A sad story of misplaced trust

[Guest guest]

I know people think I'm paranoid, but I honestly can't find it in my heart to completely trust ANYONE with an MD, DC, or DO after their name. Please pay some serious attention to the following article about misplaced trust in a VERY well known allegedly health-oriented medical doctor. What a sad lesson this offers us - but an important one!

 

This is also one of the MOST IMPORTANT papers I have seen on the need for Vitamin A in our bodies.

 

Linda

A Belated Discoveryby Mary L. CuppMy story begins in 1986 when I sought dietary advice from a doctor who promoted herself as an expert in the nutritional care for women's illnesses, Dr. Christiane Northrup, MD, author of the popular book "Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Creating Emotional Health and Healing." Her recommendation was a strict, dairy free, vegetarian diet (she underlined "no dairy" on the prescription pad) with soy used in place of dairy in recipes. I made dietary changes but over a period of two years my health deteriorated markedly until I developed severe anemia, along with gastrointestinal bloating and other problems. I was placed on iron supplements by a chiropractor and shortly afterwards developed a severe uterine hemorrhage. It seemed to me that the iron had triggered the hemorrhage but at the time I didn't know why this should be so. I went back to Dr. Northrup hoping to get some help in avoiding surgery, but her first recommendation was a hysterectomy. This I refused. I felt certain that there had to be a reason for my ill health that could be corrected, so I commenced a search among other holistic healers. I went on an extended pilgrimage searching for answers but none of the healers I went to knew what to do. During this time, I continued to see Dr. Northrup for the prescription drug that I required to control the bleeding while I searched. This search required great fortitude and effort on my part as I was chronically weak from the bleeding. At one point my teeth started to shift from the chronic stress and I mentioned this fact to the doctor. (1 later had to have middle age braces.) She made no comment. Instead, on many occasions, she tried to convince me that my symptoms were mind/body psychological manifestations. When I questioned this assumption, it was put down to "resistance". Additionally, despite the fact that other healers that I saw were able to help me lower my dose of (but not totally discontinue) the medication I was on by using natural thyroid supplements, she continued to urge me to have a hysterectomy. After four years of searching, I ended up in the emergency room with life threatening bleeding. The doctor told me that I had no choice but to accept the unsought and unwanted surgery. Several months after my hysterectomy, I discovered an article about a 1977 South African Medical Journal study of vitamin A as therapy for excessive bleeding, (bleeding is the leading cause of hysterectomies). The study resulted in a 92.5 % cure rate. The article cited the use of vitamin A at Johannesburg General Hospital and documented a 92% cure rate over a ten year period. As I researched vitamin A, I discovered that the extreme vegetarian diet, recommended and promoted by my doctor, could deplete the body's stores of this vitamin, leading to malnutrition. In searching through standard nutrition textbooks I found that persons with low thyroid function are unable to convert beta carotene (found in vegetables and used in place of vitamin A in most vitamin pills) into usable vitamin A. I learned that patients with low thyroid often have excess bleeding and are at extreme risk of unneeded surgery to the reproductive organs In addition to this, I learned that foods that the doctor had recommended, particularly the soy foods, are known to depress thyroid function. The textbooks also state that vitamin A is needed for iron absorption and the building of blood, but I was never told to take vitamin A with my iron supplements. Upon learning these facts, I began to take relatively high doses of vitamin A supplements (100,000 IU) in the fish oil form and I soon experienced a dramatic improvement in my health, including healing of long standing gastrointestinal problems. I came to realize that malnutrition from the doctor's initial dietary recommendations was more than likely a very significant contributing factor in my bleeding and ultimate hysterectomy. The following February (1994) I wrote Dr. Northrup a letter asking for an opportunity to share some important information that I had gathered, but instead of showing interest she responded by cutting off relations and terminating me as a patient. Several months later, in a new publication she had just released I discovered that she specifically recommended high doses of vitamin A for bleeding, citing the same South African study (!) Although the doctor did not help me avoid a hysterectomy, the publication has greatly enhanced her career and reputation as a holistic healer. Moreover, in the new publication, she also connected vitamin A to the health of the gastrointestinal tract. Furthermore, in searching her previous writings, I also discovered that she was raised from childhood on the work of Dr. Weston Price [whose work emphasized the great need for vitamins A and D in the human diet]. Despite these facts, she had never mentioned this research but instead gave advice that went directly counter to these findings. I was shocked and dismayed. When I sought legal advice I was told that I could not claim malpractice because, notwithstanding the doctor's claim to be a holistic healer, vitamin A is not generally used in conventional American medical practice. I was told that a doctor's claim to offer holistic care had no legal teeth to back it up. I came to understand that although a doctor could further his or her career by catering to the public desire for holistic healing, they could not be legally held to deliver appropriate holistic care. Shortly afterwards, I entered a complaint before my state medical board citing lack of truth in advertising, fraud and deceit. In her response to the medical board, the doctor dismissed her failure to follow her own advice claiming that vitamin A "didn't work" and was "toxic.". Yet she published the same recommendation in two other publications while the case was still pending! Despite such blatant disregard of the issue at hand, the board dismissed the case without giving it a review. I came to realize that although a doctor may enhance his or her career before the public by posing as a holistic healer, such a claim begets no obligation to the patient to deliver. To the contrary, the doctor can have it both ways and profit on both ends, while the patient who is cheated is left without recourse. A medical doctor who claims to practice holistic medicine is in a position to switch treatment modalities and belief systems on the patient without accountability for having done so. In fact, under current malpractice arrangements, a doctor who plays "bait and switch" is more protected from lawsuits that one who truly attempts to give bona fide holistic care. This legal reality is not appreciated by the public because cases of this kind of behavior are not reported by the media because they cannot get into court. The problem is circular. This experience has turned me into an activist. I am currently working with my State Representative, Jerry Davis, to introduce a bill into the Maine State Legislature. The exact wording of the bill is currently being drafted. The aim of the bill is to begin to define the obligation to patients that a doctor incurs when they advertise themselves as offering holistic care. One of these obligations will be disclosure of available research and treatment alternatives. I have placed the details of the legislation online, along with a press release. For this and subsequent information please see my web site, http://www.javanet.com/~cabbidge . Please feel free to visit and to offer any suggestions or comments. COMMENT: A riveting and tragic story, indeed. Mary's email is cabbidge. Feel free to email her concerning her story or her proposed legislation. This story highlights the GREAT NEED for vitamin A,found only in animal fats, for women. At the beginning of my vegetarian paper I recounted the sad story of a young couple who had lost their first baby to miscarriage. The cause was subclinical vitamin A deficiency. The reason for it was the misleading and dangerous nutritional rhetoric out there today which tells women that low-fat diets are healthy for them, that vitamin A is "toxic" and that foods containing betacarotene (plant foods) can provide vitamin A. Lies, lies, lies. Visit these links to read the REAL story on vitamin A: http://www.westonaprice.org/vitamin.html http://www.westonaprice.org/knavery.html

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