Quackery or the Cutting-Edge?

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Quackery or the Cutting-Edge?

 

Some day, health care without megavitamin therapy

will be seen as we today see childbirth without sanitation,

or surgery without anesthetic.

Health alternatives may be unfamiliar and initially sound farfetched, but they

all have one common characteristic: they work.

Unorthodox medicine, unpopular research, and drugless healing has always come

in for criticism by allopathic, or drug-and-surgery doctors. There's nothing

wrong with disagreement in health professions because this keeps practitioners

aware that there are varied approaches to wellness, not just their own. The

problem comes when one school of treatment comes into political power and

strongly biases the very laws of the land against alternative schools of

treatment. The American Medical Association has had

this very opportunity. Although the A.M.A. now represents far fewer than half

of the physicians in the United States, it remains the strongest lobby in

Washington, and a very influential " union. "

Columbus and Copernicus and Einstein and naturopaths all have had to struggle a

bit to demonstrate the truth of their theories in practice. Fortunately, they

have all done so with great success, and history will bear them out. Law

sometimes is the last aspect of a country's rising consciousness to show

revision. For this reason, we must all " lobby " and call for freedom of health.

Most states have a generous, really generous amount of laws, and if you read

your state's Medical Practice Act, you may be amazed at the very strong

restriction of any non-medical approach to healing. The Medical Practice Act in

New York will be found under " Education " in the Consolidated Laws Service,

section 6501, and is twenty-five pages in length. The Act is full of case notes

and records of convictions of those who " practiced medicine without a license "

including a beautician " who treated and prescribed for blemishes on the face of

a patron " (p. 211, note 8).

" Quackery " is supposed to be harmful, and the law to protect us from

charlatans. Not everyone knows that the real English meaning of a " charlatan " is

just an unregistered

health, not a health criminal. If the law is supposed to help us, how can we

explain in one case that " the fact that the treatments were in some instances

beneficial is wholly immaterial " (p.211, note 4.5) to the trial of an unlicensed

practitioner in New York? How? Because the issue is not health, but business.

The Medical Practice Act protects the exclusiveness of the allopathic medical

doctor from competition, by rendering an outsider's practice illegal. Public

health has little to do with it.

The reason? Because so-called " quackery " happens to work. But you have to make

your mind up about that yourself. Don't let the medical politicians make your

mind up for you, try as they may. Deciding, choosing and verifying in your own

life which health methods are truly life supporting should be restricted by no

law, doctor, nor attitude. This is why we need freedom of health. Please write

your lawmakers and tell them your views. It has been said that no king with his

scepter wields more power than an informed citizen holding a pen.

Years ago, my mother (who had been a teacher) told me that education had two

goals. The first, she said, was that any education should make you want to

learn more. For this reason, the referential reading suggested at this website

is especially important, for in seeking it out you will gain so much more really

helpful information than you perhaps ever imagined possible.

The second goal of education, Mom said, was to teach each person how to budget

their time. When I was a kid, with too much time on my hands in the summer, and

bored

out of my gourd in school all winter, I did not appreciate this. Now, decades

later, I see what she was on to. We all have the same 24 hours in each day, and

most of us (and even the busiest of people) have time for TV or certain other

pursuits. Taking a bit of that time to learn to get well and stay well is the

most certain of all investments. Consider this: if you are pressed for time,

but spend some fraction of an hour each day improving your health, you will

probably live longer. If you live longer, then you will have more time in the

end.

A third goal of education drizzled into my mind in college. Some instructors

said, and a few actually meant, that education should teach you to think. When

we just " go to the doctor, " we are suspending most thought and asking to be

commanded. Like a toddler putting up his arms to have you take off his shirt,

we surrender our self-reliance

for some quick service. We also get to complain if the treatment wasn't good

enough for us.

I once heard a person complaining that firefighters had tracked mud and water

into her house en route to a small smolder in the basement clothes dryer. A

firefighter responded, " Look, lady, when you call the fire department, your

house is ours. " When you call the doctor, you give up control of your very

body. To keep control, we have to keep thinking. And reading, and learning.

 

Reprinted from the books DOCTOR YOURSELF, PAPERBACK CLINIC and FIRE YOUR DOCTOR,

copyright 2001 and prior years by Andrew Saul, Number 8 Van Buren Street,

Holley, New York 14470 USA Telephone (716) 638-5357

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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