The Vatican Favors Increasing Drug Harms

Continually blocking change via the U.N.

The 'holy See' opposes 'harm reduction' under
the idea that certain drugs should be made more harmful

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allan-clear/live-from-the-53rd-annual_b_491747.html

Live From the 53rd Annual UN Drug Policy Meeting: Ready for the 21st Century?

Allan Clear

On the harm reduction/drug policy circuit party trek, it's time for the annual United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drug (CND) meeting in Vienna. This "select government only" gathering is fast becoming a party favorite for harm reduction and drug policy reform advocates. For those of you unfamiliar with the joys of the CND, it's the principal governing/policy-making body within the UN system on drug control issues.

Last year's CND meeting, as you may recall from my posts at the time and plentiful major news coverage was a monumental to-do. Its purpose was to evaluate the goals and policies it set in 1998 -- which boiled down to the slogan "A Drug Free World: We Can Do It!" and the criminalizing approach known as the War on Drugs -- and make recommendations for the next decade.

And how did it go, this review of the progress towards a drug free world foretold in 1998 to occur in 2008? (Basing this belief on interpretations of the writings of Nostradamus seemed a reasonable enough guide in 1998.) Did it acknowledge that the War on Drugs had been a costly, ineffective war on women, families, people of color, and the poor? A prison-filling proposition?

Not on your Nelly!

During CND 2009 that failed 1998 goal of a drug-free world was never so much as mentioned let alone analyzed or redressed. Instead, without a hint of embarrassment, the meeting contented itself with lauding the "considerable"
progress made in the battle of against drug abuse while acknowledging that there
is "a long way to go."

The result? CND 2009 ended in chaos as 26 countries, mostly European but not only, broke the traditional consensus and publically distanced themselves from the final Political Declaration document.

This final dramatic rift was the culmination of a year of wrangling over the inclusion of the words "harm" and "reduction" in consecutive order in the Political Declaration. Harm reduction represents a public health-oriented approach to drug use and is an addition to the arsenal of incarceration, crop eradication, and drug treatment. It works on an individual level by providing resources to drug users so that they can remain alive (overdose prevention, safe injection facilities) and disease-free (needle exchange). It recognizes that drug users have human rights and are entitled to a voice in development of policies and programs as they relate to their lives and liberty. It also seeks to redress the harm caused by current drug policy approaches.

All of which makes perfect sense -- unless you're the CND.

This is what a group of (mostly European but not only) countries found out when they attempted to move the CND out of the 16th century and into the 21st by challenging the traditional hegemony enjoyed by the US and other countries invested in the status quo, aka the War on Drugs. These more progressive harm reduction and public health-oriented countries stood their ground for as long as they could, pressing for a more balanced approach to global drug problems.

But it all came to a head when the Papal See (aka the Vatican, that bastion of clearly envisioned and enlightened heterosexist patriarchy), proclaimed harm reduction as an ungodly philosophy and rescued the world from progressing to a new century. Once the Pope came out, so to speak, the unity of the European bloc quickly cracked.

Which is not to ignore the US' giant leap forward at last year's CND. Thirty years into the HIV epidemic, the US did take the step of announcing at every opportunity that it recognizes the validity of syringe exchange as an effective intervention for interrupting the spread of the virus. But it stopped there, finding the term "harm reduction" too vague and ill defined for its taste.

This year's CND is destined to be less controversial than last. In fact, I'm willing to bet that the quiet insanity of earlier meetings is probably gone forever. Reform advocates now have the meeting marked on their calendars; they bring an intelligence and thoughtfulness to Vienna that had been lacking previously. Human rights are firmly on their agenda alongside a place and a voice for drug users themselves. And harm reduction as an issue won't go away.

Like it or not, a number of the issues that were raised last year will appear in various resolutions to be presented this year.

