– Dr Vernon Coleman’s Warnings, Forecasts and Predictions:
Dr Vernon Coleman’s track record of spotting health dangers is second to none. Since the 1970s, when his first two ground breaking books (The Medicine Men and Paper Doctors) were published, Dr Coleman has been gaining friends among patients and enemies among doctors and drug companies.
In The Medicine Men (1975), Vernon Coleman drew attention to the dangerously close relationship between the medical establishment and the pharmaceutical industry. In Paper Doctors (1977) he argued that most medical research is done for the benefit of researchers (and drug companies) and that the money would be better spent on using the information we already have and encouraging the public to avoid known health hazards.
Vernon Coleman, a Sunday Times bestselling author, is one of the few medically qualified authors writing on medical matters without bias and without any professional or commercial commitments or allegiances. His honesty has made him many enemies among the medical establishment and the establishment’s commercial alliances. His predictions, forecasts and warnings have often been made years (and, in many cases, decades) before anyone else has unearthed and understood the evidence or had the courage to speak out. In addition, in many of his medical books and thousands of newspaper and magazine articles he has drawn attention to the dangers of using specific over the counter and prescription drugs.
The list below is based on the list first published in Vernon Coleman’s international bestselling book How to Stop Your Doctor Killing You in 1996. Many of these warnings were issued between 20 and 40 years ago.
Dr Vernon Coleman was the first writer to:
1) Warn about the dangers of benzodiazepine tranquillisers
2) Warn that passive smoking causes cancer
3) Warn that mobile phones (and masts) may cause cancer
4) Warn that tap water contains harmful drug residues
5) Point out that genetic engineering (in all its forms) can be a threat to human health
6) Claim that high blood pressure can be controlled without drugs
7) Warn about the risk of mad cow disease
8) Warn that deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a serious threat to air travellers
9) Warn of the return of tuberculosis
10) Explain why medical screening programmes are of more benefit to doctors than to patients
11) Warn that the threat of AIDS was wildly exaggerated for commercial reasons
12) Warn that the overuse of antibiotics was creating drug resistant infections
13) Warn that doctors were over-diagnosing asthma
14) Draw attention to the value of generic drugs (as opposed to branded drugs)
15) Warn that ADHD was being over-diagnosed and treated with dangerous drugs