| Ilena Rose 2006-10-18, 4:34 pm |
| Vote for freedom of choice in health care
www.BreastImplantAwareness.org/QuackWatchWatch.htm
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
By Jack Phillips
http://www.adirondackdailyenterpris...?articleID=4461
As with our Letters to the Editor section, anyone is welcome to submit
an opinion column as a Guest Commentary. Such pieces should be between
500 and 1,000 words and must further the discussion of issues.
There are two ongoing initiatives aimed at eliminating competition to
the medical establishment. One, functioning through the influence of
the World Trade Organization, aims to limit our access to dietary
supplements. The other, functioning through state medical boards, has
as its objective the inactivation of physicians and other medical
practitioners who provide therapies not covered by the Standards of
Care. If these initiatives are successful, there will be little hope
of stemming the continuing carnage which has made iatrogenic disease a
leading cause of death.
The Journal of the American Medical Association reported 98,000 deaths
per year from FDA-approved drugs in 1998, and things haven’t improved
much since. These numbers are like world-war casualty rates. Nor will
we be able to stem the continuing escalation of medical expenses,
which is creating problems for families, businesses and government.
The United Nations World Health Organization is attempting to make the
Codex Alimentarious effective in every country. It has been initiated
in both Germany and Australia, according to reports. This severely
limits access to dietary supplements like vitamins and minerals. For
example, if the Codex is fully activated, it will be necessary for us
to obtain a physician’s prescription to purchase more than RDA amounts
of vitamin C. Beyond the extra cost involved, this represents a
serious health threat since this substance is an important liver
metabolite. We would be making it internally in large quantities if we
hadn’t lost the capability about 20 million years ago. We have an
unrecognized genetic disease, anascorbemia, which results in a
remarkably effective internal system for responding to stress, toxins
and disease vectors being without its necessary ammunition, ascorbic
acid — vitamin C.
According to Jonathon Wright, M.D., the Washington State Quality
Assurance Commission (WSQAC) is spearheading an attack on
approximately 33 percent of physicians practicing alternative medicine
in that state. In one case, a Dr. Geoff Ames was charged with moral
turpitude (Representative Foley’s problem) because he offered
electro-acupuncture and dietary changes to correct a patient’s food
allergies. The WSQAC claimed this was ineffectual and potentially
harmful. They suspended his license for five years. He fought the
charges unsuccessfully and had to mortgage his home to pay for his
legal expenses. Note that the Nambudripad allergy treatments, which
use acupuncture, are said to cure food allergies. I know they removed
my allergic reaction to oak pollen in one day.
B.C. Rothstein, D.O., was similarly delicenced in Maryland for
practicing “substandard medicine.” There was no evidence that he had
harmed anyone or acted irresponsibly. His policy of spending up to 90
minutes with his patients and treating a wide range of diseases may
have influenced the board’s decision. Most physicians can’t afford to
spend this much time with patients, and a great many are specialists
unable to treat many different diseases. Perhaps substandard medicine
was the board’s way of saying unfair competition.
Dr. Wright is also being harassed by the board because he has a Web
site and has discussed chelation therapy (a less expensive alternative
to vascular surgery) and other alternative treatments on it. They
apparently are concerned about discussions of natural therapies being
easily accessible to the public.
The American college for the Advancement of Medicine listed three
physicians providing chelation therapy in this area 10 years ago. They
were all induced to stop. I was told that, in one case, the physician
had his license taken away for a while and then, after it was
returned, advised not to provide this particular therapy in the
future. Another physician refused to provide any information about why
he retired.
People are denied treatments they want and sometimes forced to accept
treatments that they don’t want. Dr. Wright noted that Abraham Cherrix
of Virginia Beach, Va. was a cancer patient so debilitated by
chemotherapy that he chose to find an alternative in Mexico when the
chemo failed to cure his disease. The Virginia Social Services charged
his parents with neglect and obtained a court order requiring him to
take chemotherapy against his will. Fortunately, a higher court
blessed a compromise which permitted him to use the alternative
therapy, if he took radiation therapy as well.
Katie Wemicke, a 12-year-old in Texas, had a more unpleasant
experience. She and her parents didn’t want chemotherapy for her, but
a Texas Court not only removed Katie from her home and forced chemo on
her but also removed her two healthy brothers from the supervision of
her parents.
According to Dr. Arthur Robinson, a co-founder of the Linus Pauling
Research Center who has been involved in orthomolecular research for
many years, our laws permit the medical monopoly to control everything
from the provision of its product to its evaluation. He considers
individual physicians “victims of the System which actively prevents
the innovation and freedom needed to provide their patients with the
best possible medical care.”
Our medical care system is the most expensive in the world and, except
for emergency medicine, far from the best. It has consigned many
advances in medical technology to the dust heap of history — for
example, Royal Rife’s Ray Machine that was able to kill cancer-causing
viruses, and his Universal Microscope that enabled him to be the first
person to see a living virus. Many others of great potential value
were prevented from providing their benefits to the public, according
to Daniel Haley’s “Politics in Healing,” which I urge readers to
study. My book, “Suppressed Science,” also contains information about
the medical monopoly’s intransigence.
Time for another election is approaching. Your vote is important —
especially to incumbents who have the best chance of being elected.
Let them know that free access to nutritional supplements and freedom
of choice in health care are important to you. It would be nice to
have some action before the election instead of promises for action
after it. Promises are cheap and too easily forgotten.
Jack Phillips lives in Saranac Lake.
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