I Annoyed Big Pharma
And Now They’re Playing Dirty
Hacked! When I first wrote about this very popular drug that shuts down part of your dog’s immune system, Apoquel had already been on the market for several months. It was actually scarce, as demand exceeded supply, and people were buying any size they could and either cutting the tablets or adding tablets together to make it fit their individual dog.
And oh! The promise: stopped itching within hours!
It was expensive, prescription-only and, as I shortly came to find out, quite dangerous.
Hence my post, which I titled Apoquel:Dog Miracle Drug with a Dark Side
That article pretty quickly climbed to the top of the search results for people looking to find more information by typing Apoquel into their Google search field. In fact, the only pieces that ranked higher (and therefore showed higher on the first page of results) were the propaganda pieces put out by the makers of Apoquel, the multi-billion dollar Big Pharma corp Zoetis, who had recently gobbled up Pfizer, the drug’s original designer.
That’s When My Website Went Dark
Comments were pouring in to this article, which is still today my most commented on. Other than a handful of “thanks heavens, this stuff works” (some of which were undoubtedly planted by Big Pharma shills), the two main themes of comments were:
- Apoquel started to work then worked less or failed to work after repeated use
- The side effects were worse than the allergic itch and inflamed ears
The commonest side effects appeared to be, unsurprisingly, related to immune system disease:
- Ear “infections” (really not infections, but inflammation, most often allergy related)
- Autoimmune disease (the dog’s own red blood cells and/or platelets were attacked)
- Cancer, most commonly lymphoma (cancer of the immune system!)
While I was happy to be informing more and more people about deadly Apoquel side effects (like malignant cancer), an odd pattern began to emerge in my email inbox. My web hosting company was generating a number of emails saying my site was “temporarily offline,” and these outages were lasting up to 30 minutes each.
I finally convinced my hosting company to dig deeper and they found dirty trick #1: a DDoS attack was ongoing against my site (you can look that up for the tech explanation if you wish).
In plain terms, I’d been hacked.
Within a few days, the hosting company “hardened its defenses” and I was back online full time, after about 2 weeks of intermittent outages, sometimes as many as 20/day.
Dirty Trick #2
My colleague Don Hamilton noticed this one: when searching on Bravecto, the poison pill Big Pharma would love you to feed your dog to kill all manner of fleas and ticks, (FAST! and for 12 weeks with One Dose!) he found my article, Bravecto: Summon Your Courage for This Killer but there was something funny about how it showed up in the search results.
Instead of the usual 2–3 lines of summary you’d expect to see, was this:
Hacked again.
I Never Said THAT!
Well, I knew those weren’t my words, so where did they come from, and why were they chosen to represent what I wrote Bravecto’s own serious side effects?
I searched my article and found the words in a comment (!) from a cornell.edu address (there’s a vet school at Cornell). The thing is, this comment was buried way down under dozens of others! How in the world did the search engine’s blurb grab this guy’s comment?
That’s surely not normal search engine behavior, so the hackers were back on the job.
The Latest Dirty Trick
The most recent Big Pharma trick appeared to be a complete disappearance of my initial post on Apoquel, the one with “Dark Side” in the title.
I discovered this a month back in a routine search (a one word search: Apoquel) in a private window using DuckDuckGo for my search. Why? I didn’t want to see cached results, and I didn’t want Google involved. At all.
I’d seen what they’ve been up to on censoring search results for others who dare to draw a line in the dirt around vaccination and Big Pharma. Sites like GreenMedInfo and Mercola were no longer showing up as they had before. The former has a huge database of free research articles on all things natural.
So, not only was this Apoquel post no longer on page one of SERPs (search engine results pages), I couldn’t find it at all, even when I continued to scroll way out to results pages in the teens.
Hmmmm. Hacked yet again.
That’s when I told my Vital Animal Pack subscribers about my censorship and promised a blog post with more details. And that’s what this is, so I’m glad you’re here. It’s important you understand that the internet is no longer the clean reference resource it once was. And that, when Big Pharma feels threatened, anything goes.
When Profits are at Stake
Why the hacking?
It’s usually a case of “follow the money, honey!” Big Pharma likely doing damage control to staunch the bleeding in its bottom line. Potential customers were being scared off, as more readers commented about the death and damage they experienced after using these drugs.
I was pointing out the significant dangers of these two drugs (Apoquel and later, Bravecto) and there must have been some pressure brought to bear on those revealing posts. The tech used I don’t pretend to know. I just saw its results.
But, I let the cat of the bag in Vital Animal News before I got this blog post written. And so…
Let’s Make This Covert Work Less Visible, Eh?
