Martin J Walker Reports on the Case of Dr Andrew Wakefield, Autism and MMR Vaccine Damaged Children

Cartoons by Emma Holister http://www.art-margin.com/doctoringcolversion.htm



For more information see www.cryshame.co.uk and www.slingshotpublications.com

The book:

Silenced Witnesses

http://www.slingshotpublications.com/silenced.html

In July 2007 the General Medical Council, the regulatory body for doctors in Britain, began a ‘trial’ of Dr Andrew Wakefield, Professor John Walker-Smith and Professor Simon Murch. The three doctors were charged under some seventy headings after having published the conclusion of research and clinical practice that suggested a link between the MMR vaccine, bowel disease and regressive autism in some children.

The hearing was ordered by the New Labour government and the single complainant was a pro-MMR Sunday Times journalist. The GMC took almost four years to produce the evidence and the hearing itself is expected to last around two years, making it one of the longest quasi-legal proceedings in British history.

The parents of MMR vaccine damaged children who all support the three doctors, have not been allowed a voice in the GMC hearing because their complaint on behalf of their children is against the pharmaceutical companies, the New Labour government and themedical establishment. This book is written almost entirely by these parents and for the first time it gives voice to the injustice that has been done to them and their children.

Articles:

The Urabe Farrago

A Recent Historical Example of Corporations and Governments Hiding Vaccine Damage for the Greater Good


You must assume the liability for the collateral damage.
Vaccines have side effects. We demand informed consent.
We demand greener vaccines. We demand choice for our children.

There are very powerful people in positions of great authority who have staked their reputations on the safety of MMR and they are willing to do almost anything to protect themselves.

On a blustery day in April 1998, Richard Barr and his colleague Kristin Limb wandered onto a large city railway station in England looking for a man called George. Barr and Limb worked for the law firm that was suing three pharmaceutical companies on behalf of 2,000 parent claimants for adverse reactions caused to their children by MMR. George had rung Barr's practice on a couple of occasions before speaking to him; he had, he insisted, important information he wanted to give to Dr Andrew Wakefield, the expert witness in the parents claim.

Continue reading: http://slingshotpublications.com/urabe.pdf


To Encourage the Others

http://www.slingshotpublications.com/damage.html

Chance is a word void of sense;
Nothing can exist without a cause.
Voltaire

There are no accidents.
Master ShiFu in Kung Fu Panda.

When police and paramedics arrived at the house of the distraught Fisher family, on the morning of January 19th 2006 they found two-year-old George Fisher dead and were unable to resuscitate him. He was declared dead exactly 10 days after his MMR vaccination. His lungs and blood examined during the autopsy, showed measles virus, while his enlarged spleen showed he was fending off a virus.

Over three days, two and a half years later, in November 2008 Coroner Alan Crickmore presided over the Inquest into George Fisher's death. Apart from the bereaved parents, the amphitheatre court was full of pharmaceutical company representatives and vaccine and immunological department apparatchiks, including Dr Liz Miller, formerly of the Public Health Laboratory Service and more recently head of the Immunisation Department of the Health Protection Agency.

Crickmore, a solicitor with a one-man-band practice in a small black fronted office resembling a funeral director's on the High Street in Cheltenham, deals with everything from divorce to licensing and conveyancing and civil partnership to cohabitation. Qualifying as a solicitor in 1980 he became the Coroner for Gloucestershire a decade later. Making a formal complaint against him following the Inquest the Fisher family described him as 'a man without any social skills'. The Fishers maintain that he was brusque and rude to them throughout the hearing and acted with a condescending and authoritarian abruptness to their female counsel.

Continue reading: http://slingshotpublications.com/MMR-Damage.pdf

An Appeal For Funds

Martin Walker, one Britain's few independent investigative writers, author of Dirty Medicine, has been deeply committed to the campaign against vaccine damage denial being waged by thousands of parents in Britain and the US. For almost two years now, he has attended the General Medical Council (GMC) fitness to practice hearing against Dr Wakefield, Professor Murch and Professor Walker-Smith, being held in London.

This is an entirely self-interested prosecution in which the GMC pays the prosecution, picks the jury (or panel) and even employs the legal assessor who sits with the panel. The trial has proceeded with hundreds of charges based originally on the word of a journalist, Brian Deer. Deer works for The Sunday Times, which is owned by News International whose Chief Executive, James Murdoch, now sits on the board of GlaxoSmithKline, a manufacturer of MMR. The intention of the hearing is to damage Dr Wakefield's name and reputation, and get him struck off the medical register, thereby stopping him from giving evidence, anywhere, against MMR or its adverse reactions. Although the hearing was meant to last three months, the prosecution has been dragged out to become one of the longest regulatory trials in British history.

Walker has followed and written about the hearing not just because he is committed to exposing ways in which the drug companies and the GMC manipulate legal and other realities, but because a large number of parents of autistic and otherwise vaccine-damaged children, who have been air-brushed out of this show trial, have great difficulty in attending it. Walker is now finding it difficult to fund coverage of the last stages of the hearing. He says:

"In the beginning and at different occasions, autism-related individuals in the US have supported my work. Recently, however, I have had to depend on the parents of vaccine-damaged children who support Dr Wakefield. These parents are already under considerable financial pressures and I can no longer ask them for, or accept, their contributions.

As the hearing nears its end I feel like a marathon runner who can see the tape but whose knees are buckling and I am fearful that I will collapse. From the roadside I will be forced to watch hoards of disinterested mercenary journalists who have joined the marathon in the last hundred yards pass me to write their received and opportunist opinions about vaccines, vaccine damage and the GMC manipulation of evidence against the three doctors.

I need funding for my expenses in the last three months, on and off, of this hearing, I need this funding by the beginning of June when the hearing resumes again. I don't think that I need to state the obvious, that the trial is of real importance not just to Dr Wakefield and the two other defendants, but to the freedom of medical research and independent health practice in Britain. I will, however, state something that has not been quite so obvious over the last two years. Despite these three doctors being orthodox, and even conservative practitioners, there practices have been partly based upon nutritional and environmental approaches to the cause and diagnosis of gut and bowel disorders.

I will personally acknowledge any funding that is sent to me and if individuals provide me with their email address and a land address, I will send them copies of my most recent essays about hearing issues. I will also keep any contributors informed, by email, of my work and this appeal in the next four months. All my writing about the GMC hearing, well over 400 pages now, can be read on the CryShame web site. Any money in excess of that which I need to attend the hearing, will go towards the production of a book that I hope to publish after the trial ends in August."

Cheques should be made out to Martin J Walker and sent to:
Slingshot, BM BOX 8314, London WC1N 3XX.

Online Payments can also be made on the Slingshot Publications site at: www.slingshotpublications.com

The Village Voice Buries the Bodies

Liam Scheff

http://liamscheff.com/daily/2009/04/03/the-village-voice-buries-the-bodies/

April 3rd, 2009

There are at least 200 dead children lying in the wake of the high-dose drug studies done by Columbia Presbyterian on orphans in NYC. The perpetrators won’t release a single medical record, not even to participants.

Children weren’t paid, families weren’t paid, weren’t asked.

The children and infants used in major drug trials were often orphans.

This week’s Village Voice doesn’t trouble the reader with this information in a meaningful way. They excuse it.

The Voice calls me a “Denialist” because I ask appropriate questions about HIV tests and AIDS drugs.

The questions are appropriate because questioning multi-national corporations is appropriate. Questioning the use and design of a technology – HIV testing – which is used to tell 30 million around the world that their lives are over, they’re sexual lepers, they must embark on a life-long course of potentially-fatal and body-altering drugs, which have killed adults at normal doses – asking the question, “how good is this test?” is necessary. And if you don’t ask the question, you give totalitarian power to a small, but immensely funded private sector of the international drug industry.

But. The Voice won’t list or talk about any of the drugs in detail.

The Voice Won’t talk about HIV tests in detail.

They assert that those who talk about these things in detail are no better than, essentially, Holocaust Denialists. A very effective slander, that pushes most people away from having the courage to talk about the issue.

The Voice directly uses (and acknowledges) my sources, but claims I’m not a reporter.

They retrace an article I did three years ago ( Inside Incarnation NYPress), using the same sources, and more or less acknowledge that they’re doing so. But I’m not a journalist, they say. I didn’t bring them all of this information. But, I did, and they say so. They therefore contradict themselves in trying to libel me.

