The End of Antibiotics!

Eventually antibiotics are going to be seen as one of the worst things to ever come out of pharmaceutical science because in the end, they have made us only weaker in the face of ever increasingly strong super bugs that are resistant to all the antibiotics doctors have at their disposal. When we look at how deep the rabbit hole goes with antibiotics, we will get sick in our souls. Antibiotics have fulfilled their anti–biotic anti-life role leaving a long trail of death and suffering in the wake of their use.

Diseases include measles, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, pneumonia, influenza, whooping cough, diphtheria and polio. All were in decline for several decades before the introduction of antibiotics or vaccines - Dr. Lawrence Wilson.

Antibiotics do not kill yeast. Many women find after taking antibiotics, they get vaginal yeast infections (because their normal bacterial balance has been lost). Antibiotics bring on fungal and yeast infections thus will eventually be seen as a major cause of cancer since more and more oncologists are seeing yeast and fungal infections as an integral part of cancer and its cause. With upwards of 40 percent of all cancers thought to be involved with and caused by infections, the subject of antibiotics and the need for something safer, more effective and life serving is imperative.

It may be some time before we really enter the predicted "post antibiotic era" in which common infections are frequently untreatable - Dr. Marc Lipsitch et al. (Harvard School of Public Health).

Antibiotics kill all bacteria in the body, including the ones we need.

An antibiotic is a substance produced by certain bacteria or fungi that kills other cells or interferes with their growth. In nature, these substances help some microbes survive by limiting the multiplication of other microbes that share the same environment. Antibiotics that attack pathogenic (disease-causing) microbes without severely harming normal body cells are useful as drugs but there does not seem to be any from the pharmaceutical companies that do not do damage. Dr. Lisa Landymore-Lin wrote all about this in her book Poisonous Prescriptions asking, 'Do Antibiotics Cause Asthma and Diabetes?' We are now beginning to question the role of antibiotics as a cause of cancer since they do lead to pathogen overgrowth especially in the area of yeast and fungi. Chris Woollams writes, "It is estimated that 70 per cent of the British population have a yeast infection. The primary cause of this is our love of antibiotics. Swollen glands? Take antibiotics. Tonsillitis? Take antibiotics."

Two studies in the recent past have shown an association between the use of antibiotics with higher incidence of breast cancer.

In one study the increased risk was small, and the importance of the link has been played down by UK breast-cancer experts, but the findings add weight to recent studies that have found links between antibiotics and other diseases. In the past few years, heavy antibiotic use has been linked to the inflammatory bowel disorder, Crohn's disease, and to children developing allergies such as Hay fever and asthma. And as we shall see below, antibiotics play a hidden role in autism and other neurological diseases.

The Journal of the American Medical Association has reported a study on 10,000 women in which women who took over 500 days of antibiotics in a 17 year period (dubbed 25 plus doses) had twice the risk of breast cancer as those that took none at all. Even women taking just one had a statistical risk increase to 1.5 times.

The consequences of resistance in some bacteria can be measured as increases in the term and magnitude of morbidity, higher rates of mortality, and greater costs of hospitalization for patients infected with resistant bacteria - Dr. Marc Lipsitch et al.

Broad-spectrum antibiotics are undiscriminating: in addition to "bad bacteria," they also kill healthy bacteria which normally live in the intestines and the vagina, and which are a necessary part of the indigenous flora to keep the body healthy. When the "good" bacteria are killed with antibiotics, then yeast, which is part of the normal flora of the body, can begin to overgrow because the antibiotics have altered the body's healthy terrain (internal ecological balance) allowing the yeast to hyperproliferate and cause many far-reaching, toxic symptoms.

But modern medicine so far continues to believe that antibiotics have played an important role in staving off bacterial infections since Alexander Fleming first discovered them in 1927. Many doctors are finally beginning to see that the effectiveness of these so-called miracle drugs has waned as some of the very bacteria they are meant to control have been mutating into new forms that don't respond to treatment. Many medical experts blame this phenomenon on both the misuse and overuse of antibiotics in recent years in both human medicine and in agriculture.

According to several studies, obstetricians and gynecologists write 2,645,000 antibiotic prescriptions every week. Internists prescribe 1,416,000 per week. This works out to 211,172,000 prescriptions annually in the United States, just for these two specialties. Pediatricians prescribe over $500 million worth of antibiotics annually just for one condition, ear infections. Yet topical povidone iodine (PVP-I) is as effective as topical ciprofloxacin, with a superior advantage of having no in vitro drug resistance and the added benefit of reduced cost of treatment.