As I’m writing this, new searches (on just Apoquel, as that’s what most people search on when they want to know more about a drug — its name), I’m back in the SERPs once more.
DuckDuckGo shows my second post on Apoquel side effects appearing on page 3 of the SERPs: Apoquel: When a Short Term Dream Becomes a Long Term Nightmare
That’s heartening, as it links to Part One, the Dog Drug with a Dark Side post. And even that one has appeared again on search. It’s just way down towards the bottom when I get the results, so very few will ever know it exists when they search for Apoquel.
Does Big Pharma read Vital Animal News?
Did they think it might be better not to be too aggressive on the dirty tricks so they don’t get a black eye in their quest to look like the good guys? (They “save” animals from so much suffering, right? Never mind that as the itch subsides, cancer often seems to be right at the doorway, waiting to spring into tumors…)
Want to Help?
I know we’ve got a serious pack of smart people who follow a natural path here. Everyone from the newly begun (often after losing a loved one to “over prevention”) to the seasoned old-timers who dropped out of conventional medicine well over a decade ago and having been feeding raw food, avoiding vaccines, and strengthening their animals’ natural resistance instead of poisoning fleas or heartworms.
You can help spread the word and help another’s pack by letting them know some of these things you already know.
We can turn our backs on the crooks behind the censorship efforts of Google and Facebook and the rest with a very simple act, one you likely know well:
Sharing.
When you share a post like this (or any other that you find of value), the ripples of understanding spread. Lights go on, “a-HA’s” happen, and people change course. They begin to realize they have the power to make wise choices for their animals, independent of Big Pharma and its cronies in conventional vet practice that keep them in business.
That’s a powerful thing! Who knows how many animals will benefit?
Sharing is super easy: there are buttons to click (below every article) to share on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest if you’re on any of those platforms. Click one or more, login to your account, type a few words to introduce the subject and click once more to Post or Tweet or Pin.
If you aren’t using any of these, the other option is to highlight the URL for the article you want to share and simply open an email to friends and paste it inside, with a bit of introduction.
Boom. Done.
Let us know in the comments if you’ve run into censorship and have other ideas about how to get the word out while not bowing to the censors.
Hi Doc, I know this is an older article and so much has been revealed since you wrote this. First, DuckDuckGo is under the evil censorship. There are very few search engines that do not censor, and it seems like whack-a-mole, every time we find a freedom-friendly platform it seems like sooner or later it caves to the dark side. There are a few left. Thanks for all you do. Anyone ever heard of Operation Paperclip or Operation Mockingbird? It’s amazing that Nazi war criminals were brought to the USA after WW2, their war crimes hidden/erased and they were able to head up big companies and agencies including vaccine pharma companies, media, and NASA for goodness sake. The media has been a mouthpiece for you know who/what for decades. Can’t wait until all this implodes and the truth is reveals and understood by many…at least those who survived this unnatural lifestyle of chemicals in everything (GMOs, petfood, hormone disrupters in cleaning products and pesticides, and more). Ugh!! You’re a gem Dr. Falconer.
I ditched DuckDuckGo for StartPage and only recently, decided paying for honest search results was worth it! I now use Kagi and I love it. In case your current search engine has joined the Dark Side, here’s the url: https://kagi.com/
Even tho nobody believes me (it seems everyone I know has a dog on Apoquel), I managed to get my dog off of it when I started doing research. OMG. We didn’t get away unscathed tho, bad ear infection that we are still fighting. Very scary stuff.
It doesn’t matter how many believe you, Hannie, even if 1 in 100 see your dedication and concern and hear your experience with your own dog, change toward real health can spread. Thanks for being part of the revolution!
Dr. Falconer — Besides Google, other sites that are manipulating and censoring natural health information are:
• Web MD
• Medscape
• YouTube
• Medicine Net
• Wikipedia
• Healthline
• Pinterest (yep, even benign Pinterest censors)
The Internet, once such a treasure, is now a place in which to walk carefully. ~~Patti
Hi Patti,
Nothing on this list is a surprise, though I guess Youtube caught me unaware. Makes sense when you look at who owns it though (Google, paying $1.65B in 2006).
Wikipedia is a concern as so many think it’s an authoritative source on all things. They’ve been crazily biased against natural medicine for decades and I hope that knowledge gets spread far and wide. Snopes is in the same boat.
