MURDER BY INJECTION: CHAPTER 2: QUACKS ON QUACKERY

By Eustace Mullins

Quack ~ an ignorant pretender to medical or surgical skill.

Quackery ~ charlatanry. 1783, Crabbe, Village 1, "A potent quack,

long versed in human ills, who first insults the victim

whom he kills." ~ Oxford English Dictionary

The first significant figure in American medicine, according to

Geoffrey Marks, was the theologian Cotton Mather (1663-1728).

The son of Increase Mather, the President of Harvard University,

Cotton Mather wrote many theological works, but also wrote a full

length medical work, "The Angel of Bethesda" on which he wrote

from 1720 to 1724. His medical letters drew heavily on local Indian

lore; he also pondered the mental factor in illness, noting that "A

cheerful Heart does Good like a Medicine, but a broken Spirit dries

the Bones."

Mather seems to have been the first and last theologian to be

interested in the practice of American medicine. The next figure of

importance in American medicine was a Dr. Nathan Smith Davis

(1817-1904). After apprenticing under Dr. Daniel Clark in upstate

New York, Davis moved to New York in 1847. As early as 1845, he

had demanded that the Medical Society of the State of New York

correct the more flagrant abuses in medical education, insisting that

the four months of instruction then in vogue be increased to a period

of six months. On May 11, 1846, he convened a group of physicians

in New York to form the nucleus of the American Medical

Association. The organization took on formal status the following

year in Philadelphia, on May 5, 1847, the official date the American

Medical Association came into being. The hundred delegates to the

New York meeting had swelled to over two hundred and fifty at

Philadelphia. They soon formed state organizations in a number of

states. Smith later moved to Chicago, where he joined the faculty of

Rush Medical School. In 1883, when the AMA founded its Journal,

he became the first editor, serving until 1889.

Despite the good intentions of its founder, Dr. Davis, the AMA

remained moribund for some fifty years. In 1899, the organization

took a giant step forward, with the arrival of one Dr. George H.

Simmons from Nebraska. Simmons, who throughout his life was

known, perhaps derisively, as "Doc," is now remembered as the preeminent

American quack. Born in Moreton, England, Simmons

immigrated to the United States in 1870. Settling in the Midwest, he

began his career as a journalist. It is interesting that the two other

dominant figures in twentieth century American medicine, Dr.

Morris Fishbein and Albert Lasker, also began their careers as

journalists; Fishbein remained a journalist all his life. Simmons

became the editor of the Nebraska Farmer in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Several years later, he decided to improve his finances by launching

on a career of unparalleled medical quackery. Interestingly enough,

the AMA in 1868 had formally defined quackery as "the sale or

administration of drugs or treatments that are not approved by

legally constituted medical authorities." Simmons ignored this

requirement. No one has ever been able to determine that he had

studied anywhere to qualify for a medical degree. Nevertheless, he

began to advertise that he was a "licentiate of the Rotunda Hospital

of Dublin," referring, presumably, to Dublin, Ireland. In fact, Dublin

Hospital had never issued any licenses, nor was it authorized to do

so.

No one ever bothered to raise the question as to why Simmons,

who had supposedly arrived in the United States as a duly licensed

physician, chose instead to practice journalism for some years. He

also advertised that he had spent "a year and a half in the largest

hospitals in London," although he refrained from making any claims

as to what capacity whether as a patient, an orderly or other

functionary. Years later, he obtained a diploma by mail from one of

the nation's flourishing diploma mills, Rush Medical College in

Chicago, while maintaining a full time medical practice in Lincoln.

There is no record that he ever set foot on the campus of Rush

Medical College prior to obtaining this degree. His protege, Morris

Fishbein, also attended Rush Medical College. There was some

question as to whether Fishbein ever actually graduated; years later,

in his time of influence, he became a "professor" there, specializing

in teaching the public relations aspects of medicine.

In their definitive work, "The Story of Medicine in America,"

an exhaustive and detailed compilation, the authors, Geoffrey Marks

and William K. Beatty, make no mention of either Simmons or

Fishbein, seemingly a glaring omission, as they are the two most

notorious practitioners in our medical history. Apparently realizing

that these two men were the two most famous quacks in medical

history, the authors prudently decided to ignore them.

In Who's Who Simmons notes that he practiced medicine in

Lincoln from 1884 to 1899. He lists his degree as L. M. Dublin

1884. This raises further questions. Simmons had immigrated to the

United States in 1870; he remained continuously in Lincoln from

1870 to 1899, when he went to Chicago. For some reason, he

forbore the listing of the mail order diploma from Rush Medical

College in his Who's Who listing in the 1936 edition; he had listed it

in the 1922 edition as receiving it in 1892. Here again, no one later

raised the question of his educational record, which showed that he

only began his medical education in Dublin after he had come to the

United States.

"Doc" Simmons' advertisements in Lincoln employed a standard phraseology

of the time, "A limited number of lady patients can be accommodated at

my residence.'' This was a coded notification that he was engaged in

the practice of abortion. He also operated a beauty and massage

parlor on the premises, as part of a "Lincoln Institute" of which he

was apparently the only official. His advertisements also identified

him as a "homeopathic physician," although he would soon embark

on a career with the AMA to destroy the profession of homeopathy

in the United States. His advertisements announced that he "treats

all medical and surgical diseases of women."

QUACK ADVERTISEMENT OF THE ORGANIZER AND BOSS OF THE

AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION IN FORMAT USED BY

ABORTIONISTS

The lines, "A limited number of lady patients can be accommodated at my

residence," was the form regularly used by abortionists in their advertising in 
those days. The London and Vienna hospital experienced the Irish license is 
fictitious. This advertisement appeared at a later date than that
Lincoln Institute, but years before "Doc" Simmons had obtained
his diploma mill degree.

Having learned about the American Medical Association,

Simmons, always in search of more status, formed a Nebraska

chapter, the Nebraska Medical Association. His talents as an

organizer came to the attention of the Chicago headquarters, and he

was summoned to take over the editorship of the Journal of the

AMA. Thus "Doc" Simmons came to the AMA, not as a physician,

but as a journalist. He found that the AMA was drifting along, with

no one capable of implementing a national policy. The situation was

made to order for a man of his capacities and drive. He soon named

himself as secretary and general manager of the American Medical

Association, launching the organization on its dictatorial and 
self-aggrandizing policies which it has maintained to the present day.

All moneys accruing to the AMA passed through Simmons' hands, and

he personally supervised every detail of the operations. He soon

found an able and willing lieutenant in a man who had formerly

served as a Secretary of the Kentucky State Board of Health. He

seems to have been a man after Simmons' own heart, for he had

been arrested after examiners found a shortage of some $62,000 in

his accounts. As a member in good standing of the state

bureaucracy, he managed to obtain an official pardon from the

Governor of Kentucky, with the gentle admonition that it might be

best for him to settle elsewhere. Chicago was only a short train ride

away, where he found that Simmons was overwhelmed by his

credentials. This gentleman, Dr. E. E. Hyde, died in 1912 from

leukemia. This proved to be a fortuitous circumstance for another

journalist waiting in the wings, Dr. Morris Fishbein. Fishbein had

apparently completed his studies at Rush Medical College, but he

had not yet been awarded his diploma. In any case, he did not want

to become a doctor. He had desultorily served as an intern at Durand

Hospital for a few months, but he was unwilling to comply with the

then regulations requiring a two year internship in an accredited

hospital.

He was seriously considering a career as a circus acrobat,

and had been working part time as an extra in an opera company. He

had also learned of a possible opening at the AMA, and had been

doing some part time writing there during Dr. Hyde's terminal

illness. Simmons had also found Fishbein to be a man after his own

heart. When Dr. Hyde died. Simmons at once offered the youth a

very handsome starting salary of $100 a month, a high figure for

1913. Fishbein found a home at the AMA; he did not leave until

1949, when he was literally kicked out.