The VERA Institute, essentially given a mandate to cover up the story, was paid three million dollars to admit that many children died, and to publicly assure the public that no drug could possibly be to blame. They excuse high dose Black Box drugs used on infants and children, up to 7 and 8 drugs at a time, each of which is capable of killing an adult.

They do this while simultaneously admitting that they were FORBIDDEN from looking at a SINGLE medical record for ANY of the children. The VERA researcher then tells the Voice reporter, Elizabeth Dwoskin, that they really can’t be sure of their assertion, or any assertion, because they had no access to medical records.

That’s a nice three million dollars worth of bullshit.

I broke this story. It’s a national and international scandal. The data and information I provided is now the permanent record. Nobody disputes any detail, they’ll suppress it, but they won’t dispute it, they won’t allow it to be argued, because all of this is true and demonstrates the profound corruption that has become part of the medical and AIDS industry:

Children were used without permission in drug trials. Many died.
The drugs were almost to a one FDA Black Box labeled drugs, meaning they’d killed or maimed adults at normal doses, some with horrifying, literally skin-peeling toxicity.

I published that list of studies years ago, and from the start named the drugs, the major studies, and the major pharmaceutical companies who were benefiting from the free use of orphans, who they were able to kill children in trials without punishment.

HIV tests are polyreactive, and they are the justification for labeling these children as ‘dead already,’ as expendable.

No children or families were compensated for their use, or their death. No money was paid to use, or use up these children.

These children were orphans, and the use of orphans in trials like this nationally was further exposed by John Solomon doing his own investigation for the AP.
So let’s look at the response by the AIDS police –

“Attack Liam Scheff. Distract from the many dead children. Attack. Distract. Attack. Distract.”

“Don’t pay these kids who we’ve ruined, or killed. Don’t pay their families. Don’t admit publicly that HIV tests are polyreactive, and non-standardized. Don’t admit publicly that these drugs kill very well on their own.”

“Do attack Liam Scheff. Do misquote him, do ascribe to him any variety of statements or beliefs, or behaviors that certainly don’t have to be true or hold up to any scrutiny. Just say them loud, and repeatedly, and don’t give him a chance to respond.”

And there you go. There you go, liberal NYC. You’ve got a lot of blood on your hands, and you want somebody to wipe it on.

You can wipe it on yourselves. You can wipe it on the AIDS industry. You owe these children, and this community. You owe Washington Heights, you owe a lot. More than you can bear to pay.

My correspondence with the Voice reporter, Elizabeth Dwoskin is here. and here She was a self-declared ‘science illiterate,” who was unable to get through a single medical paper on HIV testing; she lied plainly to me about her intentions for the story, she begged for leads and sources and information, which I provided her, and she perhaps was a tool for her editor – read for yourself if you want to know some of what the paper suppressed.

I am available for radio and television interview. Please contact me via my website.

Sicko - Why Michael Moore is flat out wrong about healthcare...

by Mark Hyman, M.D.

http://www.ultrametabolism.com/blog/?q=blog

I just watched Michael Moore's new movie, "Sicko." Today, I'd like to talk about what I saw.

This is not my usual solution-oriented blog about health problems.

But stay with me, because I want to help you understand what has to happen for meaningful change to occur in our "sick" healthcare system.

And it is NOT what Michael Moore suggests.

Now back to the movie.

I must say I was disappointed. I was hoping for a novel look at the problem of not only access to healthcare, but of the type of healthcare that is practiced.

Don't get me wrong.

I'm all for more access to healthcare, better healthcare, and lower costs.

But I am not for getting more people access to a broken healthcare system that creates more problems than it solves.

Consider this.

Our healthcare system itself is the leading cause of death overall, followed by heart disease and cancer!

If our healthcare system is responsible for more than 700,000 deaths a year from medical errors, hospital infections, bed sores, surgical errors, drug reactions, and more, which lead to an extra $250 billion in costs, do we want more people to be exposed to this type of care?

I don't think so!

Moore's answer to all our healthcare woes is to have a single payer system, like Canada.

I went to medical school and internship in Canada -- and I can tell you, the picture is not as rosy as it seems. I worked with a poor family doctor who had to see more than 50 patients a day just to earn a basic living.

And when the doctors went on strike because they were unhappy with the system, the death rate actually went down.

If the Canadian healthcare system is so great, why have so many of my medical school class migrated south of the border to the US?

Universal coverage may be part of the solution -- or not -- but Moore really missed the whole point.

If we improve a broken system just by reorganizing how it is paid for, we still have a broken system.

He didn't address that in any way.

In fact, Moore's movie is a distraction from the real problem.

The type of medicine we are practicing is antiquated, often dangerous, and based on the wrong premises and outdated approaches.

Instead, it must be founded on the laws of biology that help us address the true causes of disease, not just find better drugs or procedures to deal with them once they occur.

Getting more people access to the wrong treatments does not help us in the long term to create a sustainable model of health for society.

The thing Moore misses is a direct discussion and analysis of the lack of QUALITY in our healthcare system.

And quality is defined as the health of our population, which is clearly worse than almost every developed nation and worse than many third world countries. We are 45th in life expectancy, coming after Bosnia and just ahead of Albania!

I do not dispute the inherent problems in healthcare, where the whole system profits from reducing access to care, denying care, avoiding preventive care, or shifting costs to employers.

When Starbucks pays more for the healthcare of its employees than it does for coffee beans, then we know we are in trouble.

What Michael Moore ignores is that the entire ecosystem of business and products and services related to the health of our population has its whole orientation backwards.

You see, the healthcare industry and the food industry profit from us being sick and fat. All the incentives are backwards.

==> Until it is PROFITABLE for everyone to help create health rather than disease, we will not thrive as a society.

So we need to find a way to line up all the incentives for everyone involved in healthcare:

* For the insurers (or government, which actually pays 60 percent of all healthcare bills through Medicaid, Medicare, the VA, tax deductions, and other incentives);
* The pharmaceutical industry;
* The hospital industry;
* The food industry, where the sale of products that support health would bring in more profits than foods that destroy health; and
* The doctors, who would be paid more for creating health than doing procedures.

Marion Nestle, PhD, professor of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University says:

"It is difficult to think of any major industry that might benefit if people ate less food; certainly not the agriculture, food product, grocery, restaurant, diet, or drug industries. All flourish when people eat more, and all employ armies of lobbyists to discourage governments from doing anything to inhibit overeating." (1)

Clearly, something needs to change.

"Sicko" did have some interesting points.

The best part of the film was the part where a British doctor described how he was paid more for helping people lose weight, stop smoking, improve their blood sugar, and lower their cholesterol.

If an American doctor does that, he or she LOSES money. The British doctors actually get a BONUS for keeping people healthy!

The American doctor gets paid thousands of dollars for doing angioplasties and stent procedures and maybe 30 dollars for talking to someone about their cholesterol.

Though doctors are generally well meaning, well-intentioned people, the healthcare system appeals to their dark side.

Do more procedures, provide more invasive care, and get paid more -- EVEN if it ultimately does not benefit the patient.

What is absolutely frightening is that the system of payment for care and the system as a whole almost NEVER address the issue of VALUE of the care we get.

Value is the benefit and improved outcome of care, divided by the cost of the care. (VALUE = OUTCOME/COSTS).

Think of it this way.

If you paid for a fancy new car but it had no engine or no tires or didn't run when you put the key in the ignition, the car company would go out of business.

But in medicine in America today, we have a shiny new system that just doesn't run very well despite paying 40 percent more for healthcare than any other nation in the world.

That's almost $7,000 per person, or close to $2 trillion total (one-third of which is for administration costs).

In American healthcare, the outcome of that care is mostly ignored -- namely, the health of the patient!

In a landmark 2001 report from the Institute of Medicine called "Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century," the authors said:

"Between the healthcare we that we have now and the healthcare that we could have lies not just a gap, but a chasm."

So what is the real solution?

Even though I know where we need to end up, I don't have all the answers.

But I do know this.

We have to change the competing needs in the healthcare industry and related industries.

Promoting and treating sickness should not generate more profit. Creating health should.

So how can we, as a society, line up all the needs and interests of all stakeholders in our "sick" healthcare system?

