Pluto in Capricorn Lessons: Following the Twisted Roots of the Corporate Oligarchy

Mercury is moving through the final degree of Capricorn today after a brutal transit of that sign, and as the Moon in Capricorn squares retrograding Saturn in Libra and conjuncts Pluto, I'm being tapped, tapped, tapped on the shoulder...

The Sabian Symbol for the last degree of Capricorn is: "Directors of a Large Firm Meet in Secret Conference." Hmm...fitting on many levels.

As we well-schooled in the Plutonic lessons know, relying on superficial blanket statements like, "Yeah, yeah. All corporations are evil," is a no-no. It's dangerous, lazy and can be downright deadly. Pluto demands that no stone be left unturned in our examinations of the rotten and the corrupt, that no twisted root be left uninvestigated as we bring the muck and mire to the surface and to collective awareness.

Pluto in Capricorn demands that we respect with the utmost seriousness the complexity, the layers and the tenacity of the reach of these corrupt corporate tentacles and the people behind them. We need to extricate ourselves from this so we can live a true alternative, and looking at it straight on - shiny, advertising grins wiped clean - is the only way we can do that. This affects us all.

So even though we all have major Pluto in Capricorn fatigue at this point (believe me, I do, too), let's get out our books and our pencils and dig in...

Today's Pluto in Capricorn Case Study is about the pharmaceuticals corporation Bayer. We in North America almost all know this company, but the next time you're popping a Bayer aspirin or two, think a little more deeply about the people behind this household drug.

I've come to learn some interesting facts about this company, the maker of the fluroquinolone antibiotic Cipro that has me and thousands of others poisoned at the moment.

There's also an interesting symbolic aspect as Bayer became a household name after corrupting the pain-relieving folk remedy salacin derived from willow bark in the late 1800s. I got a lifelong case of tinnitus at age 13 from this product which has now been increased by the Cipro.

Bayer is a German company founded in 1863 that lost its assets to the West as reparations for World War I.

It was then enveloped in the Nazi's IG Farben - their chemical and pharmaceuticals conglomerate - along with five other German companies.

This conglomerate used concentration camp slave labour to produce its wares (IG Farben was the only German company in the Third Reich that actually ran its own concentration camp), bought and used human guinea pig slaves to test their drugs, and manufactured the pesticide Zyklon B, which was used to kill people in the gas chambers. Illustrious past this Bayer has.

"When the Allies split IG Farben into several pieces after World War II for involvement in organized Nazi war crimes, Bayer reappeared as an individual business. Bayer executive Fritz ter Meer, who was sentenced to seven years in prison by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, was made head of the supervisory board of Bayer in 1956, after his release."

As horrifying as this is, it makes so much more sense how their drugs could be being pushed by doctors around the world all while making people so sick. This is no mistake. There simply IS no care and concern for people with this company or with companies like them. There is a total whitewash of adverse reactions related to fluoroquinolone antibiotics as well as multitudes of other dangerous drugs being prescribed to people every day.

Adverse drug reactions are now the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. So in light of that, here is some information to arm yourselves with:

- Fluoroquinolone antibiotics cause very painful and debilitating adverse reactions in people, taking months or years to recover from. They should be prescribed only as an absolute last resort but are often prescribed initially before safer antibiotics have been tried. (This was the case for me.) Neither doctors nor pharmacists are warning people about the possible side effects. Most are ignorant of them and deny these effects are even possible. Many people suffering adverse reactions have not been believed by the medical establishment. Brands of these antibiotics are: Cipro (produced by Bayer), Levaquin (produced by Johnson & Johnson), Avelox, Floxin, Noroxin, Tequin and Trovan, among others. Generic patents have also been approved, so please be aware and research antibiotics thoroughly before taking them.

- Yaz/Yasmin birth control pills are "third generation" birth control pills and are much less safe then their predecessors - six times more likely to produce adverse reactions, many life-threatening. These are also Bayer drugs. "In the United States at least 48 lawsuits have been filed against Bayer. The suits state that from 2004 through 2008 Yaz/Yasmin has caused more than 50 deaths, which occurred in some women as young as 17. Deaths associated with cardiac arrhythmia, cardiac arrest, intracardiac thrombus, pulmonary embolism, and stroke were reported."