According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, taking properly prescribed medical drugs was listed as the third leading cause of death in the U.S. Antibiotics
were listed in this category because antibiotics can be deadly.

A 17-year-old St Margaret's College student in New Zealand has exposed multiple antibiotic-resistant bugs in fresh chicken sold in supermarkets? Jane Millar's discovery of a range of resistant bacteria in chickens that could compromise antibiotic treatment in humans is an important finding that the bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics not used in the poultry industry but important for treating serious infections in humans.

We can create resistance to medically important antibiotics by using antibiotics that are presumably safe in agriculture - Jane Millar.

Jane bought six fresh chickens - free-range, barn-raised and organic – from a supermarket. She took samples from each bird and grew bug colonies, which she used to test different antibiotics. Apramycin is an antibiotic used sparingly by the New Zealand poultry industry to treat infections. The bacteria of two chickens tested resistant to apramycin. They also proved resistant to another two antibiotics from the same family - gentamicin and tobramycin - used for serious human infections. Gentamicin is not used by the poultry industry; tobramycin is restricted to human use only.

A recent risk assessment study commissioned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has estimated that about 8,000-10,000 persons in the U.S. each year acquire fluoroquinolone-resistant Campylobacter infections from chicken and attempt to treat those infections with a fluoroquinolone.

Every day, new strains of bacteria, fungi, and other pathogenic microorganisms are becoming resistant to the antibiotics that once dispatched them with extreme prejudice.

"We know that antimicrobial resistance will follow antimicrobial use as sure as night follows day," said Dr. John A. Jernigan, deputy chief of prevention and response from the Center of Disease Control. "It's just a biological phenomenon." It turns out that the indiscriminate killing of harmless microbes damages the body in complex ways we are only beginning to understand. Powerful antibiotics introduced into the complex environment in our intestines cause mayhem, much like a series of bombs tossed into a market square. Antibiotic resistance is a widespread problem, and one that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls "one of the world's most pressing public health problems."

One of the deadliest germs is a staph bacteria called M.R.S.A., short for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which lives harmlessly on the skin but causes havoc when it enters the body. Patients who do survive M.R.S.A. often spend months in the hospital and endure several operations to cut out infected tissue. Hospitalizations associated with a drug-resistant form of a Staphylococcus bacterium doubled over six years in the U.S. to nearly 280,000 cases in 2005. The death toll rose from 4,700 in 1999 to about 6,600 in 2005. It estimated that 94,000 Americans suffered invasive MRSA infections in 2005 and that about 19,000 died.

One out of every 20 patients contracts an infection during a hospital stay in the US. Hospital infections kill an estimated 103,000 people in the United States a year, as many as AIDS, breast cancer and auto accidents combined. The vast majority of lethal cases occur in hospitals and nursing homes, where open wounds and punctures provide the opportunistic staph a ready path to the bloodstream and organs. The dangers of infection are worsening as many hospital infections can no longer be cured with common antibiotics.

More than half the time, doctors and other caregivers break the most fundamental rule of hygiene by
failing to clean their hands before treating a patient.

"Recently there has been an alarming epidemic caused by community-associated (CA)-MRSA strains, which can cause severe infections that can result in necrotizing fasciitis or even death in otherwise healthy adults outside of healthcare settings," is the word coming from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) research team, headed by Dr. Michael Otto.

Necrotizing fasciitis is the so-called flesh-eating disease that can destroy healthy tissue and even kill patients. The team found that some strains on MRSA secrete a compound called phenol-soluble modulin or PSM. It attracts immune system cells called neutrophils, the researchers found, and then blows them up in a process called lysis. Neutrophils are key immune cells involved in clearing bacterial infections, so destroying them would allow the bacteria to thrive almost unmolested.
"In the United States, CA-MRSA is now the cause of the majority of infections that result in trips to the emergency room. It is unclear what makes CA-MRSA strains more successful in causing human disease compared with their hospital-associated counterparts," they add.

When the peaceful activities of a normal microbial population are disrupted, malevolent bacteria may take full advantage of the opportunity to strike. The intestinal infection C. difficile colitis, now rampaging through hospitals around the world, is one of the worst such complication of antibiotic use.

