Their Own Mistakes Are Legion but are Disguised by their Scurrilous Attacks on Folk Healers
Latest Proof! 300 people a year harmed by negligent surgery.When you read the latest catalogue of medical malpractice below, ask yourself whether BMA rules, GMC regulations and qualifications in any way protected these poor patients and whether alternative medicine would have been as harmful?There were 69 cases where foreign objects were left inside patients after ops In one case, a patient underwent surgery meant for someone else. The toll of negligent errors in just six months has seen almost 150 patients harmed by incidents which include having swabs, needles and medical equipment left inside them, and being given the wrong drugs. The wrong patient received risky heart surgery. Others have been given drug overdoses and one woman had a fallopian tube removed instead of her appendix. The figures also showed that 37 patients had the wrong part of their body operated on or treated There were 69 cases where foreign objects were left inside patients, including 11 cases of surgical swabs, one patient who had wires left inside and another patient who was left with a needle in their body. The figures also showed that 37 patients had the wrong part of their body operated on or treated. This included four operations on the wrong tooth, an operation on the wrong toe, one patient who had an injection in the wrong eye and one case where a woman had the wrong fallopian tube removed during an ectopic pregnancy, probably rendering her infertile. In another case, a patient died as a result of failure to monitor oxygen levels, and one woman died from heavy bleeding following a planned Caesarean section. Seven patients were given the wrong dose of chemotherapy, resulting in harm, and five died or suffered severe harm after feeding tubes were inserted incorrectly by NHS staff..... Source: Daily Express
The surgeon to the British Embassy, inoculated Lady Mary's son in 1717. Her infant daughter was inoculated in England in 1721, It was not, however, till the method had been successfully tried on some condemned criminals in Newgate prison, that peoples' minds were reassured as to the safety of the practice. In 1722 the Princess of Wales had her two daughters inoculated, and this went far to remove prejudice. Still, however, there was a great deal of opposition to inoculation particularly from doctors who called it "an
artificial way of depopulating a country" "a
barbarous and dangerous invention," Of course the parsons preached against it as the work of the Devil. As specimens of theological virulence we quote a few passages from a sermon here: " The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation, preached at St. Andrew's, Holborn, on Sunday, July the 8th, 1722, by Edmund Massey, M.A., Lecturer of St. Alban Woodstreet."`' The preacher took for his text Job ii, 7, " So went Satan forth from the Presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore Boils, from the sole of his Foot unto his Crown." The preacher goes on to say that the Devil was the first inoculator. The preacher next inquires how the Evil One was foiled in his designs. He says: 'Diseases are sent amongst Mankind. Who is it that has the Power of inflicting them?. Let us then find out the Causes why Diseases are sent amongst Mankind. I take them to be principally two: Either for the Trial of our Faith or for the Punishment of our Sins... In other words it doesn't matter if thousands of children die because it will do their souls good if we deny them inoculation from childhood diseases!
Hypnosis and Modern MedicineIn the last few years, the subject remains as controversial as ever, with some scientists building a career claiming it doesn't even exist. Others, with access to brain scanners and the wit to have a look have found that there are changes in brain function following a standard hypnotic induction.In the west, the recorded history of hypnosis generally starts in the 18th century with the experiments and treatments of Franz Mesmer who gave his name to 'Mesmerism'. Mesmer posited the idea of 'animal magnetism' as a source for the trance states he produced in his patients. Despite consistent attacks by the Medical Mafia he cured many thousands of people who came to him for help. The term Hypnosis was a misnomer applied much later and derived from the Greek God Hypnos, the deity of sleep. Early medics considered hypnosis to be a sleep state, but as experiments have clearly shown the hypnotic state has nothing to do with sleep but is instead an altered state of consciousness. Somnambulism, named by the medical profession from Somnus the Roman God of sleep (and counterpart to Hypnos) is a much more accurate medical term because sleep-walking is directly related to a sleep condition, however we now seem stuck with the term Hypnosis because of its generally accepted use. The natural human state of trance now called hypnosis is as old as the species. And, most people can do it. In fact, we've being doing it for millennia. Recorded history tells us of Greek and Ancient Egyptian sleep temples, where priests induced a healing sleep, and investigations into Shamanism ( a practice as old as Man himself) shows that entering altered states of consciousness at will form the central skills of the practitioner. That many animals also exhibit hypnosis like behaviour and can be put into a trance has proved useful in 'breaking' wild animals and domesticating cattle. This skill was probably used throughout prehistory by ancient hunters whose ceremonies and hunting dances, are clearly illustrated in ancient cave drawings still extant. Aboriginal tribes today still hunt game by parodying the mind of the animal they are tracking. So why is this facility of being able to modify, change, and program the mind which can produce amazing physical changes and cures, not part of every doctors standard practice? Well, perhaps it's because it can't be patented, bottled, and charged for like pills and complicated procedures can. That it is not well understood by science has, until recently, never been a reason to not to take advantage of something useful, unless it originated outside of the medical monopoly, in which case it has been decried mercilessly. For example, look at this quote showing the hostility of the profession when people tried to put the practice on a scientific footing: "Dr. Ewald of Berlin states that hypnotism should not be classified with the practice of medicine, that it should not be so dignified. His reason was that every shepherd boy, every peasant, could hypnotize, and Dr. Moll answers that every shepherd boy, every peasant, can give a hypodermic injection, can compound medicines and apply bandages, but they cannot do so intelligently."Once again we see the sheer hypocrisy when looking at what works and what doesn't. Why would anyone want to reject something this potent? And this rejection is complete. Doctors campaigning on the TV against alternatives often claim that an unspecified patient they have seen recently had sought alternative treatment for something they could have easily cured if the patient had come to them first, but by the time they were consulted, it was too late. Any medical scientists reading will, of course, recognise this as unverifiable anecdotal evidence which has no place in a scientific debate on the merits of treatment. In contrast to this fear mongering, consider this example. A few months ago I was watching one of those walk-in clinic shows on TV, along with a trained hypnotherapist friend of mine. One of the patients had a layer of thick black tissue along one leg in place of her skin. She said she'd been doing the rounds of doctors and dermatologists for almost 17 years and hadn't even had a definitive diagnosis. My friend the hypnotherapist commented that the problem looked like Brocq's disease, a genetic condition first accidentally cured by Dr. A.A. Mason using hypnosis and written up in the British Medical Journal shortly after WWII. Other doctors had tried the treatment with great success despite the fact this condition is otherwise incurable. The staff in the walk-in TV clinic also diagnosed Brocq's and advised the patient that she would have to apply a cream each night and wrap her leg in plastic film in order to get any relief. So, even though this application was discovered by doctors, tried and tested by them, they hadn't even attempted it with this poor women in over 17 years of suffering. But, if she'd gone to a hypnotherapist it's odds on she could have been cured soon thereafter ......
Herbal Medicines
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Russian
Scientists
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MAD?
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Diabetes Caused By Doctors?By David SouthernYou may know that GP's now get paid extra for diagnosing and controlling potentially threatening illnesses – illnesses that often have no obvious symptoms (high blood pressure is one example).One way to maximise their income, is to test you for all sorts of things that you're not showing any signs of, so that they can get as many people as possible onto preventative treatments. On the face of it, this looks sensible, as many illnesses seriously damage health if left undetected and untreated, not to mention the cost of dealing with them in their more advanced stages. But hang on a minute. Drugs designed to save you from future problems are raking in billions for the drug companies. Some of these companies have been caught out presenting selective evidence (see the section on Avandia in the main body of this page). Over years, the levels of blood pressure and cholesterol considered healthy have been changed so that more and more people are now supposed to need treatment. Quite a bonus for the drug companies. Getting high blood pressure under control can be as simple as losing any excess weight (!) and the medical response is often to prescribe beta-blocker drugs, and water tablets, which in combination have a good success rate in bringing blood pressure back to where they think it should be. But here's the catch. These medications are known to increase your risk of getting diabetes by 23%. Diabetes Epidemic?It's in the news all the time that we are facing an epidemic of diabetes with terrible consequences for our personal health, and the cost of running the NHS. We are told this is because we are getting fatter, and we need to get our weight under control. But what about how diabetes is diagnosed, and the medications that can bring it on? One doctor, writing in the “Daily Telegraph” cited a case where an elderly lady had been diagnosed diabetic on the basis of one, slightly raised blood sugar test. Advised to give up the occasional piece of cake may be no great sacrifice, but if you look at the catalogue of problems diabetes is claimed to cause, the level of worry a false diagnosis can inflict on a patient and their family is scandalous. So is one higher than normal reading enough to make such a serious diagnosis? A Personal PerspectiveI was recently diagnosed as diabetic with all that implies (and endless visits to a great many clinics). I'm not arguing with my own diagnosis as there's a lot of diabetes in my family line going back three generations. Also, my doctor did not make up his mind on the basis of a single test. My blood sugar had been creeping up for years. So, about a year before I reached the level now labelled diabetic, I was told I have “impaired glucose tolerance.” This is a problem known as “pre-diabetes” in many countries – a term which tells you exactly what they expect to happen next. As my blood sugar levels had increasing for years, and now I was in this situation, with a family background of serious problems, I did a bit of research and rang up the surgery to point out that I was taking the medication mentioned earlier which increases my chances of becoming diabetic by 23%. They went away to check what I should do. A couple of days later I got an urgent call from the practice telling me I should stop taking the medication “...at once...” and report to reception for a safer replacement. Now
who
was
the
qualified
professional
here that I had to ring and point
out the risks of continuing to take the medication? And, given that my
diabetes has started ten years ahead of the rest of my family, just
what role had the tablets played in bringing it on early? |
Has your
young one got a cold? Well, for centuries parents have been giving
their children Echinacea and taking it themselves to protect against a
cold turning into Flu.
But did you know the Medical Monopoly have now ruled that this harmless herb could now kill your child?
At
least, that's what
the UK's Medicines and Healthcare
Products Regulation Agency (MHRA)
said in their notes to editors when warning recently that
children
under 12 should not be given Echinacaea.
Just another example of how safe herbs with a proven track record are being 'outlawed' by the Medical Monopoly.
The
body of the MHRA press
release says there is a small risk of allergic reaction but that this
reaction could be severe. The notes section clarifies finishing a
list of hazards with
“asthma and life threatening anaphylactic shock.”
So given that the press release says the risk is small, and that you shouldn't worry if you've already given the remedy to your children, just what does this mean? Well, the UK's National Health Service (NHS) has this to say about Anaphylactic Shock (also know as Anaphylaxis).
“Anaphylaxis is your body's immune system overreacting badly to a substance such as food, which it wrongly perceives as a threat. Substances that provoke allergic reactions are known as allergens.
The whole body can be affected, usually within minutes of contact with an allergen, though sometimes the reaction can happen hours later.
The most widely reported triggers of anaphylaxis are:
insect stings; particularly wasp and bee stings, nuts; particularly peanut, other types of foodstuffs such as milk and shellfish certain medications such as some types of antibiotics”
This
article also
points out that anaphylaxis is rare with only 1 in 1300 people having
ANY type of problem in their lifetime. (Source:)
The sentence about medicines is interesting. Clearly to protect your child from the same dangers which the MHRA say children face from Echinacea, you would have to stop feeding them as well as stopping medicating them – especially if they were suffering an infection (as the immune system will already be in emergency mode).
Remember Echinacea has been in use for many generations, long before the idea of The Common Cold, first made it's appearance in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia in 1887. My friend and co-writer John Freedom has used Echinacea daily for over ten years to avoid Flu with no side effects whatsoever. When he stopped using it last month he promptly caught a terrible flu which laid him low for a week! Echinacea has many benefits yet carries the same sort of risk as eating a cheese sandwich. So why this sudden attack on an innocuous remedy?
