Censorship of the Press

The American Medical Association and organized social service, with the New York Academy of Medicine and other allies, exert an absolute censorship over the publication in lay and popular channels of all news which affects their interests.

Protestations of news syndicates, newspapers, and magazines to the American Medical Association of their complete submissiveness to its censorship are regularly published in the Journal of the A.M.A. A typical one, from the United Press, received comment in the editorial columns of the Journal of January 20, 1940:

CURRENT COMMENT

Only those closely associated with modern trends in publication are familiar with the vast improvement that has been taking place relative to the publication of news of scientific advances. A bulletin recently issued by the United Press to its bureau managers and division managers is worthy of quotation. It reads:

"It seems advisable to restate our traditional policy concerning handling stories of 'cures' or other medical developments.

"This policy, which dates back more than twenty years, is never to call anything a cure, or in fact give any publicity to any remedy of any description, without a thorough investigation.

"This rule is now being strengthened by the following:

"Under no circumstances put any story on the leased wire about a remedy. If the bureau manager is convinced that the story has merit, he should overhead it to New York for investigation and consideration there."

Thus, under the guise of "protecting the public" a complete censorship of scientific and medical news is given by the U.P. to the New York medical clique. The New York newspapers, especially the Times, likewise submits to censorship at the hands of this group, as do many other newspapers and magazines.

"DOC" SIMMONS MUZZLED MEDICAL PROFESSION

Such control of the lay press of a character as thorough as that exercised over the medical press, was absolutely essential for the success of the rackets founded by "Doc" Simmons. Power of censorship over the reader columns insures control of the announcement of medical discoveries and other creditable news. It enables the theft of valuable ideas and discoveries and also making and breaking of medical reputations. Thus it forces the medical procession into tribute and allegiance. The control of the advertising columns of the press spells power of life and death over the medical and drug industries and the financial success of the A.M.A. "testimonial racket."

The story of the establishment of this censorship is one of blunder, stupidity, intrigue and politics that is characteristic of the entire history of the A.M.A. By their rule of ethics that enjoined doctors from speaking for publication for the lay press Simmons and his clique made it difficult for the press to obtain information on medical topics except from quacks, sub-rosa channels, or from influential medical politicians. The code made the work of editors and reporters extremely difficult and created high antagonism among them against the medical profession.

SOCIAL SERVICE GAINED MEDICAL NEWS CENSORSHIP

Advantage was taken of the arrogant stupidity of the medical bosses by organized social service to gain a part in the control and censorship of medical news which they still retain and which has served them well in securing unlimited support for their questionable activities. In cahoots with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the New York Tuberculosis and Health Association set up the Medical Information Bureau, under the direction of Dr. Iago Galdston. They succeeded in imposing this censorship and business-building agency on the New York Academy of Medicine and on the New York County Medical Society.

FISHBEIN DISCOVERED PROFITS IN POPULAR MEDICINE

In the meantime Dr. Morris Fishbein, who had become boss of the A.M.A. and editor of its Journal, undertook to combat the host of enemies and rivals of the medical fraternity in books addressed to laymen on quacks and fads. It is interesting to note that none of the fads and quackery of the A.M.A. or its bosses was exposed in these books. This started Fishbein and the Association in the field of popular publication. The magazine Hygeia followed. Eventually, as has been related, Fishbein developed a very profitable business as a privileged medical columnist and lay magazine contributor who was protected in his somewhat monopolistic activities by "medical ethics." Lately Fishbein has also "gone into the movies" and become editor and censor of motion pictures. The development of medical propaganda in the movies is illustrated by such movies as the "Dr. Kildare" series and the "Magic Bullet."

The attainment of complete censorship and control of medical news was a bit complicated by personal ambition of Morris Fishbein. Only such loyal A.M.A. henchmen as Dr. Irving S. Cutter of the Daily News were safe from them. The situation was further complicated by the competitive censorship of the Medical Information Bureau.

QUALITY OF SCIENCE REPORTING WAS HIGH

Between 1925 and 1935 science and medical reporting had reached a high state of development. Most of the news syndicates, and some newspapers and magazines, had learned to appreciate the news value of science. Science editors were then alert newspapermen who realized that their value to the public and to their employers depended on the dissemination of fresh news of medical and scientific discovery without bias, and they made a good job of it.

Their columns were often the first to apprise scientists and physicians of advances in their respective fields. Important and life-saving medical discoveries were often announced by them years before any mention in the politically dominated journals of the A.M.A. In some cases important discoveries were announced in the newspapers that for personal and political reasons were suppressed entirely in the A.M.A. and other medical journals. Readers formed the habit of buying several publications in order to read the diverse reports on scientific topics.

