Recent news regarding the most commonly used pain relievers, ibuprofen and acetaminophen, demonstrate the importance of treating the cause of pain instead of blocking it with chemical medicines.

It’s been known for more than a decade that too much acetaminophen (best known brand is Tylenol) can damage or destroy the liver. Evidently consumers don’t know how many OTC products contain the drug or what is the maximum safe dosage (total of all OTCs they’re taking). The December issue of Hepatology reports the number of poisoning from accidental overdoses is on the rise.

Acetaminophen is found in varying doses in several hundred common cold medicines and combination compounds such as Excedrin, Midol Teen Formula, Theraflu, Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold Medicine, and NyQuil Cold & Flu. It’s also the chemical in the prescription drugs Vicodin and Percocet as well.

From 1998 to 2003 the number of patients with acute liver failure (602 total) due to acetaminophen poisoning rose from 28 percent to 51 percent. In nearly half these cases the patient took dosages of several OTC medicines over several days to, say, overcome flu.

In some cases six grams of acetaminophen a day for several days can cause liver failure. The recommended maximum daily dose for adults is 4 grams, but each person is unique, and that “recommended maximum” is way too much for some.

And don’t reach for ibuprofen instead. Two clinical trials at Canada’s McMaster University showed serious blood loss in patients taking 800mg of ibuprofen three times each day. This dosage of 2400mg daily is high but not uncommon among arthritis patients and those with chronic pain.

Blood loss (determined by stool samples) ranged from 1/5 of a cup to a full cup in the four-week study. This was three and a half times higher than the placebo-taking control group.

Ibuprofen will also make your liver scream as well as acetaminophen. Americans are indoctrinated by the healthcare establishment—that would be Big Pharma, the AMA, and FDA—to take a drug to block pain instead of finding natural medicines to cure the cause. These reports indicate THE DANGER OF NOT USING homeopathic and herbal medicines and natural treatments such as acupuncture. Natural medicines and treatments not only stop the pain (sometimes in minutes—like Americans demand—depending on the cause), but they HEAL the root cause!

It was one year ago that an elderly couple in Tokyo contacted WomensMedicineBowl.com in search of a Natural Flu remedy for avian flu. While homeopathic physicians lost only one percent of their patients during the worldwide flu pandemic in 1915-18 (compared to 40% mortality of allopathic’ patients), there isn’t a homeopathic remedy for avian flu—yet, and there may be no need for one.

Whenever governments want to frighten the population into getting vaccinated, they raise the specter that “this virus is related to the virus that killed millions in the 1915-18 pandemic.” This card has recently been played for the avian flu scare.

But we’ve heard all this before—remember the Swine Flu epidemic that was imminent in the late ‘70s? That “imminent epidemic” was also compared to the 1918 epidemic. Someone (now who would profit from this?) convinced the government that all Americans should be vaccinated for Swine Flu. Insurance companies said, no way were they going to insure the vaccine manufacturers so the government agreed to accept liability for claims of adverse effects.

And there were serious adverse effects from the vaccine. Over 40 million were vaccinated in six weeks in October-November 1976. The program was canceled after 25 deaths and more than 500 cases of Guillaine-Barre syndrome in more than 10 states—and no reports of Swine Flu anywhere.

Our friends in Tokyo were alarmed because Japan is leading the world in sounding the alarm regarding avian flu. The drug Tamiflu, also called oseltamivir, was approved in late 2000 in Japan. Of the 13 million prescriptions for the drug for children worldwide, 11.6 million have been in Japan, according to Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical that holds the patent on the drug.

So the Japanese population is the real-life testing laboratory, and the news is frightening. Twelve children, ages 1 to 16, have died after taking the drug, all in Japan. All had been healthy before the vaccination; six died suddenly within one to two days after “initiation of oseltamivir therapy.”

Two teens’ deaths may have been recorded as “suicide” but they had received two doses of the flu vaccine; another two boys, ages 12 and 13, jumped from the second-story windows of their homes after receiving the vaccine, but they survived. There have been 32 instances of “neuropsychiatric events” reported after patients received the vaccination, all but one in Japan. These events included delirium, abnormal behavior, hallucination, and the attempted/actual suicides.

The Bush administration’s plan for Avian Flu preparedness calls for ordering 81 million treatments of either Tamiflu or a rival drug, Relenza from GlaxoSmithKline. The order hasn’t been placed yet.

The order shouldn’t be placed at all. Once the government has “invested” in this vaccine, we’ll all be pushed to use it, whether it’s effective—which is highly unlikely—and whether it’s deadly.

The development of a viral strain into a vaccine takes months while the disease can spread in weeks. If the government were more interested in the Public’s Health than in supporting the coffers of the pharmaceutical companies, they’d spend OUR money on public health campaigns teaching the Public how to boost our Immune System and, perhaps, even distribute 1gram doses of Vitamin C (the whole-food variety, not ascorbic acid, a synthetic), even distribute whole-food Multi-vitamins.

There’s a plan for flu-preparedness. Spend the citizens’ money on whole-food (i.e., not synthetics) Multi-Vitamins so everyone would be healthier, and those who caught the influenza virus would cast it off more easily.