Could it be another example of the MHRA's institutional prejudice against herbal remedies and yet another opportunity for the MM to twist the public's mind against Natural Healing? You betcha!
Since we first published this sensational webpage all sorts of information long known and hidden by health 'professionals' has started to creep into the public domain.
Let us assume for a moment that your doctor knows enough about available drugs to prescribe something that's good for you (and this is a big assumption as we will see).
In May, the Huffington Post reported on a study carried out for the General Medical Council (GMC) into how accurate prescriptions were, which found:
“The most common of the prescribing or monitoring errors were lack of information on dosage, prescribing an incorrect dosage, and failing to ensure that patients were properly checked with blood tests.
One in eight of all patients had a prescription item with an error - this rose to four in 10 patients aged 75 years and older.”
Significantly one in 550 prescriptions contained a “serious error”.
Perhaps 7 or so years of training for doctors is not enough? Or perhaps the system of intense regulation designed to ensure only competent practitioners are in a position to make these mistakes is seriously flawed? How will imposing the same systems and regulations on alternative therapies help?
Assuming you doctor can't be trusted to write a prescription, is there any system in place to make sure you get the correct amount of the right stuff ?
According the the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), yes - the receptionist. Reporting on a study carried out by Queen Mary University of London, looking at repeat prescriptions (prescriptions for an ongoing chronic condition issued without a doctor's appointment). Apparently, the “informal” system to make sure repeat prescriptions were correct involves receptionist keeping personal notebooks and:
“Some receptionists, the study found, were aware of having to make up for the failings of their doctors.
"Receptionists in some practices expressed concern that doctors did not check prescriptions thoroughly before signing. They believed that because of this they had a heavy responsibility to undertake safety checks themselves, although these were not recognised or remunerated."”
(Source BBC News Website 4th November 2011)
Now let's assume you've got to the pharmacy with an accurate prescription. Will what you're getting actually help you?
With untold billions around the world invested in medical research, and the famous double blind clinical trials we wrote about previously (the “gold standard” of medical testing), you would think so.
Since we first published, facts that are common knowledge amongst medical professionals, drug regulators around the world, and the drug companies themselves suggests a resounding. ambivalence. With regard to the safety of powerful drugs. Their approach appears to be MAYBE. Perhaps they will, maybe they won't.
It seems that even by the standards of scientific medicine itself, doctors and drug regulators do not actually know whether prescription drugs are safe or effective. And if doctors want to find out which of a selection of drugs is best for a particular patient, the uncertainty just gets bigger.
This is most clearly shown by Dr Ben Goldacre in his latest book, “Bad Pharma”. And before people accuse us of partisanship you should know that Dr. Goldacre is an opponent of alternative medicine, especially, homoeopathy.
In essence, Goldacre claims that drug trials are badly designed and carried out on too few people. The way results are analysed is slanted towards making the drug in question look good. Why? Because the people who develop, manufacture and sell the drug carry them out.
But surely the regulators will check, you may think? Well – it would seem that regulators see the studies – most of the time- but don't tell anyone else. And the drug companies don't have to if they don't want to. And, at the end of the day, if the regulators think the drug is better than nothing, they apparently often give licenses on this flimsy 'scientific' evidence.
Doctors, once qualified get their updates through an informal network which is widely open to the drug companies influence.
So it would seem that doctors – who you would expect to have the most need of accurate information, are the least likely to have it. The drug may work, it may not. It may be safe, it may not. It may have side effects, it may not And so on.
Indeed Dr Goldacre suspects that his decisions may have killed patients because the information available to him was suspect (although he didn't know that at the time).
So the drugs may work, they may not, no one knows. (well, no one who knows will tell you anyway). Are you prepared to risk your family's lives on this gamble?
In the UK, the government drove NHS resources towards anticipating illness in a bid to head it off, reduce suffering, and most importantly to reduce cost. Bean counters at the NHS told the government that prevention was 'cheaper' than cure. On the face of it this would seem to be a good thing. So Doctors are now rewarded with incentive payments for screening patients for all sorts of health problems in an attempt to circumvent chronic ailments.
What has happened on the ground though, is that more people, many more in fact, are being treated because they might get ill in future, rather than because they are sick now. Drug companies have prospered on the back of this pre-emptive medicine, with millions of extra patients taking cholesterol lowering drugs, blood pressure reducing pills, and so on. All of which carry risk.
At the same time, the definitions of when your blood pressure is too high, your cholesterol elevated, or judging whether you have diabetes, have been changed so that you will be told you have these serious illnesses if your levels fluctuate minisculely away from a benchmark set by the MM. Quite a bonanza for the drug companies who carry out most research isn't it?
As
the amount of medication patients are taking rises dramatically, 15%
of admissions to
hospital amongst the elderly are associated with drug side effects.
Most of this increase in prescriptions falls in this preventative category. And what seems to be happening is each time someone goes to see a doctor they are screened, resulting in additional treatments. So pre-emptive medicine can actually cause more suffering than it cures.
Can
pre-emptive medicine work as a general measure –
not really. 14 trials of screening programs were examined by the
Nordic Cochrane Centre.
They couldn't find evidence that the
programs reduced death rates. They went on to say that ;
“While we cannot be certain that general health checks lead to benefit, we know that all medical interventions can lead to harm.”
Also,
the people who
show up for screening tend to be healthier and wealthier. Those who may need pre-emptive medicine the
most are the least likely to actually get it.
Orthodox medicine has paid a lot of attention to “lifestyle illnesses”. Who hasn't been urged to eat their “five a day”? Or exercise more? Evidence must be good in this area, surely? Maybe, maybe not.
The
“five a day” is
generally promoted to see off cancer, yet a study of 142,605 men and
335,873 women conclude;
“A very small inverse
association between intake of total fruits and vegetables and cancer
risk was observed in this study. Given the small magnitude of the
observed associations, caution should be applied in their
interpretation.” (Source)
In
other words the
difference was too small to be significant, and it is certainly not
good enough evidence for public health policy. However it does
make good PR for the Medical Monopoly when we are constantly drip-fed
with the idea that they are the ones who can be trusted with our best
interests.
It would be relatively easy to continue knocking the medical take on lifestyle advice in general on their own terms and from the evidence (for example, see spiked-online.com which dismantles the obesity/heart disease connection), and it would seem that much of what passes for medical advice is uncertain, untested, unsound even. So why would we trust what they say when they're knocking alternatives?
On this webpage we have given many examples of orthodoxy knocking and regulating the supply of vitamins and minerals.
In
December last year,
the BBC reported on a study showing that people with higher levels of
vitamins and omega 3 oils in their blood, had less risk of developing
Alzheimer's Disease.
Watch
this space!
We haf vays of making you Smoke
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Pick up any newspaper or turn on the radio or television news, and it won't be long before you are treated to yet another snide attack from the Medical Monopoly on Alternative Healing.
You are constantly given the impression that Alternative Healers are all Snake Oil salesmen so that you will back the power play of the Medical Monopoly. They want to suppress successful natural healing options which have been used for centuries so that you have to pay them mega-bucks for their scientific drugs (with all their damaging side effects).
The propaganda from them is so constant that ordinary folk often fall into it unconsciously and are becoming complicit in their own downfall. In this report we posit the nub of the question;
Are people suffering or even needlessly dying through ignorance and scarcity of Alternative Healing options?
Whether it's a trendy doctor on prime time shows telling you homoeopathy has no effect or the House of Commons science and technology committee saying homoeopathy shouldn't be paid for on the National Health Service, it is plain to all that there is an all out war on any treatment that's not been registered with and come under the control of the Medical Monopoly. Yet the true extent of their campaign has not previously been exposed - until the publication of this Special SAFF Report. After reading what follows you will be fully informed and have the information necessary to protect your own interests.
Although many of these attacks focus on allegations of ineffectiveness or danger, a closer look at the Medical Profession show that they stand to lose a great deal if Alternative Healing methods prosper. In other words, their efforts to suppress alternative healing methods are first and foremost motivated by political , ideological or economic gain rather than the best interests of the public.
If you're into alternative healing of any sort then your rights are seriously under threat from these people, and in the near future, campaigns that have been running for decades now will come to fruition as rafts of legislation come into force taking away many of the alternatives you now enjoy.
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The CSTC is of course, manned by ex doctors, scientists and politicians who toe the Medical Monopoly line. Given the way science looks at ill health (the same symptom in everyone who experiences it gets the same treatment), then homoeopathy was always going to appear ineffective as it prescribes for the whole person, taking into account all sorts of personality and environmental factors, rather than just one symptom.
For the CSTC to accept homoeopathy as valid would have been to not only challenge the entire philosophical basis of the western medical system but to raise the ire of their scientific chums in academe. The CSTC made this decision based on the allegation that any 'apparent' healing in patients was solely due to the 'placebo effect' (that is, remission of an illness due to the patient's belief in the homoeopathic cure rather than any physical effect of the homoepathic medicine on the body).
This oft-stated allegation was repudiated in evidence given by representatives of homoeopathy who pointed to the fact that it regularly healed babies and animals who cannot reason and who therefore are not psychologically affected by any placebo effect.
The CSTC decision went against all personal subjective evidence of the successes of homoeopathic medicine. Cases like this of a Guardian reporter's first hand experience of the success of homoeopathy were completely ignored.
They could equally have said that ALL orthodox treatments by doctors will benefit from the placebo effect and that no scientific studies have been made into what component of a patient's treatment results from medicine and how much of it results from the placebo effect. It may very well be the case that ALL healing results from the mind of the patient and that the deficiencies of the medicine are being disguised by it! (see latest discovery of key to how homoeopathy works here)
To clarify: Patient Group A is given sugar of milk, patient group B is given a real drug. Margin between results from A and B gives the percentage effect of the drug. But does it? Psychosomatic effects will also be working on Group B at the same time as they are working on Group A. For example if Patient Group A and Patient Group B are both given a placebo a percentage of both groups will be cured by Psychosomatic effects. As psychosomatic effects are not constant and depend on the mood, educational background and belief system of the patient, whether they like or dislike the colour of the medicine and many other imponderable factors. In short there will always be a difference between the two groups. In the case of a real drug this difference may occupy half or more of the mean difference between the percentage points allocated to the drug and that allocated to the placebo resulting in an exaggeration of the effects of the drug. We don't know because it's never tested.
It may very well be the case that ALL healing results from the placebo effect and that the deficiencies of orthodox medicine are being disguised by it!
We also might have asked the committee to explain what did it matter if the patient was cured anyway! There are plenty of healing mechanisms used by orthodox medicine which are not fully understood by medical science, yet they have invented an 'ism' of their own to explain the inexplicable, to whit, Psychosomatic Medicine.
Psychosomatic effects have been accepted by the Medical Monopoly since the 1940s when Professor J. B. Rhine wrote: :
"...in the new field of psycho-somatic medicine organic effects are attributed to the state of mind of the patient. It is still a question as to what goes on between the state of mind and the resultant change but the close tie-up of the two [mind and organic change in the body] in producing disease is now an accepted part of medical knowledge [Reach of The Mind,(J. B. Rhine) 1954,]So when it suits the Medical Establishment their ignorance of the mysteries of healing are given a definition which is uncannily similar to the effects of homoeopathy - yet because the homoeopathic healing philosphy is seen as having no physical basis (i.e. conflicting with scientific materialism) it is rejected out of hand!
Now, if you consider what is happening here, you'll see that in response to suggestion, something is mobilising the immune system to destroy both the virus, and the damaged cells around it, without harming any other part of the body. There is something inside us that, in the right circumstances, reacts to a simple suggestion with a skill and precision that cell biologists can only dream of. And it's free, and, more to the point here, unpatentable. You will find more information on the failure of modern medicine to maximise the healing effects of Hypnosis in the left column here.
