Dermatology's Horrendous War Against The Sun, and the True Origins of the American Medical Association
Untangling Dermatology's Huge Skin Cancer Scam - and deep corruption that enables them to get away with it.
Brucha Weisberger
BS”D
I’m republishing this extremely important article from A Midwestern Doctor, which not only explains how very important sun exposure is in preventing cancer, other illnesses, and death, but also exposes the criminality at the very foundation of the American Medical Association, starting more than 100 years ago and continuing since.
I’d like to note that if we just take a few moments to think deeply about the “sun is dangerous” propaganda we’ve grown up with, we realize that it cannot possibly be true. The sun has been shining on the world since G-d created it, and people have traditionally spent their days outdoors tending to their fields and animals. Sunscreen was not invented, and cancer was not prevalent. Since we’ve started spending more time indoors and applying sunscreen, we’ve only seen an increase in cancer, heart disease, and other modern illnesses.
Aside from the historical impossibility of the medical establishment’s claims, there’s also logic - observation of the universe shows that G-d always sets things up to work as a perfect, beneficial system, with everything that’s needed for survival provided. There’s no conceivable way that He made the sun to be harmful for us, requiring modern chemical sunscreens to combat it.
By A MIDWESTERN DOCTOR
Story At a Glance:
•Sunlight is crucial for health, and avoiding it doubles mortality rates and cancer risk.
•Skin cancers are the most common cancers in the U.S., leading to widespread “advice” to avoid the sun. However, the deadliest skin cancers are linked to a lack of sunlight.
•The dermatology field, aided by a top marketing firm, rebranded themselves as skin cancer (and sunlight) fighters, becoming one of the highest-paid medical specialties.
•Despite billions spent annually, skin cancer deaths haven't significantly changed. Likewise, the Dermatology profession has buried a variety of effective and affordable skin cancer treatments.
Note: this is an abridged version of a longer article. (BW: Click for expanded version. I have included a few pieces of AMD’s longer article which I felt were extremely significant.)
I always found it odd that everyone insisted I avoid sunlight and wear sunscreen during outdoor activities, as I noticed that sunlight felt great and caused my veins to dilate, indicating the body deeply craved sunlight. Later, I learned that blocking natural light with glass (e.g., with windows or eyeglasses) significantly affected health, and that many had benefitted from utilizing specialized glass that allowed the full light spectrum through. This ties into one of my favorite therapeutic modalities, ultraviolet blood irradiation, which produces a wide range of truly remarkable benefits by putting the sun’s ultraviolet light inside the body.
Once in medical school, aware of sunlight's benefits, I was struck by dermatologists' extreme aversion to it. Patients were constantly warned to avoid sunlight, and in northern latitudes, where people suffer from seasonal affective disorder, dermatologists even required students to wear sunscreen and cover most of their bodies indoors. At this point my perspective changed to “This crusade against the sun is definitely coming from the dermatologists” and “What on earth is wrong with these people?” A few years ago I learned the final piece of the puzzle through Robert Yoho MD and his book Butchered by Healthcare.
Note: This comment I received perfectly illustrates the dysfunctional status quo.
The Monopolization of Medicine
Throughout my life, I’ve noticed the medical industry will:
•Promote healthy activities people are unlikely to do (e.g., exercising or quitting smoking).
•Promote unhealthy activities industries make money from (e.g., eating processed foods or taking a myriad of harmful pharmaceuticals).
•Attack beneficial activities that are easy to do (e.g., sunbathing or consuming egg yolks, butter and raw dairy).
As best as I can gather, much of this is rooted in the scandalous history of the American Medical Association, when in 1899, George H. Simmons, MD took possession of the floundering organization (MDs were going out of business because their treatments were barbaric and didn’t work). He, in turn, started a program to give the AMA seal of approval in return for the manufacturers disclosing their ingredients and agreeing to advertise in a lot of AMA publications (they were not however required to prove their product was safe or effective). This maneuver was successful, and in just ten years, increased their advertising revenues 5-fold, and their physician membership 9-fold.
At the same time this happened, the AMA moved to monopolize the medical industry by doing things such as establishing a general medical education council (which essentially said their method of practicing medicine was the only credible way to practice medicine), which allowed them to then become the national accrediting body for medical schools. This in turn allowed them to end the teaching of many of the competing models of medicine such as homeopathy, chiropractic, naturopathy, and to a lesser extent, osteopathy—as states would often not give licenses to graduates of schools with a poor AMA rating.
BW: Here’s just one paragraph from the article AMD linked above, describing how the Rockefeller cartel took over the medical system. Remember, the Flexner report was funded by The Carnegie Foundation and John D. Rockefeller; Flexner’s brother was the first medical director of the Rockefeller Medical Foundation.
In 1910, the same year that the Flexner report was published, the AMA published "Essentials of an Acceptable Medical College" (Report of the Council, 1910), which echoed similar criteria for medical education and a disdain for non-conventional medical study. In fact, the AMA's head of the Council on Medical Education traveled with Abraham Flexner as they evaluated medical schools. The medical sociologist Paul Starr wrote in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book: "The AMA Council became a national accrediting agency for medical schools, as an increasing number of states adopted its judgments of unacceptable institutions." Further, he noted: "Even though no legislative body ever set up ... the AMA Council on Medical Education, their decisions came to have the force of law" (Starr, 1982, 121).(3)
BW: More fascinating detail on the Rockefeller takeover, from another site:
… the Flexner Report … made the case that old, traditional medicine is bad, and new pharmacologic medicine is good. Rockefeller, as owner of 90% of the American petrol industry at the time, personally stood to gain as petrochemicals were emerging as a profitable sector. Today, they are used extensively in producing active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), solvents, excipients, and packaging materials. The petrochemical industry as it relates to pharmaceuticals alone is valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars today. The pharmaceutical industry, as we know it, stemmed from the initial investment by the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations into medical universities following the Flexner Report’s recommendations.
