Pharmaceuticals

Pharmaceutical drugs are a main avenue of exposure to toxic chemicals. Pharmaceuticals are nasty chemicals and they kill a hundred thousand Americans each year even when properly prescribed. One of the worst offenders is a new cholesterol-lowering medication that is associated with 25 percent severe adverse effects yet it is FDA approved. Acetaminophen, which is a potent physical painkiller, reduces empathy for other people’s suffering – blunts physical and social pain by reducing activation in brain areas thought to be related to emotional awareness and motivation.

The list goes on an on! Most pharmaceuticals are mitochondrial poisons, and as we shall see later, mitochondrial dysfunction is one of the main causes of cancer. Many articles about how fluoroquinolones damage mitochondria, which then leads to mitochondrial dysfunction, have been published. In Science Translational Medicine, “Bactericidal Antibiotics Induce Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Oxidative Damage in Mammalian Cells,” it is noted that bactericidal antibiotics, including ciprofloxacin, a fluoroquinolone, “damage mammalian tissues by triggering mitochondrial release of reactive oxygen species (ROS).”