For example, a resolution on access to opiate based pain medication will make an appearance. Too many people live with unnecessary and treatable pain due to lack of access to opiate based medications. This US sponsored resolution will, if adopted, pave the way for countries to ease up on their restrictions on access to pain
medications.

And then there's the universal access to HIV care resolution in support of this year's International AIDS Conference (to be held in Vienna, home of the CND). It includes the words "harm reduction" and explicitly recognizes the role of drug users as integral to any informed response to the HIV epidemic. The drafters of the resolution have defined harm reduction in line with a World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) Technical Guide to which the US has already agreed. So what's the US going to do this time around? Endorse the resolution, stand on the sidelines, oppose it, or try to water it down further?

Anything less than full support would be a reflection as to how little progress has been made since President Obama's inauguration. It also suggests, should the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator continue facing different directions, that there is not a consistent vision of an integrated HIV/drug policy within the US.

It may be an overstatement to declare that this will be an interesting week. Still, it very well might be one. Stay tuned.

About U.N. General Assembly President: 'Father' D'Escoto Brockmann

Read more ►

IBOGAINE CONFERENCE 2010

via Cures Not Wars, 9 Bleeker Street, Manhattan, N.Y.

See Ibogaine Conference Live Stream Video

Read more ►

Howard Lotsof Dies

Pioneered the use of Ibogaine to treat heroin addiction, ultimately discovering its efficacy with treating that to alcohol, concentrated stimulants and even cigarettes, showing the governments' and their drug war really don't care about addiction, but rather a sustaining a criminal pharmaceutical-cigarette rackett.

His wiki article:

Howard Lotsof (March 1, 1943- 2010), discovered the anti-addictive effects of ibogaine in 1962.

He was awarded a number of patents for the treatment of various chemical dependencies with ibogaine. The first of Lotsof's patents, issued in 1985, was US Patent 4,499,096, Rapid Method for Interrupting the Narcotic Addiction Syndrome. The last patent in the series for the use of ibogaine to treat chemical dependence was US Patent 5,152,994, Rapid Method for Interrupting or Attenuating Poly-Drug Dependency Syndromes, awarded October 6, 1992.

Lotsof was active in promoting medical usage and further research of ibogaine and had an interest in chemical dependence patient advocacy including authoring theIbogaine Patients' Bill of Rights. Lotsof was a member of the Board of Directors of the National Alliance of Methadone Advocates and President of the Dora Weiner Foundation.

In March, 2009, Lotsof was honored for his discovery of ibogaine's antiaddictive effects during the Sayulita, Mexico ibogaine Provider and Facilitator conference. Fifty experts from around the world joined to present on ibogaine and associated subjects.

Lotsof was born in the Bronx, New York to Abnor and Lillian Lotsof. He married Norma Alexander, the daughter of Robert and Marie Alexander in 1964, in Oakland, California.

According to a notice at Myeboga, Howard passed away in a Staten Island University Hospital at 6 PM, January 31, 2010, with his wide Norma by his side.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHMHVzcxwVw




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au80xv7sjMw




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q9y3eLCIgQ

Read more ►

Obama- More of the Same

Michele M. Leonhart continues the policies of
cigarette-pharamaceutical market protection under the delusion that she somehow serves the public...

From Drug War Rant:

I’d heard it was coming, but that doesn’t make it any better. President Obama officially announced his intent to nominate Michele M. Leonhart, Administrator of Drug Enforcement, Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Justice.

We had talked about how maybe, just maybe, the DEA might change a little bit after they got the hold-outs from the last administration out of there. Now he’s making her permanent. To recap, here’s the story I wrote about her years ago. The only silver lining is that the rank and file DEA agents can’t stand her.