See:
https://covid19criticalcare.com/the-flexner-report-and-the-rise-of-big-pharma/
Likewise, Simmons (along with his successor, Fishbein, who reigned from 1924 to 1950) established a "Propaganda Department" in 1913 to attack all unconventional medical treatments and anyone (MD or not) who practiced them. Fishbein was very good at what he did and could often organize massive media campaigns against anything he elected to deem “quackery” that were heard by millions of Americans (at a time when the country was much smaller).
After Simmons and Fishbein created this monopoly, they were quick to leverage it. This included blackmailing pharmaceutical companies to advertise with them, demanding the rights for a variety of healing treatments to be sold to the AMA, and sending the FDA or FTC after anyone who refused to sell out (which in at least in one case was proved in court since one of Fishbein’s “compatriots” thought what he was doing was wrong and testified against him). Because of this, many remarkable medical innovations were successfully erased from history (part of my life’s work and much of what I use in practice are essentially the therapies Simmons and Fishbein largely succeeded in wiping off the Earth).
Note: to illustrate that this is not just ancient history, consider how viciously and ludicrously the AMA attacked the use of ivermectin to treat COVID (as it was the biggest competitor to the COVID cartel). Likewise, one of the paradigm changing moments for Pierre Kory (which he discusses with Russel Brand here) was that after he testified to the Senate about ivermectin, he was put into a state of shock by the onslaught of media and medical journal campaigns from every direction trying to tank ivermectin and destroy his and his colleagues’ reputations (e.g., they got fired and had their papers which had already passed peer-review retracted). Two weeks into it, he got an email from Professor William B Grant (a vitamin D expert) that said “Dear Dr. Kory, what they're doing to ivermectin they've been doing to vitamin D for decades” and included a 2017 paper detailing the exact playbook industry uses again and again to bury inconvenient science.
Before long, Big Tobacco became the AMA’s biggest client, which led to countless ads like this one being published by the AMA which persisted until Fishbein was forced out (at which point he became a highly paid lobbyist for the tobacco industry):
Note: because of how nasty they were, they often got people to dig into their past, at which point it was discovered how unscrupulous and sociopathic both Simmons and Fishbein were. Unfortunately, while I know from first-hand experience this was the case (e.g., a friend of mine knew Fishbein’s secretary and she stated that Fishbein was a truly horrible person she regularly saw carry out despicable actions and I likewise knew people who knew the revolutionary healers Fishbein targeted), I was never able to confirm many of the abhorrent allegations against Simmons because the book they all cite as a reference did not provide its sources, while the other books which provide different but congruent allegations are poorly sourced.
The Benefits of Sunlight
One of the oldest “proven” therapies in medicine was having people bathe in sunlight (e.g., it was one of the few things that actually had success in treating the 1918 influenza, prior to antibiotics it was one of the most effective treatments for treating tuberculosis and it was also widely used for a variety of other diseases). In turn, since it is safe, effective, and freely available, it stands to reason that unscrupulous individuals who wanted to monopolize the practice of medicine would want to cut off the public’s access to it.
Note: the success of sunbathing was the original inspiration for ultraviolet blood irradiation.
Because of how successful the war against sunlight has been many people are unaware of its benefits. For example:
1. Sunlight is critical for mental health. This is most well appreciated with depression (e.g., seasonal affective disorder) but in reality the effects are far more broad reaching (e.g., unnatural light exposure destroys your circadian rhythm).
Note: I really got this point during my medical internship, where after a long period of night shifts under fluorescent lights, noticed I was becoming clinically depressed (which has never otherwise happened to me and led to a co-resident I was close to offering to prescribe antidepressants). I decided to do an experiment (I do this a lot—e.g., I try to never recommend treatments to patients I haven’t already tried on myself) and stuck with it for a few more days, then went home and bathed under a full spectrum bulb, at which point I almost instantly felt better. I feel my story is particularly important for healthcare workers since many people in the system are forced to spend long periods of their under artificial light and their mental health (e.g., empathy) suffers greatly from it. For example, consider this study of Chinese operating room nurses which found their mental health was significantly worse than the general population and that this decline was correlated to their lack of sunlight exposure.
2. A large epidemiological study found women with higher solar UVB exposure had only half the incidence of breast cancer as those with lower solar exposure and that men with higher residential solar exposure had only half the incidence of fatal prostate cancer.
Note: a 50% reduction in either of these cancers greatly exceeds what any of the approaches we use to treat or prevent them have accomplished.
3. A 20 year prospective study evaluated 29,518 women in Southern Sweden where average women from each age bracket with no significant health issues were randomly selected, essentially making it one of the best possible epidemiologic studies that could be done. It found that women who were sun avoidant compared to those who had regular exposure to sunlight were:
•Overall 60% more likely to die, being roughly 50% more likely to die than the moderate exposure group and roughly 130% more likely to die than the group with high sun exposure.
Note: to be clear, there are very few interventions in medicine that do anything close to this.