Even though there was a long track record of high-ratio healing in the case histories of the long-standing homoeopathic hospitals, the CSTC beligerantly persecuted homoeopathy because of ideological reasons and made the recommendation of withdrawing funding by the NHS to do one thing and one thing only. To make it difficult if not impossible for ordinary folk to obtain homoeopathic healing.
For a while there, it looked like thousands of people enjoying the benefits of homoeopathy were going to lose out, but thankfully the coalition government elected in May (2010) set aside the CSTC's findings and has said that Homoeopathy will continue to be available 'as a matter of choice'. This is a small reprieve for free thinkers, and those of us who want to choose how we are treated when ill, but it is by no means the end of the war. The Medical Monopoly still has us in it's sights as this special SAFF report will show
The first was reported by the Daily Mail on 28th January 2008 when they spoke to a prominent sceptic.
"Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, refuses to believe in remote viewing. He says: "I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do.....Because remote viewing is such an outlandish claim that will revolutionise the world, we need overwhelming evidence before we draw any conclusions. Right now we don't have that evidence."
Clearly, if scientific standards of evidence show that remote viewing is proven (a statistical certainty following J B Rhine's experiments at Duke University during the 1930s) , it is no longer "Paranormal" and the only reason for demanding "higher standards" is that the speaker is opposed to the proven idea. So, even when scientifically proven, many scientists fight against ideas they don't like. It is this mentality which is confounding and opposing methods of Alternative Healing.
But there's more of this confusion. In 2003, Wiseman published a properly undertaken scientific study which showed that using lucky charms (or Talismans) and believing in them actually worked.
Whilst his control sample also had a similar level of luck with a 'fake' charm, the outcome of his experiment was that those who believe in luck and keep a talisman with them are actually luckier than those who don't.
Professor
Wiseman capitalised on this publicity by publishing two books
on the subject, ostensibly to guide people into getting better luck for
themselves.
"The Luck Factor" {published by Century ISBN 0
7126 2388 4) and
"The Little Book of Luck" (published by Arrow
ISBN 978-0099443285).
As you can see from the titles these books were fairly upbeat about
luck but in the course of time Professor Wiseman appears to have
changed the emphasis on his research and latterly claims that his work
has actually shown that luck does not exist! What good luck for the
scientific materialists - and what bad luck for those who invested in
his book!
You can check out Wiseman's sceptical comments on alternative health here: .
If we are to regulate ALL substances having a physiological effect, then surely we would need a prescription for our Christmas dinner, as it has quite a profound physiological effect AND it contains vitamins, minerals, and herbs!
It is a well accepted fact that no two patients will have the same doseage requirement even with standardised medicines. Body mass as well as age, general health condition and idiosyncratic susceptibility mean that there is no one-dose-fits-all strategy. It is the wrong application of refined and condensed powerful 'standardised' doseages which results in literally tens of thousands of people dying unnecessarily every year when they are given more than they need. Thus ALL applications of drugs, standardised or not, have a risk factor.
It is a fundamental of natural herbal healing that the vast majority of herbal medicines contain a complex of active ingredients each of which are reliant on the others and contribute holistically to a gentler absorption and positive effect on the user with few if any side-effects.
Furthermore, apart from a handful of very well-known and dangerously potent plants (such as Aconite, Strychnine etc) the amount of herbs required to harm a patient is so enormously large that it would be impossible for them to get it down... unlike the bottle of pills the doc is want to supply!
Additionally, the effect of herbs is slowly cumulative and so any toxic-effect or individual reaction can be spotted before any harm is done and recuperative measures taken. Unlike an overdose by Paracetamol pills, which, once digested by the patient cannot be remedied and cause progressive liver failure over a two week period whilst the doctors sit by the patient's bedside gnashing their teeth and waiting for them to die a lingering death.
As you can see the non-standardised dose argument is invalid. All medical intervention has some risk and herbal treatment is by most yardsticks less of a risk than orthodox treatment.
Of course this criticism could also be turned around and aimed at the Medical Establishment. How many patients with chronic illnesses die prematurely under a course of orthodox treatment when they could be kept alive by more expensive drugs available in other countries which their doctors or the government have refused to pay for? This is all about choice and the Medical Monopoly don't want you to have any.
The argument is specious. There has not been any scientific proof to back the Medical Monopoly's claims that people would abandon orthodox medicine for Alternative Healing. But there has been scientific research which proves the reverse. That people will use orthodox healing SUPPLEMENTED by Alternative Healing whenever they have the chance.
The Occult Census (see here) was a historic survey of the beliefs and activities of esotericists in the United Kingdom using a sizeable sample of 1800 people. The section under Occult Views on Health and Diet clearly show that New Age types are responsible about their maximisation of health alternatives and we quote from the findings of Occult Census here:
"CONCLUSION: It would seem from our sample that the two major criticisms of Alternative Medicine by the Orthodox Medical Establishment are unfounded. The Occult Census shows that Alternative Medicine does not put patients at risk by replacing treatment by Orthodox Medicine because patients seek to maximise ALL possibilities (Viz: only 5% declared themselves reckless enough to put all their faith in Alternative Medicine).So, if 95% of those people who are already convinced about alternative medicine would not turn their back on orthodox treatments as well, the charge that many people in the general population would choose alternative over allopathic medicine simple does not scan. In short the assertion is groundless.
The basic precept of all Alternative Healing methods is the idea that the body is animated by etheric energy and that illness is caused by blockages in the energy fields of the body which starves organs and other parts of functioning energy which thus causes dis-ease. This idea is a fundamental of many non-Western philosophical systems and originates in the religious systems of Taoism and Hinduism which are many thousands of years older than Christianity which has only relatively recently imposed its different world-view on our culture.
In the late 1980s a phalanx of fundamentalist doctors and medical men was hard at work helping to push the Satanic Ritual Child Abuse Myth via a notorious leaflet called "Doorways to Danger" which contained 'medical expert opinion' by eminent psychiatrists who more or less inferred that any illness is a form of demonic possession.
These doctors were members of Caring Professions Concern , a fundamentalist Christian medical outreach which was exposed by the Mail on Sunday newspaper for compulsorily exorcising patients in NHS hospitals. CPC's attitude was that if they did not exorcise patients as part of their treatment then orthodox healing would fail because healing through god would not take place otherwise.
Andy Croall was the assistant director of Nottingham Social Services at the time of the celebrated Broxtowe Satanic Child Abuse allegations. The Broxtowe Case was the Litmus test for the idea of the existence of Satanic Ritual Child Abuse in the U.K. Croall was a confirmed believer in the idea that satanic abuse had occurred in the Broxtowe case even though officially his social services department and the local police had pronounced that it had not.
At the height of the controversy Croall appeared on the Channel 4 TV programme 'After Dark' in a discussion about so-called Satanic Abuse during which he made a now infamous statement that 'abortion is a form of child abuse'. Croall resigned his highly paid job in the wake of this scandal but within a short time became the secretary of Caring Professions Concern and began travelling the country giving lectures on so-called Satanic Ritual Abuse.
Despite the complete failure of all SRA allegations over the intervening years Doorways to Danger is still being distributed today, not only to fundamentalist activists around the country, but also by evangelicals in the Church of England.
The GMC's conclusion was that '
A question of serious professional misconduct may be raised where, for example, a doctor fails to maintain a good standard of medical care or where he or she breaches a patient's trust.... The Chairman has, however, asked me to say that the fact that a particular doctor is associated with a group professing a particular religious belief would not of itself, be regarded by the Council as raising a question of serous professional misconduct...
We would ask the reader to compare
the virulent attacks on Alternative Healing which the Medical Monopoly
conducts with the rather indifferent attitude to dangers to patients
from religious fanatics in their midst. (see panel right)
The upshot of all this is that when you go visit your doctor you may think that he has your best interests at heart but that may involve exorcising you of your 'sinful' lifestyle in ways you never dreamed were possible in the modern world.
There are large religious organisations, often with massive funding and influence through the old-boy network in the Medical Establishment which have a sectarian axe to grind and who will on religious principle, cheat and lie in order to disadvantage the New Age and its healing methods because they see them as 'satanic'. These health care 'professionals' are seeking to eliminate 'spiritual dangers' and they see any Alternative Healing method as a disguised attack on Christianity itself.
The edifice of Demonology was invented by the church to explain the incidence of sickness from very early times; and it set back the evolution of medicine by literally hundreds of years. All doctors know this. The BMA and the GMC cannot deny it. It kept Europeans in abject suffering during the Dark Ages. This travesty of blaming the patient for their own illness only gave way to the modern idea of scientific healing during the past three hundred years, yet is resurfacing again because the BMA and the GMC are turning a blind eye to some of their members who should be sanctioned. |
A demoniacal attack? Or a hystero-epileptic fit, showing the classic symptoms of contortion, tearing of garments, lacerating the body, and extending the tongue. [From Russel Hope Robbins Encyclopaedia of Witchcraft and Demonology] |
Far from it! Here is advice featured on the Christian Medical Fellowship's website put there to be considered by doctors, nurses, psychiatrists and other members of 'the healing professions' when contemplating using an alternative therapy for a patient: Source :
"Christian Checklist"
Taking into consideration the lack of scientific evidence available, can [new age healing methods] be recommended with integrity? What are its roots? Is there an eastern religious basis (Taoism or Hinduism)? Is it based on life force or vitalism? Are there any specific spiritual dangers involved? Does its method of diagnosis or practice include occult practices, all forms of which are strictly forbidden in Scripture. Source:
When you call into to see your doctor you don't think to ask what his religious beliefs are but if your doctor is a member of a fundamentalist organisation such as this, do you think he would recommend alternative therapy if it could be of benefit, even if entirely acceptable to you? We don't think so.
What would his position be if asked to comment on legislation?
What would he do if you sought acupuncture for one of its scientifically proven applications because acupuncture has its base in eastern philosophy and Taoism? Would you get impartial scientific advice? No, We don't think so either.
This is yet another way that the Medical Monopoly can silently and quietly deny you your rights to good health.
This is arguably where the biggest threat to choosing your own health care comes from. And it's not a new threat. Indeed, its been going on since the 15th century. Despite the duration of this battle, it is in the last few decades that great strides have been made in their bid to stamp out any alternative health provision.
Leaving the coterie of fundamentalist medical men aside you might take the reasonable point of view that most doctors will only want the best for their patients, and are simply seeking to make us as safe and healthy as possible?
Well, yes and no. We've all had to deal with the medical professions, and had to trust that they're doing their best for us and our loved ones, and indeed many of them will sincerely believe this is what their ministrations are producing. However, history, and current "scientific" medical practice demonstrate that some of their treatment is hardly better than Snake Oil itself.
Consider for a moment, how the modern medical profession came into being. The College of Physicians obtained a Royal Charter in 1518 from Henry VIII. Based in London, they practised what is now a completely discredited system of medicine based on Galen's idea of the four humours - a system by then a thousand years old. This is what led to all that bleeding and leeching, which often weakened and killed their patients.
These 'doctors' were also prohibitively expensive and in order to enforce their monopoly they actually employed their own police force to seek out and prosecute any existing Folk Healers whose good work had been criminalised by the new rules they had set up. Traditional Healers and village Wise Women were persecuted. Fines and imprisonment were the standard punishments, although some practitioners found themselves accused of witchcraft and were executed.
Accusations of witchcraft were a traditional ruse used throughout history by the male-dominated Establishment to disempower women.
Joan Peterson was one such victim. Hanged in London on April 12th 1652, Joan was accused of cursing a patient. The bare bones of the charge she was convicted of, was that she had treated a patient who, on recovery, refused to pay. She then told him if he didn't pay up, the problem would come back ten times worse. This was taken as a curse, and she was sentenced to death for it. This kind of accusation was always a threat to natural healers of this period.