If we follow the trail through our healthcare forest, it will be clear that an alignment of values, needs, and interests must occur if there is to be meaningful change.

It will also be clear that no one component can be separated from any other and that if we create change in one area of the system, often negative forces will fill in the blank space.

Let's follow the trail of a simple soda and French fries, for example.

The government subsidizes farmers to grow corn and soy crops with $30 billion a year, which fuels the fast and junk food industry with high-fructose corn syrup and trans fatty acids, which are used to produce energy-dense, poor-quality, disease-creating foods such as soda and French fries. (2)

At the same time, funds for local schools are limited. So they cannot provide students with quality food choices and physical education.

Then the food industry steps in, encouraging children to subsist on nutrient-poor, energy-dense foods from vending machines for their breakfasts and lunches.

The marketing for these products exceeds $30 billion a year (more than $13 billion of which is aimed at children), increasing demand.

These are tax-deductible expenses to corporations, which are in effect further subsidies by our government.

These children, then, become obese and diabetic in their 20s and require care for heart disease and amputations before they are 30, for which the government in part must pay.

So what is the answer?

I know that with the creative intelligence and ingenuity of this country, we can find a solution. I don't know exactly what it is, but I do know this.

As long as the any one party has to lose for another to win, we are doomed to failure. In order for things to work, everyone has to win!

We have to make it profitable to improve the quality of our food supply, to encourage physical activity and to reduce stress in our lives.

When a hospital diabetes prevention program is so successful in helping patients improve their health and reduce amputations and complications of diabetes that it has to be shut down because the hospital LOSES money by charging only $60 for a nutrition consult instead of getting $6,000 for a toe amputation -- then we know something is seriously wrong with our incentives.

We have to make it profitable to help patients get healthy, and have business MAKE money by providing preventive care and lifestyle programs that create health.

The politics of food, agriculture, environment, and education cannot be divorced from the traditional healthcare stakeholders: patients, providers, insurers, employers, payers, and government.

We have to address the roots of the problems and create a system where everyone involved thrives.

And despite Michael Moore's laser focus on a single payer system as the answer to all our healthcare problems, we need a much broader and bigger change in healthcare.

What should those changes involve? I think this topic is so important that I'll be discussing it in next week's blog, too. Stay tuned!

Now I'd like to hear from you...

Have you seen "Sicko" yet?

What did you think?

What parts of the healthcare system do think need fixing most?

What ideas do you have for fixing our healthcare system?

What do you totally agree or disagree with?

Please click on the Add a Comment button below to share your thoughts.

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, M.D.

(1) Nestle, M. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health (California Studies in Food and Culture, 3). Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press; 2003.

(2) Bitton A, Kahn JG. MSJAMA: Government share of healthcare expenditures.
JAMA. 2003;289(9):1165.

Shiatsu Massage - Interview with John Kozinski of the Kushi Institute

Author's note: Since this article was first published in 2004 the situation in France has changed, with a certain amount of progress being made thanks to the creation of various associations for the promotion of holistic massage. However, only time will tell as to whether or not these associations will continue to be a protective force, in view of the pressures on most associations to conform to escalating regulatory measures imposed by government and industry.

October 31, 2004

It comes as rather a surprise to people in countries such as the UK and the US, where alternative medicine is still practised relatively freely, to learn that in the more medically repressive countries such as France, shiatsu massage is a crime punishable by law. With massage having been 'colonised', redefined and controlled by the medical authorities, the only legitimate form permitted (unless you choose to sneak off and bravely practise on the black market) is what you'll get from the official knee-cracking 'kinesithérapeutes' who wouldn't know a shiatsu from their big toe.

So before the current tide of prohibitive legislation jump steps the rest of the world into line with countries such as France, it would be a worthwhile aim to learn about this valuable therapy whose roots reach back to antiquity.

In the following interview, John Kozinski - counsellor and tutor at the Kushi Institute Massachusetts - explains macrobiotic shiatsu, Do-In (a relative of shiatsu practised on oneself) and the macrobiotic view of supplements.


EH: Could you explain why, in your opinion, shiatsu has been gaining so much popularity worldwide? How can shiatsu help those with candida?

JK: I think there are several reasons. Shiatsu and related massage therapies from China are superbly effective methods of healing in the hands of a skilled and healthy practitioner. In developed countries, a different kind of stress has arisen; a stress from poor diets, inactive lifestyles, a lack of social supports and other trappings of modern lifestyles. Shiatsu is very effective for helping to melt the tension in the body that is created by these causes.

EH: Do-In is also becoming more popular recently. Is Do-In a 'do-it-yourself-shiatsu'? What are the advantages?

JK: Do-In is the Japanese name for what in China was called internal exercise, 8 Brocades, Tao-Yin, Nei Gung and recently (in the last 50 years, Chi Gung). There are hundreds of forms. I believe that the increased popularity is related to the same reasons that Shiatsu is gaining popularity plus when done correctly it is incredibly energizing. The effects of practising high level do-in or qigong can go much deeper than Shiatsu

EH: Could you explain the difference between traditional and macrobiotic shiatsu?

JK: Macrobiotic Shiatsu incorporates 1) an understanding of the effect of diet and lifestyle in creating a person's condition. A Macrobiotic Shiatsu practitioner can tell what foods have contributed to a person's health condition through touch and 2) the use of a form of Asian diagnosis that shows which organs are troubled and how food and lifestyle was a major cause. Macrobiotic shiatsu practitioners focus also on keeping their diets and lifestyles balanced so that their own ki ( life force ) is functioning well. Through a healthy condition, they are able to transmit energy to the receiver.

EH: Thought differs amongst macrobiotic therapists as to the benefits of supplements. What would you say is your position on the subject?

JK: The nutrients in vitamin supplements are very different from the nutrients in foods. When you isolate nutrients from foods, the activity of the vitamin is lost. Some effect is achieved. In the long run, ingesting isolated substances will have very negative effects on a person's health. I feel that certain vitamins may be used for short times, and become harmful after a few months. It has been my experience that it is difficult for a person to eat balanced whole foods when taking vitamins. Strong craving arise for sweets, fats, excess flour products, and proteins

I would suggest for serious deficiencies in vitamins and minerals, that a person seek out vitamin and mineral supplements from food concentrates. Several companies produce these types of supplements. They are derived from foods.

I do not believe that vitamins and mineral supplements should be outlawed or only prescribed by doctors. You and others have written about the movement afoot to ban supplements. This would be a tragedy. Once certain supplements are outlawed, it is only a matter of time before other natural foods, and substances, such as herbs, are regulated. I applaud the work that you and others are doing in opposing the outlawing and regulating of supplements.

EH: Do you know of any supplements that may be of value to candida sufferers?

JK: Soil based pro-biotics can be of great benefit for 3-6 months or longer. If these are taken with a balanced macrobiotic whole foods diet, the effect is amplified and sustained.

Foods that benefit the candida sufferers are fermented foods such as miso, and unpasturized pickles. This recommendation would take some explaining because, as you know, people diagnosed with candida are, often, suggested to avoid fermented foods.

From my studies, candida, at its root, is caused by an overgrowth of harmful bacteria in the colon. Healthy bacteria keep the naturally small amounts of candida, yeast, in check. The enzymes in miso, and unpasturized pickles, such as sauerkraut, aid the pancreas in digesting foods fully, and promote healthy bacteria in the colon. The only caution is use soybean miso for the first 2 months of introducing miso. After this period, barley miso would be best.

High quality oils in the form of extra-virgin olive oil and sesame oil are, also, very helpful for the candida sufferers. This oil helps the body to fully digest proteins in foods. If the proteins in foods are not fully digested, the protein may rot and form harmful bacteria. 1-2 teaspoons, at each meal, would be best. This can be eaten in the form of dressings, in soup and very lightly sautéed.

EH: What is your view on magnet therapy? Could you explain a little about the basic principals of this therapy?

JK: Magnet therapies vary in the way they affect people.
The majority of the magnets are placed on the body with the negative pole facing down. People also sleep on magnetic pads which have this polarity. These pads or applications can be very useful for people who have pain or are exhausted from eating too many sweets and refined foods. In my health counselling, I recommend magnetic products on a case by case basis. From a macrobiotic view, people who have hard, tight ( or yang ) conditions from eating too much meat, poultry, eggs, cheese, salt or hard baked flour products, should not use magnetic products. Magnetic products tighten and contract loose tissues, and organs.