•The largest gain was seen in the risk of dying from heart disease, while the second gain was seen in the risk of all causes of death besides heart disease and cancer (“other”), and the third largest gain was seen in deaths from cancer.
Note: the investigators concluded the smaller benefit in reduced cancer deaths was in part an artifact of the subjects living longer and hence succumbing to a type of cancer that would have only affected them later in life.
• The largest benefit was seen in smokers, to the point non-smokers who avoided the sun had the same risk of dying as smokers who got sunlight.
Note: I believe this and the cardiovascular benefits are in large part due to sunlight catalyzing the synthesis of nitric oxide (which is essential for healthy blood vessels) and sulfates (which coat cells like the endothelium and in conjunction with infrared (or sunlight) creates the liquid crystalline water which is essential for the protection and function of the cardiovascular system).
So given all of this, I would say that you need a really good justification to avoid sun exposure.
Skin Cancer
According to the American Academy of Dermatology, skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, with current estimates suggesting that one in five Americans will develop skin cancer in their lifetime. Approximately 9,500 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with skin cancer every day.
The Academy emphasizes that UV exposure is the most preventable risk factor for skin cancer, advising people to avoid indoor tanning beds and protect their skin outdoors by seeking shade, wearing protective clothing, and applying broad-spectrum sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher.
The Skin Cancer Foundation states that more than two people die of skin cancer in the U.S. every hour, which sounds alarming. Let's break down what all this means.
Basal Cell Carcinoma
Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common skin cancer, making up 80% of cases, with about 2.64 million Americans diagnosed annually. Risk factors include excessive sun exposure, fair skin, and family history. BCC primarily occurs in sun-exposed areas like the face.
BCC rarely metastasizes and has a near 0% fatality rate, but it frequently recurs (65%-95%) after removal. The standard excision approach often doesn't address underlying causes, leading to repeated surgeries and potential disfigurement.
While BCCs can grow large if left untreated, they aren't immediately dangerous. Treatment is necessary but not urgent. Alternative therapies can effectively treat large BCCs without disfiguring surgery.
Note: since the COVID-19 vaccines came out, I have heard of a few cases of BCC metastasizing in the vaccinated, but it is still extraordinarily rare.
Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the second most common skin cancer, with an estimated 1.8 million cases in the U.S. Its incidence varies widely due to sunlight exposure, ranging from 260 to 4,970 cases per million person-years. Previously thought to be four times less common than BCC, SCC is now only half as common.
Unlike BCC, SCC can metastasize, making it potentially dangerous. If removed before metastasis, the survival rate is 99%; after metastasis, it drops to 56%. Typically caught early, SCC has an average survival rate of 95%. Around 2,000 people die from SCC each year in the U.S.
Note: unlike more lethal skin cancers, it is not required to report BCC or SCC. Consequently, there is no centralized database tracking their occurrence, so the official figures are largely estimates.
Melanoma
Melanoma occurs at a rate of 218 cases per million persons annually in the United States, with survival rates ranging from 99% to 35% depending on its stage when diagnosed, averaging out to 94%. However, despite only comprising 1% of all skin cancer diagnoses, Melanoma is responsible for most skin cancer deaths. In total, this works out to a bit over 8000 deaths each year in the United States. Since survival is greatly improved by early detection, many guides online exist to help recognize the common signs of a potential melanoma.
What’s critically important to understand about melanoma is that while it’s widely considered to be linked to sunlight exposure—it’s not. For example:
Patients with solar elastosis, a sign of sun exposure, were 60% less likely to die from melanoma.
Melanoma predominantly occurs in areas of the body with minimal sunlight exposure, unlike SCC and BCC, which are linked to sun-exposed regions.
Outdoor workers, despite significantly higher UV exposure, have lower rates of melanoma compared to indoor workers.
Many sunscreens contain toxic carcinogens (to the point Hawaii banned them to protect coral reefs). Conversely, existing research indicates widespread sunscreen use has not reduced skin cancer rates.
•A mouse study designed to study malignant melanoma found mice kept under simulated daylight develop tumors at a slower and diminished rate compared to those under cool white fluorescent light.
There has been a significant increase in many areas from melanoma, something which argues against sunlight being the primary issue as it has not significantly changed in the last few decades. For instance, consider this data from Norway’s cancer registry on malignant melanoma:
Note: in addition to these three cancers, other (much rarer) skin cancers also exist, most of which have not been linked to sunlight exposure.
The Great Dermatology Scam
If you consider the previous section, the following should be fairly clear:
•By far the most common “skin cancer” is not dangerous.
•The “skin cancers” you actually need to worry about are a fairly small portion of the existing skin cancers.
• Sunlight exposure does not cause the most dangerous cancers.
In essence, there’s no way to justify “banning sunlight” to “prevent skin cancer,” as the “benefit” from this prescription is vastly outweighed by its harm. However, a very clever linguistic trick bypasses this contradiction—a single label, “skin cancer,” is used for everything, which then selectively adopts the lethality of melanoma, the frequency of BCC, and the sensitivity to sunlight that BCC and SCC have.
This has always really infuriated me, so I’ve given a lot of thought to why they do this.
Note: a variety of other deceptive linguistic tricks are also utilized by the pharmaceutical company. I am presently working on an article about that was also done with high blood pressure (hypertension).
The Transformation of Dermatology
In the 1980s, dermatology was one of the least desirable specialties in medicine (e.g., dermatologists were often referred to as pimple poppers). Now however, dermatology is one of the most coveted specialties in medicine as dermatologists make 2-4 times as much as a regular doctor, but have a much less stressful lifestyle.
