There is No Such Thing as Alternative Medicine!
In the wake of the passing of the new U.S. Health Care bill, the news media and ScienceBlogs have exploded with commentary. While I’m not going to get into the politics of the situation (politics annoy the hell out of me), I do have one beef that needs to be aired.
One thing that keeps coming up over and over again is this (false) idea that there should be provisions for “alternative medicines” in the bill, because people should have a choice of whether to go to a Naturopathic or Homeopathic clinic for treatment.
Um, morons? There’s NO SUCH THING ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE! There’s only medicine, and things that are not medicine. And if it’s not medicine, then it’s not something that should be covered by health insurance, period.
This isn’t to say that I don’t believe in healthy eating. Obviously I’m a big fan of cooking food from scratch, using real ingredients, and carefully balancing your diet. I also believe in meditation as a method of reducing stress (which is a leading cause of chronic disease), regular exercise to keep you in good shape, and keeping a positive mental attitude. All of those things, though, are part of what health care is all about. They’re things that a doctor would recommend, and thus they’re a part of medical care.
On the other hand, drinking water with a single molecule of caffeine in it somewhere, or receiving Christian science prayer treatment, or taking vitamin D and drinking wheatgrass smoothies to get rid of your cancer …. that’s going to require some serious scientific (and not Christian scientific, real science please) studies behind it before I start considering it “medical” in any way.
Medicine is that which has been tested and proven to work. Everything else falls under the umbrella of “quackery until proven useful”. Unlike in the criminal justice system where everybody starts out innocent, in medicine you have to prove yourself BEFORE you are accepted. So there aren’t “alternative medicines”. There are “alternatives TO medicines”, but nobody should be encouraging or subsidizing those — people die because they’ve been deluded by quacks.
Stupid humans. At least I’m lucky enough to live in Canada, so this ridiculous bill and the even more ridiculous discussions surrounding it do not have to be at the forefront of my consciousness right now.
DomestiGoth 
April 24, 2011 at 11:56 AM
The medical monopoly we have today controls and dictates what medicine is through the AMA, HHS the FDA. They make their own laws and outlaw everyone else, the perfect business to be in. They just sit back on their license and treat you into oblivion with one drug after another. Then if the drugs stop working they move to their old standby’s cut, burn and poison. And when you are breathing your last and your loved ones insurance and bank accounts are empty trying to save you. They send you home so you do not die in the presence of other patients and discourage them.
As a result of this licensing of their monopoly modern medicine has not cured one disease in over a half century, zero. Why should they, they don’t have any competition to deal with as I said above, they outlawed them. It would be like the government giving Ford Motor Company complete control over any permits to build competing automobiles in the USA. You would never have seen a General Motors, American Motors or Chrysler Corporation and they certainly would have never allowed in a foreign car.
They have fed the public just the information they want them to understand and no more. It makes the field of medicine one dimensional restricting our healing options down to one groups opinion of what medicine is. How would you prove yourself in that situation when the disproving is being done by those who are in control of approval and have the most to lose if you are proven right, what a sad joke. The real losers are those millions who are dead and dying because they never knew they had a choice.
Ask the doctor to tell you what is causing the deadly chronic disease that is killing you (and I am talking any chronic disease from MS to cancer) and they will say we do not know? That is right, after spending trillions of dollars of the publics donations let alone government money over these last fifty plus years that is their pathetic answer. But, for every one of those chronic diseases they have a life time treatment with its high cost and health degrading side effects. That is what we get for all our trillions a bloated, budget busting, disease causing, health monopoly (sounds like quackery to me).
What is interesting about all this is that we were warned by a Doctor when the constitution was being signed.
”To restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. The Constitution of this republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as religious freedom.”
Benjamin Rush, MD, signer of the Declaration of Independence
And a Bastille is just what we have, one monopolized medical prison who’s guards have even over ruled our beloved Constitution. By restricting our freedom of speech and the right of citizens to choose their own form of health care we are imprisoned. Something you would have expected from a Communist state but not the United States.
The majority of Naturopathic, Aruvedic, Chinese Medicine, Tribal medicine doctors and Homeopaths I know didn’t get into this field because of the great opportunities they saw, hardly. Because the opportunities are far outweighed by the legal mine field they walk through every day by telling the truth. These doctors got into Natural medicine mainly because like me they cured a disease they had through nature. Then they saw the truth and the wrongs being done to humanity and would not be silenced.
Doc Blake
April 24, 2011 at 1:32 PM
Right here is where your entire argument falls apart:
“These doctors got into Natural medicine mainly because like me they cured a disease they had through nature.”
No. No they didn’t, and no you didn’t. Any evidence you have for such a “cure” is purely anecdotal, and thus scientifically useless. Until you can show me (and the entire world) a peer-reviewed study — one with sufficient controls and sample size to have a very small margin of error — to support your hypothesis, that’s all it is. An unproven hypothesis.
The rest of your post is just empty rhetoric. Without scientific proofs, it’s not “medicine”. Period.
April 25, 2011 at 11:00 AM
I made my point long before that paragraph but if you would like to hear some more fine.
Scientific medical evidence can hardly be trusted today with the controls from top to bottom coming from the very people who are paying for and doing the experiments and profit from the outcomes. It is what you call an apple orchard; anyone with and sometimes without credentials can just walk in and pick a few choice apples by signing their name and walk away rich (a few examples below).