MEDICAL MONOPOLIES COMBAT "MENACE"

Freedom of the lay press in medical matters was a grave menace to the medical and social service rackets. It threatened their monopolistic plots and plans and endangered their illicit enterprises. It was essential for them that the freedom of the press in matters pertaining to medicine should be suppressed.

For this purpose letter-writing lobbies of henchmen and "authorities" were maintained which bombarded the editors and proprietors of newspapers and magazines with letters lauding the news that the group desired published and condemning the news that they wished suppressed. Always it was represented by the letter writers that their sole interest was to protect the public who were so dear to them. Many of the letters were forged in the names of pretended patients that represented that they had suffered injury and abuse at the hands of the physician whose work the lobby sought to suppress. These letter lobbies made the editors quite fearful of their jobs. The medical organizations also sought to dictate what should be published by placing restrictions and obstructions in the way of the editors in securing medical news. In self defense the National Association of Science Writers was formed.

ORGANIZED MEDICINE WOOS N.A.S.W.

Then began a process of wooing of the press by the A.M.A. and the New York Academy of Medicine cliques. Fishbein and Galdston sought and obtained jobs as syndicated columnists and editors, the former on the N.E.A. serving the Scripps-Howard papers and the latter on the Associated Press. This made them in effect censors of medical news issued by these syndicates.

In the meantime both the social service and medical cliques began to wine, dine, adulate, decorate and bestow medals on the science writers and their Association. The New York Academy of Medicine, the New York County Medical Society, the American Society for the Control of Cancer, the American Medical Association, the American College of Surgeons, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and many others, wooed with tinsel and with flesh-and honey-pots.

A.M.A. TRUSTEES FETE SCIENCE EDITORS

On October 30, 1937, the Trustees of the American Medical Association played host to the National Association of Science Writers . . .

"in a special conference at which representatives of organized medicine in America, medical columnists and science reporters exchanged news on ways and means to keep the public informed of progress in medical science."

The hosts took great pains to explain that their sole concern, forsooth, was the protection of public welfare. For this purpose the guests were asked to accept censorship and muzzling by the hosts.

The science writers replied with a cynicism bred of many years of contact with corrupt, dishonest and racketeering representatives of organized medicine and social service. William Lawrence of the New York Times pointed out the saving of human lives which resulted from the dissemination of news of medical discoveries through the press far earlier and more rapidly than the A.M.A. chose to permit in its own publications.

He might have pointed out to his hosts that the A.M.A., had been responsible for delaying for many years the dissemination of information regarding the life-saving properties of sulfanilamide; and also for the "endangering of human lives and . . . causing avoidable deaths," maiming and misery as in the case of dinitrophenol.

MEDICAL BOSSES PROFIT FROM SUPPRESSION OF MEDICAL NEWS

He might have pointed out that these acts against the health and lives of the public are generally deliberately perpetrated for motives of profit. Retarding their dissemination permits medical bosses to selectively profit from medical discoveries by making available to themselves alone information and drugs which are withheld from the profession at large. In this manner they are enabled to turn new discoveries into private, secret remedies of the type they pretend to condemn, and to convert them to the enhancement ot their reputations and fortunes.

Also the suppression or delay of publication of medical discoveries serves to protect the reputations of medical bosses and politicians, so-called "authorities", and to uphold their pretense of omniscience. Quite frequently it enables the theft of credit for medical discoveries. Increasingly it is becoming the vogue now for officers and laymen executives of philanthropies and Organized Social Service to steal the credit for medical discoveries made by others.

WATSON DAVIS TALKS ABOUT MENACE OF MEDICINE CENSORSHIP

The corrupt, dishonest and dangerous situation which the proposed censorship would create was eloquently portrayed by Watson Davis, editor of the Science Service as follows:

"Just as the treatment of a patient is left to the experience and judgment of the physician within the wide limits of legal statutes and medical ethics, so the writing of medical science cannot be restricted by rules and regulations other than the experience, judgment and morality of the reporter and publisher, controlled by the laws of libel and the first amendment of the Constitution.

"Suppress by force of a censorship the possibility of publishing even the most unsocial and heretical medical opinion and you have injected into the body politic the cultures of a vile disease—the intolerance that leads to dictatorship. I believe that this attitude must be maintained even though the psychiatrist and psychologist will agree that thoughts, motives and ideals can be damaged by poisonous ideas as fatally as bodies can be made ill by chemicals and bacteria.

