(The Economic Collapse Blog)—So many seniors that were once so full of life are now just shadows of their former selves. It can be really easy to assume that they are “just getting old” and that nothing unusual is happening to them. But the truth is that in so many cases the reason why America’s seniors are shutting down is because they are simply being overmedicated. Our entire medical system has been designed to push pills, and so when our seniors seek medical help that is usually the solution that they are offered.
As you will see below, the proportion of our seniors that are on at least 8 pharmaceutical drugs is truly alarming. Of course those that consume pharmaceutical drug cocktails on a daily basis for an extended period of time are quite likely to experience very serious consequences.
Most people don’t realize that modern terms such as “pharmacy” and “pharmaceutical” originally come from the Greek word “pharmakeia”…
The word “pharmacy” has a fascinating origin story that’s as complex as the practice itself.
It comes from the Greek word “pharmakeia”, which referred to “the practice of the druggist”. But here is the twist: “phármakon”, the root of the term, was a double-edged sword – it meant a plant or herb that could be used for either healing or harmful purposes, blurring the line between medicine and poison.
No society in the entire history of the planet has taken “pharmakeia” to the extremes that we have.
We are the most drugged nation that the world has ever seen, and this is particularly true for our seniors.
The Wall Street Journal recently interviewed an 83-year-old woman named Barbara Schmidt that has “filled prescriptions for more than a dozen different drugs in the past year”…
For years, Barbara Schmidt’s family feared an illness was behind a pattern of terrifying falls that repeatedly landed the 83-year-old great-grandmother in surgery with broken bones. Instead, Schmidt’s frequent tumbles might have been tied to something else: medications intended to make her better.
Schmidt, who lives with her husband of 65 years in Lewes, Del., filled prescriptions for more than a dozen different drugs in the past year, according to pharmacy and medical records.
After taking so many medications in such a short period of time, it really is a miracle that she is still alive today.
But she is far from alone.
The Wall Street Journal discovered that one out of every six seniors that is enrolled in Medicare’s drug benefit has been prescribed at least 8 different pharmaceutical drugs…
That isn’t unusual for America’s seniors, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Medicare data. One in six of the 46 million seniors enrolled in Medicare’s drug benefit, which pays for most drugs taken by older Americans, were prescribed eight or more medications.
Millions upon millions of our seniors are literally being drugged into oblivion.
One of the problems is that seniors often visit multiple physicians, and that can result in a lot of confusion…
Pharmacists who work with seniors say doctors might not be aware of their patients’ full medication list. Patients don’t always mention what their other doctors have prescribed when a history is taken, and specialists might not have access to a shared medical record.
The Journal analysis found that, among seniors taking eight or more drugs, it was common for the prescriptions to come from a large number of doctors.
Of course it isn’t just seniors that are being overmedicated.
One recent survey found that 70 percent of U.S. adults are currently taking at least one pharmaceutical drug, and nearly a quarter of U.S. adults are currently taking at least four pharmaceutical drugs…
Recent CivicScience poll results reveal the picture of maintenance prescription drug use in the U.S. has shifted dramatically. The number of U.S. adults who report taking at least one prescription medication per day is now 70%, a 14 percentage-point increase from 2019 data.
Additionally, the percentage of people taking four or more prescription medications daily in the US has increased by six percentage points, from 18% to 24%. An increasing number of prescriptions equals less and less wiggle room in budgets already tightened due to inflationary prices.
It is an insanely profitable industry, and that is why we constantly see ads for pharmaceutical drugs on television.
They desperately want more “customers”, and seniors are the easiest target.
According to the official CDC website, 89 percent of Americans that are 65 years or older are currently taking at least one pharmaceutical drug…
Among adults aged ≥65 years, men (89.0%) and women (89.3%) were equally likely to take prescription medication. Prescription medication use increased with age, from 48.4% for those aged 18–44 years to 89.2% for those aged ≥65 years, and this pattern of increasing use with age was observed for both men and women.
We take more pharmaceutical drugs than anyone else in the world.
So why is our life expectancy below average compared to other industrialized nations?