With the advent of Fishbein, the American Medical Association

was now firmly in the hands of the nation's two most aggressive

quacks, Simmons, who had practiced medicine for years,

unembarrassed by the fact that he had no medical degree which

would hold up under the light of day, and Morris Fishbein, who

admitted under oath in 1938 that he had never practiced medicine a

day in his life. Because "Doc'' Simmons, as he was genially known,

had never shown any motivation in his career except greed, he soon

realized that the enormous power of which the AMA was capable

had in effect launched him into a gold mine. He was not slow to

request certain considerations in return for the favor or the goodwill

of the AMA. First and foremost was its "Seal of Approval" for new

products.

Since the AMA early on had virtually no laboratory,

testing equipment or research staff, the Seal of Approval was

obtained by "green research," that is, the laborious determination of

how much the supplicant could afford to pay, and how much it

might be worth to him. At first, some pharmaceutical manufacturers

resented this arrangement, and refused to pay. The leader of this

opposition was one Dr. Wallace C. Abbott, who had founded Abbott

Laboratories in 1900. Simmons met him head on by refusing to

approve a single product of Abbott Laboratories, no matter how

many were submitted. This standoff continued for some time, until

one morning, "Doc" Simmons was visibly shaken to see Dr. Abbott

towering over him in his office.

"Well, sir," he stammered, "and just what can I do for you?"

"I just came down to hear from you personally" Dr. Abbott

replied, "why not one of my products has ever been approved by the

AMA."

"That's not really my department, sir," "Doc" Simmons replied,

"I'll be glad to check with our research department and find out what

the problem is."

"Is there any way I could speed up your inquiry?" asked Dr.

Abbott.

Simmons was overjoyed. At last the stubborn chemist was

beginning to see things his way. "I'll be glad to do whatever I can,"

he said.

"There is something you can do," said Dr. Abbott, "if you

would be so good as to look over these documents, it might help you

to make up your mind."

He spread a number of papers out on "Doc" Simmons' desk.

Simmons immediately realized that he was looking at a complete

record of his career, carefully garnered by private detectives who

had been hired by Dr. Abbott. There were the full details of the so-called

"diplomas'; records of sex charges brought against Simmons

by former patients in Lincoln, and other titillating items, such as

charges of medical negligence resulting in the deaths of patients. He

knew that he was trapped.

"All right," said Simmons, "just what is it you want?"

"All I want is to have the AMA grant approval of my products,"

said Dr. Abbott. "Do you think that is possible, now?"

"You've got it," said Simmons. From that day, the products

from Abbott's firm, which was still called Abbott Biologicals at that

time, were rushed through the AMA process and marked

"Approved." Dr. Abbott never paid one cent for this special

treatment.

Through the years, various versions of the Abbott-Simmons

conflict were repeated. A whitewashed version appears in Tom

Mahoney's "Merchants of Life," which claims that Simmons

objected to Dr. Abbott's "commercialization" of the medical

profession, and wished to teach him a lesson. The Council on

Pharmacy and Chemistry not only refused to approve any of

Abbott's drugs, but also turned down his requests to advertise in the

journal of the American Medical Association, and later refused to

print his letters of protest. Simmons then launched personal attacks

on Dr. Abbott in the Journal in the issues of December 1907 and

March 1908. Simmons' pious claim that he did not wish to see Dr.

Abbott commercializing the medical profession rings hollow;

Abbott was manufacturing pharmaceutical products for sale. The

rub was that he refused to pay the usual shakedown to Simmons.

After the imbroglio was settled, S. DeWitt Clough, Abbott's

advertising manager, became a bridge playing crony of Morris

Fishbein.

A spirited critic of the AMA during its Simmons-Fishbein

period, Dr. Emanuel Josephson of New York, wrote, "The methods

which Simmons and his crew used in their battle for a monopoly of

medical publications and of advertisements to the profession were

often crude and illegitimate . . . The AMA has openly threatened

firms that advertise in media other than their own journals with

withdrawal of 'acceptance' of their products." Dr. Josephson

described Simmons' practices as "conspiracy in restraint of trade,

and extortion." He further charged, again correctly, that "almost

every branch of the Federal Government active in the field of

medicine was completely dominated by the Association."

This was borne out by the present writer, who cites many instances later

of government agencies actively implementing the most horrendous

cases of racketeering by the Drug Trust. So exhaustive were the

controls set in place by Simmons that the President of the AMA, Dr.

Nathan B. van Etten, later filed a sworn affidavit in the New York

District Court that he, as President of the American Medical

Association, had no authority to accept any moneys or enter into any

contracts. All such deals were the province of the Chicago

headquarters staff. It was later noted that AMA "focuses on

protecting physicians' incomes against government intrusion in the

practice of medicine." This was a case of having their cake and

eating it too. While steadfastly opposing any government

supervision of the Medical Monopoly, the monopolists frequently

forced various government agencies to act against anyone who

posed a threat to their monopoly, having them arrested, prosecuted,

and sent to prison.

"Doc" Simmons' lucrative dominance of the American Medical

Association led him into numerous sidelines. In 1921, he established

the Institute of Medicine in Chicago. This apparently was nothing

more than a holding company for his bribes. He had also been

enjoying the perquisites of the American success story, a buxom

mistress installed in a luxurious Gold Coast apartment. Scoundrel

that he was, Simmons was not content to flaunt this liason to his

wife; he also became increasingly cruel in his determination to get

rid of her. He then embarked on a classic ploy, the physician

attempting to dispose of an unwanted wife by plying her with

narcotics, trying to convince her that she is going insane, and

hopefully, driving her to suicide. After some months of this

treatment, his wife fought back by filing suit against him.

A highly publicized trial in 1924 ended in his wife's testimony that

he had given her heavy doses of narcotics, prescribed on the strength of

his "medical experience," and then began proceedings to have her

declared insane. This was not such an unusual procedure during that

period; it had happened to literally hundreds of wives. However, his

wife proved to be tougher than most victims. She testified in court

that he had tried to have her framed on a charge of insanity. This

trial inspired more than a dozen subsequent books, plays, and

movies based on the story of a physician who tries to drive his wife

insane through a campaign of ministration of drugs and

psychological terrorism. The most famous was "Gaslight," in which

Charles Boyer played the role of "Doc" Simmons to perfection, the

luckless wife being played by Ingrid Bergman.

The trial brought Simmons a torrent of unpleasant publicity,

and forced his retirement as head of the AMA. However, he retained

the title of "general editor emeritus," absenting himself in 1924 until

his death in 1937. Morris Fishbein, still operating under his lucky

star, was now moved into total dominance of the AMA. Between the

two of them, they controlled the AMA for more than a half century,

perfecting their techniques for using this organization to raise

money, exercise political clout, and maintain dominance over

physicians, hospitals, drug companies and concerned government

agencies. Simmons moved to Hollywood, Florida, where he lived

until 1937. His New York Times obituary was headlined "Noted for

War on Quacks.'' His longtime critic, Dr. Emanuel Josephson, noted

that this was an odd memorial for a man who had long been known

as "the Prince of Quacks."

Morris Fishbein also inherited Simmons' able assistant at the

AMA, Dr. Olin West (1874-1952). West had been state director in

Tennessee for the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission from 1910 to

1918. Thus he had the requisite credentials as a representative of the

Rockefeller connection at the AMA headquarters. Dr. Josephson

later termed Fishbein "the Hitler of the medical profession" and

West as "his Goering." Fishbein remained aware of the AMA's

ability to "use" government employees for AMA purposes. Of the

first fifteen members of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry,

three had been members of the federal government.

With the disappearance of Simmons, Fishbein now had a free

hand. From that day on, he made sure that when anyone mentioned

the AMA, they also paid tribute to Morris Fishbein. He used his

position there to launch a host of private enterprises, including book

publishing, lecturing, and writing feature newspaper columns. On a

very modest salary of $24,000 a year from the AMA, Fishbein

became the Playboy of the Western World. His children were

supervised by a French governess, while he commuted weekly to

New York to be seen at the Stork Club and to attend first nights at

the theatre. Fees, kickbacks, awards and other moneys poured into

his coffers in a veritable flood. During his twenty-five years of

power at the AMA, he never lost an opportunity to advertise and

enrich himself. Despite the fact that he had never practiced medicine

a day in his life, he persuaded King Features Syndicate to sign him

on as daily columnist writing a "medical" commentary which

appeared in over two hundred newspapers. A full page ad appeared

in Editor and Publisher to celebrate his new venture on March 23,

1940, stating "An authority of medicine, Dr. Fishbein's name is

synonymous with the 'sterling' stamp on a piece of silver." Whether

this was an oblique reference to Judas is not clear.