EH: Many candida sufferers are prone to alcoholism and addiction to foods that may make them ill. What do you think might be the solutions to the widespread problem of alcohol, drug and food addictions?

JK: This is a larger question, and would require a much more extensive answer. I would be happy to answer this in more detail. In general, I feel that modern diets and lifestyles are prone to creating hypoglycaemia or low blood sugar in many individuals. My sense is that this is the trigger that leads people to medicate their discomfort with alcohol, drugs and foods. After the initial trigger, these substances become a coping mechanism, a self-sustaining cycle. This occurs, on a biochemical level, because sugar, drugs, caffeine, and alcohol stimulate the production of the feel good neurotransmitters in the brain. The problem is after a period of use, the body requires more of these stimulants to create the feel good effect.

You can cause the body to produce these neurotransmitters without the drugs, alcohol or sugar. To do this, at each meal, a person needs to eat properly prepared ( fermented) whole grains, such as brown rice, and millet, a healthy fat, and a protein rich foods ( beans, fish or if still eating them, naturally raised animal products).

I know of many who have broken the cycle of addiction and created healthier and happier lives.

EH: Support and understanding from family and friends when making changes in one's diet are not always guaranteed. Especially when there is currently so much black-listing and harassment of alternative medicine therapists by certain politicians, medical authorities and members of the press who are protecting the financial interests of the large pharmaceutical industries.

JK: I think that it is important to be aware that there is a concerted effort to keep people in line with social pressures to conform. Anything different that a person wants to do is often criticized by friends and family. Once a person becomes aware of this, he or she can cope with and break out of the cycle
How can an over-worked mother ease her family away from a poor diet when faced with such opposition?

I've worked with many women in this sort of situation. I would suggest to begin by education. Learn about the problem, and slowly make changes in your diet and lifestyle. Find friends who will support you in doing something different and healthy from the rest of the crowd. Although some of his ideas are somewhat hard to accept, David Icke explains quite well in his books the situation of the social pressures of doing and thinking anything different. I would suggest :"An Introduction to Macrobiotics" by Oliver Cowmeadow and 7 Days to Better Health by Jon Sandifer as 2 wonderful books to help improve a person's health.

EH: Macrobiotic cooking is generally very sparing with the oil. However, candida sufferers, not being able to eat much sugary food often turn to oil for flavour and enjoyment. What's more, olive oil, which is used less in macrobiotics, has the property of inhibiting the candida bacteria's tendency to change into it's fungal form. What are your views on oils? Are there any studies that support the benefits of increasing oil as opposed to reducing it?

JK: Oil is harder to digest for many people with candida.. I suggest that people with candida begin to add oil to their diets, slowly. I would suggest, as a starter, to include two teaspoons of olive oil at each meal. If a person can digest this amount of fats, they can then experiment with more.

After counselling people with the macrobiotic approach for 25 years, and observing many health conditions, I have come to the conclusion that most people need more oil than is in most of the macrobiotic cookbooks. Some candida sufferers have had some success with the use of coconut oil, also.

EH: Thank you John

Michael Moore Applauds French Medical Hegemony

By Emma Holister, France

A recent interview with Michael Moore, 'Sicko' spawns Moore fever in Cannes, by Jill Lawless, concludes, after lavishly praising the Cuban, British and French healthcare systems:

"Are there flaws in those systems? Absolutely. But those are flaws for the people in those countries to correct, not me." And with that, he disappeared into another cheering crowd.

Speaking as an ex-patient who has lived many years in France, I'd like to know how 'we' are supposed to correct the fact that our system of government-controlled universal healthcare has effectively outlawed naturopathy by making it illegal for anyone other than a vaccination-chemo-ARV-pushing allopathic doctor to practise 'natural therapies'. I'd like to know how we are supposed to correct the fact that you can go to jail for not 'immunising' your children with poisonous vaccines, and how we are supposed to recover the right to self treat with herbal remedies from our back gardens when it has been made an offence under the laws forbidding the 'illegal practice of medicine'. I'd like to know how we are supposed to stop the medical authorities from harassing the true naturopathic practitioners, such as yoga instructors, closing down their workshops, accusing them of being 'gurus of dangerous sects'.

Moore's film is clearly praise for the drug industry masquerading as criticism. It is the total annihilation of true alternative medicine that he is supporting with his campaign to promote universal healthcare. The real face of universal healthcare in France is far less about helping poor people gain access to 'life-saving medical treatment', and far more about forcing mandatory toxic treatments upon all people and preventing them from using natural means and true disease prevention to look after their own health.

Wagging an admonishing finger at right-wing corporatism and applauding government-controlled (aka 'socialised') healthcare systems certainly hits a popular note these days; we're all tired of fascism and injustice. However by playing into the totally mainstream political paradigm of Left versus Right, Democrat versus Republican politics, Moore is doing nothing revolutionary or anti-establishment, certainly nothing even remotely anti-medical industry.

Oh, that ever-burning question 'Who is going to take care of the poor?'. Well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We know that right-wing governments certainly aren't going to, but does this automatically mean that left-wing governments or systems of 'socialised' healthcare do? Are human rights and the individual's health truly more protected and respected by the Government in a left-wing-style or, further still, in a Communist health regime?

Ultimately the question is 'Will the beast of corporate fascism be beaten by universal healthcare?' The British National Health Service is proof of the contrary, as is the 'saintly' French healthcare set-up, both systems slavishly devoted to the pharmaceutical-medical-industrial complex. Whether in France or in the UK, a visit to the doctor is most likely to mean sitting long hours in a waiting room. On arrival at his desk, the patient is greeted with a rushed interview, discouraged from expressing an opinion, is told peremptorily what they need, which is more often than not a prescription for pharmaceuticals, pharmaceuticals that produce vicious side effects that have the patient running back to the doctor for help, when once again more pharmaceuticals will be prescribed, with the added bonus, if the doctor is so inclined, of being put on a waiting list for surgery. So the medical industry under universal healthcare is well fed; in fact, like Moore, it is veritably obese.

One could argue that the French and British healthcare systems, although both of them have embraced universal healthcare over the last few decades, are so different as to be diametrically opposed, given the still relatively liberal approach in the UK where true alternative medicine has not yet been banished and rendered illegal, as opposed to the draconian regime in France. It is still possible in England to run away from the government-run healthcare system and take refuge in alternative therapies, which is indeed what a vast sector of the population does, finding it preferable to pay for natural healthcare out of their own pockets rather than be subjected to the medical-industry robots in the UK government's medical programme.

These differences between the universal healthcare in France and the UK only create confusion when one tries to initiate discussions between Europeans and Americans. While certain Americans' hair stands on end at the spectre of 'socialised medicine' in the UK, quail as they do at the sight of a country gone to the 'Commie Dawwgs', many English people scratch their heads and express confusion over the fact that if the UK were a 'Commie country', how is it that we've always lived in an overtly capitalist society with many years of right-wing corporate-hungry governments, not to mention left-wing corporate-hungry governments? Furthermore, the average English or French person may wonder what on earth is so superior about the American healthcare system for them to be getting into such a state about ours. So one can understand how the many Americans who express a horror of 'socialised medicine', a term coined by the American Medical Association, formerly opposed, now pro, do not succeed in convincing the French and English that our system is inherently evil. It's a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

However, to assume therefore that socialised medicine or universal healthcare must be 'good' is a trap many fall into. In the UK it is difficult to imagine that we may lose our right to flee from the government-run pharmaceutical-medical-industry-oriented system into the reassuring arms of our alternative medicine practitioners who get by well enough despite being outside the mainstream medical structure. We cannot imagine losing that right. We hope, expect, that some future government will welcome alternative medicine into its programme.

And there lies the trap that awaits us. The trap is the fact that we trust that some government will genuinely care about the individual's health above big industry concerns. Hands up who really trusts politicians to put individual health rights above the dictates of big industry. The trap that has been laid out before us is across the Channel. It is France's healthcare regime where alternative medicine has apparently been integrated into the mainstream medical paradigm with acupuncture and homeopathy being offered by some mainstream doctors. Do not be fooled. What exists in France is the prostitution of the complementary and integrative medicine camp to the allopathic mainstream medical industry and the result is the prohibition of true alternative medicine.