This shows that from the start, the fledgling Medical Monopoly found themselves in commercial competition with other guilds and practitioners, such as the Apothecaries, and, of course, the wise men and village wise women who were the custodians of the ancient herbal healing tradition which had been passed down over the centuries. These village healers were rarely as rich as the Medical Men and often healed people for free so that even the poorest peasant could be saved from suffering - Until the College of Physicians that is.
As the years went by, members of the College of Physicians became by far the most dominant providers of health care in England, to the point where natural healers were extremely marginalised
This unworthy state of affairs only really started to change when the ancient link between the aristocracy and the Christian church began to be dismantled during the English civil war and subsequent to the French revolution when ordinary people in Europe began to demand a truly democratic society. The death throws of the Imperialism of the 18th and 19th centuries resulted in a dismantling of many of the cultural mind-control methods which kept populations inward looking and insular. This pick-and-mix of world-views exploded with a vengeance in the 1960's.
The 60's was, of course, a vitally important decade in terms of personal freedom. Interest in new ideas, art forms, personal development, spiritual freedom, and alternative health grew exponentially, and the publishing world (and other commercial arms of society) latched onto this and provided the antidote to the lies which had gone before so that free-thinkers could explore new horizons. Wiccans and magicians came out of the closet and published facts, information and hidden history about an underground culture which the Establishment had kept censored for centuries.
This is a crucially important point which the Medical Monopoly wants to hide from you. Their approach is to present Alternative Healing as an aberration; an unproven modern mish-mash of hare-brained Hippiness which is not worthy of any sensible person's time.
This ridiculous stereotype is used as a smokescreen to avoid addressing the real issue, which is that Alternative Healing is a reconstruction of a time-tested network of natural medicine which was destroyed by the Medical Monopoly in order to sieze power for itself.
The progenitor of the Medical Monopoly were the Religious Brotherhoods, Abbeys and Hospitalers of Christianity which monopolised healing discoveries from classical antiquity by restricting books and printing on the one hand whilst persecuting Pagan Healers out of existence with the other. In short it is modern medicine which is the new kid on the block and it doesn't have a great track-record.
Just as modern science ridicules the Alchemists upon whose discoveries and methods modern science is built!
Just as modern Astronomy ridicules the Astrologers of old as superstitious dim-wits even though Babylonian astrologers had worked out the circumference of the earth using geometry three thousand years before science rediscovered how to do it following the Dark Ages!
As the children of the 60's grew up and started integrating this Ancient Wisdom into everyday life, alternative health provision grew and grew in the private arena. By the late 1970's, these were becoming more acceptable in society and part of everyday life for growing numbers of people.
Impirical evidence showed that there is no doubt that many simple, straightforward and inexpensive natural alternative healing technologies do give succour and reduce the suffering of many people with chronic ailments. Look at this for instance:
Brazilian Mint Reduces PainA herb called the Brazilian Mint reduces pain as effectively as leading drugs, a new study suggests. Scientists found that a tea made from the plant worked as well as a synthetic form of aspirin... ..It has been used as a traditional medicine in Brazil for generations. Now researchers at Newcastle University say they have scientifically proven its pain-relieving properties for the first time.Graciel Rocha, who led the study, said: "Since humans first walked the earth we have looked to plants to provide a cure for our ailments in fact it is estimated more than 50,000 plants are used worldwide for medicinal purposes.Source:Daily Telegraph, 25 Nov 2009. |
SO..When it suits them (i.e. when researchers are on the hunt to isolate active ingredients to pacify their funders) the successful history of 'traditional healers' is acknowledged but just let one of those impudent Brazilian healers try to use it in the U.K. and they'll be persecuted out of existence by the GMC and BMA.
Please Note from this article that Rocha freely admits that over half of all prescription drugs used in Western medical practice today are developed from plants which Traditional Healers have been using for centuries. We believe that the percentage is much higher. We would say that nearly 90% of all medicines today are derived from their original use in Traditional Healing
The Medical Monopoly would have you believe that their scientists track down the active ingredients in herbs and plants as part of their ongoing research and the fact that Traditional Healers may have used them before is just a co-incidence. The truth is that medical science always takes its lead from Traditional Healers the world over. Almost the entire British Pharmacopoeia has been stolen from them.
Perhaps the most important facet of Alternative Healing is that it puts the patient in the driving seat. Instead of making patients totally dependent on a Medical Monopoly which treats them like objects, Traditional Healing empowers the patient and makes them independent and in control of their own health. The concomitant optimism and hope which results is a major part of the healing mechanism which is missing in orthodox health care.
Imagine how these developments would be viewed by an established medical profession seeing its grip on its customers being eroded, along with the possible threat of professional status being chipped away. They must have been shaking in their shoes.
In the early 1980s, Gwillym Roberts, a teacher and nutritional therapist from the Institute for Optimum Nutrition, and Professor David Benton, a psychologist from Swansea University, developed a study to chart the effect of vitamins and minerals on the intelligence levels of schoolchildren. Thirty children were given a specially designed multivitamin and mineral supplement containing a high level of crucial nutrients. Thirty children were given a placebo.The idea that perfect nutrition can maximise a person's biophysical performance is undisputed but the suggestion that nutrition can also influence one's intelligence was met with massive resistance from the Medical Monopoly.The research results were published in a 1988 edition of The Lancet. After eight months in the study, no differences were noted in the children who were taking the placebos, while those consuming the multivitamin supplement saw their non-verbal IQ scores increase by more than ten points! Since the original studies, further research has been conducted using lower, RDA levels of vitamins and minerals. These levels, while far lower than those used in the initial study, still increased IQs by an average of nearly five points.
Source:
Whilst the controversy raged in academe, Larkhall Laboratories, a well-established vitamin and nutrition supply company, produced a Vitamin complex tablet marketed as Tandem I.Q. which was aimed at parents who wanted to maximise their kids development. There was nothing particularly different in the vitamin tablet, it was just a wider supplement formula than that given in normal vitamin tablets. However, in the leaflet which accompanied Tandem I.Q. tablets it was claimed that ongoing research showed that increased vitamin intake improved the I.Q. of children.
The medical monopoly immediately rounded upon them but this was a difficult case as the medical men had been telling everyone for years that vitamins were good for you. .
In 1992 Larkhall were taken to court by Shropshire Trading Standards department; not for breaching patent medicines guidelines you understand, but under the Trades Descriptions Act!
The court found against the company. Penalties under this act were comparitively light and Larkhall were fined 1,000.00. However as a warning to any other Natural Healers who might become too enthusiastic Larkhall were made an example of in a rather clever way. The prosecution's costs, amounting to an eye-watering 35,000.00 (GBP) were awarded against Larkhall who were in effect therefore fined 36,000.00. Not for poisoning or harming anyone you understand (no complaint had been made by any user) but for simply jumping the gun on 'scientific received opinion'.
Press reporting after the trial followed the medical monopoly line and made Tandem I.Q. sound like some kind of quack attempt to defraud parents, conforming once again to the Medical Monopoly's projected stereotype of the Snake Oil Salesmen. Source:Trial Details
Today research has added weight to
those early claims for super-nutrition to increase IQ in growing
children and show that vitamins can be of important use in the most
dramatic circumstances, like these:
Boy of 10 who was
left paralysed by an illness is recovering after
taking vitamin tablets.
Timothy Bingham suffers from a condition that has left
him unable to move his limbs. He communicates by blinking. For the past
five years, since Timothy was struck down by flu-like attacks, went off
his food and collapsed, his parents have sought a cure. Now specialists
at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, have discovered that Timothy
lacks a vitamin that protects his nervous system. Since taking three
amino acid l-serine tablets a day, he has managed to lift up his head
and walk a few steps with support. He has also begun to move his toes,
raising hopes that he might be able to walk to school and play with
friends. His mother, Kate Bingham, 40, said: "You need to hope that
there may be somebody out there who finds the miracle you've been
searching for. I have never lost hope.
"
Source:
Martin Walker, has made a long-term global study of this self interest which will shock any reasonable person who hears of the clandestine way that International Drug Companies linked to Medical Authorities in most countries have financed campaigns by third parties and agents of influence in every Western Country with the sole aim of suppressing and oppressing Natural Healers and Traditional Remedies which might compete with their billion dollar products. You can read some of his work , Dirty Medicine, here
To simplify the issues; the Medical
Monopoly in concert with giant Drug companies and NHS management
decided to embark upon a mass immunisation programme of children to
protect them from childhood illnesses (measles, mumps and rubella -
MMR). Dr
Wakefield was not pictured
treating his happy patients. Instead this 'convict photograph' was
used by some of the British Media adding to the witch-hunt atmosphere.
We have surrounded it with the Wild West border to emphasise the point.
If Larkhall's
experience was a shot across the bows for nutritionists
the treatment of Dr Andrew Wakefield was nothing short of a witch-hunt.
In May 2010 he was 'struck off' the medical register by the GMC after
they found him guilty of 'serious professional misconduct'. The
complexities of Dr Wakefield's persecution and the ramifications of it
are far too extensive to relate here but this
link
will
reveal the truth behind any lies that you may have been fed by the
Medical Monopoly and the British Media.
The cost of this was considerable and to mitigate it some bright spark had the idea to mix serum for all three of these potent childhood diseases into one giant inoculation. Millions would flow into the coffers of the drug companies and into the doctor's pockets (doctor's get paid per inocculation) but because the triple-vaccine idea would be a third of the cost of injecting each vaccine separately it was appealing to NHS management.
Many people, including doctors, scientists and parents, were unhappy about this project, reasoning that a child's antibodies had a difficult enough time combatting just one of these diseases and that putting three of them into the child's bloodstream at once was an unnecessary risk. Dr Andrew Wakefield began research to show that children could be at risk and suggested that some who had been vaccinated had developed autism.
In the ensuing controversy many parents wanted to be on the safe side and asked their doctors for three separate injections at differing times so as not to risk the triple vaccine. NHS Doctor's couldn't do this under government guidelines. Wakefield and some other far-sighted doctors inoculated children privately with separate injections if their parents requested it. To stop this trend the NHS actually artificially restricted the supply of separate vaccines so doctors couldn't easily get individual ones and parents were forced into the triple MMR or nothing. Against all the emollient promises of the Private Health Initiative parents were deprived of choice.
So here is the nub of the problem: It is not that Andrew Wakefield has done anything seriously wrong in any real sense, or that he was morally incorrect or unprincipled (the reverse is the case). The problem with the MMR vaccination was all down to the money! The NHS refused to give parents what they wanted because of the cost. If the NHS had acceeded to the wishes of parents to have three separate injections there would not have been a problem and children would have been protected.
Instead of that they persecuted Andrew Wakefield, impuned his integrity and eventually brought unneccessary charges to enable the GMC to strike him off. The man staked his professional reputation and career on this issue and was treated so shoddily that the Medical Monopoly lost the confidence of many parents. Uptake of the triple vaccination fell sharply and inevitably there followed an increase in the incidence of measles, mumps and rubella.
Let us be clear about it. This increase was caused by the NHS refusing to pay for separate vaccinations. It was all down to the money.
This debate has not been subdued by the striking off of Dr Wakefield because the NHS uses multi-serum innoculations in other areas, including anti-flu injections for the elderly whose use of them may be ill advised.
What a comparison this all is with the Medical Monopoly's abject refusal to entertain ANY form of inoculation when the idea was first imported into Britain - as we shall explain next .