Clostridium difficile was first recognized as a hospital microbe in 1978. By 1996, it had increased to 31 cases per 100,000 people discharged from U.S. hospitals. In 2003, the most recent year for complete statistics, prevalence had risen to 61 per 100,000. C. diff is part of the natural flora, or bacteria, in the colon. "We're seeing all of the warning signs that this is the next MRSA," said former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, a Manhattan-based nonprofit. "It spreads like wildfire in hospitals."

Clostridium difficile is a spore-forming toxin-producing bacterium that is overtaking peoples' large intestines from which it mounts an attack on the bloodstream. Like MRSA, Clostridium difficile has become multi-drug-resistant. Although once a bacterium that mostly affected elderly, hospitalized patients, a bolder strain is crippling the robust. In emergency efforts to save some patients' lives surgeons remove the entire large intestine to prevent overwhelming infection.

One case had been treated by a dermatologist for an ingrown hair on his back and prescribed an antibiotic. He took only a few pills, but quickly became ill. Based on what his doctors told him, the short course of antibiotics proved sufficient to destroy virtually all the natural bacteria in his intestine - except C. diff, which was freed to ravage his colon.

Frequently, stethoscopes, blood-pressure monitors and other equipment are contaminated with live bacteria. Yet doctors and nurses almost never clean the stethoscope before listening to a patient's chest.

"It strikes precisely those hospitals which are more 'high-tech', and handle more serious illnesses. Applying more disinfectant is not the answer; some strains of germs have actually been found thriving in bottles of hospital disinfectant! The more antibacterial chemical 'weapons' are being used, the more bacteria are becoming resistant to them," writes Dr. Carl Wieland.

Health-care officials are increasingly concerned about emerging new forms of drug-resistant Tuberculosis (TB). According to the WHO, outbreaks of drug-resistant tuberculosis are showing up all over the world and threaten to touch off a worldwide epidemic of virtually incurable tuberculosis. An October 1997 survey by the WHO, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease estimates that 50 million people are infected with a strain of TB that is drug-resistant. Many of those are said to carry multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis, incurable by two or more of the standard drugs.

New DNA technology has found hundreds of previously unrecognized species in the traditional stomping grounds of the mouth and intestine, and traces of bacteria even in tissues previously thought to be sterile.

Lessons from Autism

Medical scientists at Arizona State University tell us that antibiotic use is known to almost completely inhibit excretion of mercury in rats due to alteration of gut flora. Thus, higher use of oral antibiotics in the children with autism may have reduced their ability to excrete mercury. Higher usage of oral antibiotics in infancy may also partially explain the high incidence of chronic gastrointestinal problems in individuals with autism.

Many physicians are unaware of lasting adverse effects caused by routinely prescribed medications such as antibiotics. Antibiotic therapy for minor colds and runny noses is a common practice. People routinely receive multiple courses of broad-spectrum antibiotics throughout life or are injected with long-acting corticosteroid medicine for joint or muscle pain. Once established, sub-clinical colonization with yeast in the body may persist unrecognized for many years. Antibiotics, such as tetracycline, can greatly increase yeast in the colon after only a few days.

The extensive use of antibiotics will make the condition of Candida much worse because it reduces heavy metal excretion, which is a food source for the yeast like organism and also killing the beneficial bacteria at the same time.

Normally, candida albicans lives peacefully in our intestines and elsewhere, in harmony with other flora that keep the yeast in check. Take an antibiotic and all this changes. By suppressing the normal flora, candida takes over and problems begin. In its mild form, the result is diarrhea or a yeast infection. Dr. Elmer Cranton says that, "Yeast overgrowth is partly iatrogenic (caused by the medical profession) and can be caused by antibiotics and cortisone medications. A diet high in sugar also promotes overgrowth of yeast. A highly refined diet common in industrialized nations not only promotes growth of yeast, but is also deficient in many of the essential vitamins and minerals needed by the immune system. Chemical colorings, flavorings, preservatives, stabilizers, emulsifiers, etc., add more
stress on the immune system."

Children with autism had significantly (2.1-fold) higher levels of mercury in their baby teeth but similar levels of lead and similar levels of zinc. Children with autism also had significantly higher usage of oral antibiotics during their first 12 to 36 months of life. Reporting in the July 11, 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers say the use of antibiotics as prevention boosts risks for drug resistance while doing nothing to shield kids from future urinary tract infections (UTIs). Giving antibiotics to prevent recurrent urinary tract infections in small children not only will not help but will hurt these children. Prior use of antibiotics to prevent infection did boost the likelihood of developing a drug-resistant infection by nearly 7.5 times. Indeed, 61 percent of recurrent urinary tract infections were caused by a pathogen with antibiotic resistance, the researchers pointed out.