The French social security system, like the UK's NHS, has long been poisoning and mutilating the population 'for free' (or rather not so free as it comes heavily from our taxes). In the UK, if you're lucky, the prospect of a huge waiting list for mainstream treatment may force you to revert to natural self treatment and alternative therapies. However, in France that is illegal.

France is the pioneer in this hybridisation of 'naturopathy', complementary/integrative medicine and mainstream medical practice. And it has long been the case that alternative medicine is dead in France, one of the most over-medicated countries in the world. It is a country of medical victims.

In this complementary/allopathic marriage and Utopia of universal healthcare, 'disease prevention' is sucked up and reinvented by the dominant medical industry, supported lovingly by its complementary/integrative disciple. Prevention is no longer really about improving diet and lifestyle but more about mandatory vaccinations, blood tests, electronic patient-tracking systems and x-ray cancer screenings to feed the chemo industry.

Furthermore, as the CAM/allopathic system pushes ever more towards 'evidence-based' and industry-friendly 'complementary' medicine, the tiny amount of alternative medicine practices that have been integrated into the system do not remain reimbursed/'free' for long, as in the case of the recent severing of homeopathy by the French system. So integration into the system means nothing more than tighter restrictions on alternative medicine followed by cuts that force you to pay anyway for what little is left on offer.

To get back to the question of the 'poor poor', how can anyone be helped by a healthcare system that inflicts abusive medical practices upon them against their will? How can 'the poor', or anyone, be happy when basic human rights are flushed down the toilet as government-controlled mandatory medication of the population becomes the norm?

One of the only journalists who is clearly and consistently exposing the betrayal of true grassroots alternative medicine by the influential armies of complementary/integrative medicine marching in step with the mainstream allopathic Medical Industry is Peter Chowka.

The following is a selection of his articles from his website http://chowka.com

Peter Barry Chowka is an investigative journalist and medical-political analyst who specializes in reporting on alternative and innovative therapies and the politics of health care. Since the 1970s, he has broken a number of important stories, including the federal government's cover-up of its own promising research on diet and cancer, the Hoxsey herbal cancer therapy, and the suppression of Dr. Linus Pauling's research on vitamin C and health. In April 1994 Peter did the last interview with Dr. Pauling before the two-time Nobel prize winner died at age 93 four months later.

Peter's work has been published widely, both in print and, over the past decade, on the Internet. He has appeared in major documentary films, has written for television, and has been a guest on several hundred radio and TV talk shows, most recently the nationally syndicated Coast to Coast AM on April 24, 2007. Between 1992-'94, Peter was an advisor to the National Institutes of Health's Office of Alternative Medicine.

Recently, Peter has been investigating the push for "universal health care" which he sees as the most serious threat to Americans' freedom, autonomy, and choice in medicine since the country was founded.

His Web site is http://chowka.com

Universal Health Care Marches On And Other Outrages

(June 1, 2007) It continues to be popular in many CAM (complementary alternative medicine) circles to focus on issues (or non-issues) like the FDA's CAM Guidance document or this or that piece of proposed Congressional legislation that might at some future time negatively impact the public's ability to access nutritional supplements. In this writer's opinion, this kind of preoccupation is equivalent to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while the ship is bearing down on the fatal iceberg.

The “iceberg” looming ahead for proponents of CAM and alternative medicine, as well as for every American who believes in freedom of medical choice, is universal (government-controlled) health care. And surveying the political landscape, seventeen months before the 2008 Presidential and Congressional elections, it looks like it will take a miracle to stop its final advance.

“Universal health care” is a clever, Orwellian attempt at Newspeak – giving a palatable or neutral name to government-run (or completely socialized) conventional medicine and shoving it down the throats of the American people. Clearly, the spin has been largely successful. Continue reading . . .

Tempests in a Teapot Brew and Subside, and Other Real and Accurate Alternative Medical News

(May 15, 2007) As I reported on May 1, a classic tempest in a teapot was brewing all spring as a number of self-styled “health freedom” groups and individuals attempted to foment a massive Internet-driven e-uprising to challenge the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) supposed intention to regulate complementary alternative medicine (CAM). Continue reading . . .

New Controversies Challenge the Health Freedom Movement - Health Freedom Rights and Universal Health Care Make It to National Talk Radio

(May 1, 2007, last updated 5/2/7 09:04 GMT) In recent weeks, few Internet users have not been subjected to a large number of “sky is falling” e-mails, emanating from a variety of groups, calling attention to alleged imminent threats to Americans' continued access to nutritional supplements and other CAM (complementary alternative medicine) modalities at the hands of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and, more recently, the Congress in the form of a U.S. Senate FDA reform bill, S. 1082 (see end of this article for an update on S. 1082). A number of blogs have now taken up the cause, this one at Daily Kos being an example.

The ball got rolling in this area on April 5, when something called the Natural Solutions Foundation (NSF) began sending out hyperbolic-sounding mass e-mails on a sensational new subject. Continue reading . . .

Government Begins to Enforce Conventional (Allopathic) Medicine Mandates on Americans

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. – Minority Report: H. L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956) p. 247

(April 15, 2007) The concept of “universal health care,” reportedly so popular with the American electorate now, may at first glance sound appealing. We are told that under a “single payer” (government-run) system, one can just sit back, theoretically at least, and stop worrying as cradle to grave health care will be made available to everyone on an equal basis – the best that American medicine has to offer, infinitely more affordable, possibly even free, to masses of people who are currently losing sleep over the possibility of going bankrupt under the problematic status quo health care delivery system (a mix of the free market and big government programs like Medicaid and Medicare) or who have no health insurance at all.

As usual, however, there are prices to be paid for such a Faustian bargain, with the uncontrolled financial costs and other downsides rarely if ever made apparent, or admitted, at the onset of a new government program.

Among the indirect costs are the emerging plans to set up huge new government databases (tapping into and mining private commercial databases) and large new bureaucracies to “track down” and enforce compliance on residents who fail to buy approved medical coverage. Continue reading . . .

April Fool’s Alt Med News Updates

(April 1, 2007) I wish these developments were April Fool’s jokes, but unfortunately each one is all too true.

As I have been documenting in recent articles, the advance toward “universal health care” (socialized medicine) in the United States is continuing, with ever greater momentum in the political and media spheres. In fact, it is impossible for one person, no matter how much time he has on his hands and Internet access and searching skills he has at his disposal, to keep up with it all.

Each day, there are scores if not hundreds of new articles, Op-Ed opinion pieces, white papers, public opinion polls, scientific journal articles, blog entries, political speeches, proposed laws, and more – all advancing the idea that conventional allopathic health care is a “right” which must be guaranteed to and forced on all U.S. residents by the government. Continue reading . . .

The Mandatory HPV Vaccine: Where O Where is the Alt Med Community?

(March 15, 2007) In the wake of surprisingly widespread and vocal public opposition to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s order on February 2nd that all girls who attend school in his state must receive the new vaccination for HPV (the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus) when they enter the sixth grade – a series of three shots that can cost a total of $360 or more and have, according to some critics, unknown health and medical impacts – the Texas House voted 119-21 on March 13th to support a bill by a Republican legislator that says the vaccine cannot be a condition for school entry. The corrective legislation will go next to the Texas Senate, which is expected to pass it, and then to the governor, who may veto it.

The nationwide momentum on the part of conventional physicians, drug industry lobbyists, and politicians to mandate the vaccine, called Gardasil and manufactured by Merck, for girls ages 10-12 has not slowed, however. On March 1st, Virginia's Democrat Gov. Tim Kaine announced that he would sign a bill that will require sixth grade girls to receive the HPV vaccine beginning Oct. 1, 2008. An indication of mainstream media spin is the Washington Post's editorial “A Shot of Common Sense” (March 9th), which says that Kaine's decision “brought some much-needed sense” to the “increasingly irrational national debate” about mandating HPV vaccines. Continue reading . . .


Alternative Medicine

(January 1, 2007) In this space early in 2005, I asked the question “Is Alternative Medicine Dead?” My analysis then was somewhat equivocal. As the New Year 2007 dawns, however, the answer, in my opinion, would have to be an unqualified “yes.”