Dr. Falconer ~~Thanks for suggesting adding Snopes to the list. I stopped using them several years ago when they went through big changes, and were no longer a reliable source so had no knowledge of what they’re doing now. As for Wikipedia, even its founder says it’s just a starting point, but it’s not even a starting point for holistic/natural health information. A gazillion people (at least!) depend on Wikipedia as a main source for everything, so Wikipedia has become a very powerful Internet presence and is extremely vulnerable to manipulation. ~~Patti
Thank you for all you are doing. After losing two of my Boxers to Comfortis and Nexgard I have completely changed the way I care for my pets. Natural food and no Vaccs or chemicals. I have a FB group of over 12,000 members who share their stories of illness and death after these toxic flea and tick chemicals. We try and educate about using natural options and not over vaccinating and asking the questions of your vet about side effects from any treatment they offer for your pet. I have been personally threatened by Merck for speaking out against Bravecto and trying to warn others. I have chosen to ignore their threats and continue to try and save the lives of our beloved pets.
Carol, thank you for sharing. What is your FB group’s name?
Click on her name and it should take you to her Facebook group.
This is amazing. Censorship is just rife. I appreciate the information. I have heard from others (Ty Bollinger) and Sayer Ji that they hacked the systems when they don’t like the information, but you really showed how it was done.
I use Startpage. That is a Dutch search engine. Your article:
Apoquel: Dog Drug With a Dark Side, shows up on the second page
Protonmail is a good one and one of your pack members mentioned that. It is free and comes with encryption.
Wow, Karen, Startpage looks to be amazing! When it shows you results of your search, you can opt to visit sites anonymously, so FB, Twitter, etc. don’t start serving you ads for places you’ve been! I’m changing to this! Love it!
I ran into censorship with Google and thought I was crazy also. My Google Business page has a comment from a client that said her tumor disappeared after using Tumorid® and two days later, that comment was gone.
Then I received some news from Ty Bollinger and that’s when I know it’s true, we are up against censorship.
The comment is now on my website and so far so good. No one hacked me yet.
I’m glad you like Startpage. It works well!
Thanks for all the great helpful informational comments and the very informational article.
I have followed Dr Falconer for some years now.
First Retriever – we followed Dr Whitecoat and big pharma and it was disastrous health her whole life.
Second Retriever – we followed Dr Falconer and have a very healthy Retriever with no health issues, no vet bills. We are creative as Dr Falconer and followers have mentioned in avoiding the poisons, switching vets, going to another county, different address, never use our own address, we do a lot of research and find info that we need, or order what we need out of the country, if we can’t find it here, we use nosodes for everything for canines and feline nosodes for the cats.
We feed raw from the local livestock feedstore that has a freezer for NO HPP raw meat with veggies, fruit, and supplements, raw organs, raw tripe for pets, buy organic raw EGGS, CHIA SEEDS for fiber and firm poop, KEFIR for probiotics, KELP supplement for IODINE, SELENIUM supplement, BLACK WALNUT capsule 5 days a week and 2 days off to prevent HeartWorm, Sprinkle CUMIN Spice on the food to help repel fleas, occasional COCONUT OIL slathered in a bone and kept in freezer as a pop sickle when we leave, etc.
So many natural alternatives that work so well. This is why Google and Facebook are censoring the truth.
Even finding true history which is all being censored.
The education industry only teaches fake history, no one, except those that do their research can learn true history, google is censoring the truth on everything.
Love all the comments, learn so much from the other readers at VitalAnimal.com This is my favorite group of pet lovers, as everyone here is either informed or wants to learn about true natural health for their pets.
Thanks Dr Falconer, for helping save the health of so many pets. Without you, we may not have learned so much. It has made all the difference.
Thanks, Beth, I’m so inspired by your “before and after” experience! I want that for everyone. I suspect if you put some $$$ figures to this, that would be another aspect worth mentioning.
I have a long time pack member with a small dog pack who estimated her vet costs went down from $20-30K/year (multiple small dogs, multiple chronic diseases) to a fraction of that (she chooses to do annual blood panels, I believe, but I see that as completely optional).
Our cocker years ago was put on Apoquel when it first came out. She got cutaneous lymphoma which is actually rare in the breed. Now it has come out that if dogs are “predisposed” to getting cancer can get cancer from the drug.
Yeah, my interpretation of “predisposed:” “We don’t want to look guilty of causing cancer with our drug, so it must be the dog’s fault! Yeah! Blame on some condition in the dog! No one could measure that and we can keep selling the drug and make out like bandits!”
I too have added “Raw Wild” to my sweet Akita’s rotation which consists of Raw Green Tripe, Darwin’s organic raw turkey & duck along with various kefirs, goat yogurt, sardines and wild salmon. No vaccines and no pesticides masquerading as flea & tick med’s. No heartworm poison etc.