Fishbein garnered additional income by having himself named

medical adviser to Look Magazine, the second largest publication in

the United States. In 1935, he had ventured into what was probably

his greatest financial coup, the annual publication of a massive

volume, "the Modern Home Medical Adviser.'' The book was

written for him by doctors on consignment, but he wrote the lurid

advertising copy, "Endorsed by doctors everywhere. The Wealthiest

Millionaire Could Not Buy Better Health Guidance." Obviously, no

doctor anywhere dared to criticize the book.

Fishbein's steadily aggrandizing powers at the AMA were

veiled by the fact that he never had any title there except "editor."

He maintained absolute control over all the publications of the

AMA, and thus gained his total power over the organization. No one

who disagreed with him had any opportunity to voice any

discontent. He also maintained absolute control over the selection of

the personnel of the various committees of the AMA, so that no one

was ever in a position to attack him. The Committee on Food and

the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry were his particular

preserves, because of the great power they had over manufacturers

and advertisers. The Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry had been

set up in 1905, at the same time that the Food and Drug Act had

been passed by congress; the two groups always worked together

very closely. As advertising revenues increased each year, Fishbein

steadfastly denied that any profits were being made by the AMA.

He was quoted in Review of Reviews, 1926, "Far from being the

'corporation not for profit' which the statutes list it, the American

Medical Association has been exceedingly profitable to the public,

both in dollars and in lives." Thus Fishbein adeptly turned aside

growing criticism of the income of the AMA by his claim that it was

profitable to the public at large.

Under Fishbein's editorship, the AMA health magazine,

Hygiea, carried the banner headline, "PURE FOODS, HONESTLY

ADVERTISED." "The Seal of Acceptance of the Committee on

Foods of the AMA is your best guarantee that the claims of quality

for any product are correct and that the advertising for it is truthful.

Look for this Seal on every food that you buy. White Star Tuna and

Chicken of the Sea brand Tuna have this acceptance." At the very

time that Fishbein was running these advertisements, the Food and

Drug Administration was repeatedly seizing shipments of these very

brands of tuna, condemning them because "they consisted in whole

or in part of decomposed animal substance." So much for the Seal of

Acceptance.

The AMA Committee on Foods always verged on the brink of

exposure or serious damage suits, because it had virtually no testing

apparatus. The June 24, 1931 issue of Business Week raised serious

questions about these operations, particularly the power of the AMA

to censor manufacturers' ad copy. Business Week asked "whether a

national body of professional men conducted presumably on the

highest ethical plane, is not continually exceeding the natural

boundaries of its actions when it attempts to assume police and

regulatory powers over the nation's largest industry." The editors of

Business Week were well aware that the staff at AMA did little

testing and were not qualified to render judgments on the

"acceptance" of products. The magazine story may have been

intended as a quiet warning to the AMA to cease and desist its

activities in this field. They reckoned without Fishbein's chutzpah.

The AMA Committee on Foods, under Fishbein's guidance,

continued its operations for another decade. In 1939, Fishbein

awarded the Seal of Acceptance to some 2,706 individual products,

which were produced by some 1,653 companies. Its chief rival in

this field, the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, had also come

under increasing fire for its aggressive tactics in seeking more

customers for its Seal. In May 1941, the Federal Trade Commission

issued "cease and desist" orders against the Good Housekeeping

Seal; Fishbein saw the handwriting on the wall, and shortly

afterwards, he discontinued the AMA Seal of Acceptance awards

for general purpose foods.

The Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry was quite another

matter. This was the key to the big money. A drug company could

make one hundred million dollars on a new product, if it were to be

released under the proper auspices; the most vital, of course, was the

AMA Seal of Acceptance. The opportunities for large scale bribery,

conspiracy and corruption were too prevalent to be ignored. One

physician who was very conscious of this was Dr. Emanuel

Josephson of New York. Heir to a large fortune, Dr. Josephson

resided in a multi-million dollar townhouse in the city's most

expensive area, just around the corner from Nelson Rockefeller on

the fashionable Upper East Side. Josephson was unable to conceal

his contempt for Fishbein and his money-grubbing activities.

On January 2, 1932, he officially resigned from the AMA's New York

City Medical Society; the AMA chose to ignore his letter of

resignation until 1938, when Fishbein released a letter claiming that

the AMA "had severed connections with him." In 1939, Dr.

Josephson submitted the important record of his ground breaking

research to Science Magazine, "Vitamin E Therapy of Myasthenia

Gravis," which they refused to print. Dr. Josephson later pointed out

that the AMA had deliberately concealed the benefits of Vitamin E

therapy for more than twenty-five years. This was only one instance

of hundreds in which the AMA withheld life-saving information

from the public. The benefits of Vitamin E therapy are now

generally recognized by the medical profession.

The AMA technique for controlling all new products was

revealed by a United Press dispatch January 20, 1940, that the AMA

had a well-defined newspaper policy "never to call anything a cure,

or in fact give publicity to any remedy of any description, without a

thorough investigation." The organization usually recommended

that any report of a remedy should be referred to the New York

branch of the AMA for investigation. As Dr. Josephson testified, he

had tried for years to get the New York chapter of the AMA to

investigate his findings, but they always refused.

The AMA Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry had effectively

solidified its control by amending the official AMA Code of Ethics

to prohibit individual physicians from giving any testimonials in

favor of any drug; this amendment protected the valuable monopoly

of AMA headquarters in Chicago. A distinguished scientist and

teacher, Dr. Frank G. Lydston, published a booklet, "Why the AMA

is Going Backward," in which he stated, "The achievement of what

the oligarchy of the AMA has boasted most vociferously has been

its belated war on proprietaries, quack medical manufacturers and

unproved products. When I recall the nauseous array of proprietary

fakes on the advertisements on which the oligarchy built its

financial prosperity, its 'holier than thou' pose is sickening. It was

fitting to its psychic constitution that after the AMA has for years

done its level best to promulgate the interests, and to fatten upon,

fake manufacturers and professional poisoners of the innocent, it

should bite the hand that fed it. Despotic powers such as the

oligarchy wields over the food and drug manufacturers is dangerous,

and human nature being what it is, that power might be expected to

sooner or later to be abused."

Dr. Josephson also observed that "The history of the AMA's

Seal of Acceptance is replete with betrayals of professional and

public trust. Drug products of the highest value have been rejected

or their acceptance unwarrantedly delayed. Worthless, dangerous or

deadly food and drugs have been hastily accepted."

On April 20, 1936, Time magazine reported that the American

Medical Association was then worth $3,800,000, of which two

million was in government bonds, one million in cash, with an

$800,000 headquarters building in Chicago. Time also mentioned

another little known aspect of the AMA medical monopoly, "Shoes

designed to correct foot trouble must be approved by AMA before a

conscientious physician may prescribe them.'' Just how the AMA

had set up this shoe monopoly was not clear.

On July 7, 1961, Time reported that the AMA Journal now had

a circulation of 180,000, with income of 16 million dollars a year,

"the bulk from ads in its publications mainly by drug and appliance

makers." The AMA Constitution states that it was organized "to

promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public

health." Yet the history of the AMA was replete with events which

contradicted this goal. Literary Digest reported on June 11, 1927,

the AMA had adopted a resolution that alcohol had no scientific

place in medicine. In all fairness, it should be reported that the 1917

resolution had probably been passed at the behest of the Rockefeller

interests, which, for their own hidden purposes, were strongly

supporting passage of prohibition at that time.

