How Mainstream Medicine is Neutralizing Alternative Medicine

[Guest guest]

You know, Robert, Kathy Wong, the about.com alternative

medicine " authority " has some decent stuff at times, but that for the

most part she and about.com are pretty much mainstream and only give

token nods to alternative medicine, about the same as WebMD.

 

There is a very major problem facing natural and alternative healing

today, quite apart from the FDA and Codex - and that is that it is

being neutralized by mainstream allopathic medicineas via bringing it

into the mainstream fold as watered down CAM therapy where allopathic

treatments are ALWAYS performed as per the usual, and a relative

handful of watered down alternatives are used in conjunction.

 

Here is an excellent article about that by noted journalist Peter

Barry Chowka:

 

From Alternative Medicine to CAM:

All Things Must Pass

 

© By Peter Barry Chowka

 

(November 15, 2007) It's eleven years since my work began appearing

in this space, with great regularity. At the outset of this

undertaking, in October 1996, it was in effect the dawn, or at least

the early daylight hours, of the Internet and the World Wide Web. It

was also a time when alternative medicine, the subject of much of my

writing here, was still a viable entity in America.

 

Time, of course, changes everything. As George Harrison once

proclaimed, " All things must pass. " And today, with the accelerating

pace of life, things seem to be passing from the scene more quickly

than ever.

 

With 20/20 hindsight, it's clear that the mid-1990s was a period of

profound transition, not only in terms of how mass communication was

changing with the advent of the Internet but for the field of

alternative medicine, an area that I'd been reporting on for two

decades at that point.

 

In 1996, alternative medicine was rapidly, to sum it up in two

words, " going mainstream. "

 

Early signs of this change included the government getting involved

in a field, alternative or unconventional medicine, that it had once

totally dismissed. The most visible example was the creation of the

Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) at the National Institutes of

Health in 1991. As an invited participant/advisor/consultant in the

early years of the OAM, I got a close look at what was transpiring in

the corridors of government power.

 

Within ten years of its inception, the OAM's budget (later expanded

and renamed NCCAM – National Center for Complementary Alternative

Medicine) had exploded about 5,000 percent beyond its

initial " homeopathic " level of $2 million a year – an unprecedented

growth for a federal program.

 

As I got a clearer look at the emerging picture, however, I soon had

reason to recall with mounting dismay a comment made to me in 1980 by

the late Nobel prize winner (the prize awarded in 1937 " for his

discoveries in connection with. . . vitamin C " ) Albert Szent-Gyorgyi,

M.D., Ph.D.: " The purpose of science has gone from making discoveries

to getting grants granted. "

 

And so, by the late 1990s and into the new millennium, my work, which

for years had focused on uncovering and reporting on credible

alternative and innovative medical approaches and the thought leaders

behind them, increasingly began to document what I saw as the co-

optation and the sell-out of viable alternative medicine in the face

of the emerging power structure of CAM – " complementary alternative

medicine " – the acronym that described the field that was displacing

true alt med.

 

The key word here, " complementary, " is essential in understanding

CAM. As I initially intuited and reported it – an observation

confirmed by years of subsequent experience, I might add –

alternative medicine was being envisioned by the powers that be as a

model that could be transformed and twisted into something that could

complement, support, and in effect bail out its much larger (but

actually highly problematic) cousin, mainstream allopathic medicine.

CAM, therefore, from the outset was very much limited to

complementing allopathy and not the other way around. The design was

for mainstream medicine to remain very much in the primary position,

in the driver's seat.

 

Examples of this phenomenon are everywhere and a telling illustration

occurred one week ago, on November 8, 2007, in a segment

titled " Titans of Medicine " on ABC TV's Good Morning America (GMA).

The guests were three high profile CAM M.D.s who were in New York

City to accept awards (and $25,000 prizes each) later that evening

from the Bravewell Collaborative. GMA host Diane Sawyer described

Bravewell as a " group which promotes integrative medicine " and her

three physician guests (Andrew Weil, Dean Ornish, and Rachel Naomi

Remen) as " founding fathers and mothers of integrative medicine. "

 

The first comment from the esteemed panel was offered by Weil: " I

think very few Americans are aware that in China today, in all large

academic hospitals in Chinese cities, all cancer patients get

integrated treatment. They get surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy

and they get Chinese herbal therapy which reduces toxicity [of the

conventional treatments], improves outcomes, often enables lower

doses to be used – and this is routine. "

 

The guests and host Sawyer smiled and nodded their heads in approval.

The answer to cancer, then, they all agreed, is not non-toxic

alternative treatments (like the ones pioneered by true " titans " like

Hoxsey, Burzynski, Kelley, Gonzalez, Revici, or Gerson), but using a

handful of nonthreatening adjunctive lightweight " integrative "

therapies to support expensive and toxic conventional treatments. In

the past, primary alternative cancer therapies had provided the

bedrock, the underpinnings, the rationale, and the inspiration for

all of alternative medicine in the U.S. But now, they have been

eclipsed by CAM, their original primary healing, or even curative,

intent watered down and transformed into a weak adjunct to standard

conventional treatments.

 

(By the way, if these conventional cancer treatments that are now

being promoted by leading CAM experts were so successful, why are

there calls – 36 years after the start of the official

government " War on Cancer " – for a doubling of government research

into cancer because of minimal progress?)

