ARTICLE OF HEALTH

Modern medicine projects the image of scientific rigor but has all the hallmarks of a system of religious belief. The practical consequence of its insular perspective is the dead-end system of Western medical materialism that we have today. Repair of the physical body is erroneously equated with healing. Never mind whether it is capable of true healing; it doesn't even understand the meaning of the concept. The "church" of modern medicine is a dysfunctional Frankenstein monster, a result of having raised the analytical abstractions of the rational mind to god-like status above all other faculties of human experience. It is a mere caricature of what medical science could and should be.

In its quest for objectivity medicine has rejected its spiritual roots and lost sight of its humanity. It cannot be but a reflection of the culture from which it has emerged. It arrogantly rejects the wisdom of thousands of years of human history, is fragmented to the point of dissociation, devoid of common sense, preoccupied with short-term material goals, slave to its financial overlords, and utterly lacking in the requisite spiritual knowledge that would enable it to find its way out of its self-imposed foolishness.

Like some religious faiths, medicine clings ferociously to its worldview when challenged by congregants (patients) whose firsthand experiences sometimes lead them to believe otherwise. It defends its dogma with a powerful form of groupthink and is quick to lash out at heretical ideas that threaten its doctrine and its territorial interests. Like some religious movements that purport to be the one and only true path to salvation, it displays an unusual degree of intolerance when faced with nonbelievers who dare to ask questions. It is a closed belief system that does not allow innovation or new ideas. It lays claim to truth, fact, and objectivity, but exposes itself as otherwise when we closely examine its assumptions, politics, and practices.

The church of medicine found its origins with Rene Descartes in the seventeenth century, a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and a proponent of rationalism, a philosophy that elevated the mind and its ability to reason to a superior status above all other sources of knowledge. There are many thoughtful individuals, however, who would consider spiritual insight to be a superior form of knowledge. Nevertheless, even though spiritual reality and material reality can be considered two halves of Cartesian dualism, one gradually began to take precedence over the other. That which could not be measured, quantified, or assigned a logic to justify its truth was dismissed and tossed aside as irrelevant, and it was from this dogma that the new secular church of medical materialism took root. That is to say that this is the point where it began to deny the primacy of spirit and replace it with the worship of the physical body as the most important, if not the only consideration relevant to human health.

Medical science takes a materialistic stand in opposition to the non-physical; it is predicated upon a denial of the relevance of spirit. The irony here is that the church of medicine assumes the authority and function of a religious system but refuses to account for the role that the spiritual dimension plays in human health. Others who understand the significance of spiritual factors such as an afterlife, reincarnation, dreams, synchronicity, and so on, are forced to contend with an unnatural cultural split that reduces the welfare of the physical body to material terms and relegates the welfare of the soul to the wayside, as if body and soul are not connected and have no impact upon one another.

Before I get much further into this critique of Western medicine, let me make clear that I use conventional medicine and diagnosis when I find it necessary for my patients, my family, and myself. It has its pluses and minuses. We could not do without medical diagnostics, emergency medicine, insulin for diabetics, antibiotics for life-threatening illnesses, and so on. And although I have the utmost respect for my conventional medical colleagues who dedicate themselves to the well-being of their patients, the system itself is badly broken, based upon a flawed philosophy, and in dire need of serious revision. Similarly, I respect the diversity of human religious and spiritual experience, especially when it, too, respects diversity and eschews the impulse to proselytize.

"Scientism" is a term that has been applied to Western science's tendency to consider itself as the only valid way of describing reality and acquiring knowledge. Far from objective science, it is riddled with a self-imposed form of materialistic and mechanistic bias. When it inappropriately and clumsily attempts to impose its restricted worldview upon domains where it has no business meddling, it can no longer be considered legitimate science that is practiced with an awareness of its boundaries. It instead begins to resemble an ideology not unlike a religious form of evangelism. Again, it is more than a bit ironic when conventional medicine attempts to belittle some alternative therapies as "faith-based."

Like any good faith, the church of medicine stands on the authority of its sacred texts. The randomized double-blinded placebo-controlled trial is the gold standard that assures the purity of church doctrine. The sacred studies are the only source of true knowledge; all other forms of knowledge are held to be inferior. Upholders of the faith frequently quote from the sacred texts in order to disprove and discredit heretical viewpoints. The conspicuous incongruity here is the ever-changing and fickle nature of medical research studies, which frequently contradict one another and are commonly sponsored and funded by the very corporate interests that stand to gain from that research. Hence the true authors of the modern sacred texts increasingly turn out to be the underwriters of the medical-industrial complex.

There is little if any room for dissent inside the cathedrals (hospitals) of medicine and those with innovative ideas are commonly treated as pariahs. The net effect is to ensure that medical doctrine remains hermetically sealed, impervious to outside influences. The medical priesthood maintains its elite status and authority but at the expense of its relationship to those who it was originally intended to serve. When it exhibits such a consistent lack of receptivity to new ideas and insists upon the superiority of its worldview, it can only be compared to a form of fundamentalism, which, in turn, removes it very far indeed from the realm of rationality and logic that it claims to issue forth from.

The contemporary battle between the monolith of unyielding medical opinion and those who have experienced the firsthand devastation to loved ones wrought by vaccine injuries and adverse drug reactions is emblematic of the issues created by a medical system that is increasingly unresponsive to its patients. When we come to understand that modern medicine is a result of an overreliance upon the abstracting and analyzing functions of the rational mind, then we see how it can take such cold and calculated positions in the face of so much iatrogenically-induced tragedy.