"Opinion both public and professional, rather than law or clique censorship, must police the popularization of medicine. The incompetents, the sly distorters, gold-poisoned pens that serve other than the public through the press, must, and, I am confident, will be eliminated by the general recognition of their misdeeds. Wholesome public controversy should illumine honest differences of judgment in science reporting. But I would rather see a return to the inglorious days of careless, misunderstanding reporting of science than see a secret or open censorship imposed directly or indirectly upon the press. . . .

". . . it is of public concern if dominant views within any scientific group tend to suppress minority or unconventional opinions."

BUT LATER ACCEPTS CENSORSHIP BY A.M.A.

More important truths have never been uttered in a spirit of humbug and sham. Within less than one year after this pretty speech, Watson Davis, his Science Service and the National Association of Science Writers had completely submitted to the dictation and censorship of the rackets of organized medicine all medical news. Thanks to the censorship, medical news became entirely secondary to propaganda and publicity for the 57 different varieties of medical and social service rackets. The press succumbed to the blandishments of the numerous pressure groups, of medical specialty organizations set up for the sole purpose of gaining the spotlight of the news for their bosses and of their "public relations counsels." Even editor Henry R. Luce and sub-editor Frank Norris of Time have succumbed to his blandishments, Fishbein has intimated in his "Sedatives and Tonics."

FREE ADVERTISING FOR MEDICAL BOSSES INSURED

Now that medical news has assumed for the press and its editors the complexion of publicity and propaganda primarily, it has become the vogue of prominent hospitals and clinics and their physicians and surgeons to employ publicity agents, Fishbein acknowledges and justifies this in his "Fads and Quackery in Healing" (p. 337) as follows:

"A great clinic, if properly organized, must have its publicity department . . . In this way, the name of any clinic may be brought prominently to the people. I say 'may-be'; perhaps I should say 'has-been.'"

He explains that representatives of clinics must appear at medical meetings; read papers; broadcast their work by motion pictures; have their "leaders" give interviews containing "statements sufficiently fantastic to catch the front page and sufficiently scientific to avoid too great condemnation by medical colleagues"; and exploit discoveries of "research workers who are working contentedly in their cubbyholes." Characteristically, he does not discern the contradiction between these publicity activities and the A.M.A.'s "code of ethics" which enjoins

"It is unprofessional to procure patients by indirection . . . or by indirect advertisement or by furnishing or inspiring newspapers and magazine comments. . .

PROPAGANDA SUPPLANTS NEWS

The function of the public relations counsel is to purchase from the editors of publications the issuance of news stories for their employers. Though direct purchase is regarded as crude and "unethical," hypocrisy and elastic conscience have made indirect purchase by gift or favor, combined where necessary with advertising pressure, "accepted practise." This hypocritical "ethics" makes it possible for the public relations counsel and publicity men to charge exorbitant fees for their services. Thus one of their number who specializes in social service publicity and advertises the list of his clientele, including the Federal Government, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Welfare Council of New York City and the National Association for the Prevention of Blindness, circularizes prospective clientele with a fee list. He sells his talents and the news columns which they command at twenty-five dollars a phone call, forty dollars an hour, one hundred and fifty dollars a day, five hundred dollars a week, and twenty-five thousand a year. A large part of the funds of the medical and social service rackets are now expended in payment of these procurers and panders of the printed word.

Newspapers and magazines have become largely perverted to publicity and propaganda media. No longer is news defined in terms of "man bite dog." It is evaluated in terms of "who is the publicity man and how liberal is he?" Much to the convenience of the propagandists, newspaper syndicates have made it possible to pervert and poison the news of whole chains of newspapers and periodicals. The news empires of the Hearsts and the Munseys have been swallowed by the empires of the Rockefellers, and the Associated Press has moved its offices, as have the Times-Fortune-Life group, into Rockefeller's Radio City. The Dally News and the Chicago Tribune are owned by their kin.

SCIENCE WRITERS DEVELOP "ETHICS" . . .

The National Association of Science Writers has followed the trend. To justify the defection from the ideals which they have professed and as a balm to their consciences, they have adopted another of the hypocritic "ethical" codes affected by professions that pretend to hold themselves aloof from commercial practices. The principal tenets and dialectics of the code are those which justify the acceptance of censorship by vested medical and scientific interests. It runs as follows:

"Science editors are incapable of judging the facts of phenomena involved in medical and scientific discovery. Therefore they only report discoveries approved by medical 'authorities' of rank, like Fishbein, or those presented before a body of scientific peers.