On February 9, 1977, the Federal Trade Commission issued an

order against the AMA because it had barred certain drug

advertisements. Throughout the 25-year reign of Morris Fishbein at

the AMA, the organization repeatedly made bewildering about face

recommendations on certain products, the reason for such reversals

being known only by Fishbein himself. The situation also offered

impressive profits to be made by investing in the stock of a certain

drug firm just before it received the coveted AMA Seal of

Acceptance for a new product. After such an announcement, it was

not unusual for the stock of the drug firm to double in price. Only

Dr. Fishbein knew when such an approval would be released.

One of the more reprehensible decisions made by Dr. Fishbein

during his long reign at the AMA was his move to hush up a

dangerous outbreak of amoebic dysentery in Chicago at the height

of the World's Fair observance in 1933. Although the cause of the

outbreak was traced to faulty plumbing at the Congress Hotel,

Fishbein met with a group of Chicago business leaders and pledged

the cooperation of the AMA in holding back any warnings until the

Fair had ended its season. Hundreds of unsuspecting tourists who

visited the World's Fair returned to their home towns infected with

the terrible illness, which often lingers for years, and is very difficult

to treat or to cure.

The list of dangerous drugs approved by Fishbein during his

tenure as public spokesman for the AMA is lengthy and terrifying.

Fishbein hastened to approve the notorious diet drug, dinetrophenol,

despite laboratory records that it was dangerous to health. Another

drug, tryparsamide, manufactured by Merck under license from the

Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, was a dangerous

arsenical drug. Used to counter the effects of syphilis, it was

abandoned by its discoverer, Paul Ehrlich, when he found that it

caused blindness by atrophying the optic nerve. Ehrlich's warnings

did not prevent the AMA, Merck or the Rockefeller Institute from

continuing to distribute this drug.

In the issue of June 21, 1937, Morris Fishbein had a cover

portrait on Time magazine. It was an unusually unflattering

photograph, in which Fishbein looked as though he needed a doctor.

Time had published a story earlier that year that Fishbein was

suffering from Bell's Palsy. The right side of his face hung slack,

and he was obviously in very poor condition.

One of Fishbein's most dangerous errors was his approval of

sulfathiazole in 1941. On January 25, 1941, Fishbein announced that

Winthrop Drug Company's sulfathiazole "has been accepted by the

Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry for inclusion in its official

volume of new and non-official remedies." Winthrop was a

subsidiary of the international drug cartel, I. G. Farben.

Sulfathiazole was also approved by Dr. J. J. Durrett, the FDA

official in charge of new drugs. Durrett was a Rockefeller-approved

appointee to this vital position. By December 1940, 400,000 tablets

had been sold, which contained as much as 5 grains each of

Luminal. The safe dosage was 1 grain of Luminal. Many persons

who took the Winthrop dosage never woke up.

In 1937, the AMA approved an extremely poisonous

preparation of sulfanilamide in a solution of diethylene glucol; this

mixture caused a number of fatalities. It caused white blood cell

loss, even though it was advertised that it would "help" heart

disease. Long after Fishbein's departure, the AMA continued to

endorse potentially dangerous products. The Winter issue of the

Journal of the American Medical Association featured

advertisements for Suprol in 200 mg capsules (suprofen), an

analgesic which had been approved by the FDA in December of

1985. It was produced by McNeil, a subsidiary of Johnson and

Johnson. By February 13, 1986, the firm had received the first

reports of acute kidney damage, yet on December 2nd the FDA

Arthritis Advisory Board recommended that Suprol remain on sale

as an "alternative analgesic." It had already been banned in

Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Great Britain; McNeil

suspended its production here on May 15.

One of the more reprehensible episodes in Fishbein's long

career was his denial of the Seal of Acceptance of the AMA to

sulfanilamide, although it had been saving lives in Europe for

several years. Because its producers had failed to negotiate a

satisfactory deal with Fishbein, numerous persons in the United

States continued to die of septicemia, or blood poisoning. The dam

finally broke when a member of the Roosevelt family, in dire need

of immediate treatment with sulfanilimide, had his physician obtain

a special supply. Shortly thereafter the AMA Council was forced to

"accept" it. In 1935 and 1936, the Council accepted and advertised

in the Journal a heart stimulant, Digitol, at the very time that

government agencies were seizing and condemning interstate

shipments of this drug as a substance dangerous to life. Another

product, Ergot Aseptic, was accepted by the Council, and

advertisements for this product prominently featured in the Journal,

at the same time that government agencies were seizing and

condemning its shipments because of adulterants and misbranding.

Under the leadership of the nation's two most notorious quacks,

Simmons and Fishbein, a gigantic nationwide drug operation was

perfected which today poses a serious threat to the health of every

American citizen. The fixed prices of these drugs has been a

contributing factor to the meteoric rise in the cost of health care. In

1976, the national bill was 95 billion dollars, which was 8.4% of the

Gross National Product, a figure which had risen from 4.5% in

1962. From 1955-1975, the price index rose 74%, while the cost of

medical care rose 300%. Dr. Robert S. Mendelsohn, an independent

health practitioner, estimates that 30% of X-rays taken in the United

States, some 300 million a year, are ordered when there is no valid

medical need.

A federal expert reports that if we would reduce the

unnecessary X-rays by one/third, we could save the lives of one

thousand cancer patients each year. Yet the responsible

organization, the American Cancer Society, has consistently ignored

this problem. The genetic effect of X-rays on the population in a

single year has been predicted to cause as many as thirty thousand

deaths per year in future years. In 1976, doctors wrote one billion

doses for sleeping pills, some twenty-seven million prescriptions

which resulted in twenty-five thousand trips to emergency rooms for

adverse drug reactions, and some fifteen hundred emergency room

deaths from tranquilizers. Ninety per cent of these victims are

women. By 1978, five billion tranquilizer pills were being

prescribed; the most notorious of these, Valium, produces five

hundred million dollars per year income for Hoffman LaRoche Co.;

it is the epitome of the mythical "soma" described by Aldous

Huxley in his "Brave New World," "the perfect drug, narcotic,

pleasantly hallucinant."

An English study showed that aspirin caused fetal defects,

deaths, birth defects, and bleeding in newborn babies. Recently, a

nationwide campaign was launched proclaiming that new studies

"showed" that an aspirin a day would prevent heart attack in men.

An appended afterthought suggested that it might be wise to check

with a personal physician before embarking on this regimen, but

how many thousands of men will at once begin to take a daily

aspirin, hoping to postpone a dreaded heart attack, and unaware that

they may be suffering from another result of the ingestion of aspirin,

internal bleeding? It is this property of thinning the blood which

caused it to be recommended as a preventive for heart attack.

Aspirin is also of doubtful value when taken to reduce fever; by

reducing fever in some instances, notably during the onset of

pneumonia, it disguises the symptoms of pneumonia so that the

physician is unable to make this diagnosis. It usually takes twenty

minutes to dissolve in the stomach, and then only if it is taken with a

full glass, eight ounces, of water. Few people know that if aspirin is

taken with orange juice, its efficacy is greatly diminished, because it

may not dissolve.

In September of 1980, the Food and Drug Administration

announced that it would remove from the market more than three

thousand drugs whose effectiveness had not been proven. During

the previous year, Americans had spent more than one billion

dollars on these same "unproven" drugs, many of which had been

"accepted'' by the AMA. In 1962, Congress had passed amendments

to the Food and Drug Act which implemented drug effectiveness

requirements by 1964. The drug manufacturers resisted all attempts

to force them to comply with these amendments, forcing the FDA to

remove them from the market some sixteen years later. The average

life of an effective drug is about fifteen years; this meant that the

delaying tactics of the drug manufacturers had allowed them to milk

these unproven drugs for their entire effective market life!

We now come to the most amazing record of criminal

syndicalism in our history. After Congress had passed stringent

requirements in 1962 to force the drug manufacturers to prove that

their drugs were effective (a requirement which in many cases was

impossible to observe, since they were worthless), the drug

manufacturers were advised by their cohorts in the AMA and the

advertising industry that it would be wise to start a brushfire, a

diversionary tactic which would draw attention from the fact that

they had failed to comply with the new Congressional requirements.