Throughout the past year the signs of alternative medicine's demise were increasingly unmistakable, although, for most interested observers, they were probably well below or completely off the radar screen of awareness. That's because the non-threatening, watered down hybrids, called “CAM” (complementary alternative medicine) or “integrative medicine,” that have virtually replaced primary alternative medicine are now entrenched and well accepted – providing people who are inclined to, or profiting from, natural healing with a false sense of reassurance.

A sign of this phenomenon might be my experience in walking through a large Macy's department store at the fashionable Fashion Valley mall in San Diego last month. Plastered on a floor to ceiling advertising kiosk in the cosmetics department was a larger than life black and white photo of “the foremost authority on integrative health,” Andrew Weil, M.D., selling skin beauty creams. Clearly, CAM (or “integrative health”) has arrived. Continue reading . . .

RELATED ARTICLES BY OTHER WRITERS

The French Prohibition on Words Related to Healing By Emma Holister, France

A Veritable Dictatorship By Sylvie Simon, France

No Freedom, Thankyou, We're French! by Jacques Valentin, France

The French Prohibition on Words Related to Healing

By Emma Holister

Author's note: Since this article was first published in 2004 the situation in France has changed, with a certain amount of progress being made thanks to the creation of various associations for the promotion of holistic massage. However, only time will tell as to whether or not these associations will continue to be a protective force, in view of the pressures on most associations to conform to escalating regulatory measures imposed by government and industry.

October 9, 2004

On reading the book "Healing, an Illegal Practice" by Sylvie Simon we not only discover the truth about the brutal repression of alternative medicine in France but that the very title of her book itself is causing a scandal.

Those in Alternative Medicine in France are faced with the confusing task of having to dance around in a baffling battle of semantics in order to be able to use most natural, traditional, effective remedies. Simon's title is aptly chosen.

In France, merely using certain words pertaining to health matters is against the law(L4161-1). Any therapist claiming the 'therapeutic' or 'medicinal' properties of a natural treatment risks being denounced and dragged before the law courts for 'Illegal Practice of Medicine'. Worse still, they risk being denounced as gurus of dangerous sects. The repression is often both medical and religious in nature.

Practitioners of alternative medicine as well as patients and parents choosing alternative means to treat their children, are pursued, harassed, criminalized and even imprisoned at the whim of the pharmaceutically dominated medical authorities. There have been cases of parents losing custody over their children for child neglect for not complying with the laws on compulsory vaccination of children against diphtheria, tetanus, polio and tuberculosis. Most of which are no longer a threat, thus rendering the vaccinations redundant anyway. A school has the right to refuse access to a child who has not been injected with these dubious and frequently toxic chemicals, products that are harmful to the child's health and immune system.

The 'Inquisitors', as Simon calls them, do their utmost to stamp out the population's desire for alternative medicine. The general practitioners who prescribe pharmaceutical products daily may occasionally flaunt an acupuncture needle around as a token gesture to the French medical practice having 'successfully integrated' alternative medicine into its program. However, do not be fooled. By law, no one other than a doctor from the mainstream pharmaceutically oriented schools of medicine is allowed to prescribe, diagnose symptoms, or claim medicinal, therapeutic or healing benefits, for anything other than what is officially permitted by the medical authorities and therefore the pharmaceutical industry.

It is against the law for anyone other than a mainstream doctor to practise acupuncture and homeopathy. A contradiction? The truth of the matter is that the only way to officially see an alternative medicine practitioner is to go to your mainstream doctor, who naturally, more often than not, will prescribe you more antibiotics, synthetic hormones, anti-depressants, whilst claiming that acupuncture and homeopathy are 'very good' but are 'slower and less effective' than allopathic drugs. It is difficult to get through several years of medical school without having been won over by these views. Alternative medicine in France has been hijacked.

What is the result of this on the French language? Some therapists in alternative 'medicine' (don't say that word) have accepted the bitter pill of censorship and optimistically claim to have no problem with this legal obstacle. They argue that it is simply a question of abandoning all vocabulary pertaining to health in order to practise natural 'therapies' (be careful with that word) 'freely' (and that one).

What is more worrying is that the general feeling of aversion towards doctors that is now occurring in this over-prescribed country has lead to a predictable prejudice against sensitive words such as 'doctor', 'medical', 'cure'. Sylvie Simon has even been criticised for having used the words 'Healing' and 'Illegal' in her book, pointing out that alternative 'medicine' (don't say that word), does not 'cure' because the patient 'cures' himself, that alternative 'medicine' (or alternative whatsit) is not illegal as long as we don't use the vocabulary of doctors, because natural therapies have nothing to do with 'medicine', 'doctors' and 'cures', these now being dirty words that the pharmaceutical industry are welcome to keep, we don't want them anyway.

Well, let's see, what does that leave us with in terms of vocabulary?

When the massage therapist Savatofski was pursued by the medical authorities for using the word 'massage' (permission to use this word is only granted to the official 'kinésithérapeutes') the problem was aptly overcome by changing the word 'massage' to 'touching', which so far, is not against the law. So whilst the alternative medicine practitioners jump for joy for having found a way to continue practising their healing art without more ado, the clients may find themselves in the strange position of having to say 'I'm going to get touched' instead of 'I'm going to have a massage'.

What has the good old-fashioned health-promoting massage been reduced to? Getting touched in a non-therapeutic manner? That does indeed sound vaguely illegal.

What does a Chinese Doctor become? A Chinese Thingy? What does Oriental Medicine become? Oriental Stuff? What does Oriental Diagnosis become? Oriental What-ja-ma-call-it?

France may be the only country in the world to have an official government committee which studies all the new words occurring in French culture and which determines which of those words will be officially allowed or disallowed.

So before anyone could confiscate my old dictionary with its old fashioned terms, I got it out sneakily and discovered that nowhere is it stated that these 'medical' words are the exclusive property of the pharmaceutically oriented modern medical world. In fact, looking at my dictionary of word origins, I discovered that these words all have ancient origins in Greek and Sanskrit that trace the entire history of humanity. So in reality these terms, historically speaking, describe what has now ironically come to be known as 'Alternative Medicine'.

Seeing as our predecessors in all world cultures have always used these words, having always had the right to diagnose disease and prescribe healing remedies, it is difficult to understand why we must suddenly change and only allow the pharmaceutically oriented doctors to use them. Particularly in view of the fact that modern medicine is the leading cause of death in the world, and that is not even taking into account of the deaths caused by this same industry's commerce in pesticides and chemical warfare.

References:

Dictionary of Word Origins by John Ayto
Publishers: Bloomsbury Reference

Diagnosis:

The underlying meaning of Greek diagnosis was 'knowing apart'. It was derived from diagignoskein 'distinguish, discern,' a compound verb formed from the prefix dia- 'apart' and gignoskein 'know, perceive' (a relative of English 'know'). In post-classical times the general notion of 'distinguishing' or 'discerning' was applied specifically to medical examination in order to determine the nature of a disease.


Know:

The words for 'know' in the various Indo-European languages mostly belong to one large many-branched family which goes back ultimately to the base gn-, which also produced English can and ken. Its Latin offspring was noscere, from which English gets cognition, incognito, note, quaint, etc. From its Greek branch come English agnostic and diagnosis. And in other Indo-European languages it is represented by, among others, Sanskrit janati 'know'. Old Irish gnath 'known', and Russian znat. In the other Germanic languages it is the immediate relatives of English can (German and Dutch kennen, Swedish kanna, Danish kende) that are used for 'know': know itself, which was originally a reduplicated form, survives only in English.

The -ledge of knowledge was probably originally the suffix -lock 'action, process,' which otherwise survives only in wedlock. Acknowledge is derived from knowledge.

- agnostic, can, cognition, diagnosis, incognito, ken, knowledge note, quaint, recognise.

Medicine:

Latin mederi 'heal' underlies all the English 'medical' words (it was formed from the base med-, which also produced English remedy). From it was derived medicus 'doctor,' which has given English medical: and on medicus in turn were based Latin medicina 'practice of medicine' (source of English medicine) and medicari 'give medicine to' (source of English medicament and medicate).
-remedy

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary 1983

Diagnosis:

The identification of a disease by means of its symptoms: a formal determining description.

Diagnose:

To ascertain from symptoms, as a disease.

Diagnostic:

Distinguishing, differentiating that by which anything is known: a symptom.