In a 2005 study, the antibiotic Augmentin TM has been implicated in the formation of autism. The study strongly suggests the possibility of ammonia poisoning as a result of young children taking Augmentin. Augmentin has been given to children since the late 1980's for bacterial infections.

Many physicians seem to be unaware that birth control pills comprised of the hormones estrogen and progesterone can also make the body more susceptible to fungal infections. If antibiotics are prescribed, it acts as a double whammy to ensuring a fungal infection will take hold by diminishing the protective bacteria in the intestines. Many pregnant women seek medical treatment for minor problems and are indiscriminately given antibiotics and this begins a long decline into problems that are complicated at each turn by OBGYN doctors at birth and by pediatricians who just love to poison children with the toxic chemicals found in vaccines. In many places in the world they still give mercury shots at birth.

Microforms poison us with their waste products.

The waste products are acetylaldehyde, uric acid, alloxin, alcohols, lactic acid, etc.

Antibiotics may be to blame for hundreds of children developing autism after having the controversial MMR jab. More than two-thirds of youngsters with the condition received four or more antibiotics in their first year, a British survey has revealed. It is thought the drugs weakened their immune systems, leaving them unable to withstand the impact of the triple jab. Allopathic medicine has been stubborn and slow to look at its abusive use of antibiotics. It's the same with vaccines, the holy grail of medicine. But with last-line-of-defence antibiotics failing on increasingly drug-resistant superbugs and young children's systems being destroyed by them you would think they would wake up and find some alternatives.

Antibiotics are mostly derived from fungi and are therefore classified as mycotoxins. Mycotoxins Are Poisons.



About the author
Mark A. Sircus Ac., OMD, is director of the International Medical Veritas Association (IMVA)http://www.imva.info/. Dr. Sircus was trained in acupuncture and oriental medicine at the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Sante Fe, N.M., and in the School of Traditional Medicine of New England in Boston. He served at the Central Public Hospital of Pochutla, in México, and was awarded the title of doctor of oriental medicine for his work. He was one of the first nationally certified acupuncturists in the United States. Dr. Sircus's IMVA is dedicated to unifying the various disciplines in medicine with the goal of creating a new dawn in healthcare.

He is particularly concerned about the effect vaccinations have on vulnerable infants and is identifying the common thread of many toxic agents that are dramatically threatening present and future generations of children. His book The Terror of Pediatric Medicine is a free e-book one can read. Dr. Sircus is a most prolific and courageous writer and one can read through hundreds of pages on his various web sites.

He has most recently released his Survival Medicine for the 21st Century compendium (2,200 page ebook) and is racing to finish his Winning the War Against Cancer book. Dr. Sircus is a pioneer in the area of natural detoxification and chelation of toxic chemicals and heavy metals. He is also a champion of the medicinal value of minerals and is fathering in a new medical approach that uses sea water and different concentrates taken from it for health and healing. Transdermal Magnesium Therapy, his first published work, offers a stunning breakthrough in medicine, an entirely new way to supplement magnesium that naturally increases DHEA levels, brings cellular magnesium levels up quickly, relieves pain, brings down blood pressure and pushes cell physiology in a positive direction. Magnesium chloride delivered transdermally brings a quick release from a broad range of conditions.
International Medical Veritas Association: http://www.imva.info/

Is pregnancy a mental health disorder? NO! Stop Big Pharma MOTHERS Act!

Is pregnancy a mental health disorder? Of course not, but Big Pharma is now conspiring with lawmakers to define pregnancy as a disease requiring psychotropic medication. It's all part of the MOTHERS Act that's being debated in the U.S. Congress. Today's feature story by Byron Richards exposes this latest outrage from Big Pharma and the evil industry of modern psychiatry.

The Mothers Act is pending legislation that will indoctrinate hundreds of thousands of mothers into taking dangerous psych drugs. It is a great example of how the Big Pharma lobby controls Congress to the detriment of health, as well as needlessly and dramatically inflating the costs of our health care system for everyone. Like any piece of legislation it purports to address a troubling issue – in this case the mood distress of mothers following birth known as postpartum depression. It is true that 10% - 15% of women need some assistance in dealing with this topic – but the majority of them sure don't need it from Big Pharma. That is the Big Lie.