Busted: Wyeth Used Ghostwriters To Place Over 40 “Scientific” Articles In Medical Journals, by David Gutierrez, staff writer Natural News
The articles were published in 18 different medical journals. Neither Wyeth nor the studies’ purported authors informed the journals that the company had funded the studies and employed their writers.
The Prempro case is not Wyeth’s first ghostwriting scandal; the company was previously forced to pay $21 billion in lawsuits over the diet drug fen-phen, which was also marketed using ghostwriters.
ducknetweb.blogspot.com/…/wyeth-used-ghostwriters-to-promote.html
One in seven scientists report that they have known colleagues to falsify or slant the findings of their research, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and published in the journal PLoS One.
http://www.naturalnews.com/026865_natural_health_technology_renewable_energy.html#ixzz1KXx1FU1m
Dr. Poul Thorsen, one of the researchers involved in two highly publicized autism reports published in the influential New England Journal of Medicine, was accused of fraud last month by Aarhus University in Denmark.
According to reports, Thorsen`s fraud was uncovered as the result of an investigation by the university where he worked and CDC. The investigation found that Thorsen had falsified documents and, in violation of university rules, was accepting salaries from both the Danish university and Emory University.
Thorsen and his research staff at the center have churned out numerous research papers, many of which assure the public about vaccine safety. In all, CDC is reported to have paid Thorsen`s center $14.6 million since 2002.
Thorsen’s partner Kreesten Madsen recently came under fierce criticism after damning e-mails surfaced showing Madsen in cahoots with CDC officials intent on fraudulently cherry picking facts to prove vaccine safety.
Huffington Post, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Posted: March 11, 2010 11:25 AM
Why You Can’t Trust Most Studies on Health
This is the second study by Dr. John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Ioannina School of Medicine, Greece, to show that much scientific research is highly questionable. Back in 2005 Dr. Ioannidis showed that there is less than a 50% chance that the results of any randomly chosen scientific paper will be true.
_http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/11/04/why-you-can-t-trust-most-studies-on-health.aspx_
(http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/11/04/why-you-can-t-trust-most-studies-on-health.aspx
A New Low in Drug Research: 21 Fabricated Studies
Dr. Scott S. Reuben, a prominent Massachusetts anesthesiologist, allegedly fabricated 21 medical studies that claimed to show benefits from painkillers
like Vioxx and Celebrex.
He was also fired from his job at the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass. after an internal audit there found that Dr. Reuben had been faking research data for 13 years.
(http://www.theday.com/article/20100…)_http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/04/A-New-Low-in-Drug-Research-21-Fabricated-Studies.aspx_ (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/04/A-New-Low-in-Drug-Research-21-Fabricated-Studie
Links to other articles about fraud in the medical science community.
Antidepressants ‘make young more than twice as likely to feel suicidal’ http://www.telegraph.co.uk Taking antidepressants can make young people more than…
Tamiflu anti-viral drug revealed as complete hoax; Roche studies based on scientific fraud (NaturalNews) When it comes to selling chemicals that claim…
Doctors’ links to drug firms may need new rules – HSE (Ireland) THE CHIEF executive of the Health Service Executive, Prof…
Big Pharma paid $500,000 to Chicago psychiatrists who used children as guinea pigs (NaturalNews) A federal lawsuit has been filed against pharmaceutical…
Drug Companies Using Third-World People as Guinea Pigs (NaturalNews) Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly turning to the practice of…
And I have not even gotten to the placebo scandal that is right now rocking the very foundation of the scientific community. Here is a peek: If you are doing a scientific study on a diabetes drug that you want approved, wouldn’t it be nice if you could use a sugar pill as a placebo, DA. Oh, and isn’t it great to know that the FDA has exactly zero rules on the use of placebos in medical research.
Antidotal evidence, yes that is exactly the evidence that any sane person would want before they accept any scientific study where their life and health are at stake.
Doc Blake
April 25, 2011 at 11:29 PM
Two things wrong with your assessment: firstly, the very fact that these things are “scandals” or that they become “exposed” shows that the very system you’re attacking is actually working. Were it truly an “apple orchard”, as you claim, these sorts of things would never come to light. You’re never going to overcome human nature, human error, or human greed, no matter what system is in place — but the fact that there are those working to expose corruption and discover mistakes (and that they are succeeding in doing so) means that there are checks and balances in place, creating a perfectly functional system (or as perfectly functional as anything can be, given that there are humans involved).
Second, what makes you think that it would be any different, should so-called “natural medicines” become the method of choice? It would still be human beings and corporations running the show. There would still be greed, corruption, bias, spin, propaganda, and mistakes. The only difference you seem to be proposing is that we toss aside the scientific method, which is something that no sane person should ever want when their life and health are at stake.
April 26, 2011 at 3:01 AM
Take a closer look and you will see that these stories do not come from main media but from Natural News, Dr. Mercola, Huffington Post and the UK. The main media has advertising pressure from pharmaceutical companies do you really think that they would give much press to stories like these?
I never said, toss aside the scientific method but you do not seem to realize that the scientific method is based on anecdotal evidence. For instance if you did not have people talking about their experience (anecdotal) using white willow bark to make their headache pain go then aspirin would never have come about (white willow has no side effects by the way).