The speciousness of this "ethics" is obvious. If they are incapable of judging facts and phenomena, science editors are unfitted for their tasks either as scientists or as newsmen. As a matter of fact the shoe is on the other foot. These editors' heads have been turned by Pulitzer and other prizes and by the adulation of those who seek publicity. They have come to fancy themselves as great scientists and prospective directors and dictators in the field of science, and to regard themselves as of higher importance than any mere scientific worker. They seem to have forgotten to be newsmen and fail to realize that if they confine themselves to reporting facts known to the medical authorities, what they report will be neither news nor discovery. Or if they refuse to report anything that has not been presented before a scientific body, they accept the control and censorship with which the bosses of organized medicine protect their business by barring the presentation of any discoveries except those which they make or steal. Such second-hand reports of medical discovery are not news but are advertising and publicity.

One can scarcely imagine a reporter of the past waiting until an item was known to every one before publishing it. But this seems to be the concept of news of science reporters and of the New York Times.

. . . BUT SURRENDER PRINCIPLES

Watson Davis, in his talk at the A.M.A. lovefest, made it clear that the editors were acutely aware of the dangers of suppression of medical discovery by the indirect form of censorship that they now accept. Evidently the rewards of their actions have had blunting effects on conscience. For all the direst predictions of the consequences of such censorship have come true; but the members of the N.A.S.W. have showed no signs of repentance or reform.

On the contrary the same type of censorship has been extended to organizations that formerly were forums for free discussion of science such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and to their publications such as Science and Nature. They now submit publications of discoveries pertaining to medicine to censorship by organized medicine, leaving no medium free for the publication of any medical topic that merchant bosses of medicine seek to suppress to protect their interests.

MARXISM INVADES SCIENCE

Most of the science writers are salaried workingmen who have imbibed deeply the Bismarxian propaganda. They are confirmed "liberals," Thus John O'Neill, science editor of the Herald Tribune stated before the Fifth Estate Club that one of his criteria for the censorship of scientific discoveries is the "profit motive," Since every discovery redounds to the credit and benefit of someone, this censorship works in this manner: It the discovery may increase the practice of an independent physician of no medical-political influence, it is denied publication; but if it fills the pocketbook of an influential medical politician or institution it is insistently touted and broadcasted.

REWARDS OF CONFORMITY

The rewards of conformity of science writers are many. For their upholding freedom of speech in science, before the institution of the present policy of censorship, I praised a group of them in my book, "Glaucoma and Its Medical Treatment With Cortin", in 1937. Shortly thereafter the same men were awarded, for their reporting of the Harvard Tri-Centennial, a Pulitzer Prize. In 1938, the National Association of Science Writers was given by the American Society for the Control of Cancer, the Clement Cleveland medal "for outstanding work in the control of cancer." To Howard Blakeslee, science editor of the Associated Press, was awarded in January 1940 by the American College Publicity Association, the Wilson L. Fairbanks award, as "the individual who has done most for the interpretation of higher education to the general public."

Now that censorship has become the order of the day, the flow of honors and awards from those who seek publicity is rising. Many science editors are not men who seek out news of science for publication. They are men who are wooed with press releases in one hand and an award or stick of candy in the other. And they seem to like the candy and fall for it.

Not all the awards take the form of empty honors. The rewards of orthodoxy in a science editor may be a fortune. One of them has risen to high rank in a large industrial concern where he handles science publicity and propaganda and the company's relations with the N.A.S.W. at a reputed salary of twenty-five thousand dollars a year. Such stories fire ambitions.

Two contrasting recent incidents illustrate aptly the injuries which result from the prostituted control of the publication of medical news:

BRUTAL LEMPERT "WINDOW" OPERATION BOOSTED

On the sixth of May 1938 the New York Times carried a dispatch labelled "Special to the New York Times" from the meeting of the American Otological Society in Atlantic City. The headline read: "'Hearing window found aid to deaf." It related that Dr. Samuel J. Kopetzky had reported to the Society on an ear operation for the relief of progressive deafness. The operation was not new, but was merely a modification of one described a number of years prior by a French professor, Dr. Sourdille.

Though the operation involves risks to health and life, it gives results that are not as good as I had reported in a paper read before the Acoustical Society of America, in 1933, can be obtained from the simple and easy procedure of incision or excision of the eardrum. All these procedures have only a transient influence on the progress of the deafness.