One child in six died unnecessarily from Smallpox, adding horrendously to infant mortality in Britain
In 1717 Lady Mary Montagu, husband of the Ambassador, was residing at Edime in Turkey and had learned that the Turks had a folk-healing tradition of inoculating their children against Smallpox simply by pricking their skin with a needle dipped in the weakend pus taken from smallpox vessicles. The results virtually erradicated child deaths by smallpox in the area. She determined to inoculate her own son when she got back to Britain and knew she would have a fight on her hands with the medical monopoly. The astonishing resistance the medical monopoly put up against inoculation, along with the attendant hysteria generated by fundamentalist Christians who also came out against it, is hard to believe. The doctors called it
"an artificial way of depopulating a country"It is a classic example of how others, in this case small children, have to make the ultimate sacrifice before the medical monopoly will adopt something different. The full story is is outlined in detail in the leftmost column of this webpage.
and
" a barbarous and dangerous invention,"
Good results followed. As the renown of the BCHC grew world-wide it published its research for mainstream medicine to learn from in the hope that more patients could be helped. This 'impudence' resulted in a concerted attack from the existing Cancer Charities and the Medical Mafia using it's usual dirty tricks campaign, including a viciously unfair BBC documentary. (see here for more details)
You can read more about the self-serving six billion pound Cancer Business in our side panel here)
The campaign eventually resulted in the publication of an official report which was damning of the BCHC's research and achievements It actually inferred that cancer sufferers were being killed by the BCHC's administrations. This high-profile report discredited the BCHC totally amongst many members of the 'respectable' medical profession. Charitable donations to the BCHC slumped by 70%.
A group of satisfied BCHC patients who knew the report was false set up an action group ( the Bristol Survey Support Group BSSG) to reply to the charges. The BSSG discovered that the report was scientifically duplicitous and many believed it was simply an attempt by the ultra-conservative cancer charities to undermine the healing techniques used by the BCHC. Of course the fact that the original report had been undermined was not splashed across the headlines as the initial attack on the BCHC had been. In the public's mind we were left with yet another example of alternative healing 'quackery'.
However Professor McElwain, an outspoken member of the coterie who had attacked the BCHC committed suicide after the flaws in the report were exposed.
The good work that the Bristol Cancer Help Centre did was attenuated but one of its founders Penny Brohn began her own centre Penny Brohn Cancer Care which still pursues alternative healing methods today.
In 1922 a nurse, Renee Caisse, stumbled upon an Ojibwe Indian herbal cure for cancer and used it personally. Convinced of its powers she began to make it up for relatives and other people. Although it didn't work in every instance its success rate was good, especially for many patients which the Medical Monopoly had written off as 'terminal'. Her successes with influential people and politicians provoked the ire of the Medical Monopoly who tried much the same methods of defamation, terrorisation, and discreditation that they used latterly in the BCHC instance.
The Medical Establishment continued to hound Caisse until she became exhausted and closed her clinic in 1942. She continued to treat people in secrecy until later in life. She died in 1978 at the age of 90 and the 'Essiac' treatment which might have been able to save countless lives was consigned to the history of 'fringe healing'.
The full story of the persecution of Renee Caisse and the suppression of her cancer cure 'Essiac' is a classic example of the Medcial Mafia putting their own interests first.
In December 1982 Prince Charles entered the fray. Attending a dinner to celebrate the BMA's 150th anniversary, and speaking in the capacity of its President, he said that doctors should end their "hostility to the unorthodox". He went on to say that there were other ways than "the objective, statistical, computerised approach to healing the sick". He also said,
"By concentrating on smaller and smaller fragments of the body, modern medicine perhaps loses sight of the patient as a whole human being, and by reducing health to mechanical functioning it is no longer able to deal with the phenomenon of healing."Wise words indeed! But they were virtually ignored as the BMA still continued to treat Traditional Healers as a pariah.
Prince Charles also pointed out that "today's unorthodoxy is probably going to be tomorrow's convention." Full Text Here:
Also caught up in the tide of enthusiasm for alternative healing were the new generation of medical trainees who had themselves been brought up in the sixties.
The British Medical Journal published a survey in 1983 showing that 80% of general practice trainees wanted to train in an alternative therapy, and 21% had already tried one (British Medical Journal 30th July 1983).
Faced with this criticism from the top, and perceived pressure from its rank and file, the BMA had to react and reacted in a predictably protectionist way.
In 1986 the BMA published a biased report by their Board of Science and Education called "Alternative Therapy" At 164 pages, it makes interesting reading. Under the guise of trying to get things in perspective, it spends 30 of those pages telling us all about how much progress the medical profession has made in modernising itself and how wonderful orthodox medicine is, including jibes which clearly reveal their prejudices; e.g.
"It is evident that these drugs reproduce the physiological effects of the natural transmitters wherever released: a far cry from the treatment of symptoms, and 200 years distant from the nonsense of 'like cures like'."
It then goes on to insist upon the almost impossible medical trials alternative healing products must endure before they could be considered acceptable to the Medical Monopoly.
Interestingly, on the same day as the profession was crowing that the government had decided homoeopathy didn't work (it's based on this same principle of like cures like remember), researchers announced they'd cured peanut allergies in a trial by supplying minute doses of peanuts to their patients. Like cures Like. Both were featured on the BBC News 24 within a few minutes of each other.
The BMA Alternative Therapies report spends a lot of time with impropaganda telling us how 'unscientific' alternative healing methods are, and even discourses on how 'dangerous' some 'cults' are for health. Imagine a future where, as well as your diet, smoking, and drinking habits being used to deny health care, you also have to pass a spirituality test!
Despite this first official salvo against alternative healing the people were not listening and the availability of holistic healing continued to grow, with increases in the availability of herbal remedies and supplements, now not seen as the preserve of the 'crank', being advertised on TV and filling shelves on supermarkets. Even mainstream chemists carried herbal and homoeopathic remedies (why let science stand in the way of profits eh?).
Then something shocking and completely unexpected happened. Nobody died!
Not only did nobody die, many patients were converted to alternative healing methods because they had cured themselves with it. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The 'medical trial' the BMA had demanded had actually occurred right under their noses and nothing but good came out of it - for patients that is.
Anxious that their power-base was being eroded, the BMA stepped up the pressure by publishing yet another report in 1993 titled "Complementary Medicine: New Approaches to Good Practice," (Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-190286166-2).
This report seems on the face of it to take a softer stance. "Alternative" has now become "Complementary", and it looked as though the BMA had adopted the more noble goal of making sure that the public were protected from 'unsafe practitioners', rather than dissuaded from using Alternative Healing entirely, but as time would show, this was just the BMA giving itself space to regroup and start another attack.
The report seeks to persuade the government that unless Alternative Therapies are regulated in the same way as orthodox medical practitioners, the public will be at risk. As if the regulation of medicine ensures safety in any real sense! We will discuss this fallacy below.
But this is not the first time that the BMA has done a hatchet job on the competition. As long ago as 1909 this vicious protectionist organisation rounded on suppliers of patent medicines by publishing 'Secret Remedies' which 'exposed' the formulae and recipes for many well-known medical preparations.
The number of internationally marketed quack medicines increased in the later 18th century, the majority of them originated in Britain and were exported throughout the British Empire. These treatments were so popular that by 1830, British parliamentary records list over 1,300 different "proprietary medicines," the majority of which were "quack" cures by modern standards.In 1909, in an attempt to stop the sale of such medicines, the British Medical Association published Secret Remedies, What They Cost And What They Contain.
The book did lead to the end of some of the quack cures, but some survived the book by several decades. Source:
As usual the emphasis in the above wikipedia entry is slanted from the side of the scientific establishment. A point which those who rely on wikipedia should bear in mind when coming to their own conclusions. For example, extending the term 'quack cures' to herbal remedies is simply health fascism.
For their slanderous report the BMA surreptitiously obtained supplies of patent medicines which they then 'scientifically analysed'. In a review of hundreds of popular herbal medicines which had stood the test of time the BMA denigrated their efficacy and ridiculed the firms who compounded them . Often the suppliers were florid in their claims but the BMA also rolled into their attack firms with a household reputation such as Fennings Little Lung Healers. Beecham's Pills and even Liqufruta Cough Syrup.
What was going on? It was all part of a campaign to enhance the BMA's monopoly. These patent herbal medicines had been around for generations, indeed some of them pre-dated modern medicine and enjoyed 'grandfather rights'. Millions of people had used them for years and found them effective so the BMA had to bring them under their own control.
By portraying the patent medicines as unprofessional, dangerous or fraudulent they were able to press legislators to progressively tighten up the Patent Medicines act so that active constituents were reduced until the medicine was virtually nullified.
The average active ingredient allowed today in any Patent Medicine is between 1 and 2 percent. The BMA's own analyses of traditional medicines in their Secret Remedies book shows that in 1909 many Patent Medicines contained considerably more active ingredients and thus, presumably, were considerably more effective in curing the patient! Of course, if the Patent Medicines don't work where do you go to get the stronger stuff? Why to a doctor of course - stronger medicaments are only available by prescription.....
The BMA printed their estimation of the 'piffling cost' of each product at the end of each analysis, none of which was worth more, in their view, than a few pence a packet. Presumably this was an attempt to insinuate that patent medicine suppliers were duping their customers. But when one looked more closely into the BMA analysis what do we find? The BMA calculated only the raw materials cost of the herbs and ingredients . They owned up to this slight of hand in the Foreward by saying
In estimating the cost of these patent medicines..It is unnecessary to say that if they applied the same criteria to today's mass-produced drugs the basic ingredients would also cost only pennies! What subterfuge, yet today the BMA apparently continue their antagonism to any and every healing alternative which they do not control or which does not benefit their members. The saying 'leopards don't change their spots' comes to mind...
...nothing is allowed for the cost of making up the ingredients...or for bottles, packaging, etc.
At this point, it is perhaps wise to look at just what the BMA is, and why it exists. Originally constituted in 1832, the association grew into what it is today; the doctor's trade union. As such, it exists to look after the interests of the doctors, which is not necessarily that of the general public, and this should be kept in mind whenever its pronouncements are considered.
The BMA set about securing a monopoly early in its life, by campaigning for what became the 1858 Medical Act. This created the General Medical Council and the Medical Register.
According to the BMA website, (http://www.bma.org.uk/) it established, in 1863, a Parliamentary Bills Committee which they say:
"...... took a leading role in influencing legislation on public health matters including (as well as those already mentioned) the registration of midwives, the exposure of 'quack medicine', the treatment of inebriates, mental health legislation, housing and factory legislation, coroner's law and death certification, and the regulation of baby farming." Source:
Just what constituted "quack medicine" in the eyes of the BMA in 1863 would be an interesting debate.
The BMA also apparently initially opposed the creation of the NHS! The arguments against the National Health Service which were most circulated by the doctors at the time were that they would have to take a fixed income, rather than being able to charge their patients what they wanted!
During our research we found a lady who worked for the Inland Revenue at the time. She tells us that in the year following the creation of the NHS, many of the doctors in her district (by no means a wealthy area) went on to super tax! The BMA website cited above (http://www.bma.org.uk/) also confirms this attitude.
So, how would a new raft of regulation today, benefit the medical profession?
As well as making any competing unorthodox therapy far more expensive (regulation and the relevant bodies have to be paid for, and this will likely be from the practitioner's, and hence the client's, pockets), the BMA's recommendations seek to place limits (professional boundaries) as to what each therapy can practice. [See: Complementary Medicine, BMA, Page 144].
It has to be said that it's not just the BMA who are a menace here. Many Alternative Healing practitioners love the ethos of the medical monopoly and want to be part of it. They also see a short term commercial advantage in being a member of a controlled and regulated profession both in terms of what they will be able to charge and the increased difficulty new competitors will face in getting into the business.