When a scientist goes into the jungle looking for a medicinal herb do you think he just picks up a bunch of plants and goes back to his lab experimenting until he comes up with something. No, he goes to the tribal herbalist and asks what are you doing for this disease? The herbalist gives him the stores of how his people from long ago found this herb and it cured their disease. That is the anecdotal evidence that this herb works because people have been using it for years and it cures their disease without hurting them.
The scientist takes the herb back to the lab and tests it on animals/people with the disease to see the results (a scientific experiment and he may even write a paper). Now here is where the problem starts from a herbalist point of view like mine. If the herb worked and cures the animals/people then he moves on to finding and extracting the one thing in the herb that did the curing and then find a way to duplicate that with chemicals. Why, because you cannot patient a product of nature you have to make it yourself with chemicals in order to make a lot of money. And from that chemical abomination you dull the symptom, but you get no cure, just other diseases, suffering and death. That is one very big reason why modern medicine only treats disease never cures disease.
Now here is where a citizen like me comes in and I discover through my reading and listening to lectures (anecdotal) that there are herbs that have been used for hundreds some times thousands of years for curing disease. And the only side effects are you get healthy. Now I am deathly sick and I am not going to sit around and wait for some scientist to figure out what is already a fact. So I use the herbs on myself and cure the disease I have and I realize how simple that really was (I know anecdotal). So I go to school study herbs and natural healing techniques and become a Naturopathic Doctor. And I go around spreading anecdotal evidence where ever I can. And if I come across any science that backs up what I already know then I use that also.
But guess what? The FDA lately has been trying to stop anyone from using scientific evidence to encourage people to use a herb or food to help themselves get well. Yes, we would not want the truth getting out even if it is proven scientifically. Doc Blake
April 26, 2011 at 2:27 PM
The scientific method is NOT based on anecdotal evidence, and you admit that yourself within your own argument. Anecdotal evidence may be the inspiration for a hypothesis, but the scientific method is what comes AFTER that hypothesis has been formed. The hypothesis is the question: the scientific method is the logical process undertaken in order to determine the answer.
I’m not arguing that media bias doesn’t exist, or that corporations do not have an inordinate amount of control over what gets printed and what doesn’t, especially in your country. What I am arguing with is the conclusions you’ve drawn because of that unfortunate reality.
Media bias is no reason whatsoever to stop trusting science and logic. The only thing you shouldn’t trust is the media itself. It doesn’t mean that EVERYTHING the media tells you is a lie — it just means that you, and all people, should use logic, critical thinking, science, and reasoned judgment in evaluating all that you are told (from ANY source, including non-mainstream media such as HuffPo and Dr. Mercola, who are just as prone to biased journalism as any other source).
To address another point you’ve made: just because something has been distilled or created in the lab does not automatically make it inferior to the product which grew on a tree or was dug from the ground. You suggest that instead of using aspirin, we should all chew willow bark to cure our headaches. However, this is actually a very poor solution. There are billions of people on this earth, many of whom live in areas where willow trees are not a native species and would not grow well. Attempting to grow these trees in places where they are not native could well lead to severe ecological repercussions (there are many examples of the damage done by invasive species to be looked at). Also, with so many people needing medicine, how would we keep our willow groves healthy and thriving? We’d either need to use ridiculous amounts of land to grow these trees, or else we’d deplete the resource and possibly cause the extinction of the entire species. Not to mention the fact that willow bark is a relatively weak painkiller — what should we use for more severe pain? And how about those who are allergic to willow or immune to its effects — should they go without painkillers? Lab-created painkillers take up less space and resources, are more easily transported to places all over the world, and can be made in higher strength (and more carefully regulated doses, to prevent accidental overdose and death), without outside contaminants that may cause bad reactions.
Finally, I should address a common misconception that you seem to be labouring under: if your plant works, it is, in fact, medicine. A good doctor or scientist would categorize it as such. So my initial point, that there’s no such thing as alternative medicine, still stands up perfectly well here.
April 27, 2011 at 11:34 AM
Plants in the form we are talking about are food. Pharmaceutical drugs are chemicals or the pharmaceutical industry could not patent them, patent medicine. Just as you were saying in your article about natural things like whole foods “are part of what health care is all about.” But since medical training barely covers the subject of diet and in the place where you need and expect the best care a hospital you find the worst foods. And like the great naturopathic doctor Hippocrates said “Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.” If I would have depended on an MD to help me by using foods in the form of herbs, juices, cleanses and detoxes I would have been dead long ago like my father and grandfather. But fortunately I found that there was another choice and that was naturopathic medicine. It saved me and I will be forever grateful and do my utmost to help as many people as I can to realize that they do have other choices outside of drugs, cutting, burning and poisoning.
Unless they throw out the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as aellopathic medicine has tried to do with freedom of speech Americans deserve to have the right to choose what form of health care they want. If like me they want to use foods in the form I described above to help them recover from their diseases then that should be their right. It is their body and mind and if they want to work with a naturopathic doctor and not an allopathic then everyone else should mind their own business and let them do so.
Adios
Doc Blake
April 27, 2011 at 1:26 PM
Medical training in the states is considered far inferior to that offered here in Canada (the system I’m more familiar with), so I won’t speak to the issue of training except to say that any doctor who cannot help you to choose a beneficial diet is not a very good doctor. If all your doctors are so badly trained as to be unable to offer assistance in choosing a diet that would aid your recovery from chronic disease or simply maintain good health, then a major overhaul of the system is certainly required — however, once again, you are jumping to conclusions that are simply not supported by the circumstances. The correct and logical response to a problem with doctors not being trained in all the areas they should be is to push for better training and certification standards across the board, NOT to throw the baby out with the bathwater and go to some unproven, under-researched “alternative” instead.