In spite of the moot value of the operation the Times published the story. No censorship prevailed. Dr. S.J. Kopetzky is Chairman of the Publicity Committee of the New York County Medical Society. Owing to the failure of verification of the data presented by the parties involved, the American Otological Society refused to publish his paper. Dr, Kopetzky sensed the full significance of their action, felt compelled to resign. Operations are always favored by organized medicine, however, as quick sources of income. In spite of the question raised regarding the veracity of the sponsors of the operation, it was vigorously boosted at a meeting of the New York Academy of Medicine in March 1940. This was the beginning of the ruthless exploitation of the Lempert Fenestration (or Window) Operation that has caused so much maiming, misery and total loss of hearing in the deafened. Further details are given in the Appendix.

VITAL DISCOVERY IS SUPPRESSED

Contrasting sharply with this over-eager advertising and publicizing of a grave operation of highly questionable value, is the treatment accorded many vital discoveries. This was once again illustrated by the treatment recently given a fundamental medical discovery—a new and successful method of treatment of a group of diseases of the muscle-nerve apparatus with Vitamin E.

On the twenty-third of June 1939 I presented before the Essex County Optometric Society a report of successful treatment with Vitamin E of a series of cases of a group of diseases including myasthenia gravis and progressive muscular dystrophy, which had been regarded until then as hopeless disorders. Brief mention was made of the discovery in the Newark newspapers but all reference to it was suppressed in the national press by the medical censors of the syndicate releases. Though the optometric journals carried reports of the discovery, publication of it was rejected by medical journals for the usual reasons of medical politics.

The life-saving action of Vitamin E had not yet been extended to the victims of the disease by the profession in even such institutions as the Mayo Clinic almost a year later. For doctors are too bigoted to learn from lay publications, and A.M.A. and other medical journals refused to publish my lifesaving discovery. I determined to attempt to give the victims of the disease its benefit by securing its publication in scientific journals which publish items of medical science. Late in 1939 I submitted to Science, the official magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science of which I am a Fellow and to Nature, the British scientific magazine, the following brief report.

VITAMIN E THERAPY OF MYASTHENIA GRAVIS

"The influence of vitamin E on muscular dystrophy in animals lias been reported by a number of observers. This is a report of successful therapy of myasthenia gravis and muscular dystrophy in the human with wheat germ oil and vitamin E in combination with other therapy.

"In early myasthenia gravis ranging in duration from one to five years, I have had consistent success in cases that have failed to respond to other forms of treatment with a therapy consisting of balanced dosage of ephedrine and suprarenal cortex hormone, glycocoll, gelatine, high sodium chloride and a diet rich in vitamins A, B, C and G. Complete relief of the pareses of muscles of the eyes, face and body was obtained. The results are lasting and contrast sharply with the ephemeral results obtained with prostigmine.

"In more advanced cases that show marked muscle changes, no success followed this therapy until wheat germ oil, vitamin E or a-tocopherol were added. It was then learned that materially greater improvement could be obtained also in the early cases by the addition of those substances.

"A study of the creatine output in the urine revealed that these cases snow a relatively high loss, which rises with the administration of glycocoll. I was able to confirm observations previously made on the effect of a-tocopherol in raising the renal threshold of creatine and reducing its loss from the body in the urine.

"The influence of the various forms of vitamin E on the muscles is readily explainable on the basis of the importance of creatine and its compounds in muscular activity. The response of the early cases of myasthenia gravis to the therapy without vitamin E is due to the fact that the threshold is not sufficiently lowered to deplete the muscles of the creatine provided by the glycocoll and the diet. When the threshold drops to a point so low that insufficient creatine is retained for muscular activity extreme forms of the disease develop.

"The response of both myasthenia gravis and muscular dystrophy to the therapy indicates that they are different stages of the same condition. It also appears probable that the role of the vitamin in preserving fertility may depend on its influence on the muscular factors involved in the procreative function. The vitamin also plays an important role in the function of heart muscle and in the prevention of myocardial disease.

"An increase of the diseases due to vitamin E deficiency in the diet is a natural consequence of its elimination from the diet as a result of the denaturing of foods. It is probable that there exists a wide array of subclinical conditions characterized by modern degrees of muscular weakness and fatigue as a consequence of this deficiency.

"Serious consideration should be given to restoring to universal use in the diet sources rich in vitamin E, such as freshly ground and unprocessed grains, in the interest of preserving both vigor and fertility of the race.

"E. M. Josephson, M.D.

Nature indicated medical censorship by rejecting the report with the suggestion that it "would appear more appropriately in a medical journal." Dr. J. McKeen Cattell, editor of Science, returned the report with the statement that it had been rejected by a referee, the American Medical Association censor that passes on all articles pertaining to medicine that are submitted for publication. The referee was reported by him to have characterized this succinct report of an important discovery, based on several years of study and a wealth of clinical material, as

"An uncritical, uncontrolled clinical study with a number of speculative statements and therefore not suited to Science."