- Gardisil, the fast-tracked HPV vaccine made by pharmaceuticals corporation Merck, was tested on only 1,200 girls before being approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration in 2006. Just sickeningly irreponsible. Not only that, but the drug was never tested on the age group of girls intended to be vaccinated - nine-and-ten-year-olds. Since being approved, it has caused 48 deaths and 16,000 adverse reactions, many severe and debilitating. Merck and doctors are currently pushing this as a routine vaccination. It's estimated only about 10% of adverse reactions are actually reported, and there could be as many as 1 million. Three deaths have also been reported in New Zealand.

The Truth About Gardasil is an American website detailing the devastating effects this vaccine has had on young women and girls.

Off the Radar is a New Zealand site dedicated to the dangers of Gardasil.

This vaccine is destroying lives. It is an absolutely horrifying attack on young females and needs to stop. Be so very vigilant. A commenter on this blog mentioned that her doctor was about to inject her with the Gardisil vaccine without her consent or any previous discussion, and she had to jump off the examination table and put her coat on to stop it.

Gardasil has unfortunately also been approved in Canada (July 2006), and Merck has its billion-dollar PR machine working overtime lobbying Stephen Harper's government to make it a blanket vaccine. They've also got the mainstream Canadian media on board. An October 2009 "news" story from the CBC titled "The Debate Over HPV Inoculations" reads more like a press release straight from Merck itself. It downplays the severity of the adverse reactions and fatalities, using outdated statistics and burying them at the end of a lengthy pro-vaccine story.

Merck is already in the midst of lawsuits on behalf of 50,000 people whose loved ones suffered heart attacks or strokes after taking their arthritis drug Vioxx. There is evidence Merck knew as early as 2000 about these adverse reactions but kept the drug on the market (from the medical journal The Lancet). The lawsuits could cost Merck multi-billions.

Now, Merck is pushing more bad medicine with Gardasil in hopes of paying off their previous crimes. At $360 US per three-injection dose, Gardasil is the most expensive vaccine on the planet. And you can see why they're salivating at the idea of making it a blanket vaccine, adverse health risks be damned.

(PRWatch.org has a four-part article on Gardasil and the Big Business of cervical cancer.)

In a fit of Pluto in Capricorn black hilarity, Merck has racked up award after award for being a good, ethical, equal opportunity employer. That just goes to show you how blind most people are to the real workings of the companies they are employed with. And how little they actually care. If the company provides good daycare and hires black or gay people, it doesn't matter if they're crippling and killing teenagers or arthritis sufferers.

This is all just the tip of the iceberg. of course. But that's the way Pluto works. It gives us a thread, and we have to pick it up, follow it and uncover the extent of where it leads.

Back to our Pluto in Cap Case Study, Bayer: a German watchdog group has been following Bayer's crimes against humanity for the past decade. The list is long, so please look into it if you are about to take any type of prescription:

Coalition Against Bayer-Dangers

Bayer has followed in its tradition of producing deadly pesticides including Endosulfan, which is banned in the European Union.

It has also reached into our food supply with Bayer CropScience which deals in biotechnology and genetically modified (GM) foods. Large parts of the United States rice crop have been contaminated with Bayer's GM LibertyLink Rice, which is unapproved in Europe and cannot be exported there.

In a small victory, two United States farmers just won $2 million in compensation from Bayer CropScience due to contamination of their rice crops.

"The verdict of the federal court in St. Louis is seen as a test run for up to 3000 cases of rice farmers having suffered damages in the US states of Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Mississippi."

The damages from those cases could be up to $1.2 billion.

Step by step, layer by layer...

We have to protect ourselves and each other so closely now. It's our most precious and important effort at this time.

Saturn is square Pluto for a long haul, and we are moving all year to a North Node-Pluto conjunction at 3 degrees Capricorn in November, coinciding with Venus retrograde in Scorpio. These themes aren't going anywhere.

The Sabian Symbol for the degree of the North Node-Pluto conjunction is: "A Group of People Entering a Canoe for a Journey By Water."

So again, do not fall into despair with any of this tough Pluto-Mercury in Capricorn information. We're in this together always, and we're greatly loved and assisted by the spiritual force of our soul sisters and brothers past, present and future.