The term “allopathy” is a misnomer. It’s a made-up word used by homeopaths in order to create the illusion of balance between two things where, in fact, no such dichotomy exists. It’s propaganda. As I’ve said before: there is only medicine, and things that are not medicine. If it works and can be proven to work, it’s medicine. If not, it’s not medicine. Simple as that.
Speaking of misnomers and propaganda: just because something is a “chemical” doesn’t make it bad. The word “chemical” has gotten a lot of bad press from biased news sources and proponents of so-called “holistic” healing. But everything around us is chemical — any pure substance, even something as simple and ubiquitous as water, is chemical in nature.
People do have the right to choose what they want to do with their bodies. People can choose to treat their cancer with chemotheraphy, food, prayer, standing on their heads and saying the alphabet backwards — or they can refuse treatment entirely. The argument here is that NOT all of those things should be subsidized. Unless it can be empirically proven that prayer provides a positive results in healing, governments shouldn’t be spending taxpayer money to have priests come in to hospitals and invoke the aid of some possibly-imaginary dude in the clouds.
April 26, 2011 at 6:58 AM
Holding a Bachelor of Science, I’ve learned the “scientific method” sufficiently to appreciate its rational step-by-step process of determining not the TRUTH of something, but that that something was not proven false. It’s a fine distinction but significant. One peer-reviewed study merely provides info about one specific thing, and the methodology used to reveal that one specific thing. A meta-analysis, on the other hand, which reviews all the papers on a particular topic (and which usually results in a book), can bring us closer to the TRUTH about something.
A lightly-written but highly informative view of those ideas is found at “Meet Science: What is ‘peer-review’?”
I wouldn’t be so beholden to the peer-review process. And, as Doc Blake points out, many scientific studies are fraudulent, backed by industry, and only serve to legitimate selling chemicals to people. It’s best not to limit knowledge to one method of how that knowledge is acquired.
To assert that there is only one kind of medicine is to reveal a wholesome ignorance about humans, plants, and evolution. My, one wonders how humanity survived for 150,000 years before Western medicine came along!
April 26, 2011 at 2:08 PM
Obviously peer review is subject to the same flaws as all human endeavor, and one must always maintain a skeptical mind — but would you really propose eliminating this system, just because it occasionally exhibits the flaws found within all human administrative systems? That would be like suggesting that we abolish all governing bodies and live in a state of anarchy merely because some governments are corrupt, or that we get rid of the justice system purely because judges and juries occasionally make errors or are biased.
And yes, there is only one kind of medicine. The kind that works. It doesn’t matter what the source is, who developed it, whether it’s a natural plant or a lab-created substance: if it works, it’s medicine. If it doesn’t, it’s not medicine. It’s as simple as that (and as complicated).
April 26, 2011 at 2:31 PM
To add to my previous reply: you ask how humanity survived for 150 000 years before Western medicine came along. The answer to that is quite simple: through attrition. Humans breed rapidly and, through tool use and having larger-than-average brains, are able to colonize most anywhere. Our lives weren’t easy, though. Life expectancies were very short. People died all the time of things which we now consider mundane and easily cured — simple things like colds and flus could bring down a healthy adult.
Modern western medicine has made it possible for us to lead lives of luxury and privilege, without the constant fear of death from smallpox, childbed fever, an infected wound, or even a simple influenza virus. Even just a century ago, this was not the case, and we should all be thankful that we live in such a time.
April 26, 2011 at 2:54 PM
well, sorry, but humans did not survive due to “rapid breeding”. humans are what is called a “K species” — few births, long maturation process. “r species” on the other hand, like bugs, do rapid breeding.
Western medicine is responsible for over 100,000 deaths a year in the U.S. alone. It is one of the most corrupt institutions to scourge humanity.
But, go ahead, believe what you want.
April 26, 2011 at 3:54 PM
I suppose the correct word would be “prolific” breeding, not “rapid”. We do breed faster than many species, although yes, as large-brained mammals we can’t compete with the majority of species in that regard.
Doesn’t invalidate my point that our lives, before the advent of western medicine, tended to be short and brutal.
April 28, 2011 at 2:31 AM
Well we will call them “modern medical doctors” then and chemicals can be “refined substances” when they are no longer in their natural state as nature made them. But no matter what name you give them we know who and what we are talking about. Chemicals or refined substances wouldn’t be getting bad press if they did not cause so many problems. In the area of medical scientifically proven medicine I would venture to say at least 99% cause dangerous side effects, liver damage is one of the most common. And modern medicine has still not cured one chronic disease in over a half century with all the trillions they have wasted making scientifically proven medicines that cure nothing. And I do not know about Canada but in the USA 1 in 2 people have a chronic disease needing treatment. I would also venture to say that 99% of all chronic diseases are considered incurable and the patient will need to take the refined, side effect causing, scientifically proven medicine(s) for the rest of their lives, that kind of refined scientifically proven modern medicine is greedy, quack-ish and nuts. But I believe there is a place for them if people what that kind of treatment.