Because of you and your wisdom she is a happy healthy 8 year old who has never experienced skin or ear issues, thank you Dr. Falconer you have amazing heart!
Screw the Google thugs, we will keep our animals well and vibrant inspite of their greedy, power hungry intentions!
Bravo, Glynda! You are reaping the amazing fruits of following a natural path, and you are inspiring me and others! Keep up the fine work!
I have a small FaceBook group called Dog Information & Education where I post 99.9% holistic information and links to the many articles I read from you and other natural/holistic sources. This will be posted s soon as I complete this comment! As my group membership grows so will the number of dog people exposed to the truth! Thank you for all you do for the health of our dogs and ourselves!
I have attempted to find the facebook group for dog information and education – nothing comes up !
any clues?
Thanks WILL FALCONER, DVM for all you do and keeping us informed for the health of our animals. There aren’t many who really care what’s actually happening to our pets health.
I took your advice on dog food and love the Raw Wild brand you suggested. thank you for that also Your the best !
Nice, Carol! If you haven’t found these guys yet, Carol is getting the healthiest meat based diet on the planet: https://vitalanimal.com/go/raw-wild/
I use Google.ru the search engine in Russia. I was told this is a way to beat our hacked google as it is not fooled with at all. It works quite well. Just make sure you hit the English tab and away you go.
I recently took my dog to another city to what was called a holistic vet. Not very holistic other than he reccomended using Young Living essential oils. Tried to convince me to use Bravecto and said she needed her vaccines. Not going back to him! I with there were more Dr Wills around!
Arggh, Connie! That fauxlistic vet needs to be FIRED and told why. How many call themselves holistic and still push poisons and unnecessary vaccinations? Too many to count, I’m afraid. Buyer beware, interview every single one and ask the hard questions before you spend any hard earned money on them.
I try to paste and cut your articles into a word document so that if I need to share them with people I have them ready to go. Thanks for helping the small people,
There is an alternative to mainstream U-tube, etc. called Brighteon. Mike Adams started it in response to all the censorship. I hope you will post on this site for all of us who need and want to know the truth.
Dr Will
I’m out of yourNosodes
How do I re order??
I’ve been a pack member from the beginning
Hey Leslie, if you search on http://vitalanimal.com/blog/ search box for the word “nosode” you’ll find pages for HW nosode and Parvo/Distemper as well. Let me know if that doesn’t fix you up.
And thanks for being here!
Thank you, Dr. Falconer!
I wondered why an email I attempted to send to you didn’t go through.
I saw an acquaintance yesterday who was telling me about having to put his dog down – for cancer of the feet (his front paws). I can guess how that developed. He’s unfortunately very Dr Whitecoat awed and compliant.
The evil that permeates Big Pharma, research facilities, medical schools (all critters), government and sources of information,… is staggering in its tentacled reach. I hope you, and other heath heroes, including those you mention above, continue to maneuver deftly around dirty tricks and censorship.
You are loved!
Shared this blog Dr Will….People have to get Educated on what is really going on with their pets from the Veterinarians to the pharmaceutical “POISONS” that are prescribed to cause sickness and kill our pets.
Breaks my heart how I fell victim to this years ago. I saw the need for Education and started my quest which lead me to you!
Thank you Dr Will for caring about our pets for caring about the Oath you took as a Veterinarian and for standing up to those who put Profit before Health!
I have much to be Thankful for because of you and your teachings!
You’re very kind, Theresa, and please always remember that your victimhood back then got you where you are now. Forgive yourself and that time and stay focused on how you’ll do better moving forward, now that you know better. It takes bravery to do this, and I see you’ve got that in spades.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I am a big Google user. Guess I need to change. I try hard to be homeopathic with my little Maltese, but far from easy. He does get a raw diet and no neurotoxic flea or heartworm. He’s due for rabies October 2020. Joined your class and working on a way I can avoid that.
No homeopathic vets near me. I found one 1 1/2 hours from my condo in Florida. Plan on visiting him.
Big Pharma is so scary. For us humans also.
Thank you Dr Falconer for showing the way!
I’m so glad you’re making a new path for yourself and the animals you care for, Grace. Onward and upward, and remember: your homeopathic vet need be no closer than your phone or computer to get good work done for your animals.
You’ll understand that more as you’ve worked with one on the deep healing that’s possible when you can call out symptoms and keep track of how they shift after a proper remedy is given. All the best!
Hi Grace I’ve been researching state laws on vaxcination.