CONFIRMATORY REPORT IS PUBLISHED

The questionable judgment or sincerity of referee and editor is made clear by the fact that within one week after the long delayed rejection of the report, its contents were fully confirmed by an article by Dr. Franklin Bicknell, which appeared in Lancet. Science (and Watson Davis' Science Service) carried a full length report of the work of Dr. Bicknell a few weeks after it had rejected my paper. In this manner does the Holy Office of the Inquisition of medical science operate. It confirms the ugliest predictions made by Watson Davis. It is a measure of the corruption, chicanery and medievalism which has crept into science.

On further study of myasthenia gravis I found that vitamin E is effective in treating the disease up to the most advanced stage. In the final stage of the disease, the mineral, manganese must be administered in combination with the vitamin E. The tumor of the thymus gland, thymoma, which frequently develops in the advanced stage of the disease and may be fatal in its consequences, clears up completely under the action of the manganese, as does the rest of the disease process. When manganese treatment is stopped, the thymoma and the other signs and symptoms of myasthenia gravis, return and the patient suffers a relapse which again clears up when manganese treatment is resumed.

The influence of the dietary treatment with manganese on the tumor of the thymus gland led me to study the influence of manganese on other enlargements of the thymus gland, such as those which occur in certain infants and children, and in status lymphaticus that threatens life. These enlargements respond to the administration of manganese and clear up completely so long as the patients get enough manganese. When the amount of manganese which they get becomes insufficient, the enlargement returns.

These studies have opened up a fundamental and important new chapter in medicine. They reveal that the thymus has much the same relation to the utilization of manganese as the thyroid has to iodine.

Despite the life-saving and scientific importance of this discovery, it was rejected for publication by the leading medical publications, including the Journal of the A.M.A., the Endocrinology and others, on the grounds that "it would not be of interest to our readers."

Science does not stop, however, with the politically dictated suppression of publication of reports of scientific discovery. It also suppresses advertisements of scientific books which the American Medical Association seeks to repress. It is amusing to consider that the perpetrator of this breach of freedom of speech and publication is none other than the professor who was ousted from Columbia University with his son because of the latter's insistence on freedom of speech in encouraging resistance to draft during the World War; and who was enabled to publish Science by the support of friends, gained by a plea for freedom of speech in science.

Another of numerous such incidents was the deliberate discrediting by organized medicine of the masterful work of Professor Swingle of Princeton University in which he and collaborators proved that deficiency of the adrenal cortex underlies surgical shock. Almost a decade later, March 12, 1940, widespread publicity was given to the "discovery" of this fact by Dr. David Perla of the Montefiore Hospital, by organized medicine. A partial explanation of the situation may be found in the fact that Swingle used his own American preparation of the hormone while the Perla experiments publicized the product patented by the Rockefeller-German Dye Trust interests. As so often happens when organized medicine seeks profit or revenge, Swingle the discoverer was discredited, and credit for the discovery has been given to an imitator or corroborator. To what extremes this vindictive suppression of scientific work is carried is illustrated by the fact that in the bibliography of the subject included in the advertising matter of the Schering Co. based on this use of adrenal cortex hormone, no mention is made of Swingle's basic work. The content of such advertising literature is censored by the A.M.A. Council.

These incidents illustrate the "principle" which enters censorship of medical publication, show how it is used by medical politicians to cover themselves with glory with the work of others, demonstrate the possibilities which it offers for the theft of medical discoveries, and portray the injury done thereby to the public.

A.M.A. CENSORSHIP OF ADVERTISING

The control of advertising columns of the lay press is of utmost importance to the A.M.A. for the success of its testimonial and other rackets. This "zone of influence" is left for the present entirely to the A.M.A. gang by the Social Service Racket. The strangle hold of the A.M.A. on the drug trade has been intensified by its success in imposing a censorship of medical advertising on a majority of the country's magazines and newspapers.

The censorship of advertising has been attained at an enormous cost to the publishers of newspapers and magazines. For in the hey-day of journalism patent medicine advertising was one of the principal sources of their revenue. Some of the advertising was absurd and quackish. But much of it was less damaging to the health and interests of the public than are some of the advertisements that regularly appear in the journals of the American Medical Association and under its "seal of acceptance."

The tactics that were employed by the A.M.A. to gain this censorship were varied. They brought into play the full measure of unscrupulousness, shrewdness, chicanery and other less honorable aptitudes of the gang. The situation serves to expose the Fourth Estate, the proprietors and editors of the lay publications, as naive babes-in-the woods as compared with their "benevolent" adversaries of the "testimonial rackets."

