The Alternative Healer

On the One Year Anniversary of My Blog

I started this blog a year ago to outline the different levels of our being that different forms of medicines address. This anniversary week I plan to return to the this fundamental question. Last August I began by listing the levels of therapeutic intention that various healers can have. In other words, what is your healer trying to do. I saw this as an important question that all who seek health care, whether conventional or alternative, should understand. I outlined the levels as follows:

1) Intention at the level of diagnosis, i.e. fix the abnormal number or test

2) Intention at the level of feeling, i.e. fix the pain or discomfort.

3) Intention at the level of vital systems, i.e. fix the energetic imbalance.

4) Intention at the level of consciousness, i.e. shift the pattern of perception underlying the expression of physical and mental disease.

These I called the four basic levels of healing, seen from the point of view of any given healer’s therapeutic intention.

Around that same time, while reading in ancient Egyptian medicine, I had a realization. The medicine of ancient Egypt divided the human being into seven different dimensions:

1) the physical body (The Khat)

2) The vital or energetic body, also called “bio-plasmic body",   (The Ba, the soul of breath)

3) The emotional body  (The Khaba or astral body)

4) The intellectual body which consists of the lower and middle states of consciousness  (The Khaibit)

5) The spiritual Self, or Higher Mind (The Ka)

6) The Super-consciousness. The plane where Universal knowledge is available to those attuned to it.  (The Sekhen)

7) Pure spirit, or divine mind (The Ren).

What I noted in looking at these seven levels was the strong similarity they had with my levels of therapeutic intention. The only difference was the ancient Egyptians viewed the emotional dimension as deeper (i.e. further from the physical realm) than the energetic dimension. Levels two and three were switched around. I agreed with the ancient Egyptians. My levels of therapeutic intentions, in contrast, addressed the way healers in our society actually work. It might be worthwhile to put another level of intention between my 3rd and 4th levels. I have found healers with specific therapeutic intentions at the emotional body to be relatively uncommon. They do exist however. For example a shamanic journey has as its intention to retrieve lost or traumatized parts of our emotional selves--an intention specific to the Egyptian emotional body (3rd dimension).

I have since decided to use the word ”levels“ when I am referring to healers and their intention and ”dimensions“ when I speak of the actual layers (dimensions) of human energy. They are not exactly the same. As it turns out, you can numb the 3rd dimension by addressing the physical body (i.e. a 1st level intention), for example the use of prozac, tranquilizers, or pain killers. Therefore, 2nd level intentions are close in character to 1st level intentions in the physical dimension. i.e the 2nd level usually addresses the physical, although in a different way. The 1st level intention addresses an objective finding or diagnosis; the 2nd level intention addresses the unpleasant feelings the person is having, both working through the physical plane. People for millennia have learned to numb the emotional body (3rd dimension) through substance use (acts through the 1st dimension), whether it be alcohol and drugs or simply overeating. It’s the realm of self-medicating the emotional body through the material or physical dimension. Today’s medicine simply does this in more sophisticated ways.

Some people wonder whether the physical and emotional might not be two aspects of the same dimension, like their doctor tells them. But they are not. Energetically they are different. The emotional body appears to be a field of energy that exists in and around the cells of the body.

Because we as humans necessarily process experience through the physical body--e.g. the stress (emotional dimension) of the office today has landed in your tight, aching shoulders (physical dimension)--all experience from deeper dimensions will impact our physical dimension. It does this in ways that are predictable with knowledge with what is happening at deeper dimensions. For example, grief will energetically affect our lungs. In the same way, experience that impacts the physical realm (e.g. eating, sleeping, sex, accidents, exercise) will affect the deeper layers of who we are. These are more difficult to predict. For example, a person sensitive to fright (an issue that goes into the 4th level and dimension; note how 4th dimension is the same as the 4th level) has an accident on their bicycle and goes home and dreams of being chased for the rest of the night. Any aggravation at the physical dimension can aggravate specific, idiosyncratic 4th dimensional issues.

Welcome to a new year of my blog. I will continue to define these levels and dimensions in coming weeks.