The Mothers Act (S. 1375: Mom's Opportunity to Access Health, Education, Research, and Support for Postpartum Depression Act) ((http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtex...) has the net affect of reclassifying the natural process of pregnancy and birth as a mental disorder that requires the use of unproven and extremely dangerous psychotropic medications (which can also easily harm the child). Urgent consumer action (see below) is needed to stop this atrocity, as the Senate could now vote any day.

It is my understanding that the process of birth, the intimate bonding of mother and child, and the placing of significant responsibility on the father is all part of a healthy culture and the backbone of the fabric that makes strong families and consequently our great nation. I fail to see why we need laws that force health care professionals to emphasize the idea that the process is some type of mental illness affecting 80% of all women – what a bogus pile of crap.

The Mothers Act proposes sweeping and dramatic changes in the delivery of pregnancy care by all health professionals. It demands that health professionals indoctrinate pregnant women into mental health treatment options for mild depression-like symptoms experienced during or following pregnancy, including moderate symptoms they call "baby blues" which they say affects 80% of pregnant women. In other words, this is a massive federate health mandate to get the majority of pregnant and nursing mothers on psych drugs – a new target market for Big Pharma.

The bill was obviously written by the Big Pharma lobby and its passage into law would be considered laughable except that it is actually happening. The bill seeks to require taxpayer-funded grants to treat postpartum mood and anxiety disorders, as defined in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. For those of you who don't know, this is the manual of vaguely defined mental health issues used by Big Pharma to allow the sale of their expensive psych drugs and get payment from Medicare and Medicaid at taxpayer expense. While some people certainly need help, this system racks up billions in fraudulent sales per year – including the sale of dangerous antipsychotic medications to our children. The Big Pharma lobby last year spent tens of millions to ensure the government would continue to cover vulnerable children so they could capitalize on this blatant scam.

As far as the Mothers Act goers, how can taxpayers be expected to pay for drug treatments when the problem that isn't even understood? As the bill freely acknowledges "The causes of postpartum depression are complex and unknown." In a mysterious leap of faith the bill says that this condition requires medication to treat it even though such medication has never been proven clinically effective and carries serious side effect risks for the mother and baby, including cardiovascular birth defects.

The bill goes on to set up a system of taxpayer-funded grants to pay for the treatments. It even commits you the taxpayer to funding "clinical research for the development and evaluation of new treatments for postpartum conditions, including new biological agents." This means taxpayers will now foot the bill of Big Pharma drug development including the most dangerous new category of totally unproven pie-in-the-sky biological drugs that cost hundreds of billions of dollars to develop and can irreparably injure within minutes!

Yes, and once you have paid a fortune to develop these biological gene-altering agents then you will pay the drug companies price so that they can be freely dispensed to hundreds of thousands of pregnant and nursing mothers. Taxpayers will be on the hook for tens of billions of wasted dollars.

Immediate Consumer Action is Needed

The Mothers Act has already passed the House (H.R. 20, the Melanie Blocker Stokes Postpartum Depression, Research and Care Act). Word has it that it is being snuck out of the HELP committee on Thursday or Friday of this week and may be rammed through the Senate without any debate before the Easter break.

Rather unbelievably up to this point is that the cause of defeating this legislation has fallen onto the shoulders of one young mother, Amy Philo. When she struggled with postpartum stress she was placed on the very same psych drugs advocated for use in the Mothers Act legislation. She began having violent thoughts towards her child and suicidal thinking. Her not very bright doctor had her double and then triple her dose, nearly killing her. She is lucky to be alive today and wants to warn other mothers of the dangers inherent in the Mothers Act. Link to her You Tube post: http://youtube.com/watch?v=LQW23XCmOCw

Immediate consumer action is needed to stop the Big Pharma-crafted Mothers Act. Here are the two action steps you can take right now to help make a difference:

1) Go to my CapWiz page and with two clicks of a mouse send an opposition letter to your Senators. http://www.wellnessresources.com/health...

2) Sign the petition against this legislation, which is being used to pressure Senators on the HELP committee. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-t...

About the author: Byron J. Richards, Founder/Director of Wellness Resources (www.wellnessresources.com), is a Board-Certified Clinical Nutritionist and nationally-renowned health expert, radio personality, and educator. He is the author of Mastering Leptin, The Leptin Diet, and Fight for Your Health: Exposing the FDA's Betrayal of America

U.S. drug companies defrauded Medicare with price fixing scheme, rules judge

A federal judge has ruled that three pharmaceutical companies artificially marked up their prices in order to defraud Medicare and encourage doctors to prescribe their drugs over those of competitors.