Medical science stakes its credibility upon its rationality and yet many beliefs that it holds are more accurately characterized as rationalizations. We are all quite familiar with those patronizing mantras of medical denial: "that is just anecdotal evidence," "show me the studies," "there is no conclusive evidence," "more studies are needed," and "those are the risks that come with the benefits." Such rationalizations become possible only when we accept the false premise that logic is superior to intuition, common sense, firsthand experience, and empirical evidence.

As with many effective religious systems, ritual and symbol are often employed to inspire belief and reinforce the faith of congregants. The medical church has its white coats, green scrubs, and stethoscopes, those ubiquitous symbols of the medical priesthood. And we mustn't forget the ritual washing of hands to ward off evil germs in spite of what basic science teaches us, which is that excessively antiseptic practices contribute to the development of microbial mutations, which in turn lead to increasing resistance to antimicrobial drugs. Such practices don't strike me as very rational -- or scientific. Congregants are also expected to unquestioningly submit to a long string of ritual acts such as well-baby visits, vaccinations, mammograms, cholesterol checks, and an ever-expanding battery of tests and procedures brought to us by the latest cutting-edge technologies made possible through the generosity of the biotechnology industry. One must wonder, with such vast expenditures dedicated to health care, why our collective health as a society suffers so badly.

By contrast, true medical science that was faithful to its original mission was originally conceived to explore the nature of life without a predetermined agenda. It did not impose artificial parameters upon itself in order to define what was and what was not worthy of scientific inquiry. However, when contemporary medicine chooses to restrict the scope of its investigations to the purely material, it must therefore acknowledge the limitations that this places upon it as a science. It reveals a serious bias when it declares that spiritual existence is a mere figment of the imagination that has no impact upon illness and health. If it chooses not to take spiritual reality into account, then it cannot at the same time claim any authority regarding issues of vitalism, energy, consciousness, spirit, or soul.

Most forms of holistic health and healing, on the other hand, begin with the fundamental assumption that we are spiritual beings temporarily inhabiting physical bodies during our time here on the physical plane. If this truth is to be honored, spiritual laws and energetic principles must be taken into account when we consider issues of health and illness. Another important foundational principle of holism considers it a given that "all is one" and that everything, therefore, is interconnected. To speak of body and soul as separate entities is an artificial construct of the rational mind that is not congruent with holistic reality. This illusion of separateness is, nevertheless, part of the legacy of the reductionistic / mechanistic / materialistic worldview into which most of us were indoctrinated. When modern medicine steadfastly refuses to incorporate matters of energy, consciousness, spirit, thought, emotion, intuition, intent, imagination, and meaning into its health care equation, it simply reaffirms the limits of its scope and its ignorance of the larger holistic picture. And it reduces human life to its lowest common materialistic denominator.

When one person reports the resolution of his chronic headaches after a past life regression, and another experiences relief from her depression after a shamanic soul retrieval, and conventional medicine responds by dismissing such stories as mere "anecdote," it reveals an unbecoming contempt for things of which it has no understanding. When homeopathic treatment results in the dramatic improvement of a child with attention deficit disorder and conventional medicine claims that it is just not possible because it defies the laws of chemistry as it understands them, then it is time to go back to the medical drawing board in order to revise one's conception of the mysterious nature of human health and disease. When orthodox medicine demands explanations that conform to its mechanistic worldview before it will acknowledge those phenomena as legitimate, it simply demonstrates its intractable obstinacy and refusal to adjust its understanding.

When we start with the assumption that all that exists, or at least all the matters, is the material world, then we will arrive at very different conclusions about our approach to human illness than if we start with the assumption that we are spiritual beings in physical bodies. Science without grounding in something greater than itself lacks all sense of perspective and begins to take on the role that religion rightly served in earlier centuries. The reductionist approach of medical science breaks the human body into its component parts but it lacks the synthetic ability to put them back together again in order to make sense of the whole. Science has produced a vast quantity of data thereby increasing the breadth of our knowledge, but medical science, as it is presently configured, is completely incapable of attaining the wisdom needed to add to the depth of our knowledge of health and healing. It is not concerned with greater understanding as much as it is with reinforcing what it thinks it already knows.

Modern medicine has degenerated into a shadow of its original intended purpose, preoccupied with politics and intoxicated by its own power. The new medical religion is predicated upon mechanism, reductionism, and materialism, and has set itself up in opposition to common sense, spiritual understanding, and holism. Medicine cannot be healed until it comes to the realization that these traits are not enemies but complementary principles that should be working together as a unified whole. A greener, more integrated medical world would go a long way to healing the wounds of practitioners and patients alike.


About the author:
Larry Malerba, DO, DHt has been a practitioner, educator, and leader in the field of holistic medicine for more than twenty years. He is the author of Green Medicine: Challenging the Assumptions of Conventional Health Care. Dr.Malerba is board certified in Homeotherapeutics, Clinical Assistant Professor at New York Medical College, and a visiting lecturer at Albany Medical College. He is past president of the Homeopathic Medical Society of the State of New York. He received his medical degree from Des Moines University and his undergraduate degree from Michigan State University. Dr. Malerba has a private practice in upstate New York.