The Latest on Vaccination

All those interested in vaccinations and their effect on health should take a look at the latest study done by Generation Rescue. www.generationrescue.org/survey.html

The study, using telephone interviews, was straightforward. Generation Rescue interviewed over 11,000 households. Of the 17,674 children in these households, 991 were described as being completely unvaccinated. Then they compared the percentage of neurological disorders within the boys in each group, vaccinated and unvaccinated. Here’s what they found:

Vaccinated boys were 155% more likely to have a neurological disorder (RR 2.55)

Vaccinated boys were 224% more likely to have ADHD (RR 3.24)

Vaccinated boys were 61% more likely to have autism (RR 1.61)

These numbers speak for themselves. I doubt we will hear much about this study in the mainstream media. The results deviate too much from the party line. When the conventional thinking finds itself on shaky ground, we see silence. In this regard, note that it took less than $200,000 to complete this study, and it gives more information than any study the CDC, with an $8 billion dollar budget, has been able or willing to do.

Many feel that the increased rate of neurological disease in vaccinated children is largely due to the mercury-based preservative Thimerosol. Although I believe that Thimerosol should be removed, I do not believe that this action would change the above percentages significantly. The reason that people blame Thimerosol is that is presents a convenient, 1st level, physical-plane explanation for why vaccines can cause disease. Lacking a multi-dimensional model of what it is to be human, people latch on to physical-plane explanations. I do not, however, agree. The nature of reactions to vaccines go much deeper than what 1st level explanations can provide.

It is the confusing nature of a 1st level explanation that has allowed this debate to rage on. When conventional scientists say that there is no “direct link” between Thimerosol or vaccination and neurological disease in children, they are saying there is no physical mechanism of action that makes sense. I agree with them. There’s not. That’s because the major effects of vaccination on a child are non-material, existing on an energetic plane that is difficult to quantify. It is in the best interest of children that we shift the terrain of the debate. Perhaps this study will provide a boost.

The Importance of Lung Capacity

Dr. Al Sears's article on the importance of lung capacity for longevity Dr. Al Sears Article link
is important reading. The idea is this: lung capacity (volume) is a key indicator for longevity, and sustained aerobics exercise actually decreases lung capacity. Why is that? Running or aerobic activities tend to promote quick respirations that fail to allow full expansion of the lungs. Aerobic activity can actually lower lung capacity because the shallow inhalations can lead to a gradual shrinkage from lack of full expansion.

This provides a hint why the average yogi tends to far outlive the average aerobics buff.

There are two ways to expand lung capacity. The first is using bursts of intense exercise followed by rest to stress the lungs past their capacity, forcing expansive inhalations to recover. This is my preferred method of conditioning exercise. It is important for cardiovascular health because it mimics how intense stress can push our heart beyond its capacity. Training our heart to withstand this stress prevents overtaxing, which more than anything leads to heart attacks and heart failure as we age.

The second is some form of pranayama. This is a Sanskrit word from prana or “breath” and ayama or “control.” Pranayama might be thought of as a “breathing exercise" that comes from the hatha yoga tradition handed down to us from India. I recently heard yogi Richard Freeman refer to yoga as “pranayama for restless people.” In other words, the breath rules in yoga, not the actual movement or postures.

Prana in the Sanskrit means both “breath” and “vital energy.” “Vital breath” might be the closest translation. In other words, for the ancient energy masters, breathing in air is a process of taking in life force (prana or Qi for the Chinese). I find it interesting that lung capacity, that is, the capacity to breath in the vital force is directly associated with living a long life. Reduced ability to take in life energy curtails our ability to live long.

Because I am restless, I choose to do yoga for most of my pranayama. The process of taking deep, expansive, controlled breaths, pushing the lung capacity is the cornerstone of a good yoga practice. If you spend some time during the week doing yoga—and I recommend you do—be sure to tank up on air with slow inhalations, stretching the rib cage, releasing with even longer exhalations. I suspect this is the most important factor in keeping our lungs healthy.

So, choose an interval work-out that uses short bursts of intense activity, or, choose yoga, using rich deep breaths, for good heart-lung health and longevity. Perhaps best, choose both.