I think that is a really important question.
When our seniors go to see their doctors, they are often not properly informed about the potential side effects of the drugs that they are being prescribed.
Let me give you an example.
Zoloft is the number one antidepressant in the United States, but most of those that are taking it do not realize that it has an extremely long list of side effects.
But don’t just take my word for it. The following comes from the official Zoloft website…
ZOLOFT may cause serious side effects. Call your healthcare provider right away if you have any of the following symptoms, or call 911 if there is an emergency.
1. Suicidal thoughts or actions:
ZOLOFT and other antidepressant medicines may increase suicidal thoughts or actions in some people 24 years of age and younger, especially within the first few months of treatment or when the dose is changed.
Depression or other serious mental illnesses are the most important causes of suicidal thoughts or actions.
Watch for these changes and call your healthcare provider right away if you notice new or sudden changes in mood, behavior, actions, thoughts, or feelings, especially if severe.
Pay particular attention to such changes when ZOLOFT is started or when the dose is changed.
Keep all follow-up visits with your healthcare provider and call between visits if you are worried about symptoms.
2. Call a doctor right away if you or a person you know who is taking ZOLOFT has any of the following symptoms, especially if they are new, worse, or worry you:
-thoughts about suicide or dying
-attempts to commit suicide
-new or worse depression
-new or worse anxiety
-feeling very agitated or restless
-panic attacks
-trouble sleeping (insomnia)
-new or worse irritability
-acting aggressive, being angry, or violent
-acting on dangerous impulses
-an extreme increase in activity and talking (mania)
-other unusual changes in behavior or mood3. Serotonin Syndrome. This condition can be life-threatening and symptoms may include:
-agitation, hallucinations, coma, or other changes in mental status
-racing heartbeat, high or low blood pressure
-coordination problems or muscle twitching (overactive reflexes)
-nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea
-sweating or fever
-muscle rigidity4. Increased chance of bleeding: ZOLOFT and other antidepressant medicines may increase your risk of bleeding or bruising, especially if you take the blood thinner warfarin (COUMADIN®, JANTOVEN®), a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAIDs, like ibuprofen or naproxen), or aspirin.
5. Manic episodes. Symptoms may include:
-greatly increased energy
-racing thoughts
-unusually grand ideas
-severe trouble sleeping
-reckless behavior
-excessive happiness or irritability
-talking more or faster than usual6. Seizures or convulsions.
7. Glaucoma (angle-closure glaucoma). ZOLOFT may cause a certain type of eye problem called angle-closure glaucoma. Call your healthcare provider if you have eye pain, changes in your vision, or swelling or redness in or around the eye. Only some people are at risk for these problems. You may want to undergo an eye examination to see if you are at risk and receive preventative treatment if you are.
8. Changes in appetite or weight.
9. Low salt (sodium) levels in the blood. Elderly people may be at greater risk for this. Symptoms may include headache, weakness or feeling unsteady, confusion, problems concentrating or thinking, or memory problems.
10. Sexual problems (dysfunction). Taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), including ZOLOFT, may cause sexual problems.
There are many other drugs that literally list “death” as one of the potential side effects.
And earlier this year it was being reported that adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs have now become the third leading cause of death in the United States…
In 2021, the American Society of Pharmacovigilance (ASP) launched the Fourth Cause Campaign to raise awareness that adverse drug events (ADEs) were the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. Today, new data confirm a troubling and unacceptable reality—ADEs have now surged to become the third leading cause of death. An internal analysis conducted by ASP projects that adverse drug events now account for over 250,000 deaths annually, surpassing stroke and respiratory disease, making it the third leading cause of death in the United States.
What we are witnessing is truly a national tragedy.
But the big news networks aren’t going to talk much about it, because the pharmaceutical companies are their biggest advertisers.
And our politicians are unlikely to push for major reform, because the pharmaceutical companies pour vast amounts of money into their campaigns.
Money is power, and the pharmaceutical industry is absolutely swimming in cash.
If you are waiting for major change to happen, you may find yourself waiting for quite a while.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
Bypass Big Tech Censors
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.