The first bait laid for the lay publishers was "reliable" medical news of the A.M.A. brand. Their sympathies were played upon by pathetic tales of how readers were preyed upon by hobgoblin manufactures of pharmaceuticals who had not purchased the testimonials of the A.M.A. The publishers were bombarded with letters of victims or pretended victims of the products under A.M.A. fire, as a part of the campaign to gain the censorship which was sought. Naturally, the victims of "accepted" products which have the seal of the Association were discreetly left out of the picture.

FEDERAL AGENCIES ABET A.M.A.

Federal agencies have been consistently used by the American Medical Association as catspaws and pawns in their commercial censorship war. There is no question, for instance, of what one would find if one traced the source of the recent complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission against the advertising and the Institute of Good Housekeeping Magazine. Well paid articles by Morris Fishbein since then have graced the Hearst magazines, and the A.M.A. and its subsidiaries are emerging as censors of the Hearst newspapers, as is made clear by the illustrated letter from the New York Journal and American. On April Fool's Day, 1940, Fishbein attained a goal for which he had striven for several years, since he had broken off with the N.E.A.—he began his career of columnist for Hearst's King Features Syndicate under the headline "Medicine In The News."

The Federal Trade Commission and other governmental agencies are singularly deaf to any complaints lodged against false and misleading advertisements and publications of the American Medical Association and its bosses. Thus several complaints were lodged with the F.T.C. against the fraudulent and quackish advertising and the dangerously misleading text of Dr. Morris Fishbein's Modern Home Medical Adviser. They fell on deaf ears Complaints lodged against the A.M.A. and its Journal for false and misleading advertising, monopoly in restraint of trade and other illegal practises were investigated and confirmed by a Congressional Committee of the 72nd Congress. But so great is the influence of the A.M.A. that, as has been related, it has never been prosecuted. When under investigation the A.M.A. poses as a "benevolent" and "educational" organization and makes no mention of its rich commercial and racketeering activities.

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"FREEDOM OF THE PRESS"

This concerns the advertisement of a book entitled "Glaucoma and Its Medical Treatment with Cortin" which described popularly an important sight-saving discovery, I had published it as part of a crusade to prevent needless blinding by the disease and by the operations which are the "accepted practise." The bosses of the ophthalmologic specialty objected to the book because it threatened their income from blinding glaucoma operations and established a censorship on the subject and conspired to prevent dissemination of the method of treatment and advertisement of the book. The New York Journal and American refused to publish the advertisement on the advice of the Society. From the point of view of the publisher of the book, this constitutes conspiracy in restraint of trade. It also illustrates the corruption by some publications of "freedom of press and publication" and the suppression of the rights of others. The book threatened the incomes of the ophthalmologists who specialized in blinding glaucoma operations. The censorship of a book that described a successful non-operative method of treatment and the conspiracy to prevent its dissemination were a natural policy.

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BETTER BUSINESS BUREAUS ABET A.M.A.

The devices that are effectively used by the A.M.A. in its war for control of the nation's press are recounted in the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit, in the case of Raladam Company vs. the Federal Trade Commission, handed down June 28, 1930. It reads:

"The record here shows, without dispute or by implication which would hardly be denied, that the American Medical Association is engaged in a campaign against those proprietary remedies which it believes ought to be used by the public either not at all or only under supervision.

"It has a Bureau for that and other purposes, and the Bureau employs a director. When it is thought that a particular advertisement should be stopped, this director takes the matter up with the Federal Trade Commission and with the Association of Better Business Bureaus, which are scattered over the country.

"Thereupon the Commission, if it approves, files a complaint and eventually, if it is convinced of the truth of its complaint, makes the order to desist and refrain. The Better Business Bureaus explain to their local newspapers and to the general periodicals that it would be wise to refuse this advertising.

"The Chairman of the Commission, in public addresses and in correspondence, advises the newspapers that they will be subject to prosecution by the Commission as defendants, to be joined with the advertisers, if they do not desist from such publications; and the newspapers may suspect that if they do not comply with the advice of the Better Business Bureaus, their general advertising patronage from the membership of these bureaus will fall off."

VITAMIN PRODUCTS CO. LIBELED BY B.B.B.