A relatively unknown blog by Dermatologist David J. Elpern, M.D. at last explained what happened:
Over the past 40 years, I have witnessed these changes in my specialty and am dismayed by the reluctance of my colleagues to address them. This trend began in the early 1980s when the Academy of Dermatology (AAD) assessed its members over 2 million dollars to hire a prominent New York advertising agency to raise the public’s appreciation of our specialty. The mad men recommended “educating” the public to the fact that dermatologists are skin cancer experts, not just pimple poppers; and so the free National Skin Cancer Screening Day was established [through a 1985 Presidential proclamation].
These screenings serve to inflate the public’s health anxiety about skin cancer and led to the performance of vast amounts of expensive low-value procedures for skin cancer and actinic keratosis (AKs). At the same time, pathologists were expanding their definitions of what a melanoma is, leading to “diagnostic drift” that misleadingly increased the incidence of melanoma while the mortality has remained at 1980 levels. Concomitantly, non-melanoma skin cancers are being over-treated by armies of micrographic surgeons who often treat innocuous skin cancers with unnecessarily aggressive, lucrative surgeries.
This heightened awareness led to a dramatic increase in skin cancer screenings and diagnoses, fueled by fears instilled in the public about sun exposure. Alongside this massive sales funnel, there was a significant expansion in the incredibly lucrative Mohs micrographic surgery, promoted as a gold standard for treating skin cancers due to its precision and efficacy in sparing healthy tissue. However, critics argue that Mohs surgery is often overused, driven by financial incentives rather than clinical necessity, contributing to immense healthcare costs.
Note: we frequently see patients who developed complications from these surgeries.
The commercialization of dermatology was further amplified by the entry of private equity firms into the field. These firms acquired dermatology practices, sometimes staffing them with non-physician providers to maximize profitability. This trend raised concerns about quality of care, with reports of misdiagnoses and over-treatment, particularly in vulnerable populations like nursing home residents—to the point the New York Times authored a 2017 investigation on this exploitative industry.
Moreover, the shift towards profit-driven models in dermatology has sparked ethical debates within the medical community. Some dermatologists have voiced concerns over the commodification of skin cancer treatments and the erosion of traditional doctor-patient relationships in favor of more transactional interactions. Despite these challenges, dermatology remains a lucrative field, attracting both medical professionals and investors seeking financial gain from skin care services.
Many in turn are victimized by these exploitative practices. The popular comedian Jimmy Dore for example recently covered the Great Dermatology Scam after realizing he’d been subjected to it.
After Jimmy Dore’s segment, this story went viral, and as best as I can tell, was seen by between 5 to 10 million people. A few weeks after Dore’s segment, two surveys were released highlighting an “epidemic” of insufficient sun protection which the New York Times then covered (and numerous readers then sent to me since they thought it was a response to my article). Since it was such a classic medical propaganda piece, I will to quote a few lines from it:
Two new surveys suggest a troubling trend: Young adults seem to be slacking on sun safety.
14 percent of adults under 35 believed the myth that wearing sunscreen every day is more harmful than direct sun exposure
Young adults are often unaware of what sun damage looks like and how best to prevent it
Ultraviolet rays — whether from tanning beds or direct sunlight — can damage skin and cause skin cancer, which can be deadly
Experts said that Gen Z is uniquely susceptible to misinformation about sunscreen and skin cancer that has proliferated on social media platforms like TikTok.
Generously apply — and reapply — sunscreen. UV rays can damage skin even when it’s cloudy or chilly, so experts recommend wearing sunscreen every day.
Note: I must emphasize that some skin cancers (e.g., many melanomas) require immediate removal. My point here is not to avoid dermatologists entirely but to consider seeking a second opinion from another dermatologist as there are many excellent and ethical dermatologists out there.
Changes in Skin Cancer
Given how much is being spent to end skin cancer, one would expect some results. Unfortunately, like many other aspects of the cancer industry that’s not what’s happened. Instead, more and more (previously benign) cancers are diagnosed, but for the most part, no significant change has occurred in the death rate.
The best proof for this came from a study which found that almost all of the increase in “skin cancer” was from stage 1 melanomas (which rarely create problems):
Another study illustrates exactly what the result of our war on skin cancer has accomplished:
Finally, since many suspected the COVID vaccines might lead to an increase in melanoma (or other skin cancers), I compiled all the available annual reports from the American Cancer Society into a few graphs:
Conclusion
Dermatology’s need to create a villain (the sun) to justify its racket is arguably one of the most damaging things the medical profession has done to the world. Fortunately, the insatiable greed of the medical industry went too far during COVID-19, and the public is now starting to question many of the other exploitative and unscientific practices we are subjected to. It is my sincere hope that our society will begin re-examining dermatology’s disastrous war against the sun.
I in turn am incredibly grateful because this new political climate has made it possible to expose a variety of unscrupulous tactics in medicine which have remained largely unchallenged for decades.
Author’s note: This is an abbreviated version of a full-length article about Dermatology’s Disastrous War Again the Sun that also discusses safer ways to treat or prevent skin cancer and the nutritional approaches (e.g., avoiding seed oils) which make it possible for the skin to tolerate and be nourished by longer sun exposures. For the entire read with much more specific details and sources, and those approaches please click here.
(End of AMD’s quoted article. Link to original:
https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/dermatologys-horrendous-war-against.)