Doctors Bury Cancer Patient Alive
"I heared her first feeble movements in the coffin...we had put her living in the tomb.." Poe. |
rly, once the alternative practitioners' range of practice has been restricted to a narrow band of problems defined and controlled by the medical profession, the BMA will demand further 'alignment' between Alternative Therapies and Orthodox Medicine. Anything which works will be monopolised as 'theirs' and anything which works less well will be blamed on the Alternative Healing regimes. This 'absorption' technique is as old as the hills, in fact that is how the Medical Monopoly got one of their biggest successes - Penicillin; which they misappropriated from Natural Folk healers and which they have ever since pretended they discovered.
Anyone who swims against this tide of conformation will eventually be put out of business, removing a lot of options from the public.
In short, it will become "heal our way or not at all". Back to square one.
Apart from the added costs to the patient one can imagine how an extra tier of bureaucracy for what are relatively simple procedures would slow down the process, invoke extra delays in treatment whilst extending unnecessary suffering of patients. Traditional Healing would in fact go the way of orthodox treatment and be sucked into the inertia of a monolithic system. Two of the major advantages of Traditional Healing (easy accessibility and convenience) would disappear to be replaced by the recalcitrance common in orthodox treatment no doubt further extending NHS waiting lists.
Do we need protecting from incompetent Natural Healers like the BMA says? Well as history amply testifies regulation is no guarantee that orthodox medical practice is competent or safe, as material alongside this article clearly shows, so why should it have the same effect on alternative healing methods?
Of course what the BMA did NOT mention in their attack on unregulated Alernative Therapy practitioners was the much higher incidence of danger to the public caused by renegade doctors in their own ranks despite them being regulated .
The GMC has struck off HUNDREDS of doctors not only for a catalogue of fraud crimes and sexual abuse against patients but many times for malpractice and imcompetence which resulted in patients being killed or permanently damaged. Finding just how many Doctors were struck off and what they did is difficult because it appears to be a secret within the medical profession.
In contrast to its allegations
against Alternative therapies the GMC keep very quiet about how many
doctors they have struck off. There is a paucity of information on
their website. However, you can get a good estimation of the extent of
renegade doctors in the past decade by going to http://courtnewsuk.co.uk/ .
This excellent website keeps a searchable database of court cases of
doctors who are prosecuted in the U.K. As the GMC tend to strike off
only those doctors whose crimes are indefensible this site is a good
source to estimate the extent of the problem. When we typed 'struck off
doctors' into their archive search box it came up with 978 of them!
Once a drug has passed this test,
treatment protocols are drawn up, and scientific practitioners are
expected to stick to them. In theory the public gets the best proven
treatment. Except that these trials are undertaken on a statistically
insignificant proportion of the population, and then generalised to
apply to everyone. As an example of how this approach can
harm you, consider the following scenario from modern medicine. It is held by scientists that if we
reduce the general population's cholesterol levels we will experience a
known reduction in heart attacks across that population. One way to lower cholesterol is to
prescribe a drug known as a statin. So if we can get everyone with high
cholesterol onto statins, they say we will save many lives. But what of
the individual? Many people go through life with high cholesterol and
never have a heart attack. Statins though, like other drugs, carry
serious side effects for some people who take them. So, for some people
who may never have a heart attack despite their high cholesterol,
serious problems could be created by their "preventative treatment." At the moment there's no way to know who
these at-risk people will be until it's too late. This is the issue for
statistical evidence based medicine, it does what it says on the tin
for most folk, but occasionally kills some of the rest! The
question is - Into which group do you belong? It's the same error as looking at a fat
man and concluding he eats too much. True the general population is
getting fatter through eating too much and/or doing too little, but
equally, some illnesses (and indeed, some drugs) cause people to gain
weight uncontrollably. So although it is true that most fat folk have,
directly or indirectly, 'brought it on themselves', that knowledge
tells you nothing about the patient but quite a bit about the Health
Fascists. In the old days when you went to see
your
doctor he would make you say aaaaah, and look at the colour of your
tongue, he would shine a light into your eyes, he would look into your
ears, he would feel your throat glands and take your pulse , check your
lungs and your heart with a stethoscope, and ask you about your
homelife and how you were getting on at work. He would in fact
generally give you a complete health check in order to see what your
problem if any was. Old fashioned doctors knew that humans are
idiocyncratic and that what they say is often not what they actually
mean. They cannot
often be trusted to analyse their own symptoms. The things they notice
may turn out to be deceptive and should not be taken at face value. In the 1954 film Doctor In The House
there is a scene which amply illustrates this. The Doctor (Dirk
Bogarde) is on his rounds accompanied by his registrar trainees. At one
woman's bedside who has been complaining about stomach issues Bogarde
asks a registrar what the woman's syptoms are. He repeats what she has
told him. Today you are unlikely to see the same
GP on
consecutive visits to your health centre. He (or she) is likely not
even to remember your name. He will ask you for your symptoms and then
punch what you have said into a computer and it will tell him to send
you for a blood test which may start a train of events which are not in
the interests of the patient. Most people, for a variety of legal
reasons, are never actually touched by their doctor at all! As this scientific medical model becomes
even more dominant, all alternatives are increasingly being tested
against it, even though it doesn't make sense and may be fundamentally
at odds with how the alternative is thought to work. Most car owners get better and more
specialised treatment for their automobile than they do for themselves.
You wouldn't expect a one-size-fits-all approach when you take your car
in for servicing - why must you accept it when you go to the doctor? What is happening is what Prince Charles
feared; the healing aspect of medicine is being deflected and allowed
to atrophy due to an over-reliance on the scientific. Doctors
indoctrinated with the world-view of scientific materialism see the
patient as a machine not a person. The entire medical monopoly is
veering towards Frankensteinian Doctoring. Medics who are demanding a
one-size fits all 'perfect' health profile for everyone. Anyone who is
too small, too big, too fat, too slim, too dim, too clever, too
emotional or too placid.... anyone in fact who does not fit their
pre-designated 'normality' is marginalised, treated as an aberration
and prescribed drugs which may actually shorten their lives or even
kill them. Why would respectable and well
informed
science writers publicly admit that we can't trust clinical trials any
longer? The answer it would seems lies in the manipulation of
statistics. With medical science getting more and
more complicated (just think of the millions of different combinations
of gene strands there can be), trying to make sense of clinical trials
is getting harder and harder. And that's assuming they're done
honestly. As cases shown elsewhere on this page prove trials can be
maxed-up to ensure a costly drug gets approval, or dangerous side
effects are ignored in the stampede for profit. Can we trust what the
scientists say? Apparently not. The problem has become so big that
one science writer quoted in “Science News” went so far as to say: One concerned scientist sought to
prove
that more than half of the results published were wrong. Although he
came under attack for flaws in his statistics, even one of his
opponents had to admit “There are more false claims in medical
literature than anybody appreciates.” (ibid) There are many reasons for these
misinterpretations and errors, all laid out neatly in the article cited
earlier, but briefly they consist of: This is for example how the idea that
Cholesterol is a contributory factor towards heart disease gained
credence and the government
have since spent millions on promoting that idea even though the
assertion is completely and utterly false. Readers wishing to know more about
this problem would be well advised to read the article linked below,
but to give you a flavour, here are a few quotes: “A new drug may be statistically
better than an old drug, but for every thousand people you treat you
might get just one or two additional cures — not clinically
significant. “ “I found that eight or nine of
every 10 articles published in the leading journals make the fatal
substitution” of equating tatistical significance to importance, he
said in an interview. Ziliak’s data are documented in the 2008 book The
Cult of Statistical Significance, coauthored with Deirdre McCloskey of
the University of Illinois at Chicago.”
Evidence Based Medicine
The current drive in orthodoxy is towards
what is known as 'evidence
based medicine'. And the gold standard is the placebo controlled
randomised clinical study. In others words, drugs and procedures must
be able to show they are effective in dealing with particular symptoms
better than a dummy drug or procedure, and that neither the patient nor
the doctor involved in the testing should know whether the patient is
receiving the "real" or fake medicine. Interestingly many thousands
of these scientific tests prove that fake medicine is usually 35%
effective anyway which is no surprise to an Alternative Healer but a
complete bewilderment to Medical Science!.
Old Fashioned Methods Often
Worked Best
"Is she regular?" says
Bogarde.
"Yes." says the registrar, "she says her motions are regular".
"Are you regular?" says Bogarde to the woman.
"Yes doctor", she smiles back "as regular as clockwork.".
"How regular?" Bogarde persists.
"Oh, once every fortnight"
Why 9 out of 10
Scientific Findings May Be False!
Science owns-up to
the fact that you can't trust their studies any more
“Even when performed
correctly, statistical tests are widely misunderstood and frequently
misinterpreted. As a result, countless conclusions in the scientific
literature are erroneous, and tests of medical dangers or treatments
are often contradictory and confusing.”
In short, the vast majority of
scientific trials used by the government to back or reject treatments
are more a result of the preconceptions of the scientists running the
trials than actual performance of the product or method under test.
"Statistical problems also
afflict the "gold standard" for medical research, the randomized,
controlled clinical trials that test drugs for their ability to cure or
their power to harm. Such trials assign patients at random to receive
either the substance being tested or a placebo, typically a sugar pill;
random selection supposedly guarantees that patients´ personal
characteristics won´t bias the choice of who gets the actual
treatment. But in practice, selection biases may still occur, Vance
Berger and Sherri Weinstein noted in 2004 in ControlledClinical Trials.
"Some of the benefits ascribed to randomization, for example that it
eliminates all selection bias, can better be described as fantasy than
reality," they wrote."
The main thrust of Mary Shelley's gothic novel Frankenstein (1918) was a criticism of modern medical science which ignores the Soul of the patient and concentrates solely on the 'nuts and bolts' of the body. Forty years later her work was proven prophetic following the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species which finalised the physicists' mechanistic view of the universe with the biologists' mechanistic view of human beings. Patients had become 'a thing' rather than a person.
There is a beautiful section in Shelley's book, full of pathos, which amply illustrates her point.
Dr Frankenstein's monster is fleeing from a mob of enraged villagers and stumbles upon a cottage in the woods from which emanates the sweetest music. The monster stops his headlong flight and as if in another world is drawn into the cottage where it finds a blind old man playing his violin. There follows a scene where the blind man, who is oblivious to the horrible physical appearance of the monster, welcomes him. This touches the monster's soul and the minds of the two meet for a short while in bliss whilst they both enjoy the beauty of the music together.
The awful consequences of the absolutism of science reached its most vile during WWII when Nazi doctors perpetrated the most heinous operations on concentration camp prisoners. Although since painted by the victors as aberations the sad truth is that Mengele and his coterie of evil medical men were actually fully paid up members of the scientific materialists. These 'monsters' were already conducting university research along similar lines in genetics etc before the war. Ironically, their work was siezed by the occupying forces and much of it used to supplement modern science afterwards. The Medical Mafia dare not condone freezing people to death and then trying to reanimate them afterwards as Frankenstein and the Nazis did but now that it had been done.....
Modern Medical Science ignores the Soul. Do they know what they are doing? Maybe not as the following Frankensteinian example shows.
Although harmful chemical-coshes are now used on mentally ill people to subdue them it is only 50 years since lobotomies were routinely carried out on thousands of mentally ill people to 'quieten' them. Lobotomy involved trepaning a hole in the front of the skull, sticking a small wooden 'paddle' into the frontal lobe of the patient's brain and destroying it by 'stirring' the brain into a mush. The depth of penetration and amount of stirring was left to the idiosyncracies of the surgeon! The patient never fully recovers and is constantly beset by a confusion and inability to think straight enough to take even the simplest action. Some did indeed wander around like Karloff's interpretation of Frankenstein's monster. These poor people were made into virtual zombies by the medical profession. We repeat, this was an accepted and routine method of treating thousands of mentally ill people within recent memory and was of course the basis for the ground breaking book One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. first published in 1962 and made into an award winning motion picture in which Jack Nicholson starred in 1975. |
. No, this is
not a lobbotomy patient. |
Who'd have thought it was ethical to cause harm when a much safer alternative is available?