This diversionary tactic was to be called "the War Against

Quackery." A few months after the new regulations went into effect,

the AMA Board of Trustees met to create a new committee, the

Committee on Quackery, which was formally incorporated on

November 2, 1963. It was originally intended to destroy the entire

profession of chiropractic in the United States, the nation's second

largest health care group. It soon branched out in search of further

victims, as the "Coordinating Conference on Health Information."

This subsidiary was the brainchild of a New York letterhead outfit

called the Pharmaceutical Advertising Council, which in turn was

merely a space on the desk of the President of Grey Medical

Advertising Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the prestigious

Grey Advertising Company in New York.

Although it was ostensibly merely an advisory group, the

Coordinating Conference on Health Information soon launched an

all-out war on independent health practitioners all over the United

States. Its victims were usually selected by the nonprofit AMA,

aided by the charitable foundations, the American Cancer Society

and the Arthritis Foundation, both of which had been smarting under

accusations that they were killing patients while independent health

advisors were saving them. The criminal syndicalists were able to

enlist the full police powers of the federal government, through

contacts in the Federal Trade Commission, the Post Office

Department, the Food and Drug Administration, and the United

States Public Health Service. These federal agents were solicited by

the charitable foundations to initiate police actions against hundreds

of unsuspecting health practitioners throughout the United States.

It was one of the most massive, well planned and ruthless operations

in which the federal agents ever engaged. In many cases, .people

were arrested for selling or sometimes giving away booklets which

advised such innocuous health practices as taking vitamins! These

distributors now found themselves under restraining orders from the

Post Office, the Department of Justice, and the Food and Drug

Administration. Others, who were distributing various salves,

nostrums and other preparations, most of them based on herbal

formulae, received heavy fines and prison sentences.

In every case, all of the stocks of these practitioners, many of whom

 were elderly and impoverished, were seized and destroyed as "dangerous

substances." It was never alleged that a single person had ever been

injured, much less killed, by any of these preparations. At the same

time, the drug manufacturers were continuing to sell drugs which

produced extensive side effects such as kidney damage, liver

damage and death. Not one of them was ever enjoined from

distributing these products on the terms used against the

independent health practitioners. In most cases, when these

dangerous drugs were banned in the United States, the

manufacturers shipped them overseas to countries in Latin America

and Asia, where they continue to be sold to this day. The stock of

Syntex Corporation rose from a few dollars to a high of $400 a share

when it started dumping steroids in foreign markets.

Many of the attacks were focused against the distributors of an

anti-cancer preparation called laetrile, a fruit product. Extremely

sensitive to any rival of their very profitable chemotherapy drugs,

the cancer profiteers ordered the federal agents to carry out terror

raids against their competitors. Often striking at night, in groups of

heavily armed SWAT teams, the federal agents broke down doors to

capture elderly women and their stocks of herbal teas. Many of

these housewives and retired persons carried small amounts of

vitamins and health preparations which they furnished to neighbors

or friends at cost. They had no funds to fight the massed agencies of

the federal government, who themselves were merely patsies for the

Drug Trust. In many cases, the victims lost their homes, their life

savings and all other attachable assets, because they had posed a

threat to the Medical Monopoly. It was the most blatant use of the

police powers by the Big Rich to protect their profitable enterprises.

To this day, most of these victims have no idea that they were

knocked off by the Rockefeller Monopoly.

Sidney W. Bishop, deputy postmaster general, boasted at the

Second National Congress on Medical Quackery in 1963, "I am

particularly proud of the excellent arrangements existing between

the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission

and the Post Office department to maintain coordination in the

exchange of information leading to the establishment of criminal

prosecution," a laudatory reference to the success of the "war

against quackery." It was later revealed that the Coordinating

Conference on Health Information had been entirely financed by the

leading drug companies of the Medical Monopoly, Lederle,

Hoffman LaRoche and others. From 1964 to 1974, their search and

destroy campaign was carried on as a total war by federal agents

against anyone who had ever offered any type of health food or

health advice. The goal of course, was the elimination of all

competition to the major drug companies.

In 1967, the AMA received 43% of its total income, $13.6

million, from its drug advertisements. It then issued a letter of

agreement jointly with the Food and Drug Administration

publicizing a campaign to "enhance public awareness of health

fraud devices and products by identifying them as ineffective and

potential health hazards." These were the same persons who had

been unable to persuade the drug companies to comply with federal

requirements that they prove the effectiveness of their drug

products! The hazards, as we have stated, lay more with the Drug

Trust than from the elderly ladies in California who were advising

people to eat more garlic and lettuce if they wished to stay healthy.

The death tolls were from "approved" drugs, not from the

preparations distributed by the holistic health advocates.

The AMA then sponsored a National Health Fraud Conference,

whose principle spokesman was Congressman Claude Pepper. This

was an ironic turn of events, because a few years earlier, the then

Senator Claude Pepper, one of the most powerful political figures in

Washington, had aroused the ire of the AMA because he planned to

support socialized medicine in the United States. A longtime

spokesman for leftwing interests, who was known as "Red" Pepper

because of his political sympathies, Pepper had found himself

attacked by the big guns and money of the AMA. They found a

candidate to oppose him in Nixon's friend, George Smathers, and

Pepper was defeated in Florida. Coming back as a Congressman,

Pepper now licked the boots of those who had ousted him. He

endorsed their police state methods against anyone who dared to

challenge the power of the Medical Monopoly.

Having proved his loyalty to the Rockefeller power, Pepper

was allowed to stage another health conference in 1984. It was

denounced by informed observers as a typical "Moscow show trial.''

The new Pepper sideshow was called the Congressional Hearings on

Quackery. Pepper claimed that "health fraud" was a ten billion

dollar a year scandal, an impressive figure for what was essentially a

small cottage industry. He summoned a longtime apologist for the

Medical Monopoly, Dr. Victor Herbert, a physician at the Bronx

Veterans Administration Hospital. Herbert demanded that the

Justice Department use the RICO (Racketeer Inspired Criminal

Organization) strike force against "medical charlatans" and "health

frauds" by using the same techniques which had been employed

against organized crime. RICO allows the government to confiscate

all assets of those who are convicted "as a result of a proved

conspiracy." In December of 1987, this same Dr. Victor Herbert

surfaced again, filing a 70 page complaint in the U.S. District Court

in Iowa. He charged that the officials of the National Health

Federation, a rival to the AMA, and other alternative health care

practitioners had libeled him. Kirkpatrick Dilling, the attorney for

the defendants, termed the suit a flagrant attempt to destroy freedom

of choice in health care in the United States. Dilling pointed out that

Herbert was backed by a shadow group called the American Council

for Science and Health, a front for major food manufacturing

companies.

Dr. Herbert was joined at the Pepper Hearings by a longtime

agent of the Medical Monopoly, Mrs. Anna Rosenberg. She voiced

her outrage that there should still be any competition in the United

States for the Drug Trust. A longtime vassal of the Rockefeller

family, she had served as director of the American Cancer Society

during its valiant struggle to restrict all treatment to the orthodox

and highly profitable "cut, slash and burn" techniques, which,

unfortunately for the patients, usually proved to be fatal. Anna

Rosenberg had been married to Julius Rosenberg. She earned five

thousand dollars a week as "labor relations specialist'' to keep

unions out of Rockefeller Center and to keep its underpaid minions

on the job.

The Coordinating Conference on Health Information ran amuck

for some ten years, sending hundreds of victims to prison on what

were in most instances flimsy or trumped up charges. The desired

effect, to terrorize everyone who had become active in the

alternative health care field, was achieved. Most health practitioners

went underground, or closed up their businesses; others left the

country. An inevitable reaction against these terrorists operations set

in; by 1974, there were public demands for a Congressional

investigation of the SWAT tactics used by the Post Office and the

U.S. Public Health Service against elderly housewives. Such an

investigation would inevitably have revealed that these

conscientious and dedicated public servants were actually faceless

tools of the sinister behind the scenes figures who manipulated the

government of the United States for their own power and profit.

Needless to say, no such Congressional investigation was ever held.

Instead, the CCHI suddenly went underground. They were immune

from countersuits by their victims, because all actions had been

taken against the victims by federal agents. They were not immune,

according to the statutes, but the chances of recovering against them

in any federal court was remote. (The present writer has on

numerous occasions sought redress against federal agents in federal

courts, only to have a polite federal judge rule against him in every

instance.)