The Alternative Treatment of Cancer

I have had some inquiries about my approach to cancer. It is a good question, because there needs to be an alternative approach to cancer. Let me give an example of why:

A few years ago a woman in her 80s presented at my office for treatment of her fatigue. I gave her a homeopathic remedy, and over the space of a couple months, her fatigue was gradually improving. Her progress was interrupted. Her allopathic doctor discovered a large mass in her lung. A biopsy was taken and a diagnosis of lung cancer came from the pathologist. Her doctor immediately sent her to the oncologist. This oncologist ended the appointment by telling her—the way a family member tells it he practically called it out over his shoulder while walking out the door—“You’ll start chemotherapy on Monday.”

After the first chemotherapy treatment her fatigue not only returned, it markedly increased. A month after starting chemotherapy she was dead. For me the most problematic part of this is that she did not want chemotherapy. I know this because she told me. A few members of her family urged her to have it. Her personality was such that she followed the oncologists’s order and bowed to the wishes of desperate family members, who were unable to deal with her—or their own—mortality. Not everyone in her family wanted her to have chemotherapy; it became a family deeply divided. After her death, there was anger and bitterness to process along with the grief. It was a disaster, medicine at its worst, and it all came with a million-dollar price tag. Perhaps needless to say, my opinion of oncology, never good to begin with, darkened, and has never quite recovered.

As this story suggests, chemotherapy is often an "eyewash," which does little to cure the cancer. There are some very important exceptions, of course, and it is important to know what these are—and to have a doctor who will tell you if you are unable to dig to find out for yourself. There are situations where I would choose chemotherapy if I had cancer, but not many. Given how debilitating chemotherapy tends to be, its low probability of cure in most instances, not to mention its enormous cost, alternatives are necessary.

From my perspective, cancer arises from deep, 4th level (if not even deeper) dynamics, and I can always see what is being expressed by the cancer after taking a good case. The problem is that cancer arises from the 4th level but soon becomes an overwhelming 1st level (physical/material) reality. Overwhelming 1st level problems (a broken bone, e.g.) need an approach at that level. Thus, even the best homeopaths have had difficulty treating it from the classical approach, because shifting the 4th level with an accurate prescription usually does not allow the 1st level disease to shift. It seems that cancer cells ignore the message to heal. It is because of this that an aggressive, often toxic 1st level treatment can be effective in many instances and needs to be considered.

For some time now, there has been a non-classical approach homeopathic approach to cancer. The approach has been more multiple-remedy homeopathy focused straight at the 1st level physical disease. Because I have strongly focused on 4th level treatment, I was not keen on hearing about it. I did have to admit that some of the stories of success may have been true. As I have come to acknowledge that cancer needs a 1st level approach, I have shifted my perspective. My current approach to cancer is as follows:

1) Take the case deep (4th level) and give the appropriate 4th level homeopathic remedy

2) Go after the cancer itself (1st or physical level) with low potency homeopathic remedies, taken on a daily basis, that equate with the physical disease.

3)  Give a well-honed, immune-boosting nutriceutical protocol. 

4)  Give a nutriceutical detoxification protocol 

5)  If available, use an acupuncturist who knows how to unload the tremendous toxicity that develops in the meridians (3rd level). See my following blog from last year to read about this: Detoxification and Cancer

Least Common Denominator Medicine

The New York Times had this to say today, first from an editorial:

Eight years and seven million patients later, we still don’t know whether the diabetes drug, Avandia, is safe or effective. This is largely because the manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, failed to vigorously pursue questions about cardiac safety and the Food and Drug Administration acquiesced in its feeble efforts. Both either ignored or tried to silence scientists who raised the alarm.

( Link: Misdirected Studies on Avandia )

Then there was this from an article on chemotherapy:

In general, oncologists make money by providing chemotherapy, even when it has little chance of success. Oncologists naturally dislike telling cancer patients that they have exhausted all available treatments. Ending chemotherapy, after all, means acknowledging that a patient’s disease has become terminal…

…Because the profits on different drugs varied enormously, doctors had an incentive to prescribe medications with the highest margins… The profits helped drive a vast increase in the amounts doctors billed Medicare for injectable drugs, which soared to $10.9 billion by 2004 from $2.9 billion in 1997.

(Link: Incentives Limit Any Savings in Treating Cancer )

These two quotations, although addressing entirely different issues, tell us about the brave new world of government in medicine. Those involved in the health care system and those in government who funnel billions of dollars to them have developed a mutually-supportive and self-sustaining relationship. This all exists under the heading of “science,” which seeks to present you, the consumer, with a seamless, uniform image of a health care system that is the best money can buy.