Green Medicine: Challenging the Assumptions of Conventional Health Care. North Atlantic Books, 2010.
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Website: www.docmalerba.com

The primary purpose of this article is to encourage a stronger commitment from doctors and parents to consider using safer medical care for infants and children FIRST before resorting to more dangerous treatments. One would hope and assume that doctors and parents would have a natural inclination to make the safety of these young human souls a significant and sincere priority, but sadly, the power and propaganda of Big Pharma has inappropriately turned this equation around and made it seem that doctors and parents are putting their children at risk if they don't prescribe powerful drugs first. This writer personally disagrees with this assumption and sincerely hopes that people consider this health issue to be of primary importance today.

The evidence presented below on the epidemic proportions of "medical child abuse" is somewhat inflammatory, but due to the fact that this issue is presently being ignored by so many doctors and parents, a little "inflammation" may be a necessary symptom that will lead to great attention to this problem and perhaps to some concrete solutions to it.

Although many people consider American health care to be "the best in the world," the World Health Organization has ranked the United States to be the 37th (!) in the world in the "performance of the overall health system" and 72nd (!!) in "overall level of health" (of the 191 member countries). American health care may be the most expensive, but there is no evidence to prove that increased expense leads to improved health status.

When one looks at the countries where health status and overall health scores the highest, they are countries in which there are a significant number of physicians and other health care practitioners who use herbal medicines, homeopathic remedies, acupuncture and nutritional treatments. Perhaps American doctors and patients would benefit from a significant change in health care practices that are not only considerably safer than modern medical treatments, but that also seem to create better health care status.

A newly published review of the six leading medical journals uncovered a truly shocking observation: No information on severe adverse events and withdrawal of patients owing to an adverse event was given in 27.1% and 47.4% of articles, respectively.[1] When one considers that this review only analyzed the medical journals, we can and should seriously worry about the safety of many drugs that are used today, and we should express real indignation when doctors prescribe two or more together (unless they were formally tested together) or when doctors prescribe them for conditions for which they have not been tested (called "off-label").

Ultimately, although physicians assume that they are practicing "scientific medicine," most drugs today are not tested on infants or children, and most children and adults are prescribed more than one drug at a time (and drugs are very rarely tested for efficacy or safety when used in combination with other drugs). These common practices lead one to assume that modern medicine is not adequately scientific, and these practices may be part of the explanation for the poor health status of Americans.

The Very Real Problem...

We all know people who have children who have benefited from conventional medical care, but sadly, we all also know people whose children have been harmed by it. The most famous words of the father of medicine, Hippocrates, are "First, do no harm." This dictum was directed at doctors, but it is as appropriate for parents. Sadly, however, our children are being put in front of harm's way with our present, almost callous overuse of powerful drugs for our young ones.

The bottom line is that too many physicians and parents are giving drugs to children that have not been proven to be either safe or effective for them. It is important for parents to know and to remind doctors that it is widely acknowledged that drugs act differently on the bodies of infants and children than on adults. And yet, it is extremely common for doctors to prescribe powerful drugs to infants and children and even prescribe more than one drug at a time, despite the fact that drugs are very rarely evaluated scientifically in combination with other drugs.

The FDA recently withdrew from the marketplace many popular cold and cough drugs that were marketed for infants and children,[2] but the problem of doctors over-prescribing other more dangerous and unproven drugs for children and the inappropriate overuse of over-the-counter drugs in children by parents is a very significant health problem. One must wonder if the increase in psychiatric disorders, immune dysfunction, autism and various other chronic diseases result from the use of the drugs that have not yet been proven to be either safe or effective for our infants and children.

Most consumers do not know that many drugs commonly prescribed for children today are not tested on them.[3] A 2002 survey in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) found that almost one-half of children were prescribed a drug that was "unlicensed" or "off-label" prescriptions for children.[4] A 2007 study of over 350,000 children found that a shocking 78.7% of children in hospitals are prescribed drugs that the FDA has not approved for use in children.[5] If this isn't shocking enough, it is seriously problematic to report that a survey in England found that 90% of infants were prescribed drugs that were not tested for safety or efficacy in infants.[6]

If the off-label use for drugs was not found to be dangerous, it would not be a problem. However, the use of off-label drug use is significantly associated with adverse drug reactions. In fact, there is almost a 350% increase in adverse drug reactions in children prescribed an off-label drug than children who were prescribed a drug that had been tested for safety and efficacy.[7] The use of drugs for infants and children that have not been proven to be safe constitutes a type of "medical child abuse."

Despite some significant gaps in research and knowledge about the safety and efficacy of drugs for children, the number of drugs prescribed for children has jumped significantly in recent years. In the U.S., the number of prescription drugs for children with asthma increased 46.5% from 2002 to 2005. In this same time, the number of prescription drugs for children with ADD/ADHD increased 40.5%, and even the number of prescription drugs for lowering cholesterol in children increased by 15%.[8]

In 2007, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported significant increases in childhood chronic diseases.[9] Since 1960, there has been a 280% (!) increase in the limitation of activity due to a health condition of more than 3 months duration. This article also noted a shadow side of increased vaccination usually ignored by physicians and the media: decreased exposure to viral infections in early childhood...may provide less and less normal stimulation of the immune system with more susceptibility to allergies in later years.

What can be done and what is being done...

First and foremost, physicians have to STOP prescribing as many drugs as they are prescribing, and must significantly reduce the number of off-label prescribing of drugs for infants and children. I am not suggesting that they stop the use of all off-label prescribing, but that they work to significantly reduce these more risky prescriptions.

