Big Pharma Marketing ADHD, Ozempic courts Medicare, Marcus Ellis, Viatical Settlements, Financing alternative cancer treatment, Japan healthy living, Mercola debanked, Connecticut religious freedom, Heavy metal kids, Girls early puberty and MORE!

Aug 7, 2023 3-5PM ET

Monday on The Robert Scott Bell Show:

How Big Pharma’s Marketing Machine Is Fueling The ADHD Surge It’s hard to think of any industry that’s enjoyed more success over the past twenty years or so than big pharma. More than 131 million people — that’s two-thirds of all adults in the United States — report that they’re taking at least one prescription drug. That’s a significant increase from the year 2000, when around half of American adults said they were doing so. The percentage of people taking five or more prescription drugs has nearly doubled since the turn of the century. Spending on prescription drugs in that period has more than tripled. Drugs that supposedly treat psychological issues — like unhappiness, or a lack of self-control — have done especially well. From 1991 to 2018, SSRI prescriptions increased by over 3,000 percent. Roughly half the country either takes the potentially mind-altering drug Ozempic to lose weight, or knows someone taking it. Given big pharma’s tremendous success, you’d think that by now, they would have solved a lot of the health problems facing Americans, or at least made progress in resolving them. But the opposite is true. Average life expectancy is declining. Suicide rates are up. So are the rates of obesity, drug addiction, and cancer among young adults. How is this possible? How is the pharmaceutical industry succeeding financially, while failing in every area that matters? How can they have so many people on so many medicines, and yet everyone is only getting sicker and less healthy?

Ozempic and Wegovy maker courts prominent Black leaders to get Medicare’s favor Pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk has turned to influential Black Americans in pursuit of what would be a lucrative victory: having Medicare cover a new class of weight loss drugs, including the company’s highly sought Wegovy, which can cost patients more than $1,000 a month. During a conference of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation last fall — a jampacked gathering featuring prominent Black lawmakers and President Joe Biden — Novo Nordisk sponsored a panel discussion on obesity for which it selected the moderator and panelists, company spokesperson Nicole Ferreira said. The foundation is a nonprofit affiliated with the Congressional Black Caucus, a powerful group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Former CNN political commentator Roland Martin moderated. Black health experts who support Medicare coverage of drugs used to treat obesity served on the panel. They included Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Stanford is a specialist in obesity who has received consulting fees from Novo Nordisk. During the panel discussion, Stanford told the audience that obesity “is a real disease that people struggle with,” she recounted in an interview with KFF Health News. “We’ve denied people care for obesity when we haven’t for other chronic diseases.”

Special Guest Marcus Ellis

Mr. Ellis is a businessman of varying pursuits with a career spanning the country.  He has a strong profile as a medical researcher, national cancer coach, former gourmet caterer and now a nutritional coach, former public and private school teacher, nationally ranked salesman and deliverer of professional development to school systems, a former real estate broker, former insurance agent and an armed security officer.  Multiple successful careers have made him a remarkably well-rounded man. He is a financial and health resources advocate at this time.

Ellis built a major catering, food service and event planning facility in Texas called Ellis Castle as well as a large 200 acre retreat center in Tennessee. A classically trained musician, he still deeply resonates with his rich musical background although doesn’t have significant time to allocate to this since he continues to be an articulate advocate of natural health matters.  Unwavering in his commitment to obtain financing for victims of disease, Mr. Ellis makes appearances sharing his personal, terrifying medical experiences as a ‘terminal’ cancer conqueror with groups of all sizes.  He was given 6 months to live…. over 6 YEARS ago.   Now, he recognizes many of the diabolic inversions of truth regarding the current healthcare system and addresses it daily with colleagues and clients.  Everyone is welcome here!

What the U.S. could learn from Japan about making healthy living easier I was born and raised in the American Midwest, but love visiting my parents’ homeland in Japan. Central to every trip there is always the food: Oh my goodness, the food. Eating is a raging national obsession here, with good reason. Staggering varieties of food are available everywhere; it’s all delicious and — most impressively, to me — always fresh. Soba noodles come made to order, with flash-fried seasonal tempura vegetables. Mouthwatering sushi and curry rice lunches are sold on train platforms. You can wander past cases of specialty foods, from marbled meats to miso-pickled vegetables to handmade gyoza dumplings, in the depa chicka, or department store basements. There’s a slavish devotion to the gourmet that might seem crazy anywhere else. In summer months, domestic peaches come boxed in cushions to protect flesh as delicate as a baby’s cheek. What’s remarkable about Japan is that food like this is available almost everywhere you turn, yet obesity is not the public health threat it is in the U.S. Both the U.S. and Japan are wealthy industrialized countries, but they occupy opposite ends of the obesity spectrum. Currently, 43% of the U.S. population has obesity — nearly 10 times Japan’s rate of 4.5%.