My problem is not with insurance as I think that is a poor joke that makes people think they are getting something for nothing. For an emergency like an auto accident or a heart attack where they need to be stabilized it is good medicine but for chronic disease modern medicine has not got a clue. Insured chronic disease medicine draws them into one size fits all of deadly treatments that will suck the life out of them and eventually lead them to an early death. For chronic disease I am the type of certified naturopathic doctor these people need to see if they want to and the law should stay out of that relationship.
If I went to a doctor today and he diagnosed me with a case of deadly cancer. And I told that doctor that I did not want any operations, drugs, chemo or radiation treatments, which is my choice. That I wanted treatment with a change in diet to vegan and juice fasting because it is anti cancer. That I wanted treatment with herbs to cleanse and detox my bowel, kidneys and liver and to do other rigorous treatments with anticancer herbs and also techniques such as Cold Sheet Treatments as they are anticancer. That I wanted exercise treatments to increase my oxygen consumption and to use yoga to balance my body as this is anticancer. That I wanted treatments to help find and get the stress out of my life that is in my home and work place and teach me meditation as these are anticancer. That I wanted this doctor to help me seek to find a strong spiritual foundation as this is also anticancer.
And from my twenty years of experience as a naturopathic doctor in the USA the reaction I would get would be “that he thought I had just fallen out of the coco’s nest.” And this doctor would think that way because he has not got a clue about this type of medical treatment. But if this doctor was well trained he would not tell me that, he would tell me that I was in the wrong place and since I made this choice I needed to see someone with expertise in these areas.
Doc Blake
April 28, 2011 at 4:41 AM
If you want to seek “treatment” in such a manner, you’re more than welcome to do so. But until such things can be proven to be effective, then doctors are RIGHT to not recommend them to you.
April 29, 2011 at 1:35 PM
Why would they ever conceive of recommending naturopathic medicine when that is not a part of their belief system? Or why bother to realistically test naturopathic techniques when they do nothing to fill the bottom line of the pharmaceutical companies who control medicine. We are dealing with a medical monopoly and it has absolutely no real interest is seeing a healthy population in the USA because healthy does not create profits.
This is why I keep repeating the same thing about there has not been one chronic disease cured in over a half century. And also why I keep saying that in all their research modern medicine still does not understand the cause of even one chronic disease, zero. Can you explain how on earth you could ever come up with an answer to any disease when you do not know the cause?
I do not know how the health service is in Canada and how your government feels about the health of its people? But here in the USA this is how modern medicine through its government control apparatus the Department of Health and Human Services and their policing arm the Food and Drug Administration feel about the people they are supposed to serve.
“There is No Right to Consume or Feed Children Any Particular Food; There is No Generalized Right to Bodily and Physical Health; There is No Fundamental Right to Freedom of Contract.” ~ US Dept of Health & Human Services and US Food & Drug Administration, 2010
Doctors wrote that? You wonder what kind of a twisted, greedy, quacking little goose stepping jerk came with a thought like that? That does not sound like a servant of the people to me, or someone who is supposed to do no harm. That sounds like some kind of fascist run organization announcing how things are going to be to its minions.
Doc Blake
April 29, 2011 at 1:50 PM
Doctors will and do conceive of recommending things that fall under the header of “naturopathy”. They just don’t give carte-blanche to ALL things that fall under that header, because many of the things within that school are unproven, untested, or even things that are known 100% to be utter bullshit (homeopathy, for instance).
To give you a little bit of that anecdotal evidence you so adore: my personal doctor and registered dietician have helped me to regulate my bipolar disorder and anemia through diet, exercise, and meditation techniques. I’ve worked with several doctors over the last half-decade of my life who are quite open to helping me live a medication-free life. Yes, I’ve dealt with doctors who were NOT open to such things — but I don’t blame the medical system as a whole for their attitude, I blame those particular doctors, and haven’t gone back to them.
As for your nonsense about no chronic disease being cured in the last half century: that’s a ridiculous argument. First of all, while we haven’t eliminated all deaths from things such as cancer, AIDS, diabetes, etc., we have made absolutely huge strides forwards in improving people’s chances of survival and quality of life following a diagnosis, and we’re learning more and more all the time about the sort of preventative care that is required to reduce the number of new cases occurring every year. Secondly: naturopathy, homeopathy, prayer-healing, etc. haven’t come up with any magical cures that work 100% of the time, either, so your argument cuts both ways.
April 30, 2011 at 12:24 PM
In Canada yes, in the USA no. Reaction by the public against the attacks on my group of alternative medicine colleagues led to the passage of a law in Ontario in 2000 that allows doctors to practice alternative medicine and permits patients to receive alternative medical care. The official explanation of the Act is as follows: “The Bill ensures that physicians who provide non-traditional therapies or alternative forms of medicine are not found guilty of professional misconduct or incompetence unless there is evidence that proves that the therapy poses a greater risk to a patient’s health than the traditional or prevailing practice.” Dr. Carolyn Dean a medical doctor and naturopathic doctor.
I agree with that as the medications for psychiatric problems are in most cases no better then the placebos they are tested against while the side effects for those types of drugs are suicide.
There is no argument when it is true, not one cure while they kept the same mantra going “we are so close to a cure please give now.” And we heard that same type of advertisement for over a half century in regard to many different diseases and we got absolutely no cures at all. How could you say that the quality of life is improved when 50% of the population has a chronic disease?