Most states are pretty clear but there are still some that try to hide it but they all must yeild to the manufacturers regulations or be in violation of federal law. So they all MUST provide for waivor.
The way they try to hid it is publish the law and don’t give any information on how to find the implementing regulation.
The law or statute is the implementing authority then there has to be a regulation to tell us how the govt is going to use the law or we would not know and can claim ignorance under the law. The US Supreme Court has been very clear on this issue and thats why you see federal laws and their implementing regulation have the same number so you can’t claim ignorance under the law.
HI Jeff, I read your comment twice and I really have no idea what you are saying regarding the rabies vaccine regulations here in the vital animal dr will falconer page. Can you simplify ? Thanks
Check out Protectthepets.com to get a titer instead of rabies shots!
Thanks for sharing. Knowledge is a powerful thing.
HOLY WOW – I don’t put it beyond the powers that be to intervene on this level. It is abhorrent. Thank you for speaking the truth!
I got a notice from FB a week ago saying an article I posted went against the rules. You’ll love this, wait for it…it was about the dangers of cooking using tinfoil!! Yup. Didn’t even mention VACCINES, PHARMA or other juicy but forbidden words. LOL
It is a sad and dangerous world when those agencies that should be protecting its citizen fail to do so because of $$$$. I am sick of all of them. But worse yet are Vets who continue to prescribe these things for our pets, and fail to keep up with the research.
Couldn’t agree more. Every person in every profession should, if they don’t already, be mandated to update their knowledge.; attend webinars, take courses, keep up with the latest research.
Unbelievable! FB cited the same reason when it recently shut down the +21,000 member Bloodroot Discussion Group. It was all about people sharing their experiences curing tumors with that amazing herb. MeWe is where the group is now–an FB alternative offering much better privacy.
Me/We sounds interesting. I’ve taken both my Vital Animal Alpha student group and the Rabies Knowledge is Power students to Mighty Networks, and feel lucky to not have to deal with snoops and censors there. We speak freely about things that matter for the animals and their people.
So I just tried to google Me/We and Mighty Networks as I’ve never heard of either of them. Both pages get stuck and I can’t do anything on them but when I google something else the page opens right up. When I switched to DuckDuckGo both Me/We and Mighty Networks opened right up so I could read about them. Google is just downright stopping access.
My suggestion is for all of us to stop using the word google when we’re referencing an internet search, such as “when I googled…”. Let’s just go back to using, “when I did a search, I found…”. If we’re to ever make a dent in the google business model (read: control, propaganda, surveillance, etc.), we need to take their name off our search terminology. Thanks for your consideration.
That is crazy!
Thank you Dr. Falconer for all your informative post I would otherwise know anything about. I have also notice that instead of Tramadol the vet started prescribing Gabapentin for pain. My senior Doberman had dental work and she was prescribed the Gabapentin. She had several reactions muscle twitching, dizzy, and just out of it. Is the Gabapentin safe for dogs?
Tramadol is useless in dogs. Not sure why some vets still prescribe that. What kind of dental work? More than a cleaning? Really have to weigh how painful the procedure is vs the pain meds. I try arnica and cbd oil first before other drugs.
Hey Paulette,
I’ve not kept up with this drug, but have been seeing it referenced in vet articles for probably 10-15 years now, so I know it’s popular.
There are several great remedies for post dental work. Including, Arnica, Hypericum, Symphytom. Gagba in humans can damage the stomach. If you’re already seeing side effects I’d consider consulting a homeopath or someone with acute prescribing abilities. Myself I have used these remedies with great success in myself and in my pets for dental.
Thanks for the intro to WeMe. It looks like a better choice by miles over Facebook. Every loss they take encourages them to compete for the customers that are leaving.
That means Facebook must improve privacy to compete or lie more convincingly about what they do.
It also means other snoops and sites that try to make people think in their approved world view, may change for the better as well.
Be sure to look at protonmail for free fully encrypted email for individual users. You may choose to donate.
Protonmail is incorporated and located in Switzerland using opensource coding and do not have the ability to decrypt your email even if threatened by a judge.
They have fee-based company accounts as well.
Oh, Darci, that is beyond belief! They must have ties to the aluminum industry or something equally crazy.
Years ago I worked at a restaurant, and at the end of the day put aluminum foil over a pan of lasagna. Later, when I brought it out, I noticed a red glow in spots- around black holes in the foil– everywhere the foil touched the tomato sauce. Turns out that the acid in the tomato sauce was melting the aluminum foil, which was getting left in the food. Yes, it got scooped out, but I stopped using foil after that.