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https://ko-fi.com/truth613 https://substack.com/home/post/p-146483737Dermatology's Horrendous War Against The Sun, and the True Origins of the American Medical Association
Untangling Dermatology's Huge Skin Cancer Scam - and deep corruption that enables them to get away with it.
Brucha Weisberger
BS”D
I’m republishing this extremely important article from A Midwestern Doctor, which not only explains how very important sun exposure is in preventing cancer, other illnesses, and death, but also exposes the criminality at the very foundation of the American Medical Association, starting more than 100 years ago and continuing since.
I’d like to note that if we just take a few moments to think deeply about the “sun is dangerous” propaganda we’ve grown up with, we realize that it cannot possibly be true. The sun has been shining on the world since G-d created it, and people have traditionally spent their days outdoors tending to their fields and animals. Sunscreen was not invented, and cancer was not prevalent. Since we’ve started spending more time indoors and applying sunscreen, we’ve only seen an increase in cancer, heart disease, and other modern illnesses.
Aside from the historical impossibility of the medical establishment’s claims, there’s also logic - observation of the universe shows that G-d always sets things up to work as a perfect, beneficial system, with everything that’s needed for survival provided. There’s no conceivable way that He made the sun to be harmful for us, requiring modern chemical sunscreens to combat it.
By A MIDWESTERN DOCTOR
Story At a Glance:
•Sunlight is crucial for health, and avoiding it doubles mortality rates and cancer risk.
•Skin cancers are the most common cancers in the U.S., leading to widespread “advice” to avoid the sun. However, the deadliest skin cancers are linked to a lack of sunlight.
•The dermatology field, aided by a top marketing firm, rebranded themselves as skin cancer (and sunlight) fighters, becoming one of the highest-paid medical specialties.
•Despite billions spent annually, skin cancer deaths haven't significantly changed. Likewise, the Dermatology profession has buried a variety of effective and affordable skin cancer treatments.
Note: this is an abridged version of a longer article. (BW: Click for expanded version. I have included a few pieces of AMD’s longer article which I felt were extremely significant.)
I always found it odd that everyone insisted I avoid sunlight and wear sunscreen during outdoor activities, as I noticed that sunlight felt great and caused my veins to dilate, indicating the body deeply craved sunlight. Later, I learned that blocking natural light with glass (e.g., with windows or eyeglasses) significantly affected health, and that many had benefitted from utilizing specialized glass that allowed the full light spectrum through. This ties into one of my favorite therapeutic modalities, ultraviolet blood irradiation, which produces a wide range of truly remarkable benefits by putting the sun’s ultraviolet light inside the body.
Once in medical school, aware of sunlight's benefits, I was struck by dermatologists' extreme aversion to it. Patients were constantly warned to avoid sunlight, and in northern latitudes, where people suffer from seasonal affective disorder, dermatologists even required students to wear sunscreen and cover most of their bodies indoors. At this point my perspective changed to “This crusade against the sun is definitely coming from the dermatologists” and “What on earth is wrong with these people?” A few years ago I learned the final piece of the puzzle through Robert Yoho MD and his book Butchered by Healthcare.
Note: This comment I received perfectly illustrates the dysfunctional status quo.
The Monopolization of Medicine
Throughout my life, I’ve noticed the medical industry will:
•Promote healthy activities people are unlikely to do (e.g., exercising or quitting smoking).
•Promote unhealthy activities industries make money from (e.g., eating processed foods or taking a myriad of harmful pharmaceuticals).
•Attack beneficial activities that are easy to do (e.g., sunbathing or consuming egg yolks, butter and raw dairy).
As best as I can gather, much of this is rooted in the scandalous history of the American Medical Association, when in 1899, George H. Simmons, MD took possession of the floundering organization (MDs were going out of business because their treatments were barbaric and didn’t work). He, in turn, started a program to give the AMA seal of approval in return for the manufacturers disclosing their ingredients and agreeing to advertise in a lot of AMA publications (they were not however required to prove their product was safe or effective). This maneuver was successful, and in just ten years, increased their advertising revenues 5-fold, and their physician membership 9-fold.
At the same time this happened, the AMA moved to monopolize the medical industry by doing things such as establishing a general medical education council (which essentially said their method of practicing medicine was the only credible way to practice medicine), which allowed them to then become the national accrediting body for medical schools. This in turn allowed them to end the teaching of many of the competing models of medicine such as homeopathy, chiropractic, naturopathy, and to a lesser extent, osteopathy—as states would often not give licenses to graduates of schools with a poor AMA rating.
BW: Here’s just one paragraph from the article AMD linked above, describing how the Rockefeller cartel took over the medical system. Remember, the Flexner report was funded by The Carnegie Foundation and John D. Rockefeller; Flexner’s brother was the first medical director of the Rockefeller Medical Foundation.
In 1910, the same year that the Flexner report was published, the AMA published "Essentials of an Acceptable Medical College" (Report of the Council, 1910), which echoed similar criteria for medical education and a disdain for non-conventional medical study. In fact, the AMA's head of the Council on Medical Education traveled with Abraham Flexner as they evaluated medical schools. The medical sociologist Paul Starr wrote in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book: "The AMA Council became a national accrediting agency for medical schools, as an increasing number of states adopted its judgments of unacceptable institutions." Further, he noted: "Even though no legislative body ever set up ... the AMA Council on Medical Education, their decisions came to have the force of law" (Starr, 1982, 121).(3)
BW: More fascinating detail on the Rockefeller takeover, from another site:
… the Flexner Report … made the case that old, traditional medicine is bad, and new pharmacologic medicine is good. Rockefeller, as owner of 90% of the American petrol industry at the time, personally stood to gain as petrochemicals were emerging as a profitable sector. Today, they are used extensively in producing active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), solvents, excipients, and packaging materials. The petrochemical industry as it relates to pharmaceuticals alone is valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars today. The pharmaceutical industry, as we know it, stemmed from the initial investment by the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations into medical universities following the Flexner Report’s recommendations.