Oh, and of course I hate to bring this up but autoimmune diseases are epidemic and of course modern medicine does not know the cause of even one. About 7 years ago we had 65 autoimmune diseases now we have over 150 and some haven’t even gotten a name yet.
Pharmaceutical medications do not improve your life if they did they would be sold in health food stores. And while there are no medical cures there are plenty of disasters such as Avandia 40,000 deaths, Vioxx 60,000 deaths, and Tambocor 200,000 deaths (50,000 in the first 2 years). And lets not leave out the one hundred thousand people a year who die as a direct result of the medication they were prescribed. Plus I just read the other day that you chances of getting sick from entering a hospital are one in five with the new super viruses modern medicine has developed due to over prescribing antibiotics.
Yes, I would love to talk about Naturopathic cures but to talk about that subject and my products, techniques or patients in the same breath would be to bring the FDA strait down on my neck I can’t even take a testimonial from a patient. So much for freedom of speech and freedom of medical treatment in the USA.
Doc Blake
May 1, 2011 at 12:25 AM
The key wording in that Ontario legislation you’re quoting is “unless there is evidence that proves that the therapy poses a greater risk to a patient’s health than the traditional or prevailing practice.”
Evidence. Proof. Science. If you can’t show that it’s going to help at least as much as the usual practices, it’s not medicine and it’s not useful.
Your complaint about the “we are so close to a cure” mantra isn’t a complaint about the medical system, it’s a complaint about the advertising surrounding the medical system. Talk to any competent doctor or scientist and they’re going to tell you straight-up that we have no idea when or where a cure may be found for these chronic diseases you’re talking about. The battle at present is to keep looking, keep searching every avenue, and in the meantime make the final years of a patient’s life more comfortable and do all that we can to improve quality of life. The advertising agencies who promote giving money to find a cure are playing on the sentiments of an uneducated public and using propaganda techniques not dissimilar in any way to the ones you’re currently employing in your rhetoric.
I’m not exactly sure what your point is with regards to autoimmune diseases. The fact that we’re learning more about them and able to diagnose them more regularly and more accurately does not indicate that there’s a problem with the medical system — if anything, it indicates that the medical system is getting better at dealing with these things, because we’re actually able to identify them. The fact that we don’t know the cause or have a cure is a sign of how complicated these diseases are and how much more we have to learn about them, not a sign that our medical system is failing. I should also point out, here, that your “natural” alternatives haven’t cured HIV/AIDS or other autoimmune diseases yet, either, so your argument that “doctors haven’t cured it yet, therefore doctors are bad” cuts both ways, here, and can be used against you just as easily as against anyone else.
Pharmaceutical medications don’t belong in health food stores, because then health food stores would become pharmacies. They’re two separate businesses.
Yes, some medications make it to market without enough testing having been done. That is, definitely, a problem. But the solution isn’t to ban all pharmaceutical drugs; it’s to increase the testing requirements.
Most of those hundred thousand who die every year due to prescription drugs are dying due to overdoses (accidental or intentional), or due to unpredictable, rare side-effects. Many, many more people would die without these medications, so when you add up the pros and cons, it’s pretty obvious who wins out here. I do, of course, agree that many medications are over-prescribed and that some changes to the system are needed, but once again, you’re proposing a solution that is simply out of proportion and would do more harm than good.
I’m not sure what your point is in that last paragraph about the FDA and whatnot — obviously you’re able to talk about your products and such, because your website talks about them.
May 1, 2011 at 2:28 PM
It is useful if it works and the majority of medical drugs do not work. Especially, as I said before those for mental problems do no better then the placebo’s they are tested against.
The advertising using “we are looking for a cure” has been going on for over fifty years and the scientists and disease intuitions knew exactly what is going on and what a scam it was and they accepted the money, how naive. Ya, we have no idea when the cure may be found, as by now millions have been waiting and dying holding on to their faith in the medical church, left with no other choice.
You can’t see the point I am making about autoimmune diseases? Cause, it is the same land mine you have been trying to ignore that they have over 150 actually much higher as rheumatoid arthritis has at least 100 sub-diseases and so do many other AD. But as I keep repeating they do not even know the cause of one, zero, zip, nada. But they do know that they are making billions and expect to make many times that in the next 3 years as the numbers of diseases and victims grow and the cures stay at zero. You have faith in modern medicine’s poor track record you should invest in some autoimmune disease medical stocks.
You mentioned AIDS, tell me have you ever seen a picture of that AIDS virus? You won’t because it is a scam there is no virus except an artist’s conception of what one might look like if it existed.
You will be surprised to learn that there has never been an actual photograph released showing what this make-believe virus looks like. I challenge any scientist to produce an image of a “stand-alone” AIDS virus that is original from an AIDS patient. (Not the computer generated images on the Web.)
AIDS Hoax: The truth behind the virus that never was, article by Joseph Ernest December 28, 2010
I never said ban pharmaceutical drugs, that thought came out of your mind not mine. I keep saying just allow naturopaths to practice without interference so they can compete with on an even playing field with modern medicine.