Read more ►

Criminal Maine- Abrogates 8th Amendment

Via Sam Smith:
Crack Dealing + 30 Years; Murder only 20

ALLEGED TEEN AGED DRUGGIE FACES
MORE TIME THAN MURDERER

Here's a good example of the madness of the war on drugs. A teen aged-alleged druggie faces up to 30 years in jail for using a drug of approximately the same danger to an individual as alcohol. Cocaine use has a far lower death rate than either tobacco or alchohol.In the same week and the same state, however, a man got 20 years for the strangulation of a woman, which suggests that Maine considers the use of cocaine 50% more repugnant than murdering someone.

Times Record - A Freeport woman was arrested in Westbrook on Sunday afternoon and charge with aggravated trafficking of scheduled drugs, a Class A felony that carries a potential sentence of 30 years in jail.Abigail Autumn Shipley-Rega, 18, of 6 Stagecoach Road in Freeport, was arrested with 18-year-old Christopher Grover of 93 Woodford St., Portland, during a traffic stop just before 3:30 p.m., according to a release from Westbrook Police Sgt. Thomas Roche.Police searched the vehicle, which Grover was driving, per order of his bail conditions from two prior arrests. (no mention in article as to the stop's 'pretext')

During the search, officers allegedly discovered 63 grams of crack cocaine
with a street value of $6,300."

(Ah! The iron law of prohibition!)

Also found in the vehicle and on the occupants was $1,220 in cash and various drug paraphernalia items associated with the sale of drugs," the release states.Grover was charged with aggravated trafficking of scheduled drugs, possession of drugs and violation of bail conditions. . . 63 grams would keep a typical coke addict going for about two weeks. There are 298 million grams of cocaine consumed in the U.S. each year.

WGME - 62-year-old Roger Bernier of New Hampshire was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison for the 1986 strangulation of Mary Kelley in Portland. Bernier pleaded guilty to manslaughter in October in the death of Kelley, whose body was found in the bathtub of her downtown Portland apartment.

Wikipedia - By the turn of the twentieth century, the addictive properties of cocaine had become clear, and the problem of cocaine abuse began to capture public attention in the United States.

(of concentrated cocaine, which the stupid 'prohibition' favored by going after the reletively bulky safe coca preperations as Vin Mariani owing substantially to USDA goals of protecting domestic agrilcultural commodities as Virginia Bright Leaf, which coca preperations were
being sold as an alternative)

The dangers of cocaine abuse became part of a moral (sic- there was nothing 'moral' about the drug war) panic that was tied to the dominant racial and social anxieties of the day. In 1903, the American Journal of Pharmacy stressed that most cocaine abusers were "bohemians, gamblers, high- and low-class prostitutes, night
porters, bell boys, burglars, racketeers, pimps, and casual laborers."

In 1914, Dr. Christopher Koch of Pennsylvania's State Pharmacy Board made the racial innuendo explicit, testifying that, "Most of the attacks upon the white women of the South are the direct result of a cocaine-crazed Negro brain."

Mass media manufactured an epidemic of cocaine use among African Americans in the Southern United States to play upon racial prejudices of the era, though there is little evidence that such an epidemic actually took place.

In the same year, the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act outlawed the sale and distribution of cocaine in the United States. This law incorrectly referred to cocaine as a narcotic, and the misclassification passed into popular culture. Cocaine is a stimulant, not a narcotic. . . Cocaine was not considered a controlled substance until 1970, when the United States listed it as such in the Controlled Substances Act. Until that point, the use of cocaine was open and rarely prosecuted in the US . . .

In many countries, cocaine is a popular recreational drug. . . . Cocaine use is prevalent across all socioeconomic strata, including age, demographics, economic, social, political, religious, and livelihood. The estimated U.S. cocaine market exceeded $70 billion in street value for the year 2005, exceeding revenues by corporations such as Starbucks. . .

In 1995 the World Health Organization and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute announced in a press release the publication of the results of the largest global study on cocaine use ever undertaken. However, a decision in the World Health Assembly banned the publication of the study. In the sixth meeting of the B committee the US representative threatened that "If WHO activities relating to drugs failed to reinforce proven drug control approaches, funds for the relevant programs should be curtailed". . . .

