Holistic Health vs. Corporate Wealth

PART 1: "Standard" medical treatments fill the coffers of clinics and drug companies but provide dubious benefit for patients

opinion by Dr. John Ruhland, Free Press contributor

nyone who has suffered pain caused by the death of someone dear can imagine the agony felt at seeing hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of lives lost because successful medical treatments for illnesses are suppressed. Suppression of successful therapies is very common because of the vast sums of money made by treatments considered "standard of practice." A variety of interest groups use publicity techniques, including medical journals and the popular press, to tout these treatments. A few examples of such "standard" treatments that were once popular--but are now less favored-- include widespread use of radical mastectomies, hysterectomies, cesarean sections, lobotomies, shock therapy, tonsillectomies, and routine appendectomies.

A large proportion of drugs and therapies considered standard fifty years ago has been abandoned. Likewise, many current "standard" treatments will likely be abandoned within another fifty years, including antibiotics and tubes for ear infections, Ritalin, Prozac, cortisone for eczema and arthritis, widespread use of joint replacement, sinus surgery, mercury amalgam dental fillings, many cholesterol-lowering drugs, bypass surgery, X-ray mammography, and of course chemotherapy and radiation therapies for cancer. Drugs, radiation and surgery further suppress the ability of the immune system to heal the body in people with already decreased immunity, such as cancer and AIDS patients.

Methods of suppression of new treatments vary from subtle pressure, to the threatening of researchers' lives. Pioneering doctors and scientists who call standard practices into question, are persecuted by orthodoxy. Truly innovative medical pioneers are unable to obtain research funding or positions in research institutions. Scientific and medical institutions are controlled by people who have become influentional through use and promotion of the standard treaments.

Doctors, although partially responsible, are not the main culprits. Doctors are basically tradespeople. In simple terms, mechanics maintain cars, and doctors maintain people. Just as auto mechanics are not trained to focus on developing new engines, doctors are not trained to focus on developing new treatments. The training of doctors comes from studying in schools or interning in hospitals which are monopolized by vested interests. Medical residencies force new doctors to compromise their own health and stay awake for up to 72 hours to treat people in very specific ways. This technique is also used in the military to develop minds that do not question how things are done.

As in other trades, generally the more money doctors make for their clinic, hospital, and for the drug companies, the more they are paid. Typical oncologists make upwards of half a million dollars per year. This sounds like a great deal of money to most of us, but in reality it is only a tiny percentage of the value of their labor, determined by the profits they produce. To give you an idea, doctors see thousands of patients per year. Each person with cancer earns the medical-industrial industry over $100,000. Thus these corporations profit greatly from sickness in our society. Clearly, none of these profiteers would consider a cure for cancer as a boon for their business.

Corporations in the medical field are no exception to the drive for profits that dominates companies under capitalism. The medical field is very profitable, which encourages anti-social behavior. For instance, the so-called advocacy groups such as the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association, both groups that help determine and promote dangerous and profitable therapies, have people on their boards from many companies that profit from these very treatments, as well as companies that pollute the environment with known carcinogens.

Before deciding on any treatment, please get a second opinion from a holistic physician / naturopath. Holistic medicine is immune strengthening, and does not treat the body as a battle ground where parts are cut out or pathogens are destroyed with methods that destroy healthy tissue as well. Given proper support, our immune systems have an ability to cure illness vastly more powerful than the strongest drug. Although drugs can be successfully used in emergencies to save a person's life, optimal therapies improve this powerful ability of the body to cure itself.

Next issue - Part 2: Holistic treatments for cancer