Nature Versus Science
The age-long controversy between
clinical and natural medicine has reached an explosive level, with either side
determined more than ever before not only to assert and defend its claims to
superior efficacy but also to disparage the other as a health hazard in this
twenty-first century Medicare scenario. In-between the two extreme positions
are the moderates who propound a mutually complimentary role of orthodox and
alternative medicine in the form of integrative medicine – a theory of
co-operation in place confrontation between orthodox and alternative medicine.
While many people outside of the two
practices see the raging argument as an economic war in which medicine
consumers’ purse is the ultimate target and in which both sides strive to win
their greater trust and patronage, others find the debate as a healthy
development borne out of a sincere concern for better public health by both
professional divides.
The orthodox-alternative controversy,
at some point and level, had assumed the angle of a charge of conspiracy,
bordering on fraud or scam on the part of global big pharmaceutical companies,
aided and abetted by orthodox doctors, drug research agencies and medical
consumer societies and movements who have increasingly faced the charge of
suppressing alternative cure for so-called incurable diseases just to protect
and sustain their commercial and professional interests at the expense of
suffering humanity.
A typical tone of pro-alternative
proponents can be seen in an article by A. Von Butz titled, “Why the ‘Best’
Conventional Cancer Treatment Will Never Cure You of Cancer” in which he wrote
that “it’s not that more effective alternative treatments for cancer don’t
exist − they most certainly do… It’s just that the allopathic system isn’t at
all interested in divulging real cures. This is because healthy, cancer-free
people don’t sign up for expensive therapies that generate billions of dollars
a year in profits for the cancer industry”.
Beyond the conspiracy theory is
another dimension in the orthodox versus alternative medicine polemic, this
time bordering on what are the best health and wellness practices for
individual and family routine healthcare.
To start with the conspiracy theory
propounded by alternative medicine proponents, the charge, simply put is that
virtually all known diseases are curable through non-clinical medical processes
which have proved impotent on the permanent cure of certain diseases like
cancer, diabetes, sickle-cell and other classified terminal diseases. Taking
cancer as a case study, alternative proponents point that the main treatment
procedures recognized and applied by orthodox medicine, namely surgery,
radiation, and chemotherapy have not been able to cure this second to the major
cause of death worldwide. The claim cites scores of cancer patients who have
publicly denounced these procedures after almost a life-time treatment as
against near-instant cure through ingestion of simple dietary and herbal based
supplements.
The pro alternatives also
make a case for the vast cost difference between orthodox and alternative
cancer treatment procedures, arguing that whereas the orthodox treatment is not
only excruciating and tortuous but also cost prohibitive and unaffordable by a
whopping majority of cancer patients, the alternative course is painless and
costs almost next to nothing, thus making cancer treatment affordable to most
people who require them. The same argument is extended to other ailments such
as diabetes, HIV/AIDS, asthma and other diseases, and in fact any known human
disease, based on the claim that the principles of alternative medicine are
holistic and don’t just apply to cancer alone and that the human body is
“intelligently designed to heal itself, and given the proper nutrients and
care, it will”.
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Down the line of controversy, the
pro-alternatives buttress their nature-base disease treatment argument with the
logic that alternative medicine is a procedure that is consistent with the
nature of the human body which is essentially a vegetable entity and therefore
more amenable and adaptive to vegetable-based disease control and preventive
procedures.
The globally accepted medical
aphorisms that food is the greatest medicine and that all flesh (including the
human body) is grass testifies to the vegetable-base of the human body and
alludes to the greater efficacy of vegetable or herbal based medical options
that encompass a range of natural or herbal based health formulas comprising
dietary and nutritional formulations and other natural therapeutics such as
supplements, vitamins, herbs, as well as
lifestyles such as exercise, physiological and mental therapies among
others more than clinical procedures involving mainly the ingestion of
synthetic drug substances in form of pills and various kinds of surgical and
radiological processes that are inconsistent with and in fact antithetical to
the nature of the human body with the inevitable side effects of ultimately
degrading the potency and life expectancy of the human body.
