(NaturalNews) Actor Heath Ledger has become the latest high-profile fatality caused by prescription and non-prescription pharmaceuticals. He was found dead in his New York City apartment earlier today, and apparently died from the fatal effects of the pharmaceuticals found near his body. No foul play was suspected in his death and no illegal drugs were found in his apartments.
Update: The pharmaceuticals found near his body were prescribed to him and apparently consisted of an antidepressant drug and the frequently-prescribed sleeping drug Ambien, according to press reports. Ambien is the powerful mind-altering drug known to contribute to "sleep driving" and other bizarre events where patients taking the drug wake up to find themselves driving around town, shopping or walking the sidewalks in their sleepwear.
No evidence of suicide attempt
Police reports indicated there was no sign of a suicide attempt. No suicide note was left behind, and Ledger had not told anyone he planned to attempt suicide. The only significant evidence found at the scene of his death consisted of pharmaceuticals prescribed in his name as well as an over-the-counter medication that has not yet been named. Ledger's family has publicly stated that they believe his death to be an "accident" and not a suicide.
While an autopsy has not yet been performed, it appears that Ledger was most likely killed by the side effects of FDA-approved pharmaceuticals that had been legally acquired via prescription and over-the-counter purchases. FDA-approved
pharmaceuticals are highly toxic substances and currently kill nearly 100,000 Americans a year, even when taken as directed, according to the American Medical Association.
The mass drugging of America, led by the FDA and Big Pharma
The FDA's legalization of direct-to-consumer drug advertisements in 1998 has led to a landmark increase in the promotion of drugs for sleep disorders, sadness, shyness and other emotional problems that used to be considered a normal part of life. Now,
drug companies engaged in disease mongering are persuading Americans to think of down days, poor moods or sleep problems as "diseases" requiring chemical treatment. The result has been a huge increase in the consumption of mind-altering drugs by consumers, many of which have been implicated in the violent school shootings that have taken place in America over the last several years.
The brand names of the pharmaceuticals being consumed by Ledger are not yet known. While Ledger's
death is merely one among a hundred thousand Americans killed each year by pharmaceuticals, his celebrity status does garner more attention than a typical consumer killed by pharmaceuticals. And it begs the question:
Would Heath Ledger still be alive today if he were treated with natural medicine instead of dangerous pharmaceuticals?Or put another way, was Ledger killed by pharmaceutical side effects?
Unlike synthetic chemical pharmaceuticals, natural sleep medicines (like valerian root, chamomile, and melatonin) have no such fatal side effects and are used safely by hundreds of millions of people around the world to enhance health and normalize the body's natural rhythms (which greatly improves sleep, sex drive, mental alertness and other functions). Such medicines, however, have been censored and attacked by the Food and Drug Administration, an agency whose employees and drug approval panel members have been caught accepting bribes and kickbacks from the drug companies that manufacture competing high-profit pharmaceuticals -- just like the kind that killed Heath Ledger.
While we all mourn the loss of yet another talented young soul to dangerous pharmaceuticals, I also mourn the deaths of the other 99,000+ Americans whose lives are prematurely ended by pharmaceuticals every year. Pharmaceuticals have become the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States, killing children, adults and senior citizens in record numbers. As Ledger's death so clearly demonstrates, no one is immune to the dangers of pharmaceuticals -- not even the wealthy or famous. The only people who are truly safe from the devastating health effects (and fatalities) caused by pharmaceuticals are, indeed, those informed consumers who choose to avoid taking such medicines altogether.
As NaturalNews continues to report, there are now numerous natural cures that are well known to reverse depression, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, kidney stones and hundreds of other health conditions. Pharmaceuticals are made obsolete by the new scientific findings showing that the natural medicine found in foods, superfoods and medicinal plants works better (and is safer) than artificial medicine. Those consumers who wish to live long, healthful and happy lives are now switching to natural medicine in record numbers. (NaturalNews readership, in particular, is up over 300 percent from one year ago...)
Until this nation stops pushing pills for every symptom, mood, behavior and "syndrome" that can be invented by Big Pharma, we are sadly going to witness many more people needlessly killed by pharmaceuticals. While Heath Ledger gave us so much in his life, even his death can hopefully serve as a powerful reminder of the dangers of FDA-approved pharmaceuticals and the desperate need to protect ourselves from the harmful system of profit-focused pill-popping medicine now practiced by conventional doctors and drug companies in the USA.
About the author: Mike Adams is an award-winning journalist and holistic nutritionist with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, and he is well known as the creator of popular downloadable preparedness programs on financial collapse, emergency food storage, wilderness survival and home defense skills. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2010, Adams co-founded NaturalNews.com, a natural health video sharing site that has now grown in popularity. He also founded an environmentally-friendly online retailer called BetterLifeGoods.com that uses retail profits to help support consumer advocacy programs. He's also the founder of a well known HTML email software company whose 'Email Marketing Director' software currently runs the NaturalNews subscription database. Adams is currently the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit, and pursues hobbies such as martial arts, Capoeira, nature macrophotography and organic gardening. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds. Known on the 'net as 'the Health Ranger,' Adams shares his ethics, mission statements and personal health statistics at www.HealthRanger.org
Have comments on this article? Post them here:
people have commented on this article.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Email this article to a friend
Now Available from 
){kind=link}