Labels: CIVIL LIBERTIES, DRUGS1/07/2010 Comments

Read more ►

Prohibition: It's NOT About Harmfulness of Substances

You can’t handle the truth

A respected scientist set out to determine which drugs are actually the most dangerous -- and discovered that the answers are, well, awkward

(Mario Tama/Getty Images)

By Mark Pothier December 13, 2009

In the long and tortured debate over drug policy, one of the strangest episodes has been playing out this fall in the United Kingdom, where the country’s top drug adviser was recently fired for publicly criticizing his own government’s drug laws.

	Discuss
	COMMENTS (102)

The adviser, Dr. David Nutt, said in a lecture that alcohol is more hazardous than many outlawed substances, and that the United Kingdom might be making a mistake in throwing marijuana smokers in jail. His comments were published in a press release in October, and the next day he was dismissed. The buzz over his sacking has yet to subside: Nutt has become the talk of pubs and Parliament, as well as the subject of tabloid headlines like: “Drug advisor on wacky baccy?”

But behind Nutt’s words lay something perhaps more surprising, and harder to grapple with. His comments weren’t the idle musings of a reality-insulated professor in a policy job. They were based on a list - a scientifically compiled ranking of drugs, assembled by specialists in chemistry, health, and enforcement, published in a prestigious medical journal two years earlier.

The list, printed as a chart with the unassuming title “Mean Harm Scores for 20 Substances,” ranked a set of common drugs, both legal and illegal, in order of their harmfulness - how addictive they were, how physically damaging, and how much they threatened society. Many drug specialists now consider it one of the most objective sources available on the actual harmfulness of different substances.

That ranking showed, with numbers, what Nutt was fired for saying out loud: Overall, alcohol is far worse than many illegal drugs. So is tobacco. Smoking pot is less harmful than drinking, and LSD is less damaging yet.

Nutt says he didn’t see himself as promoting drug use or trying to subvert the government. He was pressing the point that a government policy, especially a health-related one like a drug law, should be grounded in factual information. In doing so, he found himself caught in a crossfire that cost him the advisory post he had held for a decade.

The same issue is becoming a hot one in America - this fall the Obama administration took a baby step toward easing federal scrutiny of medical marijuana use, and a policy report due early next year is expected to emphasize addiction prevention and treatment over criminal enforcement. Opponents are already attacking the administration for its laxity, but Thomas McLellan, a newly installed White House drug official, has begun loudly pushing for policy that incorporates more science.

“We must increase the use of evidence-based tools at our disposal,” McLellan said in an interview last week.

But as Nutt’s case illustrates, that is tough to do. The more data we accumulate about drug harmfulness, the more it seems like the classification systems used by the United States, the United Kingdom, and other governments need to be dismantled - and the more it becomes clear that societies can’t, or won’t, take that step. Drug laws are rooted in history and politics as much as science. Our own culture embraces one intoxicant - alcohol - that Nutt’s ranking deemed far more dangerous than 15 other harmful substances. And even if it were possible to divorce drug politics from drug-use facts, some policy specialists say, letting science call the shots would be a bad idea.

Intoxication has been part of human culture since before recorded history. So have its consequences. A drug can cause all sorts of harms, some devastating, some minor: It can ravage the body of an addict, or simply make a user late for a meeting with the boss. Drugs can impoverish families, trigger deadly violence, cause cancer. In modern society, drugs drive crime and increase health costs for everyone.

To Nutt, a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at London’s Imperial College who chaired the government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, it made sense that laws and policies should take into account the harmfulness of the drugs themselves. But when he considered ways to improve the system, he discovered a problem.

“It became clear that [the government] didn’t have any systematic, transparent way of assessing drugs at all,” he said. “If you say drug laws are based on reducing harm, you have to actually know what kind of harm they cause.”