Because they sometimes feel pressure from patients who want drugs (or something) to help their infant or child, doctors need to warn parents that many drugs have not yet been adequately tested for safety and efficacy for children. Doctors need to become better educators so that parents can better decide which risks they wish to take either with conventional drugs or various safer alternatives.

Doctors also need to begin learning about safer treatment methods. Although some alternative methods may not yet be adequately tested for efficacy (usually because Big Pharma cannot make as much money making and selling these treatments), natural therapies certainly have a much better safety profile, and there is a body of experience historically and internationally to suggest that many (not all) natural treatments can aid in the healing of many pediatric ailments. In honor of the Hippocratic dictum, "first, do no harm," doctors need to explore and even exhaust safer methods before resorting to the highly risky treatment modalities.

Because the FDA recently withdrew from the marketplace many popular cold and cough medicines, more parents and physicians should explore safer homeopathic and botanical alternatives. One of the books that I co-authored with Stephen Cummings, MD, Everybody's Guide to Homeopathic Medicines, has been the most popular guidebook to using homeopathic medicine. Besides explaining how to choose a homeopathic medicine that fits the sick person's unique syndrome of symptoms, this book is also widely appreciated because it provides detailed guidelines that define when it is medically safe to use a safer alternative treatment or when medical supervision is recommended.

Another useful, though more technical resource was recently published by Oxford University Press (OUP), one of the most highly respected publishers of medical textbooks and medical journals. OUP has begun to publish a series of textbooks on "integrative medicine," which is the emerging field of utilizing the best of the various natural treatment modalities and the best of conventional medicine.; OUP also recently published Integrative Pediatrics (edited by two pediatricians, Timothy Culbert, MD, and Karen Olness, MD).

Nowadays, virtually every leading conventional medical school in America has a course in "integrative medicine"; (or alternative and complementary medicine).[10] Although these courses are generally just an overview and introduction to the various alternative therapies, they provide good seeds for the medical students to determine which treatments should be a part of the medical care they will later provide. One way to predict the future of medicine is to ask medical students what interests them.

In 2008, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published a position paper acknowledging the widespread use of alternative and complementary therapies for children and encouraging doctors to discuss options with parents.[11] An AAP survey found that 54% of pediatricians in the US agreed that pediatricians should consider the use of all potential therapies, not just those of mainstream medicine.

Doctors, however, need to understand that alternative therapies are not just a different treatment, but also a different approach to understanding and treating whole person health care. Acupuncture, ayurveda, and homeopathic medicines provide time-tested and historically verified benefits that deserve the investigation of doctors and parents everywhere who want to use safer methods before resorting to more risky treatments. And there is a small but significant (and growing) body of research to confirm the efficacy of these systems of medicine, despite the strong tendency for skeptics to ignore this body of evidence.

Parents have to START asking their doctors if the drugs they are prescribing for their children have formally been found to be safe for them. If more than one drug is recommended, parents should ask for the evidence that these two drugs, taken together, are safe and effective. Parents will benefit from learning when some type of medical treatment is truly necessary because many common ailments do not require medical attention, therefore safer home treatment methods can and should be considered.

The bottom line is that there is increasing interest in alternative and complementary treatments for children. A survey in Canada published in Pediatrics (2007) found that more than half of the children who visited a university-affiliated hospital had received alternative and complementary medicines.[12] Homeopathic medicine was by far the most popular treatment, used by 39% of the families.

In 2002, the British Medical Journal reported that 75% of Germans have used complementary or natural medicine.[13] They also reported that 5,700 doctors received specialized training in natural medicine, with this number doubling to 10,800 by 2000. Homeopathic medicine is practiced by 4,500 medical doctors in Germany, almost twice as many as did so in 1994. The German government conducted this survey, discovering a 33% reduction in sick days if people used natural therapies, especially homeopathy or acupuncture.

Although homeopathic medicine is not well known in the U.S., homeopathy has maintained a unique international presence that has included appreciation and advocacy for many of the most respected cultural heroes of the past 200 years, including 11 U.S. Presidents and scores of world leaders (ranging from Gandhi to Tony Blair), six popes, numerous European royalty, literary greats, sports superstars, corporate leaders, as well as a wide range of first class physicians and scientists.[14]

In reference to homeopathy, it is common for skeptics of homeopathy to purposefully misinform others that there is no research that proves that homeopathy works. Such misinformation is typical of Big Pharma shills and closed-minded skeptics who revel in confusing the public.

In fact, one of the most serious public health problems in the developing world today is diarrhea, a condition that claims the lives of several million kids each year as a result of dehydration. Three double-blind and placebo-controlled trials have shown efficacy of treatment from homeopathic care.[15] The number one reason that children in the U.S. seek medical treatment is for ear infections, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has sought to discourage doctors from prescribing antibiotics due to their questionable efficacy and potential problems. There is some good evidence that homeopathic medicines are effective for this common ailment.[16]

There have also been several trials showing efficacy of homeopathic treatment for children with ADD/ADHD.[17]

Ultimately, both doctors and parents need to educate themselves about safer methods of treatment for the short-term as well as long-term health of our blessed young ones.