See: https://covid19criticalcare.com/the-flexner-report-and-the-rise-of-big-pharma/
Likewise, Simmons (along with his successor, Fishbein, who reigned from 1924 to 1950) established a "Propaganda Department" in 1913 to attack all unconventional medical treatments and anyone (MD or not) who practiced them. Fishbein was very good at what he did and could often organize massive media campaigns against anything he elected to deem “quackery” that were heard by millions of Americans (at a time when the country was much smaller).
After Simmons and Fishbein created this monopoly, they were quick to leverage it. This included blackmailing pharmaceutical companies to advertise with them, demanding the rights for a variety of healing treatments to be sold to the AMA, and sending the FDA or FTC after anyone who refused to sell out (which in at least in one case was proved in court since one of Fishbein’s “compatriots” thought what he was doing was wrong and testified against him). Because of this, many remarkable medical innovations were successfully erased from history (part of my life’s work and much of what I use in practice are essentially the therapies Simmons and Fishbein largely succeeded in wiping off the Earth).
Note: to illustrate that this is not just ancient history, consider how viciously and ludicrously the AMA attacked the use of ivermectin to treat COVID (as it was the biggest competitor to the COVID cartel). Likewise, one of the paradigm changing moments for Pierre Kory (which he discusses with Russel Brand here) was that after he testified to the Senate about ivermectin, he was put into a state of shock by the onslaught of media and medical journal campaigns from every direction trying to tank ivermectin and destroy his and his colleagues’ reputations (e.g., they got fired and had their papers which had already passed peer-review retracted). Two weeks into it, he got an email from Professor William B Grant (a vitamin D expert) that said “Dear Dr. Kory, what they're doing to ivermectin they've been doing to vitamin D for decades” and included a 2017 paper detailing the exact playbook industry uses again and again to bury inconvenient science.
Before long, Big Tobacco became the AMA’s biggest client, which led to countless ads like this one being published by the AMA which persisted until Fishbein was forced out (at which point he became a highly paid lobbyist for the tobacco industry):
Note: because of how nasty they were, they often got people to dig into their past, at which point it was discovered how unscrupulous and sociopathic both Simmons and Fishbein were. Unfortunately, while I know from first-hand experience this was the case (e.g., a friend of mine knew Fishbein’s secretary and she stated that Fishbein was a truly horrible person she regularly saw carry out despicable actions and I likewise knew people who knew the revolutionary healers Fishbein targeted), I was never able to confirm many of the abhorrent allegations against Simmons because the book they all cite as a reference did not provide its sources, while the other books which provide different but congruent allegations are poorly sourced.
The Benefits of Sunlight
One of the oldest “proven” therapies in medicine was having people bathe in sunlight (e.g., it was one of the few things that actually had success in treating the 1918 influenza, prior to antibiotics it was one of the most effective treatments for treating tuberculosis and it was also widely used for a variety of other diseases). In turn, since it is safe, effective, and freely available, it stands to reason that unscrupulous individuals who wanted to monopolize the practice of medicine would want to cut off the public’s access to it.
Note: the success of sunbathing was the original inspiration for ultraviolet blood irradiation.
Because of how successful the war against sunlight has been many people are unaware of its benefits. For example:
1. Sunlight is critical for mental health. This is most well appreciated with depression (e.g., seasonal affective disorder) but in reality the effects are far more broad reaching (e.g., unnatural light exposure destroys your circadian rhythm).
Note: I really got this point during my medical internship, where after a long period of night shifts under fluorescent lights, noticed I was becoming clinically depressed (which has never otherwise happened to me and led to a co-resident I was close to offering to prescribe antidepressants). I decided to do an experiment (I do this a lot—e.g., I try to never recommend treatments to patients I haven’t already tried on myself) and stuck with it for a few more days, then went home and bathed under a full spectrum bulb, at which point I almost instantly felt better. I feel my story is particularly important for healthcare workers since many people in the system are forced to spend long periods of their under artificial light and their mental health (e.g., empathy) suffers greatly from it. For example, consider this study of Chinese operating room nurses which found their mental health was significantly worse than the general population and that this decline was correlated to their lack of sunlight exposure.
2. A large epidemiological study found women with higher solar UVB exposure had only half the incidence of breast cancer as those with lower solar exposure and that men with higher residential solar exposure had only half the incidence of fatal prostate cancer.
Note: a 50% reduction in either of these cancers greatly exceeds what any of the approaches we use to treat or prevent them have accomplished.
3. A 20 year prospective study evaluated 29,518 women in Southern Sweden where average women from each age bracket with no significant health issues were randomly selected, essentially making it one of the best possible epidemiologic studies that could be done. It found that women who were sun avoidant compared to those who had regular exposure to sunlight were:
•Overall 60% more likely to die, being roughly 50% more likely to die than the moderate exposure group and roughly 130% more likely to die than the group with high sun exposure.
Note: to be clear, there are very few interventions in medicine that do anything close to this.