Here's just one example to show how an "ethical" approach may cause you serious harm. Commonly used antidepressants have been shown to be no more effective than a placebo and therefore should not really be prescribed under the gold standard used to test orthodox medical treatments. Common sense would also argue the same. If a doctor can get the same effect from prescribing a small sugar tablet (or other inert substance) why give a drug which has known dangerous side effects in some people and difficult withdrawal symptoms in many (such as cramps, dizziness, and headaches)? The answer, it would seem, is that under their own cockamayme code doctors are not allowed to deceive you and tell you the placebo is a real drug as this would be unethical. (keeping patient's in the dark about placebos is essential to activate the placebo effect)
So, although a safe and effective alternative is available, you have to take the risk of the side effects in order to protect your doctor from professional criticism. Scientific medicine indeed.
This issue came to light when a researcher (Irving Kirsch, professor of psychology at the University of Hull, and professor emeritus at the University of Connecticut in the United States) decided to use American freedom of information legislation to access ALL the drug trials [See here] rather than the two successful ones that had been used to gain a license for the manufacturers. Given that the drugs were believed effective because of the license, and the publication of selective research, one wonders how many more 'wonder' drugs are simply producing a placebo effect whilst poisoning the patient in the process?
The World Health Organisation has developed what it calls a "Global strategy on traditional and alternative medicine" which according to their website aims to assist countries to:
"- develop national policies on the evaluation and regulation of Traditional Medicine/Complementary Alternative Medicine (TM/CAM practices; - create a stronger evidence base on the safety, efficacy and quality of the TM/CAM products and practices;ensure availability and affordability of TM/CAM, including essential herbal medicines;
promote therapeutically sound use of TM/CAM by providers and consumers. Source:
Once again, regulation and "evidence" (presumably they mean scientific evidence) are key features of this approach. Remember, there are many places in the world still where the only medical provision anyone can access or afford is the alternative methods of indigenous Traditional Healers.
The WHO is run and organised by the Medical Monopoly and has a track-record of bashing Natural Healing in third world countries whose health services are grossly underfunded and where traditional or alternative healing would really make a difference - as the following press report shows.
This is typical impropaganda from the WHO. The point is that homoeopathic doctors have never claimed that it cures TB or Malaria but rather that it ameliorates suffering in those diseases and enables the body to recover more quickly in conjunction with orthodox medicine. The statement that homoeopathy cannot cure influenza, HIV etc is a bit rich when all doctors know that these diseases are not cureable by orthodox or homoeopathic medicines. Only ameliorative treatment is available - which is exactly what homoeopathy has a good record in doing.The World Health Organisation Has Warned Against Homeopathy use.
People should not rely on homeopathic treatments, the World Health Organization has warned. It was responding to calls from young researchers who fear the promotion of homeopathy in the developing world could put people's lives at risk. The group Voice of Young Science Network has written to health ministers to set out the WHO view. WHO TB experts said " There is no objective evidence that homeopathy has any effect on these infections " said Dr Nick Beeching, Royal Liverpool University Hospital.In a letter to the WHO in June, medics from the UK and Africa said: "We are calling on the WHO to condemn the promotion of homeopathy for treating TB, infant diarrhoea, influenza, malaria and HIV. "Homeopathy does not protect people from, or treat, these diseases.
Source:
The World Health Organisation has already made strides in controlling health choices through the infamous and widely despised Codex Alimentarius, which is a joint project with America's Food and Agricultural Organisations.
This is a particular problem for natural healing as vitamin and mineral supplements are classed as food, and standards for many are laid down in the Codex.
Some of the issues arising from the Codex are the low maximum daily doses established for supplements, classing some nutrients as drugs, and insisting on clinical trials to back up any claims for health effects. This means, amongst other things, that small producers are seriously disadvantaged against multi-national drug companies who can afford trials which might cost millions to complete.
The big drug manufacturers will invest in such trials because, as they are part of the Medical Monopoly, they know that they can increase the price of their monopolised product to cover this cost once testing is completed and listed for use by the NHS. It would be impossible for any niche market producer to do so because demand for their alternative healing product is far too small.
Of course cynical readers may see a tacit conspiracy here, in that the Medical Monopoly (including WHO and the scientific academic community) have neatly arranged things to further their own interests. The Millions that go into the testing of a new drug mean thousands of grants to university research departments to keep academics in work and the ability of drug companies to charge 40 times more than the drug is worth when it is eventually licensed.
The people who keep this incestuous conspiracy going would OBVIOUSLY see Aunt Mary's Old Fashioned Cough Syrup recipe as a threat and so YOU are made to pay (via your taxes for the NHS) forty times more than Aunt Mary would charge for something that is probably equally as effective in its own way.
If you complain to your MP about the Codex and it's effects, you will likely be fobbed off and told that the Codex is voluntary and does not represent the legal position. In practice however, since the World Trade Organization uses codex standards to determine disputes about free trade between countries, most nations have to enact the recommendations into law or face sanctions and fines if they try to sell produce abroad which do not comply with the codex.
While researching the Codex, we came upon an interesting example of how damaging non-compliance can be. The EU refused to import beef from Canada and the US where the beef herds had been treated with growth hormones. The EU have had to pay $11m to Canada, and $116m to the US annually as a result.
And speaking of the EU, when the Codex set its standard guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements, it appears to have been based largely on the relevant EU directive as it includes some text verbatim. In that respect, the Codex simply reflects laws already in place in Europe, or, in the process of enactment by some member states under the heel of the European-wide Medical Monopoly.
Different countries in Europe have historically taken widely different approaches to what can be included in supplements and in what amounts are considered acceptable.
The Food Supplements Directive seeks to set maximum levels that can be sold in supplement form, a level which is much lower than British consumers are currently used to. Perhaps this goes back to the idea of the Recommended Daily Amount (R.D.A) a standard which was established through observation of the minimum amount of a particular vitamin or mineral that you need each day to avoid deficiency diseases.
Now, whilst this may well be true, it may not be the whole picture. For example, there will be a minimum number of calories you need each day to avoid starvation, but clearly, for good health, you need far more calories than that to avoid the illness which would result from the lack of adequate nutrition. Surely the same will be true of vitamins and minerals because they are basically components of food? More may be needed for optimum health at certain times during one's life; when pregnant, if suffering from chronic disease (extra calcium to prevent or stall osteo-arthritis for example).
Now, there are many remedies in use around the world that have been tried and tested over many years, sometimes hundreds of years. As these are found and brought back to the EU, they will now have to be licensed as medicines rather than as traditional remedies. In short a revival of the use of these traditional remedies will never happen unless the big drug companies back it. For example, why would they bring out a new treatment for bronchitis if they've already obtained a licence for one that cost a few million dollars to develop? You can see why Medicine is in the process of stagnation and that the over-bearing largely unnecessary restrictions imposed by the various medical monopolies are the major cause of it.
Imagine what medical practitioners and drug company representatives (who seem to have a heavy influence on this agency and who are already hostile to alternative healthcare) will do with this legislation when asked to rule on whether your therapeutic herbal tea (chamomile, for example, which happens to be a good nervine and promotes deep sleep) is a medicine? Will it be classed as a medicine (and therefore effectively regulated off the market) or a food which does not come within their remit? Have you ever met a bureaucracy which has refused to expand itself?
This push commenced with a report from a House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology in 2000. Mindful of the difficulties and expense of creating many new statutory bodies to regulate all flavours of alternative and traditional medicine, the government of the day decided that the Health Professions Council [See page 10 of the Report to Ministers from The Department of Health Steering Group on the Statutory Regulation of Practitioners of Acupuncture, Herbal Medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Other Traditional Medicine Systems Practised in the UK] should take on this role. They seem eager to do so, if their response to the government's consultation is anything to go by.
This represents a move towards uniformity and control over standards in regulated alternatives never before seen Source:
Note: The Health Professions Council already regulates �arts therapists, biomedical scientists, chiropodists / podiatrists, clinical scientists, dietitians, hearing aid dispensers, occupational therapists, operating department practitioners, orthoptists, paramedics, physiotherapists, practitioner psychologists, prosthetists / orthotists, radiographers, and speech and language therapists.�
Readers who have followed this article so far will clearly see how Alternative Medicine is a powerless victim in a world-wide Battle of over-regulation ripe for the extension and addition of unnecessary and highly expensive multi-layered bureaucracies who are jumping on the gravy-train in the worst kind of political interference in the lives of their citizens. The last thing on all these bureaucrats' minds is whether or not Alternative Medicine actually works!
"is the UK regulator for complementary healthcare practitioners".Despite this claim to be the regulator it is clear from advice on their web site that they are not a statutory body. but have pretensions to be so and are funded by the Department of Health. When we researched membership, it was not possible for individual practitioners to join directly, you had to join through another professional body (two more sets of fees to be passed on to you, the user).
So how exactly is the authority of this body, its complaints procedure, and disciplinary measures enforced? Well, it would appear they are relying on the traditional restrictive practices of the Medical Monopoly. Their pitch seems to be that any Alternative Healer who is not on their register is somehow sub-standard and to be avoided.
Indeed, when the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council announced its launch, we were told it was to be a "kite mark of quality" (even though they have no power, as yet, to enforce standards). As we write, they only accept registration of
"Alexander Technique teaching, Aromatherapy, Bowen Therapy, Massage Therapy, Naturopathy, Nutritional Therapy, Reflexology, Shiatsu, Sports & Remedial Therapy, (and) Yoga Therapy" but have plans to extend to "Hypnotherapy, Reiki, Microsystems Acupuncture, Cranial Sacral Therapy, (and) Healing".
Some alternative groups appear reluctant to be regulated, or to cooperate with this new organisation (which legally, is just another company creating profit). And free-thinkers everywhere will understand why. Once most therapists have been pushed to join to avoid being classed as purveyors of Snake Oil ( for the general public will increasingly perceive the few who hold out as not being up to scratch even when their standards could be much higher than those set by the CNHC), it will be easy for this, currently voluntary, register to be transformed into a statutory one based on the medical model. Having achieved this, ( as we have seen where "complementary" practitioners are allowed to practice on cancer wards) , roles will be diminished until being a practitioner is no longer viable.
This 'executive decree' system was developed to deal with the minutiae of daily regulations imposed upon us by the never ending bureaucracy at Brussels which churns out legislation by the thousands. There was just far too much new regulation for parliament to debate so MPs passed a law deferring their democratic powers to the minister of state for each government department. All the minister has to do is to sign it into law. Laws passed under delegated powers by ministers without a full debate in parliament bring democracy into disrespect and experience shows that inarticulate and often unworkable laws result. Though there is supposed to be 'consultation' in most instances the only contributions are from the organised lobbyists and NGOs who are already networked into the political system and can keep up with it all. Small fry like the Alternative Healing industry were not consulted in this case.
So your MP had no say in these new Consumer Laws, the most serious of which was that in some cases the burden of proof was shifted from the complainant to the provider. This means that if someone is unhappy with a service, it is the responsibility of the provider to prove that his service was effective. If it cannot be proven that it is effective then the sale or service becomes technically classed as 'fraudulant' whether or not the person providing the service sincerely, wholeheartedly and honestly believes in what they are doing. Now this may be a good thing when one is buying double glazing or ordering from an on-line shop but it has extensive ramifications for Traditional Healers.