After the Coordinating Conference on Health Information went

underground, health practitioners in the State of California suddenly

found themselves under more concerted attack than ever before. The

activist now was the California State Board of Health. It was then

found that the stealthy minions of CCHI, still doing the work of the

Medical Monopoly, had merely abandoned their national operations

for fear of exposure, but had now nested in the California State

Board of Health like a group of diseased rats hiding from inevitable

retribution. The CCHI has remained imbedded in the California

State Board of Health ever since, carrying on a steady warfare

against health practitioners in that state. The drug cartel continued to

operate unmolested.

This war against American citizens fulfills every requirement

for prosecution under the statutes forbidding criminal syndicalism in

the United States. It is a classic case of a supposedly nonprofit

organization, the American Medical Association, conspiring with

certain charitable foundations, notably the American Cancer Society

and the Arthritis Foundation, to enlist public agencies to start a war

to benefit the national Drug Trust, while denying American citizens

the benefits of reasonably priced and effective health care. Not only

were there repeated violations of the constitutional rights of citizens

who were active in the health care movement, often from a sense of

public service rather than from a desire for profit, while the

evidence of an active conspiracy (RICO) to subvert official

government agencies for the profit of private multinational drug

firms is too abundant to ignore. Those who have been victimized by

the CCHI conspiracy can also bring actions against Lederle,

Hoffman laRoche and the other drug firms who hired these people

to do their dirty work. The trail of liability is plain; it will be simple

to establish it in court.

Meanwhile, the effect of the CCHI depredations has been

devastating. Millions of Americans, particularly the elderly and the

poor, have been forcibly deprived of reasonably priced health care

because of this conspiracy. These victims have been forced to do

without their modestly priced health advisors, and thrown onto the

care of the high-priced physicians from the AMA, who place them

on expensive drugs produced by the Rockefeller drug monopoly.

The fact that many of these drugs are overpriced, ineffective, and

potentially dangerous has been routinely covered up by the federal

agencies responsible for protecting the public, particularly the Food

and Drug Administration. It is notable that the drug cartels have

never been investigated by any government agency under the

pertinent provisions of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, because these

cartels are the property of the international financial monopolists.

This proves what many observers have charged for years, that the

government regulations purportedly enacted by Congress to protect

the public have, in reality, served only to protect the monopolists.

By 1986, this Medical Monopoly had reached a yearly take of

$355.4 billion a year, eleven per cent of the Gross National Product

of the United States. The Medical Monopoly has long had its critics

among conscientious members of the medical profession. In

December 1922, the Illinois Medical Journal featured an article

which declared that "The American Medical Association has

become an autocracy." This was during the heyday of Dr. Simmons'

rule in Chicago. The article denounced the dictatorial assumption of

power over the entire medical profession. Although it had first

organized in 1847, the AMA had not formally incorporated until

1897, when it paid a three dollar fee to the Secretary of the State of

Illinois. Within two years after its incorporation, "Doc" Simmons

had arrived on the scene to begin his twenty-five year power grab.

He soon realized that the medical schools control the hospitals; the

medical examination boards control the medical schools, and so he

expanded the power of the AMA until he had total control over the

medical examination boards.

The records show that coincidentally with the growing power

of the AMA, there came a corresponding decline in the quality of

medical care and the personal responsibility of the physicians to

their patients. The AMA enacted a stern Code of Ethics, which serve

to form a phalanx of protection for any physician who faced

criticism for his errors, such errors, in many cases, resulted in the

crippling or deaths of his patients. This same ' 'code" usually

prevents any physician, nurse or other hospital employee from

testifying in court about the errors committed by a physician.

One noted physician, Dr. Norman Barnesby, who had long

been a prominent member of the U.S. Army Medical Staff and the

U.S. Public Health Service, said, "Chaos and crime is inevitable so

long as doctors abide by the AMA's code of ethics, the code of

silence. (This is akin to the notorious Omerta, the code of silence of

the Mafia, which invokes the death penalty to any member who

reveals the secrets of the Cosa Nostra. The Medical Gnostics, the

AMA, has set up its own Cosa Nostra, which passes a sentence of

professional death against any physician who reveals any medical

omissions or crimes, the result being ostracism from the profession,

denial of hospital privileges, and other drastic forms of punishment.

The ethics to which doctors subscribe smells to high

heavens. It is a disgrace to any vaunting civilization. 'A peculiar

reserve must be maintained by physicians toward the public in

regard to professional questions and as there exist many points in

medical ethics and etiquette through which the feelings of

physicians may be painfully assaulted in their intercourse, and

which cannot be understood or appreciated by general society,

neither the subject matter of their differences nor the adjudication of

their arbitration should be made public."

The last part of this paragraph is Dr. Barnesby's direct quote

from the AMA Code of Ethics. Note the arrogance of the AMA in

claiming that "medical ethics and etiquette" cannot be understood by

general society. Dr. Barnesby continues, "I am convinced that the

remedy lies in a full abolition of all codes and practices inimical to

society, and a complete reorganization of the system on the lines of

legal supervision or other responsible control." Dr. Barnesby's

recommendations were ignored by the Medical Monopoly.

An AP dispatch of February 11, 1988 noted that "5% of

Doctors Lie About Credentials" a headline of facts discovered by a

large health care corporation, Humana, Inc., found that 39 of 727

doctors who applied to work in their clinics during a six-month

period, that is 5%, presented false credentials. Even worse, many

doctors, convicted of drug or sex charges in one state, simply move

to another state and set up practice, protected by the Medical

Monopoly. There have been horrendous stories in recent years about

habitual sex offenders, convicted in one state, who go to another

state and through their professional practice, began their career of

violating children once more.

A gifted physician, Dr. Ernest Codman, of a distinguished New

England family, addressed the annual AMA convention on March 2,

1924 as follows:

"I have notes on four hundred registered cases of

supposed bone sarcoma. All of these four hundred

registered cases, with few exceptions, are records of error

and failure; I have many of the foremost surgeons and

pathologists in the country convicted in their own

handwriting of gross errors in these cases. Legs have been

amputated when they should not have been, and left on

when they should have been amputated."

Dr. Codman's speech left his audience dumbfounded. None of

them challenged his statements, but his speech was deliberately

hushed up by AMA officials. He wryly records that never again

during his distinguished professional career was he asked to address

any AMA meeting.

From time to time, other dissidents have appeared at AMA

meetings, to engage in a brief skirmish as they voiced their

objections, and then disappear, forgotten in the all consuming war to

maintain the Medical Monopoly. Time magazine gave a brief

summary of one such episode on June 6, 1970, with the headline,

"Schizophrenic AMA." The story noted that some thirty to forty

dissidents, young idealistic doctors, had rushed the podium and

taken over the AMA annual meeting for a few anxious moments.

Their leader denounced the AMA from the lectern in vigorous

terms, "The A.M.A. does not stand for the American Medical

Association—it stands for the American Murder Association!"

Armed guards turned back members of other groups which sought

to voice their dissatisfaction. The young intern vacated the platform,

and presumably is chief of surgery at some hospital today, having

learned that you can't fight the system.

Another dissident, Dr. Robert S. Mendelsohn, noted that in

1975, 787,000 women had hysterectomies, and that 1,700 of them

died as a result of this surgery. He believes that half of these women

could have been saved, as their surgery was needless. The

Washington Post noted on January 21, 1988 that "Most heart

pacemakers may be unneeded; more than half are not clearly

beneficial." The story noted that one American in 500 now has a

pacemaker. This business is only twenty years old, but there are now

120,000 implants each year, a business taking in one and a half

billion dollars a year. Greenspan complained that "many internists

are ordering them without consulting a heart specialist."