Here is how the United States lost freedom of speech and freedom of medical treatment (ref J. Emord). When the FDA started controlling the approval of drugs they identified them not by what was in them but by what they did. Once they did that they were able to control any natural substance that made a similar claim as the drug did and restrict its use even if it was proven to be true scientifically (see ref). In other words everyone knows that prune juice can cure chronic constipation and yet no one can put that on the label or write a paper relating to a prune juice product that says it can relieve constipation even if as I said it is true and proven scientifically. And of course no naturopathic doctor can tell someone with constipation that it can be relieved by taking some prune juice.
This is far from the only chronic disease that could be cured by something as basic as prune juice. I have helped many people find cures for illnesses from something as simple as herpes to uterine tumors. I do not need to treat them just educate them because it is so simple once it is explained. But every time I do this for a client I walk through a mine field. Because I have no idea who I am dealing with (could be an FDA plant) or some eavesdropping could be in progress for all I know, even outside the USA. That is right even if the naturopath is outside the USA if they are in a country that controls medical drugs like the USA that country may allow the FDA to conduct investigations in their country.
You might be thinking “well what about all the harm naturopaths are doing.” In twenty years I have been doing this I have never had anyone hurt or complain about the advice I gave them. The only harm I have done is to stop dollars from going to doctors and pharmaceuticals companies. Orthomolecular News reported recently that the deaths from vitamins and herbs were 11 people in the last 25 years (American Poison Control Centers).
Attorney Jonathan Emord in his book, The Rise of Tyranny, Sentinel Press; 1 edition (September 2008)
Health Ranger interviews health freedom attorney Jonathan Emord, Uploaded 5/20/2010 by HealthRanger
Prune juice has a mild laxative effect in adults with certain gastrointestinal symptoms, Laura Piirainenad, Katri Peuhkurib1, Karin Bäckströmb, Riitta Korpelabcd, Seppo Salminene, Nutrition Research, Volume 27, Issue 8, Pages 511-513 (August 2007)
Randomised Clinical Trial: Dried plums/prunes vs. Psyllium for Constipation, Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics 2011, Attaluri A, Donahoe R, Valestin J, Brown and Rao SSC.
May 2, 2011 at 12:55 AM
You’re making two separate arguments here, but neither one stands up well on its own, and they contradict each other completely.
On the one hand you’re claiming that naturopathy offers more and better solutions than the “dangerous” pharmaceutical industry. Your argument that naturopathy doesn’t hurt people is patently ridiculous — do you have any idea how many people suffer and die every year because they have refused to receive treatment? You say that you, personally, have never received a complaint … but the people you’re treating are indoctrinated with your propaganda, your rhetoric. You say that people are duped by big pharma into believing that there are no other solutions for them, but then you perpetrate exactly the same scam you’ve just accused them of. You say you don’t advocate banning pharmaceutical drugs, but in the same breath you’re condemning them as useless and even dangerous? If you actually believed your own rhetoric, if you actually believed that there were no benefits and quite a few dangers to be had from taking medications, you’d have to be a truly evil person to *not* want those things banned.
On the other hand, you’re holding up the fact that chronic diseases are difficult to figure out and cures are a long time coming as a condemnation of the current medical system. But, as I’ve already pointed out, that argument cuts both ways. Your “natural” medicine has had centuries — nay, millennia! — to come up with a cure for cancer. But it wasn’t until the development of modern medicine that we even knew what cancer *was*, much less anything about how to treat it. And if your other argument held true, if so-called “natural medicine” was really so much better than pharmaceutical drugs and surgeries, wouldn’t it have come up with some solutions to these problems by now?
As for your prune juice example — a medical doctor will recommend that, and so it falls under the heading of “modern medicine”. A person shouldn’t need to go to some expensive specialist with a 2-year college degree in order to get basic advice like that: it should come directly from their doctor. Any doctors who won’t recommend prune juice for constipation, or cranberry juice for UTIs, or yoghurt for yeast infections — they’re just poorly trained. And then we come back to my earlier argument, that it’s not an overhaul of the entire system you’re looking for: just a change in the way that training is done. Encouraging people to go to two different places for medical advice is bad practice, no matter how you look at it, because it’s inefficient and costly.
May 2, 2011 at 11:53 AM
You tell me, since you are making the argument how many people die as a direct result of avoiding modern medical treatment because they are being treated by a naturopath? And I am not talking about people giving up because they do not want to go through standard treatment because of the torture of radiation, chemo or operations.
You are reaching here, indoctrination, propaganda and rhetoric are what all medicine have used down through the ages to convenience the patient that their treatment is best. It is part of the healing process and also why placebo’s like a sugar pill or giving someone an antibiotic when they have a virus can work.
Hardly a scam to tell people how naturopathic medicine works and why it works then they make the decision whether to proceed or not. I am repeating myself but again, all drugs are based on the herbs that treat the same disease symptoms.
No, banning accepted drug treatment is not what I would like to see why would I? For emergencies to stabilize a patient these drugs have their place such as heart drugs. But I do believe that drugs like these should then be replaced by more natural treatments like diet change and herbs for the heart. But even if natural treatments were allowed for disease treatment a patient may not want to take them, that is what choice is all about.
We have cures, I already mentioned herpes and uterine tumors. I have assisted clients cure many organ diseases like kidney infections, many autoimmune diseases like arthritis and cancers.
And modern medicine has proved the cure for cancer that we have known for over a hundred years. Dr. Otto Warburg proved that cancer is anaerobic (Nobel Prize in Medicine) and that oxygen stops its growth and changing the ph is a way to bring oxygen to the cells. Naturopaths have been saying this as I said and it can be simply accomplished by cutting back on acid foods (meat, dairy, grains, etc) and bringing in alkaline foods like produce (fruit and vegetables and their juices).