•The largest gain was seen in the risk of dying from heart disease, while the second gain was seen in the risk of all causes of death besides heart disease and cancer (“other”), and the third largest gain was seen in deaths from cancer.
Note: the investigators concluded the smaller benefit in reduced cancer deaths was in part an artifact of the subjects living longer and hence succumbing to a type of cancer that would have only affected them later in life.
• The largest benefit was seen in smokers, to the point non-smokers who avoided the sun had the same risk of dying as smokers who got sunlight.
Note: I believe this and the cardiovascular benefits are in large part due to sunlight catalyzing the synthesis of nitric oxide (which is essential for healthy blood vessels) and sulfates (which coat cells like the endothelium and in conjunction with infrared (or sunlight) creates the liquid crystalline water which is essential for the protection and function of the cardiovascular system).
So given all of this, I would say that you need a really good justification to avoid sun exposure.
Skin Cancer
According to the American Academy of Dermatology, skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, with current estimates suggesting that one in five Americans will develop skin cancer in their lifetime. Approximately 9,500 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with skin cancer every day.
The Academy emphasizes that UV exposure is the most preventable risk factor for skin cancer, advising people to avoid indoor tanning beds and protect their skin outdoors by seeking shade, wearing protective clothing, and applying broad-spectrum sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher.
The Skin Cancer Foundation states that more than two people die of skin cancer in the U.S. every hour, which sounds alarming. Let's break down what all this means.
Basal Cell Carcinoma
Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common skin cancer, making up 80% of cases, with about 2.64 million Americans diagnosed annually. Risk factors include excessive sun exposure, fair skin, and family history. BCC primarily occurs in sun-exposed areas like the face.
BCC rarely metastasizes and has a near 0% fatality rate, but it frequently recurs (65%-95%) after removal. The standard excision approach often doesn't address underlying causes, leading to repeated surgeries and potential disfigurement.
While BCCs can grow large if left untreated, they aren't immediately dangerous. Treatment is necessary but not urgent. Alternative therapies can effectively treat large BCCs without disfiguring surgery.
Note: since the COVID-19 vaccines came out, I have heard of a few cases of BCC metastasizing in the vaccinated, but it is still extraordinarily rare.
Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the second most common skin cancer, with an estimated 1.8 million cases in the U.S. Its incidence varies widely due to sunlight exposure, ranging from 260 to 4,970 cases per million person-years. Previously thought to be four times less common than BCC, SCC is now only half as common.
Unlike BCC, SCC can metastasize, making it potentially dangerous. If removed before metastasis, the survival rate is 99%; after metastasis, it drops to 56%. Typically caught early, SCC has an average survival rate of 95%. Around 2,000 people die from SCC each year in the U.S.
Note: unlike more lethal skin cancers, it is not required to report BCC or SCC. Consequently, there is no centralized database tracking their occurrence, so the official figures are largely estimates.
Melanoma
Melanoma occurs at a rate of 218 cases per million persons annually in the United States, with survival rates ranging from 99% to 35% depending on its stage when diagnosed, averaging out to 94%. However, despite only comprising 1% of all skin cancer diagnoses, Melanoma is responsible for most skin cancer deaths. In total, this works out to a bit over 8000 deaths each year in the United States. Since survival is greatly improved by early detection, many guides online exist to help recognize the common signs of a potential melanoma.
What’s critically important to understand about melanoma is that while it’s widely considered to be linked to sunlight exposure—it’s not. For example:
Patients with solar elastosis, a sign of sun exposure, were 60% less likely to die from melanoma.
Melanoma predominantly occurs in areas of the body with minimal sunlight exposure, unlike SCC and BCC, which are linked to sun-exposed regions.
Outdoor workers, despite significantly higher UV exposure, have lower rates of melanoma compared to indoor workers.
Many sunscreens contain toxic carcinogens (to the point Hawaii banned them to protect coral reefs). Conversely, existing research indicates widespread sunscreen use has not reduced skin cancer rates.
•A mouse study designed to study malignant melanoma found mice kept under simulated daylight develop tumors at a slower and diminished rate compared to those under cool white fluorescent light.
There has been a significant increase in many areas from melanoma, something which argues against sunlight being the primary issue as it has not significantly changed in the last few decades. For instance, consider this data from Norway’s cancer registry on malignant melanoma:
Note: in addition to these three cancers, other (much rarer) skin cancers also exist, most of which have not been linked to sunlight exposure.
The Great Dermatology Scam
If you consider the previous section, the following should be fairly clear:
•By far the most common “skin cancer” is not dangerous.
•The “skin cancers” you actually need to worry about are a fairly small portion of the existing skin cancers.
• Sunlight exposure does not cause the most dangerous cancers.
In essence, there’s no way to justify “banning sunlight” to “prevent skin cancer,” as the “benefit” from this prescription is vastly outweighed by its harm. However, a very clever linguistic trick bypasses this contradiction—a single label, “skin cancer,” is used for everything, which then selectively adopts the lethality of melanoma, the frequency of BCC, and the sensitivity to sunlight that BCC and SCC have.
This has always really infuriated me, so I’ve given a lot of thought to why they do this.
Note: a variety of other deceptive linguistic tricks are also utilized by the pharmaceutical company. I am presently working on an article about that was also done with high blood pressure (hypertension).
The Transformation of Dermatology
In the 1980s, dermatology was one of the least desirable specialties in medicine (e.g., dermatologists were often referred to as pimple poppers). Now however, dermatology is one of the most coveted specialties in medicine as dermatologists make 2-4 times as much as a regular doctor, but have a much less stressful lifestyle.