In the case of cancer, for instance,
A. Von Butz asserts that “Chemotherapy Doesn’t Cure Cancer − It Causes It!” and
goes on to claim that “Chemotherapy, modern society’s “holy grail” of cancer
treatment, is actually a product of World War II chemical weapons programs. It
emerged as an afterthought in the wake of many decades worth of failed cancer
treatments using radiation and surgery. Eventually, it became an adjunct to
these protocols − a typified example of the “better living through chemistry”
philosophy that swept the nation during the 1950s.
By pumping patients full of toxic
chemicals, it was believed, cancer tumors wouldn’t stand a chance at survival.
And for some types of cancer, it appeared as though this hypothesis was correct
− at least to an extent, and in the short-term. Chemotherapy does, in fact,
kill cancer cells. But it also kills healthy cells, along with a patient’s
immune system and, really, anything else that crosses its path.
Truth be told, chemotherapy is the
definition of a genotoxic treatment protocol, meaning it damages human DNA. And
damaged DNA is a leading cause of cancer, as per the “mutational theory” of
cancer that is widely accepted among scientists as the impetus behind cancer’s
emergence and spread. What this means is that when
chemotherapy is introduced into a person’s body, it causes mutational changes
to occur at the cellular level that actually promotes the growth and spread of
malignant cancer cells. Unlike the various selectively cytotoxic anti-cancer
compounds found naturally in certain herbs and plants, non-selectively
cytotoxic chemotherapy chemicals destroy both good and bad cells leaving
aggressive cancer cells behind and leaving patients prone to more cancer.
The fact that many of the most
popular chemotherapeutic drugs currently on the market are classified by the
World Health Organization (WHO) as human carcinogens illustrate the backward
nature of conventional cancer treatment. Tamoxifen, for instance, one of the
leading chemotherapy drugs used in the treatment of breast cancer, not only
causes more cancer (along with more than 24 other deadly side effects), it is
also often ineffective”.
Expectedly, orthodox medicine groups
not only deny the charges of conspiracy but also fire back at their accusers
with a counter-charge of blackmail and dangerous threat to world healthcare
industry. In spite of these far-reaching claims of the potency of alternative
medicine, global orthodox medicine establishment has maintained a studied and
stoic objection to the claims which it has dubbed spurious and presumptuous
medical claims that constitute a grave danger to cancer cure research efforts.
It also denies the charge of self-interest in opposing the claimed exploits of
alternative medicine which it claims are scientifically untenable.
To start with, orthodox practitioners
fault the premise ad logic of conspiracy which, simply put, is that since doctors make a living from
treating cancer or other ‘incurable’ if there was a cure for them, that would
mean the end of business for doctors and drug makers. So doctors and the big
pharms deliberately hoard the cures and refute any cure claims via alternative
means.
Orthodox practitioners find a basic
flaw with this logic, arising from the fact that doctors and their family
members also die of cancer too. So too their friends and associates. If there
was a cure for cancer and doctors decided to keep it secret, certainly, any
doctor would apply such a cure if his own life or that of family members such
as spouse or child is threatened. No sane person would lose his or her life or
that of their family members just to keep his business from crippling.
On the second segment of the
conspiracy theory - that there is a hidden non-orthodox herbal or nutrient
based cure for cancer, a whopping preponderance of orthodox practitioners not
only flatly refute it but also warn of the risk such claims pose to cancer
patients or would-be patients. This is because resort to such peddled cancer
cure inevitably prolongs and in most cases defers or prevents expert treatment,
thus increasing the chances of cancer spreading and becoming no longer curable
or reversible. This position is proffered by Dr.
David Palma, a radiation oncologist and cancer researcher at the London Health
Sciences Center in Canada who focuses on the treatment of lung cancer and
head-and-neck cancers.