The prune juice example, are you sure you read what I wrote? I was using this as an example of how restrictive the FDA laws have become. That something as simple as prune juice cannot put on the label “that with moderate use prune juice can relieve constipation.” The FDA is trying to stop the public from learning to stay healthy by simply using products like this as a preventative against colorectal cancer.
Here is what modern medicine says about healthy bowel habits; “Careful observations have shown that the bowel habits of healthy individuals can vary greatly; although most people have a movement daily, some have several movements each day, while others are considered normal if they have a bowel movement every three days with no adverse effects.”
Every three days, that it extremely unhealthy and why the developed countries lead the world in colorectal cancer. While developing countries because they do not have our refined diet yet have very little of this disease. Think about it in three days the average person has consumed nine meals plus snacks that as I said is extremely dangerous but a good future customer for bowel problems and cancer.
Again, I do not know where you are getting these thoughts from but I never said the entire system needs to be overhauled. I keep repeating that people should be allowed to make up their own mind and choose which medical system they want.
If modern medicine is so great then why would people want to come and see me then? And why would allowing people to make their own mind up be so disturbing to you.
I keep repeating the same things maybe we have reached an impasse?
Doc Blake
May 2, 2011 at 1:19 PM
So basically you’re admitting, then, that your earlier comments were hyperbole and lies? You’re backpedaling awfully fast, here.
You’ve stated multiple times that pharmaceutical drugs are dangerous and ineffective. Now you’re changing that position to say that they’re important for emergencies, but not good for day-to-day health care. Which position is it?
May 3, 2011 at 1:30 PM
I never once said pharmaceutical drugs were dangerous, ineffective or that they needed to be banned. These are words you have been trying to put in my mouth and you owe me an apology for that and the name calling. This is your argument so show me those words from any of my comments?
What is happening is you are drawing these conclusions for yourself from what I have written, fine just don’t accuse me of saying them.
This is the second time you have done this. I showed you evidence from an Orthomolecular News article that proved how many people die from supplements and herbs yearly, American Poison Control Center. Then you stated, “ Your argument that naturopathy doesn’t hurt people is patently ridiculous — do you have any idea how many people suffer and die every year because they have refused to receive treatment?” This is what you said, you put yourself up as the authority so show me your evidence, how many suffer and how many die?
Doc Blake
May 3, 2011 at 2:39 PM
Your post from April 28th states specifically that “In the area of medical scientifically proven medicine I would venture to say at least 99% cause dangerous side effects”.
So yes, you did say that they are dangerous.
As for how naturopathy, homeopathy, and various other so called “alternatives” can cause harm, here’s a couple of websites that you might find interesting:
http://whatstheharm.net/
http://www.naturowatch.org/
http://www.quackwatch.org/
Note that many of the accounts on these sites link to peer-reviewed data, legal proceedings related to the cases, etc. and thus are highly verifiable.
May 4, 2011 at 10:46 AM
Baloney and you know it, that is a common term “dangerous side effects” and in the context I used it is true. And up till now I have only inferred about how I really feel about allopathic medicine.
Now, how do I really feel about allopathic medicine, it is dangerous, ineffective and parts of it should be banned. But can it stabilize someone in an emergency, how elementary and juvenile, of course it can. And I can also think of two ways that I could wake someone from their sleep, an alarm clock or a cattle prod. Both of them will wake you up but one is dangerous though effective and if used it would be banned as everyone learned how deadly and dangerous it was, like allopathic medicine?
I looked at the three sites and this report below trumps all three of them easily.
“Death by Medicine” http://www.whale.to/a/null9.html
Compelling referenced evidence that today’s medical system frequently causes more harm than good.
The most stunning statistic, however, is that the total number of deaths caused by conventional medicine is an astounding 783,936 per year.
Estimated Annual Mortality and Economic Cost of Medical Intervention
Adverse Drug Reactions, 106,000 deaths, $12 billion, Lazarou
Medical error, 98,000 deaths, $2 billion, IOM
Bedsores, 115,000 deaths, $55 billion, Xakellis
Infection, 88,000 deaths, $5 billion, Weinstein
Malnutrition, 108,800 deaths, Nurses Coalition
Outpatients, 199,000 deaths, $77 billion, Starfield
Unnecessary Procedures, 37,136, $122 billion, HCUP
Surgery-Related, 32,000, $9 billion, AHRQ
Total 783,936 deaths, Cost $282 billion
It is now evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the US. (By contrast, the number of deaths attributable to heart disease in 2001 was 699,697, while the number of deaths attributable to cancer was 553,251.5)
This fully referenced report shows the number of people having in-hospital, adverse reactions to prescribed drugs to be 2.2 million per year.
The number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections is 20 million per year.
The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million per year.
The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million per year.
Doc Blake
May 4, 2011 at 2:22 PM
Your little site trumps nothing — nearly all of the sources link to the work of naturopaths, so it’s clearly pretty biased.
And yes, “dangerous side effects” means “it’s dangerous”. That’s how the English language works. So you did, in fact, claim that scientifically-based medicine is dangerous, and then you denied it and made a fuss in an attempt to draw attention away from the fact that you actually have no idea what you’re talking about.