A relatively unknown blog by Dermatologist David J. Elpern, M.D. at last explained what happened:
Over the past 40 years, I have witnessed these changes in my specialty and am dismayed by the reluctance of my colleagues to address them. This trend began in the early 1980s when the Academy of Dermatology (AAD) assessed its members over 2 million dollars to hire a prominent New York advertising agency to raise the public’s appreciation of our specialty. The mad men recommended “educating” the public to the fact that dermatologists are skin cancer experts, not just pimple poppers; and so the free National Skin Cancer Screening Day was established [through a 1985 Presidential proclamation].
These screenings serve to inflate the public’s health anxiety about skin cancer and led to the performance of vast amounts of expensive low-value procedures for skin cancer and actinic keratosis (AKs). At the same time, pathologists were expanding their definitions of what a melanoma is, leading to “diagnostic drift” that misleadingly increased the incidence of melanoma while the mortality has remained at 1980 levels. Concomitantly, non-melanoma skin cancers are being over-treated by armies of micrographic surgeons who often treat innocuous skin cancers with unnecessarily aggressive, lucrative surgeries.
This heightened awareness led to a dramatic increase in skin cancer screenings and diagnoses, fueled by fears instilled in the public about sun exposure. Alongside this massive sales funnel, there was a significant expansion in the incredibly lucrative Mohs micrographic surgery, promoted as a gold standard for treating skin cancers due to its precision and efficacy in sparing healthy tissue. However, critics argue that Mohs surgery is often overused, driven by financial incentives rather than clinical necessity, contributing to immense healthcare costs.
Note: we frequently see patients who developed complications from these surgeries.
The commercialization of dermatology was further amplified by the entry of private equity firms into the field. These firms acquired dermatology practices, sometimes staffing them with non-physician providers to maximize profitability. This trend raised concerns about quality of care, with reports of misdiagnoses and over-treatment, particularly in vulnerable populations like nursing home residents—to the point the New York Times authored a 2017 investigation on this exploitative industry.
Moreover, the shift towards profit-driven models in dermatology has sparked ethical debates within the medical community. Some dermatologists have voiced concerns over the commodification of skin cancer treatments and the erosion of traditional doctor-patient relationships in favor of more transactional interactions. Despite these challenges, dermatology remains a lucrative field, attracting both medical professionals and investors seeking financial gain from skin care services.
Many in turn are victimized by these exploitative practices. The popular comedian Jimmy Dore for example recently covered the Great Dermatology Scam after realizing he’d been subjected to it.
After Jimmy Dore’s segment, this story went viral, and as best as I can tell, was seen by between 5 to 10 million people. A few weeks after Dore’s segment, two surveys were released highlighting an “epidemic” of insufficient sun protection which the New York Times then covered (and numerous readers then sent to me since they thought it was a response to my article). Since it was such a classic medical propaganda piece, I will to quote a few lines from it:
Two new surveys suggest a troubling trend: Young adults seem to be slacking on sun safety.
14 percent of adults under 35 believed the myth that wearing sunscreen every day is more harmful than direct sun exposure
Young adults are often unaware of what sun damage looks like and how best to prevent it
Ultraviolet rays — whether from tanning beds or direct sunlight — can damage skin and cause skin cancer, which can be deadly
Experts said that Gen Z is uniquely susceptible to misinformation about sunscreen and skin cancer that has proliferated on social media platforms like TikTok.
Generously apply — and reapply — sunscreen. UV rays can damage skin even when it’s cloudy or chilly, so experts recommend wearing sunscreen every day.
Note: I must emphasize that some skin cancers (e.g., many melanomas) require immediate removal. My point here is not to avoid dermatologists entirely but to consider seeking a second opinion from another dermatologist as there are many excellent and ethical dermatologists out there.
Changes in Skin Cancer
Given how much is being spent to end skin cancer, one would expect some results. Unfortunately, like many other aspects of the cancer industry that’s not what’s happened. Instead, more and more (previously benign) cancers are diagnosed, but for the most part, no significant change has occurred in the death rate.
The best proof for this came from a study which found that almost all of the increase in “skin cancer” was from stage 1 melanomas (which rarely create problems):
Another study illustrates exactly what the result of our war on skin cancer has accomplished:
Finally, since many suspected the COVID vaccines might lead to an increase in melanoma (or other skin cancers), I compiled all the available annual reports from the American Cancer Society into a few graphs:
Conclusion
Dermatology’s need to create a villain (the sun) to justify its racket is arguably one of the most damaging things the medical profession has done to the world. Fortunately, the insatiable greed of the medical industry went too far during COVID-19, and the public is now starting to question many of the other exploitative and unscientific practices we are subjected to. It is my sincere hope that our society will begin re-examining dermatology’s disastrous war against the sun.
I in turn am incredibly grateful because this new political climate has made it possible to expose a variety of unscrupulous tactics in medicine which have remained largely unchallenged for decades.
Author’s note: This is an abbreviated version of a full-length article about Dermatology’s Disastrous War Again the Sun that also discusses safer ways to treat or prevent skin cancer and the nutritional approaches (e.g., avoiding seed oils) which make it possible for the skin to tolerate and be nourished by longer sun exposures. For the entire read with much more specific details and sources, and those approaches please click here.
(End of AMD’s quoted article. Link to original: https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/dermatologys-horrendous-war-against.)
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