Dr. Mendelsohn has also complained that terramycin was an

ineffective antibiotic, its major result being that it left children with

yellow-greenish teeth and tetracyclin deposits in their bones. He

quotes the Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program, which

found that the risk of being killed by drug therapy in an American

hospital was one in a thousand, and that 30,000 Americans died

each year from adverse reactions to drugs prescribed for them by

their doctors. Mendelsohn minces no words in his opinion of

modern medicine. He calls it the Church of Death, whose Four Holy

Waters are 1) immunizations; 2) fluoridated water; 3) intravenous

fluids; and 4) silver nitrate. Mendelsohn dismisses all four as being

"of questionable safety."

By the early 1940s, ranking members of the AMA had come to

the conclusion that much of their problems with their membership

lay with the abrasive Morris Fishbein. Most doctors were

ultraconservative in their thinking, and they found Fishbein's antics

repulsive. Nevertheless, he had spun his web at the AMA so fine

that it involved everyone in the headquarters. His power was built

on censorship, intimidation, and exercise of his powers to the limit.

It took his rivals almost a decade to get rid of him.

Their opportunity came when Fishbein's able lieutenant, Dr. Olin West,

 became ill, and was no longer able to maintain iron control of the AMA

headquarters for the Fishbein regime. Apparently ignorant of the

cabal against him, Fishbein continued his merry life of travel and

recreation, continuing to garner many awards and prizes for his

medical public relations work. He had been named an Officer of the

Cross in the exclusive order of Orange-Nassau, a very secretive

organization which commemorated the invasion and takeover of

England by William of Orange, and the subsequent establishment of

the Bank of England. Fishbein made frequent trips to England,

where he was wined and dined by prominent members of the

Establishment; they must have believed he could be of use to them.

However, none of these honors proved to be of avail when the

man who was described by Newsweek as "the man with one hundred

enemies" (surely the understatement of the year), was thrown out

even more unceremoniously than his predecessor, the unsavory

quack, "Doc" Simmons. Despite repeated public criticisms of his

junkets and abuse of his expense accounts, Fishbein confidently

announced at a luncheon on June 4, 1949 that he would be around

for at least five more years. He counted heavily on the traditional

schism between two groups at the AMA, the liberals and the

conservatives, whom Fishbein declared would never be able to

agree on anything. He was wrong, because they did agree that he

should be kicked out. United by their common hatred of Morris

Fishbein, they formed their conspiracy to assassinate their Caesar. In

describing this episode, Martin Mayer notes that since 1944, a

sizeable faction at the AMA had been resolved to get Fishbein out at

any cost.

He had been exposed on a national radio program, Town Meeting of

the Air, in early 1949, as a habitual liar. He claimed that

he had been touring England, visiting the offices of general

practitioners every day. The radio program revealed that he had

actually been attending the Olympics, that he had dined with several

members of the British aristocracy and attended a number of plays

in London, and then had travelled to Paris for a round of the night

clubs, all in the name of promoting medicine. The program, aired on

February 22, 1949 by Nelson Cruikshank, demolished Fishbein's

reputation, noting that Fishbein had not gone near any doctor's

office in England during his stay. As for Fishbein's report about his

trip, Cruikshank branded it a lie, calling it "a libel on a profession

which is proud of its tradition of service to its patients. Fishbein's

life was described as "a constant round of visits to New York plays,

the Stork Club, and night clubs in London and Paris."

As a result of this publicity, the AMA at its 1949 convention

passed a unanimous resolution that Dr. Morris Fishbein be removed

from all posts in which he did any writing and speaking. This

resolution provided that it be implemented "as soon as possible,"

which turned out to be that very afternoon. By evening, Fishbein

was gone from AMA headquarters, never to return. One of the

literary losses of Fishbein's departure was his column, which he had

fancifully termed "Dr. Pepys Diary." It was described by one critic

as "a running or logorrhic account of Morris Fishbein's private life.

Each Christmas, the Diary was enshrined between boards and

distributed as the Fishbein Christmas Card to nearly everyone who

had a permanent mailing address." Like all of Fishbein's

extravagances, the expense of this largesse was entirely borne by the

dues-paying members of the AMA.

For years, Fishbein had used the awesome power of the AMA

Seal of Acceptance to force drug companies to accede to his wishes.

Harper's Magazine noted (Nov. 1949) that "The Seal is probably the

biggest single 'puller' of advertising ever concocted. The Journal is

far and away the most profitable publication in the world. Fishbein's

absolute power—he often talked as if he carried the seal in his

pocket—was also the source of other men's power."

After Fishbein's forced departure, AMA officials moved to

dilute the center of power at the Chicago Headquarters. The Council

on Pharmacy and Chemistry changed its name to the Council on

Drugs in 1956; the Seal of Acceptance was dropped entirely. Ben

Gaffin and Associates had reported to the AMA, "The advertisers, in

general, feel that the AMA, especially through the Councils,

distrusts them and views them as potential crooks who would

become actively unethical if not constantly watched." This had been

Fishbein's paranoid approach, but his attitude had been based on the

need to maintain control and to force "contributions" from the

ethical drug manufacturers." As soon as the Seal of Acceptance was

dropped, AMA's revenues from advertisers doubled in five years; in

ten years, it had tripled, from $4 million a year to over $12 million.

In retrospect, Fishbein's arrogance and his shortsighted policies had

been costing the AMA millions of dollars a year in lost revenues.

Dr. Ernest Howard of the AMA offered gratuitous reasons for

dropping the Seal, saying "it was too arbitrary, and too much

authority was vested in one body . . . there were also certain legal

problems."

Despite the fact that Fishbein had gone, some aspects of his

malign influence lingered at the AMA headquarters for years;

costing the organization many million of dollars and a great deal of

unfavorable publicity. Especially virulent was Fishbein's burning

determination to destroy any possibility of "socialized medicine'' in

the United States.

 It was paradoxical that the AMA leadership under Fishbein's

dominance should be so vehemently against "government

intervention" in the medical field, when they had used government

agencies for years for their own purposes, particularly the Food and

Drug Administration, the U.S. Public Health Service, and the

National Cancer Institute. One authority, James G. Burrow, traces

the AMA's stance towards compulsory health insurance, which

changed from exploratory interest to violent hostility between 1917

and 1920. This stance was justified as "anti-Communism," it being

well known that Socialized Medicine had long been a primary goal

of the Communist Party. A select group of prominent American

leftists had been summoned to Moscow for special indoctrination in

this goal. They attended a summer course at Moscow University on

"the organization of medicine as a state function."

The group included such stalwart liberals as George S. Counts and

John Dewey. On their return, they began a campaign of public agitation

for national health care. Their first convert was a "liberal

Republican," Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. In fact, he represented

the New England group of bankers who were allied with

Rockefeller in maintaining the Medical Monopoly. On March 1,

1940, Senator Lodge introduced a bill for health insurance, which

provided forty dollars a year for health care. The bill was quickly

shelved, but the gauntlet had been thrown down. Fishbein had no

intention of turning his fiefdom over to any government department.

Over the next several decades, the AMA spent many millions of

dollars fighting "socialized medicine," all of it raised by special

levies on American doctors. It also became enmeshed in several

expensive antitrust cases as a result of its activities.

As early as 1938, the AMA had been indicted by the

Department of Justice in the Group Health Association case. In

1937, a group of government employees had borrowed $40 from

Home Owners Loan Company to start a group hospital. The plan

offered group medical care for $26 a year for an individual, or $39 a

year for a family. This association, which took the name Group

Health Association, hired nine physicians. The District of Columbia

Medical Society then refused these physicians permission to use the

hospitals or to consult specialists. On April 4, 1941, a jury found the

AMA and the District Medical Society guilty of anti-trust law

violations. The two organizations and eleven physicians had been

indicted for restraint of trade. Those convicted included Dr. Morris

Fishbein. Two and a half years later, the Supreme Court upheld their

conviction in 1943. A fine of $2,500 was levied, and the AMA was

ordered to cease and desist in its interference with the Group Health

Association.

