains “Allostatic" but nevertheless I challenge Dr. Jones to explain the above statement and prove its veracity. [Allopathy = the method of treating a disease by using remedies to produce effects different from those caused by the disease treated (contrasted with homeopathy).
Of CBT Jones said:".it's really an extraordinarily slow program. But in essence you’re training the individual and they're training themself (sic) that being physically active is OK and that lying on the couch is not OK."
At best, this comment is ignorant, at worst, it is cruel. My personal view is that this author is not fit to train anyone to do anything.
After reading these passages, an acquaintance who is accustomed to reading professional journals did not mince his words. His considered opinion was expressed in just one: "Bullshit!" Psychiatrists who have the welfare of their patients in mind, will tell you that one thing members of their profession do not like, and that is to be asked to PROVE IT. If the patient is told he has a chemical imbalance in the brain and will need medication for life, say: PROVE IT! Ask if the patient has a deficiency in prozac or any other kind of psychotropic substance. If he says yes, he is a liar. Such substances are not naturally occurring in the human body. If he still insists the patient needs the substance, ask if it is addictive, causes tardive dyskinesia, akethisia, CNS injury, mental confusion, suicide, birth defects (and more),in most users. If he sneers and calls you naïve, you can once again and with absolute certainty, call him a liar. Ask the "expert" to PROVE that his diagnosis is correct and all he can say with any truth is that it is listed in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM). That manual does not require him to take one drop of blood or piece of tissue for testing or to provide proof of any other sort that any condition is present. Even so and as if he has x-ray eyes, he expects his patients to believe him. Such arrogance in itself, can be interpreted as a mental disorder. The very method by which this manual is compiled is a scandal. How do the ever increasing numbers of mental illnesses find their way into it? Science plays no part - it takes but a show of hands. The following is a hypothetical situation: THE PROPOSAL: Huge profits could be made if the itch of insect bites was presented as a disease of the mind. QUESTIONS ARISING: Can we get away with it? What should it be called? How should it be promoted? ACTION AFTER QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN DEALT WITH: "Can we please have a show of hands? The ayes have it!" It's as easy as that. A new disease is born and will be entered into the next edition of the DSM. This is what people like Reeves and Jones call "science".
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REEVES AND JONES HAVE NEVER PROVED THAT M.E. IS A MENTAL DISORDER, BECAUSE THEY CANNOT.
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Both men ignore the scientific facts; both men persist with the psychiatric model; both men have an agenda. That agenda is a money making scam from which the drug industry, a large section of the medical profession and other hangers-on, profit. It is here that their specialties lie. To Reeves and Jones I say that if this is not true, PROVE IT! As indicated by the following recent quotes and headlines, money making scams are rife in the health industry.
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PUBLISHED IN: Medical News Today, 19 August, 2009www.medicalnewstoday.com <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com><http://www.medicalnewstoday.com> TITLE: Medical Fraud Creates Unknown Amount of Waste. QUOTE: "The Miami Herald reports that two Miami-Dade physicians have been found guilty of an HIV-infusion scheme to defraud Medicare.in a Medicareracket with four other doctors [they were] accused of prescribing $19.5million in obsolete infusion drugs for HIV patients who generally didn'tneed or receive the therapy."
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PUBLISHED IN: Los Angeles Times (local, Southern California) 9 July, 2009.TITLE: 20 arrested in Medi-Cal fraud targeting disabled patients. QUOTE: "Twenty people were arrested this morning in a $4.6 million Medical fraud scheme that law enforcement officials allege used unlicensed individuals to provide in-home nursing care for disabled patients."
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PUBLISHED IN: Fox News , 14 March, 2005TITLE: FBI Cites Massive Medical Fraud Investigation. QUOTE: "California clinics allegedly paid thousands of patients to undergo unnecessary surgical procedures and then billed insurers and employers for as much as $1.3 billion in fraudulent medical services. officials said Friday that their investigation of the operation has revealed a much bigger and more complex fraud network involving dozens of doctor, up to 100 clinics .Government and insurance company investigators say they were struck by the size and scope of the alleged fraud operation, which they have dubbed ‘Rent-a-Patient".
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PUBLISHED IN: guardian.co.uk, 18 September 2009TITLE: British doctor faces action over claims of 'ghost writing' for US drug company. QUOTE: The wider phenomenon has come to light through documents disclosed in the US courts which have revealed a culture in which doctors agree to “author" studies written by employees of drug firms. The doctors may have some in put but do not have access to all the evidence from the drug trial on which the paper's conclusions are based. In another alleged example, a consultant cardiologist claims an expert listed as an author on a medical paper died before the research began.
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In August, 2009, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) published a report entitled "Aiding Torture" which was based on the CIA Inspector General’s Report of May, 2004. QUOTE: "The [Inspector General's] report confirms that the CIA inflicted torture on detainees interrogated while in US custody as part of the agency’s counterterrorism activities and exposes additional interrogation techniques that had not yet been reported. It also demonstrates that health professionals were involved at every stage in the development, implementation and legitimization of this torture program. [they also] actively participated in abusive and illegal interrogations, thus betraying the ethical standards of their professions.
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ME sufferers know all about the betrayal of ethical standards and of sadistic medical abusers. The above quotes and reports are not about honest, upstanding citizens. They are about an ever increasing number of greedy people who have the gall to call themselves doctors; who take clear pleasure in causing suffering on a grand scale; who relentlessly abuse their powers. And because such people are cowards, who would snivel, wail and wring their hands if the tables were turned. Ranting, raving and indignant outbursts, no longer work. The pathos of “But I'm only trying to help" in today's climate begs an answer to the question, "Help yourself to what?" How many of us still have respect for those who regard it as theirs of right? The message never seems to get through - respect has to be earned.
I challenge Reeves and Jones to store their useless questionnaires for emergency toilet paper, and do some real work for a change. If they truly believe that ME is the result of a distorted mental process, then PROVE IT. If they are really innocent of wrong-doing, then PROVE IT. Just spare us the opinions, concocted words and grand bamboozles. We've had enough! Gurli Bagnall October, 2009