REFERENCES:

[1] Pitrou I, Boutron I, Ahmad N, Ravaud P. Reporting of Safety Results in Published Reports of Randomized Controlled Trials. Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(19):1756-1761.http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/169/19/1756

[2] Aguilera L. Pediatric OTC Cough and Cold Product Safety. US Pharmacist 2009;34(7):39-41. http://www.uspharmacist.com/content/c/14137/

[3]Australian Parliament's Committee on Children and Young People;Inquiry into the Use of Prescription Drugs and Over-the-counter Medications in Children and Young People.Report 11/52. May 2002.

[4] Jong GW, Eland IA, Sturkenboom MCJM, van den Anker JN, and Stricker BHC. Unlicensed and off label prescription of drugs to children: population based cohort study. BMJ. 2002 June 1; 324(7349): 1313-1314.

[5] Shah SS, Hall M, Goodman DM, et al. Off-label Drug Use in Hospitalized Children. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med.;2007;161(3):282-290.

[6] Conroy S, McIntyre J, Choonara I. Unlicensed and off label drug use in neonates. Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition 1999;80:F142-F145. doi:10.1136/fn.80.2.F142

[7] Horen B, Montastruc JL, and Lapeyre-mestre M. Adverse drug reactions and off-label drug use in paediatric outpatients. Br J Clin Pharmacol. 54(6); Dec 2002, 665-670. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2125.2002.t01-3-01689.x.

[8] Cox ER, Halloran DR, Homan SM, Welliver S, and Mager DE. Trends in the Prevalence of Chronic Medication Use in Children: 2002-2005. Pediatrics. 122,5 November 2008, e1053-e1061. doi:10.1542/peds.2008-0214

[9] Perrin JM, Bloom SR, Gortmaker SL. The Increase of Childhood Chronic Conditions in the United States. JAMA. 2007;297:2755-2759.

[10] Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine. http://www.imconsortium.org/members/home.html
[11] Kemper KJ, Vohra S, Walls R. The Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Pediatrics. Pediatrics 2008;122;1374-1386. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2008-2173. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/122/6/1374.pdf

[12] Jean D, Cyr C. Use of complementary and alternative medicine in a general pediatric clinic. Pediatrics. July 2007; 120 (1):e138-e141.

[13] Tuffs, Annette, Three out of Four Germans Have Used Complementary or Natural Remedies, BMJ, November 2 2002;325:990.

[14] Ullman, Dana. The Homeopathic Revolution: Why Famous People and Cultural Heroes Choose Homeopathy. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2007.

[15] Jacobs J, Jonas WB, Jimenez-Perez M, Crothers D. Homeopathy for childhood diarrhoea: combined results and meta-analysis from three randomized, controlled clinical trials. Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal 2003; 22: 229-234.

[16] Jacobs J, Springer DA, Crothers D. Homeopathic treatment of acute otitis media in children: a preliminary randomized placebo-controlled trial. Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal 2001; 20: 177-183.

[17] Frei, H, Everts R, von Ammon K, Kaufmann F, Walther D, Hsu-Schmitz SF, Collenberg M, Fuhrer K, Hassink R, Steinlin M, Thurneysen A. Homeopathic treatment of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a randomised, double blind, placebo controlled crossover trial. Eur J Pediatr., July 27,2005164:758-767.

About the author:
America's leading advocate for homeopathic medicine and author of The Homeopathic Revolution: Why Famous People and Cultural Heroes Choose Homeopathy (Foreword by Dr. Peter Fisher, Physician to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II). Learn more about homeopathy and Dana's work at http://www.Homeopathic.com or watch Dana's videos at http://naturalnews.tv/Browse.asp?me...

Dana has authored 9 other books, including Homeopathy A-Z, Homeopathic Medicines for Children and Infants, Discovering Homeopathy, and (the best-selling) Everybody's Guide to Homeopathic Medicines (with Stephen Cummings, MD).

On June 22, 2011 the Medicine Today section of Medscape Today News posted an article entitled Consumer Medication Information: One Page Fits All, that discusses a report from the AMA Council on Science and Public Health. Sounds pretty impressive, doesn't it! Even more impressive, Dr. Sandra Fryhofer, a clinical associate professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine, Past President of the American College of Physicians, and who previously served on the AMA Council of Science and Public Health, reports that noncompliance, when it comes to taking pharmaceutical drugs, leads to more frequent hospitalizations, more deaths, and nearly twice the cost (some $100 billion annually) for health care than those patients who take their medications as directed by their physicians. What group of patients is she referring to? Could someone with all these prestigious accomplishments be taking a position that is misleading, intimidating, and only a partial truth?

I have no doubt that for many patients with advanced health care issues Dr. Fryhofer's position is often correct. After spending 35 years working in the ICU, CCU, emergency, and the general wards, I've seen what medications can do to save lives.

However, this one sided article fails to take into consideration that there are many patients who do take pharmaceutical drugs as directed who die (about 400,000 annually), are hospitalized for serious adverse drug events (2-3 million annually), and drive up health costs (to the tune of about $300 billion annually). Let's face it, MDs are seriously undertrained when it comes to the side effects of medications as well as when it is better to turn to lifestyle and other less invasive approaches rather than prescription drugs and technologies to deal with chronic diseases.

The American public is becoming increasingly gun shy when it comes to trusting what people like the distinguished Dr. Fryhofer have to say. Oh yeah, did I mention that she was awarded an honorarium from the people from WebMD who own Medicine Today? Are you wondering who the primary source of funding for WebMD might be? You got it, it is none other than Big Pharma!