Included in the government's guidance to businesses is a list of prohibited practices which includes:
"(17) Falsely claiming that a product is able to cure illnesses, dysfunction or malformations. A trader sells orthopaedic beds to the elderly with the advertisement "Cure your backache once and for all with my special beds". If untrue, his definitive statement about the curative effects of his product would breach the CPRs. The court may order the trader to substantiate such a claim in proceedings. See Page 24 here:
The guidance makes clear that "product" can also mean "service". So, since 2008, alternative practitioners need to be very exact in what they say or offer because if challenged by a client they will have to find proof acceptable to a court that they are using a 'proven' system. This means proven 'scientifically' and as we have seen even the most time-tested and proven alternative healing system (homoeopathy) cannot actually 'prove' itself scientifically. In that case there will be a technical breach of the regulations with massive fines and the possibility of imprisonment. Although any prosecution must take into account 'the spirit of the Act' we have already seen in the punitive prosecution of Tandem IQ vitamins (see above) that the authorities are willing to do the dirty work of the medical monopoly when necessary. And what specialist medical evidence do you think a court will accept? It's going to be the evidence of 'the Medical Monopoly isn't it?
Yet we have seen that a lot of the client's ability to self-heal depends on having the placebo effect play a part in ANY healing, and this is greatly diminished if you have to say to someone the equivalent of:
"There's no scientific evidence that what I'm doing will help, and it would be illegal for me to say otherwise (even though I've seen lots of cures myself)."
If you, like many free thinkers, occasionally mix up a herbal remedy for minor ailments and share them, then you will soon find it difficult and sometimes impossible to buy your ingredients (to say nothing of existing legislation that makes it illegal for anyone to administer medicines who is not a doctor).
If you grow plants yourself for the purpose of treating people this is also illegal. If you grow them for your own use then you may fall foul of wide ranging laws originally put into place in the 'war on drugs' making it illegal to 'prepare' natural substances for ingestion. (it is permissible for you to use plants in their raw state but not 'prepare' them.) You can't even technically give away your family medicines to friends because you have to put your "product" through clinical trials even to do that.
Moreover, if you pick your wild plants in the countryside, you could be prosecuted under the various provisions of the Wildlife and Countryside Acts which, since 1977 and under the misguided lobbying of the conservation movement have sought to 'protect' wild plants by stopping you picking anything from the wild. This originally applied to very rare species but, as usual, as soon as the law was established it was enlarged to cover almost any plant in existence whether it is ecologically at-risk or not.
And all this says nothing of the implications for control of the population that these measures imply. See more on this here
So if you want to practice traditional healing in your family circle your options are already becoming more and more limited, You may have noticed that the CHNC hopes to add healing to its remit soon.
As pressure grows, will homoeopathic remedies, tissue salts and the like still be on offer in the shops? Legislation backed by the scientific and medical lobby to restrict and eventually eliminate these from sale will affect you but as can be seen from the tranche of legislation that the Medical Monopoly has worked-up over the past twenty years the time to protest has already passed for most of them.
However, some Alternative Healing groups have tried a rear-guard action against this firestorm of new restrictions and if you want to add your name to their petitions you can do so here:
The UK government, along with the Health Professions Council and others are seeking the regulation of counselling and psychotherapy. Given that the scientific materialist world view is dominant in medicine, and increasingly used as the test of truth in legal cases, this could be a disaster. Firstly the terminology is vague, and could cover so many activities, from simply talking to a distressed friend or family member, through to complete psychoanalysis. In fact it is so vague, that the likely route for regulation to take is that the terms will be protected, rather than the functions.
Given that orthodox medicine believes that most alternatives, and all magical methods heal by placebo, and that placebo is activated by the client's psychology, all alternative healing methods can feasibly be defined by them as a form of psychotherapy.
As professional applications become more regulated, and what functions a psychotherapist can carry out become more tightly defined and controlled, many alternatives could be attacked as being unlicensed psychotherapy.
Another major casualty will be innovation.
For example: In the medical world, the psychotherapy which is broadly accepted (and has scientific evidence to back up its effectiveness) is the useful (if extremely limited) symptom control method of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) . This approach first reared its head when a psychoanalyst, Albert Ellis, became disenchanted with his results in 1958. Searching around for something that would actually ease his client's suffering, rather than provide insight, he formulated Rational Emotive Therapy (now referred to as Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy), which proved far more effective.
In 1967, Aaron Beck formulated the CBT approach to helping depressives. This approach has gone from strength to strength, and along with Ellis's work, is widely accepted scientifically.
Would these approaches have developed in a tightly controlled environment where the functions each professional can carry out are narrowly defined? Hardly! It took from 1958 to the mid 2000s for CBT to gain credibility in medical circles! How much longer would we need to wait for something like this to be developed in the new world of hyper-regulation? Probably forever.
This isn't an exclusive list of the problems besetting Alternative Healing and Folk Healers. We could go on at length, but after reading this SAFF special report only a dimwit could fail to see the writing on the wall. Before too long, the only people who will be able to treat you without breaking the law will be doctors. Which is of course what they've been after since the 15th century!
If this degredation is not stopped a new class of criminalised citizens will be created. People who choose to heal themselves using traditional remedies will become the new Robin Hoods of Britain. Outlaws who risk punitive fines and even prison for exercising their right to choose how and when to be healed.
The Point is that there is absolutely no need for the regulation of traditional healers because, particularly in proportion to the hundreds of thousands of people that orthodox medicine kills every year, instances of people being harmed by traditional healers are very few and far between. Regulation will not improve a record which is already excellent.
Let's look again at the far more virulent dangers to patients of the actions of the Medical Men who are constantly bleating about the 'harm' which Alternative Healing COULD cause. There are many shocking examples of the Dangers of Orthodox Medicine and we have outlined a few in the leftmost column. For those of you who don't know about these major concerns here's a quick guide:
As aforesaid, drugs are developed and tested by drug companies in a regulated process which leads up to the placebo controlled randomised clinical trial on patients. A process which takes many years during which many patients not involved in the trial continue to suffer when they could have been using Alternative Healing methods to alleviate their illness.
For really heavy drugs which involve the risk of lethal or terminal damage this makes sense, but for most medicines and in particular Alternative Healing remedies which are usually holistic and very gentle in effect this long testing sequence is simply an expression of the Medical Monopoly's power over ordinary mortals.
After these tests the registered and regulated medical practitioners, with years of training, with cupboards and computers full of reference works, look at the latest treatment protocol (which tells them what to do), and prescribe the limited number of drugs which have been tested and accepted, ignoring everything else.
This photograph illustrates the indomitable spirit of the human race. Now middle-aged this Thalidomide victim is showing us all how to live life to the full. You can see more heart-rending human experiences of Thalidomide here: |
The Medical Monopoly's very own Snake Oil is Thalidomide. Thalidomide was a sedative introduced in the late 1950's. Although tested to some degree and hailed as a new panacea, doctors soon noticed that patients were experiencing side effects of dizziness, constipation, cramps, and numbness in the fingers. Not to mention, in some cases, nerve damage. But this was nothing compared to what was to come.
When the drug was given to pregnant women, severe birth defects started to show up. 'Monster' children were born. Some without any limbs, without even an anus in some cases " deformities of such variety and seriousness that thousands of lives were damaged and many children died shortly after birth because their physical defects could not support life. Frankensteinian Doctoring had achieved it's worst.
Poor Alexander Flawn was the worst case in the UK. Missing one ear, and with the other deformed, one of his arms short with his hand missing a thumb, the other hand had six fingers, his face half paralysed, and with a cleft palate. Who can forget the pictures of those terribly afflicted children?
What was the manufacturer's response to this? Nobody mentioned Snake Oil salesmen then! Even though that's what the Medical Monopoly seemed to act like. One might expect contrition and remorse but instead what we got was protectionism, PR spin and dodgy tactics to limit the damage claims (there are well found stories of the Medical Monopoly even hiring private detectives to dig up dirt on people who challenged them).
They had to be dragged kicking and screaming into court and spent years locked into legal battles which delayed pay outs to horribly crippled children. The drug was withdrawn in 1961 after being identified as the cause of horrendous birth defects in at least two countries.
Although Thalidomide was developed in Germany, it was produced by different companies around the world, many of which had to be forced through expensive legal action to live up to their responsibilities. In the UK, this dragged on for 10 years and more.
One estimate is that by 1962, 39 live Australians were affected, along with 1000 Japanese, 400 in the UK, and 2600 in Germany. Doctor's estimates say that twice as many children were born dead. These are official figures and are probably on the low side as it did not include the drug's use in third-world countries. Victims of Thalidomide could easily top 10,000 world-wide.
Let us be absolutely clear about this. Compared to this littany of error NOTHING the Alternative Health industry could do would in any way ever come close to the terrible toll in suffering and death of the world's biggest medical mistake. And yet a few years later these Medics are jumping on the bandwagon to berate Alternative Healing methods and accuse Alternative healers of being a 'danger' to the public!
Was Thalidomide an exception? Did those thousands of children and babies die for nothing or were lessons learned, and processes improved? Not if a recent Panorama program on Avandia is to be believed.
"The Avandia Story has got pretty well all the elements of a drug scandal and it certainly does suggest that we have a really major systematic problem with the way drugs are evaluated and regulated around the world." Dr. Fiona Godlee, Editor of the British Medical journal. [Speaking on Panorama "Avandia " A Risk Worth Taking?" BBC 1, September 2010]
Although Avandia is not as emotive a
scandal as the Thalidomide tragedy it does show that existing medical
trials are uncertain and that regulation is not a promise of safety by
any means. Avandia is a drug used to control diabetes which came under
suspicion of causing many additional heart failures and heart attacks
around the world. One doctor estimated that in the UK alone, 1000
extra heart attacks and 600 cases of heart failure were caused in the
previous year.
The problems with Avandia were revealed in a similar way to those of Thalidomide when an expert got access to all the studies on the drug, rather than just those the drug-company wanted to publish. 35 out of 42 studies had not been published by the drug company. [Source: Panorama:Risk Worth Taking?] |
LATEST NEWSThe drug giant GlaxoSmithKline is to plead guilty to promoting two drugs for unapproved uses and failing to report safety data about a diabetes drug to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The settlement will cover criminal fines as well as civil settlements with the federal and state governments. The case concerns 10 drugs, including Paxil, Wellbutrin, Avandia and Advair |
It would seem that drug regulation in the UK lies in the hands of two organisations. The MHRA mentioned earlier and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The MHRA's panel wanted to ban Avandia in July, but the organisation (which could have suspended the license pending a decision by the EMA) decided instead to advise doctors to consider something else. The EMA which deliberates in secret and relies on information provided by the drug companies finally pulled Avandia's license in September 2010.
Having provided you, the reader with all this background, the question you now have to ask yourself is this:
Will you swallow the PR of the Medical Monopoly and allow them to deprive you of your rights to Alternative Healing?
Do you believe a person who says "Trust Me I'm a Doctor" when mistakes by medical 'experts' kill at least HALF A MILLION PEOPLE A YEAR!
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) (Vol 284, No 4, July 26th 2000) published an article written by Dr Barbara Starfield, MD, MPH, of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health which shows that medical errors may be the third leading cause of death in the United States.
The report apparently shows there are 2,000 deaths/year from unnecessary surgery; 7000 deaths/year from medication errors in hospitals; 20,000 deaths/year from other errors in hospitals; 80,000 deaths/year from infections in hospitals; 106,000 deaths/year from non-error, adverse effects of medications - these total up to 225,000 deaths per year in the US from iatrogenic causes which ranks these deaths as the number 3 killer. Iatrogenic is a term used when a patient dies as a direct result of treatments by a physician, whether it is from misdiagnosis of the ailment or from adverse drug reactions used to treat the illness. (drug reactions are the most common cause)..
Ends:
By David Southern and John
Freedom,
Winter Solstice 2010ev.
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