Betrayal of Trust
Dr Vernon Coleman
I have just republished my book `Betrayal of Trust’ – which was first published in 1994. Among many other things, the book explains why doctors do more harm than good, why four out of ten patients given drugs suffer side effects and why one in six hospital patients have been made ill by doctors. The book also shows why 85% of medical procedures are a gamble and why only 1% of journal articles are scientifically sound. Below is the preface which I wrote especially for the new edition of this book.
Preface to the 2023 edition
My first book, ‘The Medicine Men’, grew out of articles which I wrote for the Daily Telegraph in the early 1970s and described the unhealthy relationship which existed then (and still exists) between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry. Two years later I followed ‘The Medicine Men’ with a second book called ‘Paper Doctors’ in which I described how the medical research industry had sold out to the drug industry and was betraying patients.
Both those books were widely praised in the national press, receiving fulsome reviews in most major newspapers and magazines. I continued the theme with other books, notably with ‘The Health Scandal’ which was published in 1988. At the time I thought I had said pretty much everything I wanted to say on those subjects and, encouraged by my literary agent who complained that I was in danger of becoming a prophet crying in the wilderness, I decided to write more popular books for a wider audience.
This book, ‘Betrayal of Trust’, grew out of a small book entitled ‘Why doctors do more harm than good’ which was published in 1993. I don’t have a copy of that small book in my possession (although it was self-published and I must have printed at least 10,000 copies and possibly double that amount) and there don’t seem to be any for sale on the internet.
I wrote ‘Betrayal of Trust’ without a contract and sent it off to my literary agent and thence to a number of publishers who had published my earlier books. None of them would touch it for legal reasons. In other words they were all terrified that if they had it printed they might receive one or more lawsuits for libel. Even when I offered to indemnify them they were still not prepared to take the risk. And so I published it myself. It was the first non-fiction book that I published and it did far better than I expected. To my astonishment the first print run of 10,000 hard back copies sold out quite quickly and was followed with another printing of the hardback edition and then a large paperback edition. For a privately published non-fiction book with a very specialist market these were astonishing figures and, I think, just went to show just how many people wanted to understand the extent of the corruption within the medical profession.
‘Betrayal of Trust’ has been out of print for well over a quarter of a century and I decided that it was time to bring it back to life. I haven’t changed a word because I think it still stands as a valuable record of how medicine has deteriorated under the control of the pharmaceutical industry.
The public trust doctors. But the public has been betrayed. Doctors trust drug companies. But that trust has also been betrayed.
The original version of ‘Betrayal of Trust’ (which you are about to read) showed just how corrupt the medical establishment and the drug industry had become by the mid 1990s. Anyone who read ‘Betrayal of Trust’ in 1994 would have known how bad things were and how patients were being abused both by the profession and the drug industry. Medicine in the 1990s was all about money.
The sad thing is that the corruption has got worse, rather than better. Today, everything is worse than it was in the 1990s. And those who should have done something to end the corruption have done nothing to stop it. Doctors, politicians, academics and journalists should all hang their heads in shame.
The only thing that has changed is that today I am lied about, demonised and attacked even more than I was a quarter of a century ago. No one in authority wants the truth to be exposed.
Oh, and one other thing. You can rest assured that everything in this book is absolutely true. Despite the revelations in ‘Betrayal of Trust’ I was never sued by any of the companies or individuals mentioned in the book. And the one thing we can be sure of is that if there had been just one error anywhere in this book my letter box would have been filled with writs.
Vernon Coleman 2023
Betrayal of Trust’ is available as a paperback. To purchase a copy just click here
Copyright Vernon Coleman January 2023
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