Sadly, no study has been done that compares the benefits and risks of the overall practice of medicine from the point of lives saved and lives lost, morbidity, and cost, with placebo. It has been proclaimed unethical to even consider doing such a scientific study because "medical treatment is so obviously beneficial." Consequently, what has followed is a polarized discussion from both the medical profession and those outside the medical profession that is not much above name calling.

Wouldn't it be refreshing if mainstream and CAM practitioners formed a partnership for the purpose of combining their strengths? There are enough sick people to go around, but there obviously is no profession that has been successful in curing even one of them. What is to lose by pooling resources and increasing our options to manage chronic diseases?

What we all want is good medicine, a style of practice that is safe, keeps us healthy, and is affordable. We're in the midst of a transformation where service is becoming the objective and transparency the modus operandi. But we're not yet there, and that is why one sided articles like the one published by the AMA are still being written.

So long as money trumps service, we have some evolving to do before good medicine can become a reality. To see a short video on this article click the following link: http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=F....

About the author:
Len Saputo, MD is board certified in internal medicine and is in private practice focused on integrative, holistic, person-centered care at the Health Medicine Center (http://www.doctorsaputo.com/a/healt...) in Walnut Creek, CA. Dr. Saputo is the founder of the Health Medicine Forum (http://www.doctorsaputo.com/a/healt...) and the author, with Byron Belitsos, of the Nautilus Gold Award winning book, "A Return to Healing: Radical Health Care Reform and the Future of Medicine" (http://doctorsaputo.com/a/a-return-...). He and his wife, Vicki, have hosted KEST radio's "Prescriptions for Health" show that airs daily for more than a decade.

Dr. Saputo's highly interactive health and wellness website www.DoctorSaputo.com has more than 1500 audio and video media files that are organized and targeted to address your specific and unique health issues. Take the free Health and Wellness Assessment Survey on the home page and experience how his surveys on a wide range of health care conditions provide immediate personalized integrative suggestions for your health challenges!

The days of drug companies simply settling out of court every time they break the law may soon be coming to an end. In a move that represents a significant shift toward punishing individuals for crimes rather than faceless corporations, federal officials say they will begin personally going after CEOs and other company executives whose companies fraudulently bilk Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs out of millions of dollars, or that falsely market dangerous drugs.

When a 1996 law was passed that banned drug companies convicted of felony charges from further participating in any federal health programs, Big Pharma quickly devised creative ways to get around it. As a result, drug companies for years have been able to continually break the law without much consequence by simply settling for a few million dollars, and continuing on with shady dealings that raked in a whole lot more (http://www.naturalnews.com/001867.html).

But now, company execs could face criminal charges for crimes committed by their companies, even if they claim to have had no awareness that any crimes were being committed. And drug companies will no longer be able to skirt by after breaking the law -- if they cheat the government health system, they will lose any eligibility to participate in it. After all, ignorance of the law or of the illicit dealings of one's company have never been a legitimate excuse for anyone else to evade justice -- why should it be any different for drug companies?

"When you look at the history of health care enforcement, we've seen a number of Fortune 500 companies that have been caught not once, not twice, but sometimes three times violating the trust of the American people, submitting false claims, paying kickbacks to doctors, marketing drugs which have not been tested for safety and efficacy," said Lewis Morris, chief counsel for the inspector general of the Health and Human Services Department (HHS), to The Washington Post.

"To our way of thinking, the men and women in the corporate suite aren't getting it. If writing a check for $200 million isn't enough to have a company change its ways, then maybe we have got to have the individuals who are responsible for this held accountable. The behavior of a company starts at the top."

Sources for this story include:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...

(NaturalNews) Viral hepatitis remains a public health challenge in the United States. Approximately 3.5-5.3 million persons are living with the condition, and millions more are at risk for infection. Hepatitis, which is largely preventable, is the leading cause of liver cancer. Without appropriate care, 1 in 4 persons with chronic hepatitis will develop liver cirrhosis or liver cancer.

In January 2010, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report on hepatitis, explaining the barriers to hepatitis prevention and treatment. In response to this, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) just released the Viral Hepatitis Action Plan -- Combating the Silent Epidemic: US Department of Health and Human Services Action Plan for the Prevention, Care and Treatment of Viral Hepatitis. The Plan is meant to result in:

- more people being aware that they have the condition

- a reduction in new cases

- a complete elimination of mother to child transmission of Hepatitis B

Although viral hepatitis is a leading cause of infectious death in the U.S., many people are unaware they have the condition because often time they don't feel the symptoms, or the symptoms are there, but just feel like the flu.

Here's a quick overview of viral hepatitis:

Hepatitis A - found in the feces of infected persons. Hepatitis A spreads from one person to another by putting something in the mouth that has been contaminated with the stool of a person with hepatitis A. This can happen when people do not wash their hands after using the toilet and then touch other people's food. Typically, milder symptoms than hepatitis B or C. Illness from hepatitis A is usually brief, and infection with the virus does not lead to chronic liver disease or liver cancer.

Hepatitis B - found in blood and certain body fluids of infected persons. Hepatitis B spreads when a person who is not immune comes in contact with blood or body fluid from an infected person. Hepatitis B is spread by having sex with an infected person without a condom, sharing needles during injected drug use, needle sticks or sharps, exposures in a health care setting, or from an infected mother to her baby during vaginal birth. Exposure to blood in any situation can be a risk for transmission. There are usually no symptoms until there are serious liver complications. When symptoms do appear, they may include high fever, jaundice and abdominal pain chronic hepatitis B can lead to cirrhosis and/or liver cancer.