Dr. Mel Borins, a family physician and associate professor of
medicine at the University of Toronto, and a leading expert in health and
wellness who has advocated evidence-based, alternative medicine for decades presents
a more balanced and honest view of alternative efficacy in disease cure,
particularly cancer. In his book, A Doctor’s Guide to
Alternative Medicine: What Works, What Doesn’t and Why, Dr. Borins notes the “
mass of confusing and often conflicting information about alternative medical
treatments”.
Dr. Mel Borins
The summary of his position seems to
be that the problem of alternative medicine is that most of its cure claims
have not been ‘approved’, in other words, not recognized by orthodox or
scientific medicine, a position that goes back to square one of the
orthodox-alternative medicine controversy, which rests essentially on the claim
of alternative medicine to effective cure of cancer and related terminal
diseases and the rebuttal of these claims by orthodox practitioners.
Borins, however, tacitly, perhaps
even explicitly vindicates the claims of alternative medicine when he admits
that alternative medicine does actually work, only that its procedures have not
been accepted by orthodox medicine. "Much of it hasn’t been scientifically
proven, which doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, it just means it hasn’t been proven
by the standard that we as medical doctors go by”, says Borin. He went further
to paint a picture of the process of scientific proof that conveys a sense of tacit
conspiracy against alternative medicine when he points out the rigorous and
lengthy process of approving a course of treatment. Doctors have been trained
to evaluate things from a scientific perspective, he says, pointing out the “randomly assigned
double-blind controlled trials as the gold standard for approving a course of treatment”,
adding that “many of the alternative approaches
don’t have that kind of scientific support backing them.”
One of Borin's assertions that lends
credence to the claims of alternative medicine is when he admits that “some of
these (alternative) treatments – herbs and acupuncture – have been around for
thousands of years…for example, people in traditional societies often rely on
traditional healing and folk medicine”. Interestingly, Borins recounted the
reason for his interest in alternative medicine which was after his friend Jack
was overcome with incapacitating back pain which wasn’t the first time this had
happened. But Borins “a medical doctor at the height of his training”, found
himself helpless to help his friend. “I remember thinking that after all
those years of medical training, without drugs and therapy equipment, I can’t
do a single thing to help my friend,” says Borins. The man would later be treated by a
local healer in Kashmir who placed his knee on the injured man’s back and with
a single thrust, realigned his spine and relieved his pain. At that moment,
said Borins, he realized there was more to healing than the medical school had
taught him.
At the receiving end of this Medicare
war are the medical consumers, comprising patients as well as individuals and
families with varying health care programs and practices who are torn between
these opposing medical logic and increasingly getting confused and unsure of
the best Medicare and healthcare regimes to adopt both in and out of sickness
and disease. As Borins correctly observed, “All too often misinformation,
conflicting opinions and half-truths about alternative medicine and practices
make it difficult for doctors and confusing for patients when trying to decide
on safe and effective alternative options.”
He, however, admits that “There’s
certainly a lot of scientific evidence that supports alternative medical
practices and the general public is becoming more comfortable using many
alternative approaches to treatment.”
Eric Oliver
Borins couldn’t be more correct. A
research report on medical conspiracy led by Eric Oliver, a professor of political science at the
University of Chicago showed that half of Americans subscribe to medical
conspiracy theories, while over one-third of people believe that the Food and
Drug Administration is consciously preventing alternative natural cures for
cancer from the market as a result of pressure from drug companies. The research
also showed that people who believe the conspiracy theories were less likely to
rely on an orthodox family doctor and rather relied on family members, friends,
and the internet more than alternative medicine proponents for their health
information.
These reports tend towards a
conclusion that most people today in all countries of the world are
increasingly losing faith in orthodox medicine and more confidence in
alternative Medicare courses or in fact resorting to it for individual and
family health care needs, with America taking the lead. This will be the major
focus of the second part of this discourse. More on natural medicine here.
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