So about a decade ago, he and some colleagues set about to gauge the dangers of 20 substances as objectively as possible. This would not be a measurement with calipers and a scale - drug risks are inevitably subjective, depending on factors like an individual user’s tolerance, the amount used, and the duration of use. But Nutt also knew he could create better data than anything the government was currently employing.

He and his colleagues assembled a range of independent experts and asked them to score each drug in three categories - its physical effects on the user, the likelihood of addiction, and its impact on society. The group included addiction specialists registered with the Royal College of Psychiatrists, as well as people with expertise in chemistry, forensic science, and police work.

They gave the specialists a detailed list of parameters to consider. In assessing the addictiveness of, say, cocaine, they would separately rate its pleasure, psychological dependence, and physical dependence, and the ratings would be combined to create an overall risk factor. After a series of meetings and discussions, the rankings were determined by averaging scores across all the categories. The result was a paper published in the public-health journal The Lancet in March 2007.

Number one on the experts’ list was an easy call: heroin. It’s extremely addictive and, by any measure, destructive to the user and the society around him. Cocaine came in second, followed by barbiturates and street methadone.

Then the list got interesting. Alcohol, which has always been legal in England and was only briefly outlawed in the United States, took the fifth position, above tobacco (9), marijuana (11), LSD (14), and ecstasy (18). The least harmful drug in all respects was khat, a stimulant derived from the leaves of an African shrub.

Included in the Lancet paper was the authors’ recommendation that the government should reclassify drugs to reflect the harms they cause. “We saw no clear distinction between socially acceptable and illicit substances,” they wrote, suggesting “a more rational debate” on drug policy, based on “scientific evidence.”

The ranking - nicknamed the “drug league table,” after the British term for sports standings - lay quietly, more or less ignored by the public and politicians, until King’s College issued a press release in October based on a lecture Nutt had given in July. Nutt thought he was making much the same point he made in the medical journal two years earlier: If we looked at harm objectively, we would engineer a drastically different set of drug policies than the ones we now use.

He was swiftly booted from his government position. Home Secretary Alan Johnson said Nutt had crossed a line. He “cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy,” Johnson told The Guardian newspaper.

“It was a funny, kind of petulant reaction,” Nutt told the Globe, “all about machismo and politics. We’re harder on drugs than you, we’re tougher.”

Suddenly, Nutt was everywhere - the papers, the BBC, YouTube, a Facebook page started by his backers. Critics accused him of sending England’s youth a mixed message about drug use. Supporters charged the government with stripping the professor of his right to speak freely.

Amid the charges and countercharges, others wondered whether, beneath all the controversy, the government shouldn’t just start paying more attention to that list.

If Nutt’s list is accurate - if we really do know which drugs are really bad and which are relatively benign - the next step is figuring out how to make use of that information.

It might seem obvious that the most harmful drugs should receive the most attention from the government, with beefed-up prevention and treatment programs, and tougher punishments for producers and distributors. And to conserve their limited resources, it might make sense for drug officials to stop worrying about the least harmful substances, even decriminalizing or legalizing them.

But real-world drug policy is not like that. To a certain extent, say analysts, legal drugs are acceptable and illegal ones are dangerous because, well, because they’re already illegal.

“There’s a crazy kind of logic that argues, about some currently illegal drug, ‘Look how dangerous it is! You couldn’t possibly legalize a drug as dangerous as that!’ ” said Mark A.R. Kleiman, a professor of public policy at UCLA. The fact that a drug is against the law makes people overestimate its risks, he said, while legal status causes them to underestimate dangers.

Politicians tend to follow that same line of thinking, leaving socially acceptable legal drugs alone, while making easy prey of would-be liberalizers. In the United States, for instance, it would be politically insane to call for the legalization of the least harmful drugs on Nutt’s list - khat, GHB, and steroids - while campaigning to outlaw tobacco.