Prescribe:

To lay down as a rule or direction: to give as an order: to appoint: to give directions for, as a remedy: to limit, set bounds to: to claim by prescription: to lay down rules: to give or make out a prescription: to make a claim on account of long possession: to become of no force through time.

Prescription:

The act of prescribing or directing: a written direction for the preparation of a medicine: a recipe: enjoyment, possession, use, etc. from time immemorial or for a period of time fixed by law by which a legal right or title is acquired: any claim based on long use, or an established custom taken as authoritative. : limitation of time within which action may be taken.

A Veritable Dictatorship

By Sylvie Simon, France

From the book 'Healing: An Illegal Practice'

Translated by Emma Holister

"We have grown accustomed to believing that no illness can be cured without medicine. However, this is just a superstition. Medicines are always dangerous".
Gandhi

According to Plato, Socrates was condemned to death because he did not believe in the gods recognised by the State. Today, these gods have been replaced by bureaucrats and experts. Like Socrates, a great number of doctors who refuse to idolise the thought processes of these new masters are brought before a 'tribunal of exclusion', Le Conseil de l'Ordre (the Council of the Order of Doctors), who have assigned to themselves a regal power and abuse it with total impunity, all with the complicity of the health insurance organisations.

Throughout the centuries, unable to tolerate the deviations of those who drift from the established way of thinking, men of power have always found various methods to gag or prevent from 'causing damage' those who have dared to think and act differently.

In this country, 'exporter' of human rights, most people feel that the Inquisition is a practice of the past as we no longer torture in the name of God. However, we continue to torture doctors and patients in the name of a so-called medical science whose limitations and misdeeds can be constantly observed.

All doctors should have the freedom to act according to their conscience as the Hippocratic Oath declares. Furthermore, article 7 of the Code of Medical Ethics states: "The doctor is free to prescribe that which he considers the most appropriate according the circumstances". As for the Helsinki declarations (1964) and those of Tokyo (1975) that prohibit the Huriet law, the international conventions taken to national law are very clear: "In the treatment of a sick patient, the doctor must be free to resort to a new diagnostic or therapeutic method if he considers that it offers a hope of saving the life of a sick patient, returning them to health, and relieving their suffering."

In reality, however, therapeutic freedom does not exist in the land of human rights, of citizens' rights, despite certain declarations by our politicians who unanimously claim their adherence to freedom of therapeutic choice. Thus, during a dinner debate organised on February 5th 1998 at the Hotel Concorde Saint-Lazare by the association of friends of L'Evénement du Jeudi, without fear of ridicule Bernard Kouchner, the then Secretary of State for Health, declared before more than eighty people that in France "we have therapeutic freedom". Several people, suffering from illness, who were present at the debate were surprised to hear this as they had seen their medicines - not approved in France but liberally sold elsewhere - confiscated by the police a few months earlier by order of the Ministry of Health.

However, Bernard Kouchner has not always delivered this type of speech. In June 1995 he confided to the Revue des deux mondes, in an article entitled: "Medicine and Cruelty":

" . . . Our medical system has become perverse to the point that the interests of doctors can sometimes be at variance with those of the sick . . . And I will not even mention here the staggering number of appendixes that have been removed for no justifiable pathological reason in French clinics during a certain period. Nor the bladders that the surgeons - but do they still deserve that name? - have removed simply to increase their business figures, nor the trafficking in prostheses amongst certain dishonest orthopaedists who attempt to profit from a diabolical system . . . We have made great progress in medical science but we have lost sight of the most important thing: people! . . . The social security system that the French hold so dear will soon crumble if we don't seriously modify it. Small reforms will only slow down the decline. A critique of the beliefs and medical practices is necessary in our country. Let us reform medical training, where too many statistics are learned (most of which, moreover, are falsified, full of lies, erroneous and fallacious!), and not enough humanism; the CHU must give priority to the human and social sciences! . . ."

We can only agree, but why two different speeches as time goes by and circumstances change? The reality is very different from all these nice declarations we hear from the irresponsible 'people of responsibility'.

As a prosecutor once claimed back in 1930 during the trial of a healer: "It matters little that the guilty have cured their fellow beings! The only thing that interests me is if they have the right to cure. Only people holding diplomas have the right to heal and even to kill. Get a diploma, you the guilty, and you will have the right over life and death."

It is currently the case that doctors are stricken from the register and thus accused of the illegal practice of medicine, whilst still in possession of an incontestable diploma, but once removed from the register they find themselves forbidden to practise medicine and are often treated as "charlatans". So nothing has really changed since 1930 and the indictments of the modern-day prosecutors strangely resemble those of their forefathers, every time that a doctor is brought before a tribunal for having treated his patients with a substance that is 'not authorised' by the Faculty (Order) and hence considered dangerous, even if the evidence of its efficacy is manifest. These indictments produce the same litany: "The question is not whether you have cured but that you did not have the right to do so!". An accusation which could well be replaced by "non-assistance of a person in danger", if the censured doctor had not intervened.

The discrimination to which hundreds of doctors are victim is ignored by no political party, but the subject is carefully avoided by our elected representatives who wish to remain, above all, 'politically correct'.

The Ordre des médecins, the organisation of private law and public interest whose mission it is to serve the public was created on October 7th 1940 by the Vichy government, four days after the promulgation of the Jewish Statute. Its aim was, amongst others, to 'purify' the profession. A role which it has fulfilled and which it continues to fulfil, as the texts of the period and the current political repression testify. It was dissolved during the liberation, but an order on September 24th 1945 rendered it legitimate even though it had never been ratified by Parliament as the Constitution decrees.

The connections between the Order during the occupation and the current Order are clear. The Order remained the sole agent of its archives during the war period and Doctor Portes, who was president of the Order in 1943-1944, then from 1946 to 1950, is still a moral reference for the current president Bernard Glorion. His recent repentance is in total contradiction to what he declared in March 1994, "I was 13 years old in 1941. I am also one of those people who were completely unaware of 'things' at the period when they were happening".

Ever since, the method of functioning of the national Order and its departmental or regional vassals, like that of its disciplinary sectors, has hardly evolved. Any disciplinary sector operates like a court of exclusion and scorns with impunity the basic principle of open debate. The doctor in question is judged by his associates who have no judicial competence and therefore nothing can guarantee either independence or impartiality, as it is common to find doctors who have interests within the pharmaceutical industry. Likewise, in the sector of social insurance, certain judges, with salaries from health insurance funds, are both judge and jury.

What is more, until just recently, the defendant was not heard publicly: he is at present, but generally witnesses who could contribute to clearing his name are not allowed to be heard. Once condemned, the accused cannot request compensation for damage, even when this has been flagrant and no matter what the consequences, whether on a personal or a professional level.

Already, in the 1950s, in the name of the national Union of Medical Doctors, Doctor Topsen had addressed a circular to all the candidates for the legislative elections asking them if they intended to maintain an institution inspired by the occupation, four days after the Jewish Statute.

". . . the near totality of French doctors - with the exception evidently of the members of the different Order Committees - ardently desire to be rid of this organisation which has turned out to be both useless and harmful. Created by Pétain at the request of the occupation, against doctors and not for them - in order to render them servants and not to serve them - it has been since its creation an instrument of oppression in the hands of the enemy and its supporters and has not succeeded in liberating itself from the totalitarian spirit which presided at its conception."

This situation is criticised by a growing number of doctors who consider that the existence of a Conseil de l'Ordre can be justified as a guarantee of the respect for medical ethics, but that it should withhold power from its disciplinary sector.

Certain doctors denounce their actions, which prompts Alain Dumas to say:

"In fact, the Order operates the combination of the three powers, executive, legislative, judicial, and as Montesquieu declares in spirit with the law: 'All would be lost if the same man or the same body of principles, or the nobility, or the people, exercised the three powers: that of making laws, that of executing public decisions, and that of judging crises or the differences between individuals.'

The danger of a corporatist and sectarian deviation had already been the object of a warning from the State Council in 1958. Condemned doctors cannot make an appeal to civil or penitentiary tribunals. As for the State Council, if it gives an opinion on the content, it can never judge until the end; it maintains a constant jurisprudence adhering obstinately until now to considering as inapplicable to disciplinary jurisdictions the dispositions of the article 6 - 1 of the European Convention that protect human rights and fundamental liberties: 'All persons have the right to have their case heard fairly, publicly and within reasonable delay by an independent and impartial tribunal . . .'.