Nevertheless, hardly a day goes by when the New York Times does not publish an article where large, ugly cracks form in this beautiful fantasy.

This situation produces my bipolar reaction to the possibility of a single-payer system run by the government. One morning I wake up gung-ho on the idea of eliminating the billions of dollars of profit to the opportunistic paper-pushing businesses in our health care system. The next morning I wake up horrified at the prospect of a tighter relationship between government and medicine, because it is a disaster. I go to great lengths to make sure neither I nor my patients fall into this system.

What is a least common denominator medicine? It is a medicine, which, instead of producing excellence, produces a system that maximizes profits and then publishes scientific studies—funded by the system--to convince you that the decisions for your care are impartial and objective.

Least common denominator medicine corrals you into some category and treats those corralled in the same uniform way. Easy for the bureaucrats. Good for streamlining profits. Bad for you.

Least common denominator medicine puts a number on you—the diagnostic code—and thereby starts a multi-billion dollar industry humming. Doctors become technicians that tag you with the code, enabling all the industries attached to that code to make profits.

I am not against profits in medicine, because, not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, this is the reality of the time in which we live. I am against a system radically out of touch with the human, and that is what we now have. Medical science studies the human as if we were machines, often ridiculing any viewpoint that suggests otherwise. Any medicine must be grounded in a realistic view of who we are, how we get ill, and how we truly heal. Medical science's view of illness and healing is astonishingly narrow, and the result is a medicine that is equally narrow. We are multi-dimensional beings faced with a uni-dimensional, monolithic system.

The HPV Vaccine: Why the Bad Effects?

Not surprisingly, we are beginning to see reports about harm from the new human papilloma virus vaccine (Gardasil). I recently came across the following: ( Judicial Watch Link )

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released documents obtained from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, detailing 1,637 reports of adverse reactions to the vaccination for human papillomavirus (HPV), Gardasil. Three deaths were related to the vaccine. One physician’s assistant reported that a female patient 'died of a blood clot three hours after getting the Gardasil vaccine.' Two other reports, on girls 12 and 19, reported deaths relating to heart problems and/or blood clotting. . . Indeed, 77% of the adverse reactions reported are typical side effects to vaccinations. But other more serious side effects reported include paralysis, Bells Palsy, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and seizures. . . 'The FDA adverse event reports on the HPV vaccine read like a catalog of horrors,' stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton." etc.

This is no great surprise, but it raises the question why are vaccines capable of causing harm, and why is this so strongly downplayed by the medical establishment? After all, a vaccine contains infectious agents in a dead or highly weakened state. A dead virus in itself cannot produce disease. Nevertheless, a vaccine is what Dr. Samuel Hahnemann initially termed a morbific influence. Morbific means “capable of causing harm or disease.” Let’s think about this broadly.

On the physical plane, we can divide disease-causing influences into two general categories. The first is infectious agents such as viruses and bacteria. I do not include vaccines in this category. The second is toxic substances that we come in contact with, by accident or by choice. Drinking too much alcohol could be said to be a morbific influence.

There are also morbific influences that are energetic (i.e. affecting the Qi carried on acupuncture meridians), and, closely linked to these are emotional influences that strongly impact our energetic system (eg. grief, which may energetically disturb the lungs so much that it triggers disease). I would include exposure to electromagnetic energy here, which if strong enough can significantly disturb us.

Anything injected into the body has an effect both on the material and energetic planes. The immune system of the body can—and does--react to the injection of a foreign substance into the body. Yet, vaccines are also energetically potent. We know this because they are capable of producing “side effects” that have nothing to do with the nature of the infectious agent they contain. If a child gets a vaccine and the next day ends up with seizures or is partially paralyzed, unable to stand, this is because the child’s energetic system is profoundly disturbed.