One indisputable fact that emerged from Nutt’s study is this: We have assigned a high social value to booze. Alcohol causes many of the harms associated with “harder” drugs - lots of people die or become deeply dysfunctional because of drinking - yet it has been entrenched in society for so long that scientific evidence of its hazards relative to other intoxicants doesn’t get much of a public hearing.

Kleiman and other experts - including Nutt - are not suggesting that either Britain or the United States should ban alcohol. America tried that once, and even during Prohibition, people didn’t stop drinking - they simply built a system of illegal manufacturing and distribution big enough to satisfy their thirst. Instead, Kleiman believes a good strategy on alcohol should include increased taxes to discourage drinking - young people and heavy drinkers are price-sensitive - and an outright ban on sales to people who have been convicted of drunken driving or other alcohol-fueled crimes.

Of course, that would require new laws, and more political wrangling. How many convictions? How long of a ban? If the science is complicated, the politics would be more so. The fight would last more than a few rounds.

Nutt, for one, seems ready to go the distance. “The majority of people in [Britain] are more damaged by alcohol than any other drug,” he said. “Let’s get the scaling of harm right.”

For drugs that are currently illegal, he said, that means having prevention efforts and laws that are proportionate to their dangers. For instance, British law allows up to five years imprisonment for marijuana possession, a penalty Nutt called “infantile and embarrassing.” McLellan, the White House drug adviser, echoed him, saying jailing pot smokers “is idiocy, a really bad use of resources.”

But drug law will never be as simple as making a list, and even experts say it shouldn’t be. At a certain point, scientists should excuse themselves from the discourse, Kleiman said. Intoxicants are part of our culture in ways that a list can’t sort out for us.

“Science gives you facts about the world,” he said, “and you have to assign values to those facts. It doesn’t tell you what’s worth having and what’s not worth having.”

Mark Pothier is the Globe’s senior assistant business editor. He can be reached at mpothier@globe.com.

© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.

Read more ►

Ancient Symbols in Modern Medicine- But Why?

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Ancient Symbols in Modern Medicine: But Why?

Does the ancient symbolism employed by the institutions that control modern medicine reflect the influence of secret societies such as the Freemasons? In order to fully understand the esoteric significance of modern medical symbolism, such as the cross, or Ankh, or the serpents and staff of Moses, or the winged staff of Hermes, it is helpful to begin by understanding that all doctors swear to pagan gods.

The Hippocratic Oath, which is sworn by all doctors, begins with the invocation: "I swear by Apollo the Physician. By Aesculapius, Hygela and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods and goddesses..."[1] Dr Robert Orr showed in 1993 that 100% of American medical schools administer some form of the Hippocratic Oath to graduates.[2]

Dr James Appleyard, Chairman of the World Medical Association's medical ethics committee, supports the modern use of the ancient Hippocratic oath as "the continuation of a statement of fundamental ethical principles that could be affirmed at graduation by doctors worldwide".[3]
.

The World Medical Association's logo[4] features a serpent wrapped around a staff, the symbol of the ancient Greek god Asklepios. Aesculapius, worshipped by the Greeks as the god of healing, who originated in ancient Egypt as Imhotep, high-priest, sage and minister to the pharaoh, Zoser. It is significant that this symbol is reminiscent of the Staff of Moses.[5] The World Health Organisation's logo[6] also contains the ancient religious symbol of the serpent and staff, which is superimposed over the United Nations emblem.

In fact, the medical establishment is steeped in ancient religious symbolism. The British Columbia Medical Association coat of arms[7] includes the Rod of Aesculapius, a golden griffin where the substance represents alchemy, a medieval knight's helmet, and an ancient Egyptian Ankh (Crux Ansata or Handled Cross). The Insider approves of their official motto: "Always seek the truth." Paramedics also use the symbol of staff and serpent in the internationally recognised paramedic symbol[8], also called The Star of Life[9]. The resemblence between this sign and the early Christian symbol of the Pax Christi (Chi-Rho)[10], a cross-like monogram for Christ in ancient Greek, may be significant.