Questioned recently on the aims of the Order, its president Pr. Glorion declared: 'The Ordre des Médecins does not have the competence to scientifically judge the quality of a treatment, only that of assuring that the treatment be officially validated.'

This is a confession of total submission to the French Agency for Medicine and to pharmaceutical power; moreover, it is confessing that a beneficial treatment for a patient, if it is not validated, can lead to its administrator being suspended from practice. In this line of argument, the sick patient no longer exists as an individual, but is subjected to the whims of the protocols. It is a dramatic confession and the end of Medicine with a human face". (Cf. Votre Santé: May 2000)

Effectively, in March 2000, Bernard Glorion was evoking the need to reform the ordinal institutions in his last work Medicine of the 21st Century. According to the current president, the threat of the suppression of the Ordre des Médecins, envisaged and promised by candidate François Mitterand in 1981, "revived bad memories and certainly calmed high feelings. Careful to be as discreet as possible, the members of the Conseil de l'Ordre fell into a certain lethargy . . . From the sessions of the committee to the writing of reports via contacts and meetings, deceit led to fantasy as nothing ever happened". The suggestions for reform of the permanent national committee remain secret.

The day after a disciplinary decision was taken regarding a famous cancer therapist in 1991, "the Order's wish to reform thrilled us with the Terquem report". This report included changes in the composition of the departmental councils that were more representative of the diversity of activities at the heart of the profession. It foresaw a more independent disciplinary jurisdiction with a magistrate from the beginning, with the regional council. "Other, more meticulous measures were to complete this operation which had as its aim the modernisation of an institution whose existence was no longer contested", commented the President. Coming up against a unanimous refusal, "these visionary and premonitory ideas would now be taken up and accepted with many fewer difficulties". For Bernard Glorion, the rules enunciated in the Code of Ethics are not to be ignored if one wishes to conserve the human side of the medical act. "An order of doctors that is reformed and adapted to social change constitutes an efficient rampart against the deviations of a modernism that is rash . . . The order of doctors must be representative of a large number of different forms of practice. It must be an open and transparent organisation, of service to society, thus harmonising with the motto of the British Medical Council that one could translate as: protection of the sick, guidance for doctors."

At the end of a lyrical flight of fancy about the exceptional mission of the Order to preserve health and to respect human beings throughout their lives until death, this president-doctor turns to the subject of the rights of ill people: "Of course, it may seem utopian, even hurtful, to speak of the rights of the ill. Isn't this judicial formula in contradiction to the notion of service, of generosity and devotion that constitute the honour of the world of medicine?" All whilst recognising that it is unfortunately sometimes necessary to remind doctors that they have duties, he suggests going further, to "also speak of the duties of the patients and the rights of the doctors. The future of healthcare depends on the sharing of responsibilities as in a reciprocal mutual assistance". The current president nevertheless refrains from suggesting that there be representatives of patients at the heart of the Ordre des Médecins, as is the case in the United Kingdom.

So, according to professor Glorion, the ideas regarding the reform of the permanent national committee of the national Order were never revealed after the electoral promise to suppress it by the future president of the Republic in 1981. And despite this wish to reform, the Terquem report, with its "visionary and premonitory ideas", was unanimously rejected in 1991. According to the present Secretary of State for Health: "It would however be currently accepted without difficulty"; nevertheless, he is not sure that this project of reform should be integrated into the governmental text for the modernisation of the health system.

Why, under such conditions, in twenty years, has this desire for reform been clearly expressed only by the partial opening of closed doors? Why did Professor Glorion, who claims to support an Order that is representative of a diversity of practices, not react when his homeopathic colleagues were called "recruiters for sects" by the Secretary of State for Health?

The same month that his book came out, the Green Party deputies took their turn in opposing the organisation and practices of the departmental sectors of the Order, accusing it of "partiality, union favouritism and fraudulent electoral procedures". Of course the French ecologists refer only to the "serious deviations of certain departmental sectors that have filed a complaint against certain referring doctors with the sole aim of obstructing the establishment of a legal system", but one can hope that the parliamentary commission that they are asking for will not remain a pious wish and will be the point of departure for indispensable reform in depth of the Order, leading it to total conformity with human rights.

Following the opposition of the Greens, the President of the national Order agreed to an interview with the paper Libération. He recognised the abuses of certain doctors holding positions in the departmental Order all whilst being union elected or members of an ordinal jurisdiction. According to him, certain departmental councils are even "organised like small feudalities". In confessing to "having requested, for seven years, modifications to our system", he justified on the other hand the necessity for in-depth reform of this archaic order of doctors (luxuriously installed at the Boulevard Haussmann, after having moved from the Boulevard La Tour Maubourg) and stated the impotence of this desire to reform. Despite these criticisms, March 25th 2001, during a channel 2 programme on the Ordre des Médecins, the president did not hesitate to affirm that: "The Order guarantees the independence of doctors", whilst Dr Bernard Debré admitted that the Order was "corporate".

In his work A Split World (La fêlure du monde) André Glucksmann tells of

"the adventure of a certain surgeon, at the time president of the Order of Doctors, therefore spokesman for the ethics and morality of the medical world . . . In the early eighties he was given a blood transfusion. Two or three years went by and a colleague recommended a test. He thought this sensible and complied: negative. 'And then?' asked a journalist, seven years later. 'And then; nothing', he answered. Relieved on his own account, he did not warn the thousands of people who had received transfusions in these years of ignorance. All of them ran a similar risk to his own. President, ex-president, never once did the thought occur to him to make a public announcement. . . This doctor, ill at ease, regretful . . . referred to the long, spiritual blindness that led him to neglect his own interests, then those of his constituents, finally those of a whole population, as 'a blind spot'. . . He became as suicidal as he had previously been almost homicidal."

As for the CNAM (Caisse nationale d'assurances maladies - National Health Insurance Fund), although they fiercely defend themselves to the contrary, they are even more dogged than the Order when it comes to pursuing those who stray from the beaten track. Their national counsellor-doctor, Pr. Hubert Allemand, insists: "cases of harassment (of liberal doctors by the health insurance's counsellor-doctors) do not exist" and he "guarantees a medical service that does a difficult job with a great deal of rigour, that is to say, precision" (cf. Le Quotidien du médecin February 23rd 2000). These statements provoked an outcry from liberal doctors. "Mr. Allemand's statements are unacceptable, but certainly reveal the state of mind of many of the leaders and executives in health insurance: arrogant certainty of the total authority of the administration, refusal to be aware of and admit their errors, refusal to accept any responsibility related to their everyday decisions. Democracy is in a bad way when the administration adopts such a stance." replied Dr Patrick Gérard de Nantes in the publication Le Quotidien du médecin March 8th 2000. Dr Martial Groboz commented that he is a "victim of the tribunals of exclusion that the CMR represents".

"Yes, harassment exists, whether or not Pr. Hubert Allemand agrees. His declarations to the contrary will not succeed in hiding the truth for long", says Dr Roch Menes de Clermont-Ferrand in the same magazine. "Rather than deny the evidence, Pr.Allemand would no doubt be advised to pay careful attention to the control of the funds and to attempt to put them into some order. . . But it is easier and more politically correct to take it out on the practitioners than to fight the malfunctioning of health-insurance funds.".

Back cover description of

Healing: an Illegal Practice

By Sylvie Simon

How is it possible to legally practise medicine, respect the Hippocratic Oath and the rights of ill people, in the face of the dictatorship of the Conseil de l'Ordre, in addition to that of the pharmaceutical lobbies?

This question, essential to the well-being of each one of us, is at the heart of Sylvie Simon's book. The author, who has gathered statements from courageous doctors, gives us access to the cogs of a machine that is controlled by the Conseil de l'Ordre, a tribunal of exclusion. She reveals how this Order uses and abuses its regal power in order to muzzle doctors who choose to heal their patients solely according to their knowledge and their conscience.

This book therefore, through the experiences of various practitioners, helps us to understand the pain of those who give their lives to curing the sick and who suddenly find themselves forbidden to practise on the pretext that they dare question a system that is on the whole riddled with the rot of medical and economic authority.