Hour 2

Chase Bank CEO Debanks Mercola but Supported Epstein As I reported last week, in mid-July 2023, JP Morgan Chase Bank canceled all Mercola Market bank accounts, along with the personal accounts of our CEO, CFO and their respective spouses and children.¹ All received identical letters in which no reason for the decision was given, other that there was “unexpected activity” on an unspecified account. My CFO, Amalia Legaspi, whose Chase accounts — including a joint account with her husband — were closed along with mine, is now struggling to figure out how to pay for her husband’s health care in the Philippines. He’s bedridden with dementia and his pension and medical expenses rely on this account. It will be exceedingly challenging for her to correct this matter under the current circumstances as red tape prevents her from opening another bank account in his name. I realize my opinions regarding COVID differ significantly from those of Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, but there is no reason to punish my employees and their families. What they’re doing is just inhumane and wrong on so many levels. The Worldwide Weaponization of Finance What we’re seeing is the weaponization of finance, where people whose views or actions go against the official narrative are cut off from basic financial services. This is the social credit system at work and, soon, it will be used against everyone. Over the past three-plus years, countless people and organizations have been cut off from online payment services and banking services merely for their views.

Federal appeals court upholds Connecticut law that eliminated religious vaccination exemption A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a 2021 Connecticut law that eliminated the state’s longstanding religious exemption from childhood immunization requirements for schools, colleges and day care facilities. The decision comes about a year and a half after a lower court judge dismissed the lawsuit challenging the contentious law, which drew protests at the state Capitol. “This decision is a full and resounding affirmation of the constitutionality and legality of Connecticut’s vaccine requirements. Vaccines save lives — this is a fact beyond dispute,” Democratic Attorney General William Tong said in a statement. “The legislature acted responsibly and well within its authority to protect the health of Connecticut families and stop the spread of preventable disease.” The plaintiffs, We the Patriots USA Inc. and others, had argued that Connecticut violated religious freedom protections by removing the exemption. The 2021 law, they said, demonstrates a hostility to religious believers and jeopardizes their rights to medical freedom and child rearing. “We fully intend to seek review of this decision in the United States Supreme Court, to obtain equal justice for all children — not only in Connecticut, but in every state in the nation,” Brian Festa, co-founder and vice president of We the Patriots USA Inc., said in a statement.

Kids Are Being Exposed to ‘Concerning’ Levels of Carcinogenic Heavy Metal Found in Common Foods Young children are being exposed to a potentially cancer-causing heavy metal known as cadmium through many of the foods they eat, often at levels that exceed safety standards, according to a new study. Cadmium has been shown to contaminate water, air and crops, including a range of foods considered healthy that are used in baby food. The study, which was published last week in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicity, found that the cumulative average daily levels of cadmium ingested by children were higher than daily cadmium intake levels considered safe by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). For instance, children between 6 months and 24 months who consumed spinach and rice at least once a week ingested cadmium that exceeded the ATSDR guidelines by up to 200%, the study determined. The authors of the study warned that the findings are particularly concerning because the bodies of young children are still developing, and may be more susceptible to the effects of heavy metal exposure. The study comes after a 2021 U.S. Congressional report showed dangerous levels of metals in infant food, prompting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to launch a research and action plan to assess the risks of heavy metals in foods. Cadmium occurs naturally in soil, but the main sources of cadmium pollution in the environment are the burning of fossil fuels, waste incineration, mining and fertilizer manufacture, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Cadmium from industrial sources can settle on agricultural fields via air pollution, or contaminate crops through cadmium-laden water. Cadmium has long been a known threat to public health. The EPA classifies the metal as a probable carcinogen, and cadmium has also been linked to other health problems, such as kidney dysfunction.

COVID Pandemic Might Have Pushed More Girls Into Early Puberty More girls started puberty before age 8 during the COVID-19 pandemic, a phenomenon called precocious puberty, researchers say. The reasons include potential risk factors such as increased screen time and less exercise, according to a new study, published online Aug. 3 in the Journal of the Endocrine Society. In precocious puberty, children’s bodies begin changing into adult bodies too soon. These changes normally begin between age 8 and 14. The number of girls referred to pediatric endocrinologists for precocious puberty rose substantially over the past two years, researchers found. COVID-19 has also been linked to endocrine diseases, including obesity, which can contribute to early puberty in girls. “Our study confirms the rise in precocious puberty diagnoses during COVID-19 and identifies contributing factors such as poor eating and exercise habits, too much screen time and impaired sleep,” said study author Dr. Mohamad Maghnie, of the University of Genoa and the Giannina Gaslini Institute in Italy. “We found an increase in weight gain among girls diagnosed with precocious puberty during the pandemic, and rapid increase in body weight is associated with advanced pubertal development,” he said in a journal news release.

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