 

Similarly, on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees on November 13, 2007,

in a half-hour long segment on " the power of prayer, " Larry Dossey,

M.D. made this statement: " I think that an integrated, complementary

approach is wise, where we bring every tool to the table that we

think may work. Now, this includes drugs, surgical procedures,

chemotherapy, or radiation, but also healing intentions, if the

individual is open to that. " Once again, it is telling what comes

last in Dossey's view.

 

And so it goes. Several books at least could be written about the

real history of alternative medicine including how the field in

recent years has been sold down the river by ambitious and self-

serving, and extremely well rewarded, CAM minions and wannabes. It's

doubtful that a large enough audience would be interested in the

story, however. The dumbing down, trivialization, marginalization, or

outright disappearance of periodicals and publications once devoted

to primary alt med (most recently, with its August 2007 issue, the

monthly magazine Let's Live, which had been publishing continuously

since the 1930s) is testament to this sea change.

 

As if this situation – the neutralization of alternative medicine –

isn't bad enough, another threat has appeared on the horizon of

American health care: The imminent takeover of all of American

medicine by the government. In recent years, the ignominious failure

of " Hillarycare " socialized medicine in 1993-'94 notwithstanding, the

public, if opinion polls are to be believed, is now demanding that

the government provide free allopathic medicine to everyone. Leading

politicians are falling over themselves to promise fulfillment

of " health care as a right. " In reality, " universal health care " is a

looming scenario that will allow a citizen no ability to opt out of

the Orwellian and draconian system of health care control that is

envisioned and championed by a toxic coalition of special interests,

the medical-industrial complex, big pharma, statist policymakers, and

cynical, self-serving politicians.

 

The coming year leading up to Election 2008 next November 4 will

likely be the most important test for Americans in modern times of

whether or not we can preserve many of our most precious and

longstanding freedoms, especially the freedom to make our own

decisions about health care. I hope that we are up to the challenges.

In my view, the stakes could not be higher.

 

Also in my opinion, if someone like Hillary Clinton (who champions

mandatory government health care and electronic medical records) or

John Edwards (who supports the same thing and who is also the man who

would force all Americans to go to an allopathic doctor for regular

invasive checkups and treatment decreed by cookbook medicine) is

elected president, our freedoms won't just be hanging by a thread –

they will be history.

 

------------------

Peter Barry Chowka is a widely published writer and investigative

journalist who writes about politics, health care, and the media.

Between 1992 and 1994, he was an advisor to the National Institutes

of Health. His Web site is: http://chowka.com

 

 

 

 

 

oleander soup , robert-blau wrote:

>

>

http://altmedicine.about.com/od/alternativemedicinebasics/Getting_Star

ted_With_Complementary_and_Alternative_Medicine.htm

>

> Getting Started With Complementary and Alternative Medicine

>

> New to complementary and alternative medicine? This section contains

> everything you need to get started, including finding a

practitioner,

> statistics, insurance, which therapy to choose, and more.

>

> Book & Product Resources (8) Sort Out Your Options (1) Product

Alerts /

> Safety (11) Tools / Assessments (52) Scams / Quackery (3)

>

> What is the Cochrane Collaboration?

>

> What is a Placebo?

>

> What is Complementary and Alternative Medicine?: What is

complementary

> and alternative medicine? Here is a definition.

>

> Most Popular Complementary / Alternative Therapies: Which

complementary

> / alternative therapies do people prefer?

>

> Top 15 Conditions For Which People Turn to Alternative Medicine:

What

> are the 15 most common health problems that cause people to seek

> complementary / alternative therapies?

>

> Who Uses Complementary and Alternative Medicine?: What are some of

the

> characteristics of complementary and alternative medicine users?

>

> What are the 5 Main Types of Complementary and Alternative

Medicine?:

> What are the different kinds of complementary and alternative

therapies?

> How are they classified?

>

> Most Popular Herbs and Supplements: What are the best-selling herbs

and

> supplements in the United States?

>

> What is the Difference Between " Alternative " and " Complementary "

> Medicine?: Are the terms alternative medicine and complementary

medicine

> interchangeable or is there a difference?

>

> Complementary and Alternative Medicine 101: New to complementary and

> alternative medicine? Information to get you started.

>

> Complementary and Alternative Medicine Directory: Directory of

> complementary and alternative topics on this site.

>

> How to Find a Complementary / Alternative Practitioner: How do you

go

> about finding the right complementary and alternative medicine

> practitioner? Here are some suggestions.

>

> 12 Most Common Questions About Insurance and Alternative Medicine:

You

> may be covered in part for complementary / alternative therapies.

Find

> out the 12 most common questions people have.

>

> Complementary and Alternative Medicine Glossary: Looking for a

> definition of a treatment, test, medical term, or other word

related to

> complementary and alternative medicine? Look it up in this glossary.

>

> How to Choose Quality Herbs and Supplements: Tips on choosing

quality

> herbs and supplements.

>

> Complementary and Alternative Medicine Research: Learn what

research is

> currently being conducted by the National Institutes of Health on

> complementary and alternative medicine.

>

> Survey Results: Over One-Third Americans Use Alternative Medicine:

Over

> one-third Americans use complementary and alternative medicine,

> according to a survey by the National Institutes of Health.

>

> Recommended Complementary and Alternative Medicine Reference Books:

Do

> you need a reference book on complementary and alternative medicine?

> Here is a selected list of recommended books.

>