The AMA fared little better in its twenty year battle against

Medicare. The preservation of the integrity of the local physician

was a worthwhile goal; however, he was already under the control

of the Rockefeller Medical Monopoly; it is difficult to see how the

establishment of socialized medicine in the United States would

change anything, nor has it. Time noted on December 10, 1948 that

the AMA had assessed each of its members $25 for a campaign to

spend $3½ million on ' 'medical education,'' a campaign to turn

people against socialized medicine. It was the first such assessment

of the AMA in its hundred years of operation. Almost two decades

later, the Saturday Evening Post noted in its issue of January 1,

1966 that the AMA had spent five million dollars in 1964 and 1965

battling the medicare lobby in Washington. It was noted that the

AMA had $23 million income that year from its annual dues of $45

per year, and from the sales of advertisements in AMA publications

to drug companies and medical supply houses.

Time on Dec. 1, 1978 noted that Judge Fred Barnes,

administrative law judge at the Federal Trade Commission, had

ruled that the AMA Code of Ethics illegally restrains competition

among doctors by preventing them from advertising. He further

ruled that AMA ethical guidelines should in the future be approved

by the FTC. The AMA issued an indignant press release opposing

the decision; "There is no legal precedent in the United States for

the federal bureaucracy to write or approve a code of ethics for any

of the learned professions."

The subject of the AMA Code of Ethics had already come up

several times. Science magazine noted on June 21, 1940 on "the

bureau of investigation of frauds and charlatans" that the question

was raised, "Should medical ethics be changed? The principle of

medical ethics as set down at present, can be improved in wording

and arrangement, but it also believes that the present is not the time

to do the rewriting. It seems wise to let the muddied waters settle

before any consideration is given to so fundamental nature of our

organization as our principles of medical ethics.'' Although the

speaker was not identified, this pious pronunciamento could only

have come from Fishbein himself. The speaker goes on to admit,

rather coyly, that "the principle of medical ethics can be improved"

but that ended the matter.

The passage of Medicare, after the AMA had sent so many

millions opposing it, apparently changed nothing. It proved to be an

unexpected windfall for many of the more unscrupulous members of

the medical profession. They had no problem in padding bills for

fees to the tune of millions of dollars per year per practitioner. In

1982, Medicare paid out some $48.3 billion dollars, while Medicaid

paid out $38.2 billion dollars. The more conservative estimates

believe that some 11 billion dollars of these funds were skimmed in

illegal profits. The heirs of Morris Fishbein at the AMA may have

lost the battle to "stop socialized medicine" but they have won the

war.

As we previously noted, the AMA trustees at a meeting on

November 2, 1963, resolved to "eliminate chiropractic" their biggest

rival, through a Committee on Quackery. The secretary of this

committee reported back to the trustees on January 4, 1971 that "its

prime mission, first, the containment of chiropractic, and ultimately,

the elimination of chiropractic." A more blatant admission of

conspiracy can hardly be found in any organization's records. The

Committee's special investigative unit, headed by the general

counsel of the AMA, Robert Throckmorton, involved using

insurance companies, hospitals, state medical licensing boards,

public and private colleges, and lobbyists. Every method of

intimidation and censorship was used. Dr. Philip Weinstein, a

California neurologist, had given many lectures to chiropractic

groups on diagnosing illnesses of the spine; the AMA ordered him

to stop all such appearances. He sent a note of apology after

cancelling a forthcoming lecture, "Please accept our sincerest

apologies for this late cancellation due to circumstances beyond our

control. We were unaware that delivering medical lectures (to your

organization) was prohibited."

Throckmorton also tried to put chiropractic schools out of

business by preventing the government from granting guaranteed

student loans or grants from the government for research at

chiropractic colleges. He prevented them from getting accreditation;

lobbied in every state to prevent the establishment of a government

created accreditation body, and was furious when the HEW Office

of Education, being an agency of educators rather than physicians,

resisted his efforts and in 1974 sanctioned the Council on

Chiropractic Education as a national accreditation body for

chiropractic schools. The AMA brought pressure on C. W. Post

University, a division of Long Island University, to drop a course

designed for pre-chiropractic students in 1972.

In the late 1960s, the AMA Joint Commission on Accreditation

of Hospitals imposed new requirements on hospitals; the AMA

Principles of Medical Ethics barred its members from all forms of

exchange with chiropractors. A JCAH letter August 13, 1973 to a

hospital administrator declared that "Any arrangement you would

make with chiropractors and your hospital would be unacceptable to

the Joint Committee. This would be in violation of the Principles of

Medical Ethics published by the AMA that is also a requirement of

the JCAH."

On January 9, 1973 the JCAH wrote to a hospital in

Silver City, New Mexico, "This is in answer to your letter of

December 18 referring to a bill which may be passed in New

Mexico that hospitals must accept chiropractors as members of the

medical staff. You are absolutely correct—the unfortunate results of

this most ill-advised legislation mean that the Joint Committee could

withdraw and refuse accreditation of the hospital that had

chiropractors on its staff."

The AMA then forced the Veterans Administration to refuse

payments to veterans for chiropractic services. These tactics had

been reported to the AMA as positive results. A confidential

memorandum dated September 21, 1967 by the Committee on

Quackery boasted to the trustees that "Basically the committee's

short range objectives for containing the cult of chiropractic, and

any additional recognition it might achieve, revolves around four

points:

1) Doing everything within our power to see that

chiropractic coverage under Title # 18 of the Medicare law is NOT

obtained.

2) Doing everything within our power to see that

registration, or a listing with the U.S. Office of

Education, or the establishment of a Chiropractic Accrediting

Agency, is NOT achieved.

3) To encourage continued separation of

the two National Chiropractic Associations.

4) Encourage state medical societies to take the initiative in

their state legislature with regard to legislation

that might effect the practice of chiropractic."

Because of the flagrant activities of the AMA, several

chiropractors finally sued, charging conspiracy. The case dragged

on for years, and on August 27, 1987, after eleven years of

continuous litigation, Federal Judge Susan Getzendammer of the

U.S. District Court found the AMA, the American College of

Surgeons, and the American College of Radiologists, guilty of

conspiring to destroy the profession of chiropractic. During the

proceedings, the AMA freely acknowledged that they never had, nor

have, any knowledge of the content or quality of the courses taught

in chiropractic college. Judge Getzendammer wrote a 101-page

opinion, and issued an Order of Permanent Injunction requiring the

AMA to cease and desist from "restricting, regulating or impeding

or aiding and abetting others from restricting, regulating and

impeding the freedom of any AMA member or any institution or

hospital to make an individual decision as to whether or not the

AMA member, institution or hospital shall professionally associate

with chiropractors, chiropractic students or chiropractic

institutions."

Thus ended the legacy of malice and obstructionism which

Morris Fishbein had left to the AMA. Although he had been

formally relieved of all duties at the 98th meeting of the AMA on

June 20, 1949, the AMA had been bedeviled by his obsessions for

four more decades. Another of his obsessions was his refusal to

admit any black physicians as members of the AMA. He was often

heard to refer contemptuously to "der schwartzers," a Yiddish term

of contempt for blacks, whenever the subject of admitting blacks

came up, as it did repeatedly during his regime. His policy

continued at the AMA for two more decades, until 1968, when the

AMA was forced to admit blacks. Previously, the blacks had

maintained their own organization, the National Medical

Association. In hailing the decision, Time referred patronizingly to

"the moss-backed AMA."

The fact that Simmons and Fishbein were able to impose their

petty concerns on this national organization for half of a century

reflects little credit on its members. One of the most telling

comments was made by T. Swann Hardy in the Forum, June 1929.

In an article with the title "How Scientific Are Our Doctors?,"

Hardy wrote, "Medicine, as a profession, is not distinguished for the

mentality of its members. The average intelligence is lower than in

perhaps any other profession. Organized medicine in America is

unalterably opposed to any standard of reorganization which would

1) make the medical monopoly thoroughly scientific; 2) make such

therapy generally available to all who need it; 3) menace the

incomes of incompetent practitioners."

It is noteworthy that the insignia of the medical profession is

two snakes entwined on a staff. However, the University of

Rochester, deciding that this was excessive, recently reduced the

two snakes to one. The caduceus is the mythological symbol of the

Roman god Mercury. He was the patron of messengers, but he also

had a somewhat unsavory reputation as the associate of outlaws,

merchants and thieves. In the ancient world, merchants were

synonymous with the other two categories.