Another case that illustrates the methods of this malodorous alliance, is that of the Vitamin Products Co., one of the pioneer marketers of vitamins. Alert, progressive and far ahead of the times, the company distributes with its products literature that describes the clinical results that can be obtained with vitamins. Persons who inquired of the A.M.A. about the value of vitamins were falsely informed that vitamins have not been proved to have any clinical value and that the claims to that effect made by Vitamin Products Co. were unfounded.

Copies of these: letters were forwarded by the A.M.A. to the Better Business Bureau of Milwaukee. Firms with which the company sought to do business, on inquiring of the Better Business Bureau, were given this false and libelous data. Eventually the Vitamin Products Co. got wind of this libel and slander, and brought suit against the Bureau. The A.M.A., instead of standing by its ally, denied any knowledge of the matter.

The Better Business Bureau of Milwaukee has acknowledged its malefactions. Pending the fixing of the extent of the damages it has done to the business of Vitamin Product Company, the Bureau has undertaken to limit its liability by reorganizing—thus demonstrating one of the questionable methods of business which it is supposedly organized to combat.

ADVERTISING CENSORSHIP DOOMS PRESS

This statement by the Court of how the F.T.C. acts as a pawn and subsidiary of the American Medical Association in the conduct of its rackets, explains how the latter has obtained its censorship of the press by officially supported intimidation. With this censorship the A.M.A. is dooming magazines and newspapers to death from lack of advertising revenue. As favored advertising media the A.M.A. journals, including the magazine Hygeia are waxing constantly richer on the revenues derived from a monopoly of medical advertising won by the racketeering methods described. Since the A.M.A. has not yet entered the radio advertising and broadcasting business on a serious scale, the broadcasting companies are still permitted to put on the air advertisements which have been barred in the newspapers, thus hastening the destruction of the press. It is hard to understand why publishers have not awakened to realize how they have been intimidated and duped by this A.M.A. racket.

NEW YORK TIMES DENIES FREEDOM OF PRESS TO OTHERS

The absurd and dangerous complexion of this censorship of medical advertising is revealed by the recent refusal of the New York Times to accept the advertisement of a popular book on the subject of glaucoma, "Glaucoma and Its Medical Treatment With Cortin," which was written as part of an educational campaign to prevent blindness. The advertisement was rejected because the A.M.A. objected for political reasons which will be related presently. Such a censorship as is exercised by the New York Times constitutes suppression of freedom of thought and speech, the danger of which is made apparent by the fact that most important and life-saving discoveries of the past have been refused recognition by organized medicine for many years.

Colonel Adler, who is in charge of the Times advertising staff, freely admitted to me that Pasteur's discoveries would have been denied similar advertisement until his views had become recognized by organized medicine. The Times could not plead even a desire to protect the public; for it had publicized the glaucoma discovery in an exact and authoritative manner that had angered and incensed the medical and social service bosses and their censors, before it reached its present state of complete submission to their dictates. In view of these facts the advertising campaign that the Times is carrying on in its columns with such slogans as "unbiased, complete and accurate" is as amusing as it is questionable.

BUT INSISTS ON FREEDOM OF PRESS FOR ITSELF

This incident occurred at the very time that the publishers of the Times and of other newspapers were conducting a vigorous campaign for "freedom of the press," which they regarded as being threatened by the Child Labor Bill. But Col. Adler would not face the insincerity and inconsistency of the attitude of the Times in suppressing the freedom of the press of others while demanding it for themselves.

In this respect the Times follows the reaction pattern of the Communazi propagandists. Whenever their propaganda is scotched and checked they cry that "Civil Liberties" are being attacked. But the very basis of their own activities is the destruction of the Civil Liberties of others. Theirs is the infantile attitude: "I do. You no do." When their professional allies are ousted, as in the case of Bertrand Russell, they cry that "academic freedom" is being destroyed. But the very purpose of their own activities is to destroy the academic freedom of others and to force the acceptance of their propaganda and dogmas, or else—. Naturally, whatever they do is holy and in the interest of the "masses." As might be expected, the New York Times follows the party line and editorially supports the Bertrand Russell champions and their fellow "educator" agitators.

THE FATE OF AN ADVERTISEMENT OF THIS BOOK WHICH WILL BE SUBMITTED TO THE NEW YORK TIMES AS A TEST WILL DEMONSTRATE TO THE READER HOW "UNBIASED AND COMPLETE" IT IS.

THE PUBLIC IS INJURED BY THE CENSORSHIP

Though it is pretended that this censorship is being maintained for the benefit of the public, it is apparent that it serves only to injure them. For, as William Lawrence pointed out to his A.M.A. hosts, delay of publication and acceptance of medical discoveries means misery and suffering for the public. That is the true significance of censorship of medical news.