The decision came in a class-action lawsuit against AstraZeneca, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson and Warwick Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Schering-Plough Corp. U.S. District Judge Patti Saris ruled against AstraZeneca, Bristol-Meyers Squibb and Warwick, while clearing Johnson & Johnson of "egregious misconduct."

However, she described even Johnson & Johnson's actions as "troubling."

Saris agreed with the plaintiffs' complaint that the drug companies deliberately inflated their average wholesale prices in 2003, when those prices were still used to determine Medicare reimbursements. This created a gap between the prices that Medicare was paying and the (lower) prices charged to doctors and pharmacies. This meant that doctors would actually be reimbursed more than they had paid for the drugs, creating a profit incentive for doctors to prescribe certain products.

The judge ruled that AstraZeneca had overcharged for its prostate cancer drug Zoladex and ordered the company to pay nearly $4.5 million to one of the two groups of plaintiffs. Likewise, she found that Bristol-Meyers Squibb had overcharged for the cancer drugs Blenoxane, Cytoxan, Rubex, Taxol and Vepesid, and ordered the company to pay $183,454. She said that she needed more information to set damages amounts for the other group of plaintiffs.

While Saris did not decide on the damages the company must pay, she ruled that Warrick had overcharged for the generic asthma medication albuterol sulfate (the same medicine sold by GlaxoSmithKline under the brand name Ventolin).

One of the plaintiffs' lawyers, Steve Berman, said that his clients were very happy with the ruling.

"We are also grateful that she found [that] the biggest victims were the patients who had to pay these outrageous prices out of pocket as a result of the defendants' wrongful conduct," he said.

Thailand will override cancer drug patents

BANGKOK, March 10 (Reuters) - Thailand's new government will override international patents on three cancer drugs, new Health Minister Chaiya Sasomsap said on Monday after a month of protests against his review of the controversial policy.

Chaiya, under pressure from health activists and doctors who campaigned to have him sacked, said declaring compulsory licences on the drugs would save Thailand more than 3 billion baht ($100 million) over the next five years.

"The findings have convinced me to go ahead with the CLs since the ministry's policy is to give patients good access to quality drugs at cheap prices," Chaiya said of the review by a panel of Health Ministry officials.

The decision is a blow to major pharmaceutical companies which had lobbied hard to reverse the CL policy launched by the previous government appointed after a bloodless 2006 coup.

The three drugs are Letrozole, a breast cancer medicine made by Novartis AG, the breast and lung cancer drug Docetaxel by Sanofi-Aventis, and Roche's Erlotinib, used for treating lung, pancreatic and ovarian cancer.

A licence issued on a leukaemia drug, Glivec, was cancelled last month after its maker, Novartis, agreed to supply it free to hundreds of Thai patients.

Shortly after a democratically-elected government took power in February, Chaiya ordered the review of a policy he said was a "politically correct decision, but not legally correct".

At the time he said the government could afford the full cost of the drugs, if it meant avoiding trade retaliation by the United States, home to some of the world's biggest drug firms.

U.S. officials denied there were any plans to impose sanctions on Bangkok, although Thailand was placed on a watch list, meaning Washington believed its respect for patents had weakened.

When Chaiya, a businessman with no medical training, fired the Health Ministry's top official negotiating cheaper prices from foreign drug firms, outraged health activists and doctors launched a campaign to remove him.

Chaiya said on Monday the ministry would buy cheaper versions of the cancer drugs from generic producers, such as Indian firms which already supply copy-cat HIV-AIDS medicines to Thailand.

Under World Trade Organisation rules, countries can issue a compulsory licence to make or buy generic versions of patented drugs deemed critical to public health as long as the medicines are meant for domestic use.

Former Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla overrode Merck's AIDS drug Efavirenz in late 2006, arguing that Thailand could not afford patented drugs for a national health plan that covers about 80 percent of the country's 63 million people.

A few months later he did the same on a Sanofi-Aventis heart medicine and an AIDS drug made by Abbott Laboratories, which refused to register several new medicines in Thailand.

Mongkol, who targeted the four cancer drugs weeks before he left office, has defended the CL policy against major drug firms which accused him of stealing their intellectual property rights. ($1= 30 Baht) (Reporting by Nopporn Wong-Anan; Editing by Darren Schuettler)