The Wellcome Trust, a major medical charity, employs the winged staff and snakes of Hermes[11] as their official logo, and for no apparent reason there is a huge image of the ancient Egyptian religious symbols of the Udjat eye of Horus and the Winged Disc of Ra, etched into the glass above their entrance opposite Euston train station in the West End of London. The winged sun disc is an ancient symbol for the sun god, Ra. Well known examples of the winged solar disc symbol can be found in ancient Egyptian temples, for instance over the entrance to the Solar Temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak, or or over the Temple doorway in Medinet Habu on the West bank of Luxor.

The Royal Society of Medicine coat of arms[12] features the serpent of Moses on a Tau cross, and flowers which resemble the stylised Lotus frequently depicted in ancient Egyptian art. In this discussion about secret societies and the modern of ancient symbols it is pertinent that The Royal Society - the foremost scientific institution in the U.K., was founded by a prominent Freemason, Sir Robert Moray.[13]

John Robinson explains in his popular book on Freemasonry: "When Freemasonry came public in 1717 ... it appeared that the Royal Society was virtually a Masonic subsidiary, with almost every member and every founding member of the Royal Society a Freemason."[14] An article in the leading Masonic magazine, Freemasonry Today, echoes this and mentions that "many masons were also members of the Royal Society".[15] The Royal Society remains associated with British Freemasonry today.

The Red Cross was first associated with human welfare and medical help during the medieval crusades, when European Knights travelled overseas to help pilgrims and foreigners alike, such as the Knights of St John[16], the Knights Hospitaller, and the Knights Templar[17] which was the first organisation to officially adopt the red cross symbol.

The Knights Templar[18] has been operating in secret for centuries, and traditions and inner mysteries are connected with those of the secret society of Freemasonry[19].

REFERENCES
1. The Hippocratic Oath, from the Junior Doctors Association website.
2. Orr RD, Pang N, Pellegrino, EJ, Siegler M., 1997. Use of the Hippocratic Oath: A review of 20th century practice and a content analysis of oaths administered in medical schools in the U.S. and Canada in 1993. Journal of Clinical Ethics, 8(4):377-388.
3. World Medical Association website, press center, statement of support for the Hippocratic Oath.
4. World Medical Association's official logo.
5. Exodus (2 Moses) 4:2-3, & Numbers (4 Moses) 21:8-9, Christian Bible or Jewish Torah.
6. World Health Organisation, official website.
7. British Columbia Medical Association's coat of arms on their official website.
8. Paramedic symbol from a major paramedics website.
9. History of The Star of Light, North Virginia Emergency Medical Services Council website.
10. Examples of Christian religious symbolism, Gospel Facts website.
11. Irish Emergency Ambulance Service website, see Ambulance History page for information about ancient religious symbols used in modern medicine, such as the Rod of Asclepius and the Caduceus.
12. Royal Society of Medicine coat of arms, featured and explained on their official website.
13. Lecture on The Royal Society, by the author and Freemason Robert Lomas, on his official website.
14. J. J. Robinson, 1990. Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry. New York, USA: M Evans & Co.
15. An article from the official Masonic magazine, Freemasonry today, posted on their website.
16. The History of First Aid, on an official St. John's Ambulance website.
17. Knights Templar History website.
18. An official Knights Templar website.
19.Knights Templar page on the official Indiana Masons website.
.

.

NOTES & FURTHER READING
1. J.S.M. Ward , 1940. Freemasonry and the Ancient Gods. Montana, USA: R A Kessinger Publishing Co.

*** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED *** One of the most revealing publicly available sources about the Craft, since the 1940s this has been the benchmark reference textbook for research into the relationship between Freemasonry and religion.

.

.

Source: http://www.theinsider.org/reports/medical-symbols/

.

.

Read more ►