Hepatitis C - also found in blood and certain body fluids of infected persons. Hepatitis C spreads when a person who is not immune comes in contact with blood or body fluids from an infected person. Hepatitis C is spread through sharing needles during injected drug use, needle sticks or sharps, exposures in a health care setting, through organ transplants that have not been screened, or less commonly from an infected mother to her baby during vaginal birth. It is possible to get hepatitis C from sex, but it is uncommon. Infection with the hepatitis C virus is the number one reason for liver transplant in the U.S. Unlike hepatitis A and B, there is no vaccine to prevent hepatitis C.

There is a simple blood test to check for the Hepatitis virus.

Hopefully, with the guidance of this plan and the collaboration of policy figures, stake holders, and health care practitioners we can reduce the transmission of this silent epidemic.

To read the action plan please see http://www.hhs.gov/ash/initiatives/...

Data source: The Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) Risk Factor Survey (www.cdc.gov/reach)
Data source: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) (www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes.htm)

About the author:
Kshamica Nimalasuriya MD, MPH is a Preventive Medicine Physician involved with merging Media with Health, Open-Source Education, Herbal Medicine, Fitness, Nutrition, Wellness, and Love. She works on many initiatives bridging the global digital divide of health care education.

She has a line of organic natural skin care: www.aanandee.com

(NaturalNews) When Barack Obama was elected to the presidency of the United States, many of us felt a sense of hope we hadn't experienced in decades. We were convinced that a new era of transparency was unfolding, and that America would finally resolve its most important social, economic, and political disparities. We sensed a turning point in American history, a social transformation of major proportions. We imagined the rebirthing of the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. At the very least America had already taken a giant stride forward by electing its first ever African-American president!

While this "high on America" feeling swept across the land, a highly sophisticated narcissistic and evil counter movement to sustain the status quo was also gaining momentum. A small and powerful segment of the wealthy elite who run the business and politics of America for their own personal gain had no intentions of allowing "the change we need" to take root and upset their economic and political control. It wasn't "the change they needed!" When Barak Obama took his oath of office, the massive financial power of these massive giants was fully capable of purchasing and controlling the US Congress, and only Congress would determine what health care reform would mean. Since that time, nothing has changed this frightening scenario. Nothing!

Make no mistake, what is happening in health care reform is not at all different from what is happening in the reform of any other sector of our society -- be it business, law, religion, politics, science, or sports. The fact is that despite our hopes and great expectations, up until now "the change we need" remains far more a dream rather than reality. Fortunately, at last, many Americans are awakening to this reality and are outraged. However, outrage alone is insufficient to create the change we need.

Being a veteran physician with several decades of experience has given me an insider's perspective on why and how medicine has lost so much of its heart and soul and become a coveted business enterprise that is far more about return on investment than service. Yet I continue to have faith that the "change we need" is possible. We have the tools and power to make it happen today, but we haven't stepped up to the plate and used them. We've been in such a deep trance that we've failed to appreciate that we have always been in position to change how America operates in every way at the deepest level. We have been living under a spell cast by corporate America and those wealthy elite who control it.

The Affordable Care Act was little more than a token for health care reform. It did little beyond rearranging the chairs on the deck of a sinking Titanic. President Obama failed to educate and rally the public, and especially his political base, and few people in Congress understood the full implications of the long, convoluted, and poorly understood Affordable Care Act. Don't think this was done by accident. It was deliberate. Even worse, too many legislators focused primarily on how much money and power they could get in return for selling their vote. Big Pharma, big hospital chains, and the insurance industry did stellar work in investing their money and promoting their narrow, self-serving "solutions" in the US Congress and even the White House. Their return on their minor investment promised to be exceptional. And relatively speaking, the money they spent on lobbying and campaign contributions was merely their pocket change. What a cheap way to buy Congress and guarantee the status quo.

Big Pharma and the insurance industry invested in an excess of $500 million in "donations" to Congresspeople in 2009 that are nothing less than outright bribes. Let's do the math. There are 435 members of the House and 100 members of the senate. That comes to 535 people divided by $500 million dollars. Hmmm, that's nearly a cool $1 million per Congressperson! It is impossible to follow the dotted lines and come to any conclusion other than Congress has an allegiance to preserving and enhancing the status quo for Big Pharma, the insurance industry, and the very wealthy who control them and many other highly profitable industries. The value of a political soul in 2009 had a price tag of less than $1 million per Congressperson. What a steal when one considers that a total health care budget of $2.3 trillion was at stake!

About the author:
Len Saputo, MD is board certified in internal medicine and is in private practice focused on integrative, holistic, person-centered care at the Health Medicine Center (http://www.doctorsaputo.com/a/healt...) in Walnut Creek, CA. Dr. Saputo is the founder of the Health Medicine Forum (http://www.doctorsaputo.com/a/healt...) and the author, with Byron Belitsos, of the Nautilus Gold Award winning book, "A Return to Healing: Radical Health Care Reform and the Future of Medicine" (http://doctorsaputo.com/a/a-return-...). He and his wife, Vicki, have hosted KEST radio's "Prescriptions for Health" show that airs daily for more than a decade.

Dr. Saputo's highly interactive health and wellness website www.DoctorSaputo.com has more than 1500 audio and video media files that are organized and targeted to address your specific and unique health issues. Take the free Health and Wellness Assessment Survey on the home page and experience how his surveys on a wide range of health care conditions provide immediate personalized integrative suggestions for your health challenges!

(NaturalNews) So what do we Americans really want when it comes to health care? Wouldn't it be nice to have health care reform that provided affordable health insurance for everyone and shifted the focus of the health care industry from managing diseases to promoting wellness and vitality? Sure, we were outraged by the fact that this did not happen, but we're still asleep at the wheel when it comes to taking action to change this situation.

What has become more clear with each passing day is that without radical health care reform, the future of medicine in the US will continue to operate far below its potential. Quality of health care will continue to be split into two groups. The first group will provide mediocre health care at best. Of course, it will be offered to the uninsured middle and lower socioeconomic classes. Under the Affordable Care Act there is no increase in funding to pay for this! So what do you suppose will happen to the already poor quality of Medicaid health care? Both the quality and quantity of health care will have to be compromised. It will be nothing comparable to the best private health care plans such as what Congress and the wealthy have. Millions more will be pressured to choose a plan from state-run exchanges that present health insurance plans from the same old greedy private insurers, and untold millions more will not have access to any insurance at all!

The second group gets the best health care possible. Of course only the privileged and the wealthy can get this insurance program because it is unaffordable for the rest of us. Money talks! It gets you in the hospital you want, the doctor you want, the tests you need in a timely way, any treatment there is, and there are no exclusions, long lines, or red tape that gets in the way of getting the best care possible on the planet. Overall, however, for the rest of us there is no sensible reason to predict that we can rise significantly above our present lowly WHO ranking of 37th in the world in overall quality of care. We need radical health care reform for this to happen and that has never been an option.

It's been said that our thinking has to evolve to a new and higher level if we want real change in any area, including health care reform. So what is that new and higher level, and how do we achieve it?

This higher level could evolve from pondering and taking action to resolve questions like: Can we act at the grass roots level to develop healthy programs that would prevent disease and promote wellness? Do we need government to take care of our health care needs? Can we take responsibility for taking care of ourselves by living a healthy lifestyle and stopping the massive pollution of the planet? We have become so brainwashed that we believe we can rely on the medical profession to take care of us if we don't?
It is time we begin appreciating that as consumers we have a lot of power. We have been so vulnerable to advertising that have forgotten to think for ourselves and make intelligent choices about what we purchase. We have fallen victim to clever advertising that we know does not tell the truth and entices us to buy products that are often unhealthy, unnecessary, and environmentally unfriendly. We have forgotten that corporate America is completely dependent on how we spend our dollars.

So, how can we change this scenario? Should we clean out Congress and replace it with honest politicians by voting every incumbent out of office? At least it takes a certain amount of time for the new faces in DC to become corrupt. Is it realistic to create legislation prohibiting Big Pharma and the insurance industry from its disregard for service and its greed for profit that has finally become so obvious? Is it possible to safeguard our precious medical research by prohibiting the publication of scientific literature because of conflicts of interest that lead to lies or distortion of research data? Can we force Congress to provide the financial support the FDA needs to make it an independent agency that can regulate Big Pharma without having an incestuous partnership that jeopardizes its regulation of drugs, cosmetics, household products, and even the food we eat? Can we pass laws that prevent the pollution that puts us at risk for poor health and injures our environment? Is the answer going to come from legislation or through inspiration; from law enforcement or education? Or both?

Pogo was right after all; we have found the enemy and they are us! It has finally become clear that we are waging a war against ourselves! We have become brainwashed to worship the almighty dollar and have forgotten our true purpose in life -- that of loving one another and living in community where we all pitch in and take responsibility for our social, economic, political, legal, spiritual, and medical practices. We have forgotten that true community embraces and rewards for giving and graciously accepting, but not for narcissism and taking. We have forgotten the principles of the village where every person is interconnected and an inseparable part of the whole. We have replaced this philosophy with one based on competition and have placed our own self-serving desires above that of the community. So where do we go from here?

The pitiful squeaks of the enlightened few are barely decipherable above the powerful roar of corporate America. Today's politicians beg us for votes and make grandiose promises to serve us as their primary objective, but in the final analysis their pocketbooks and their hearts are owned by corporate America.

Stay tuned for part 3 of this series...

About the author:
Len Saputo, MD is board certified in internal medicine and is in private practice focused on integrative, holistic, person-centered care at the Health Medicine Center (http://www.doctorsaputo.com/a/healt...) in Walnut Creek, CA. Dr. Saputo is the founder of the Health Medicine Forum (http://www.doctorsaputo.com/a/healt...) and the author, with Byron Belitsos, of the Nautilus Gold Award winning book, "A Return to Healing: Radical Health Care Reform and the Future of Medicine" (http://doctorsaputo.com/a/a-return-...). He and his wife, Vicki, have hosted KEST radio's "Prescriptions for Health" show that airs daily for more than a decade.

Dr. Saputo's highly interactive health and wellness website www.DoctorSaputo.com has more than 1500 audio and video media files that are organized and targeted to address your specific and unique health issues. Take the free Health and Wellness Assessment Survey on the home page and experience how his surveys on a wide range of health care conditions provide immediate personalized integrative suggestions for your health challenges!