Disturbing the energetic system of a person is quite a different matter than the physical plane after effects of drinking too much alcohol. Too much alcohol can cause vertigo and vomiting—a direct result of the alcohol itself. Disturbing the energetic system can cause disease to occur in a way specific to the individual. In other words, if a child ends up with paralysis of muscles after a vaccination, it is because the child has a deeper susceptibility to weakness (i.e. 4th level, see levels of healing on right) that disturbing his energetic system brought out. Thus, when physicians argue that the HPV vaccine cannot cause paralysis because it is "not part of the side effect profile of the vaccine," they miss the point. Vaccines disturb our system to a lesser or greater degree. What the establishment does not acknowledge is that certain individuals will have reactions to specific vaccines that lie on the “greater” end of the reactive spectrum. That this makes no sense based on what they learned in medical school only means that their understanding of what is human needs to broaden.

The Economics of Treating the Whole Person

I read recently in the New York Times that a hospital is trying an experiment to cut costs. The insurance is billed a flat-charge for the surgery and follow-up care for a set amount of time (45 days, I believe). Thus, if something goes wrong after surgery and the patient returns to the hospital for more care, the hospital must absorb the costs.

The initial outcome of this experiment will no doubt astonish you: they are finding that fewer patients are returning to the hospital post-surgery. Imagine that. Apparently hospital personnel, from surgeons on down, began taking steps to make sure the post-op complications were minimal. I would be surprised, however, if this becomes standard practice in hospitals.

One of the unpleasant ironies of health care is that the entire health care system benefits from keeping you ill. You keep on returning to your doctor, which helps his bottom-line. You keep on buying more pharmaceutical medications, making them happy. In fact, you might even end up taking a medication to treat the side-effect of your other medication, e.g. you are now taking Viagra to treat the sexual dysfunction of your Prozac. These sorts of “double-wins” occur all the time in our health care system. Botching the medical procedure may bring an initial “darn” from your doctor, but then he can simply do it again and charge you or your insurance all over again. Surely this must lessen the pain.

A parallel view of things emerges as I have thought about the economics of my practice and how it has helped mold my behavior. Although some of my patients will submit on their own to insurance, most pay out-of-pocket, which shifts the terrain. People are always more careful when spending their own money. Never entirely comfortable with promoting myself, I have not been a particularly good businessman. I have come to rely on referrals, mostly from my patients.

The shift from doctor to businessman is disorienting. Whereas doctoring is based on black-and-white lines of professional integrity, business and marketing firmly inhabits the grey. For a doctor trained in our medical culture, self-promotion feels almost seedy, in a used cars salesman sort of way. In my medical school there was not one class taught on the economics of health care or practice management. The message is clear: medicine and business are entirely separate realms. Medical culture grooms doctors to step into organizations where they defer business decisions to others,

I shake my head when people criticize classical homeopathy as placebo. From my perspective, they are blind to the economic realities of health care outside the system. The pressure for outstanding results is intense. I owe my continued existence to dramatic results on patients that have made whole groups of people wake up and take notice. A little bit of placebo effect simply does not cut it. Nevertheless, stellar results are no panacea. Because this means constantly healing people and freeing them from your practice, it requires a constant stream of new patients, never automatic when practicing a discipline that few people understand. Often patients tell me things like, ‘I want so much for my husband to see you, but he thinks this stuff is spooky.”

First-rate work in healing usually requires breaking out of the box. The economics of “breaking out of the box” can be disastrous. I stopped recommending that people pursue classical homeopathy years ago. The pitfalls are many. It feels a bit like encouraging someone to sail off alone into the Atlantic. Even though business must be somehow be kept separate from practice, one bad business decision can sink a solo alternative practitioner. Those with families to support need not apply.

With so much working against change for the better, how do we carve a path between naïve hope that a great new age of mind-body medicine is dawning and cynicism? Institutions in my experience quickly cave in to economic pressures. I have been unimpressed with integrative medicine centers that hospitals create. The genius of alternative medicine lies in a few, mostly solo practitioners who have managed to carve out an economic niche in which to pursue their unique healing passion—a daunting task. Any great new age of mind-body medicine will arrive because of isolated practitioners throwing themselves against the stream.

The good news is that the grass roots drive for a better medicine may gradually even erode the entrenched status quo. This is a slow process, and it is held up by lack of understanding of what it means to deeply heal. When that happens, groups will start to form that support the growth and development of outstanding mind-body healers. More thoughts on this soon.

Ayurvedic Medicine

How is the modern American to make sense of the many alternative medicines? In many situations it may not seem to matter. You are not feeling well; you find a doctor of Chinese medicine; or you find a doctor of Ayurvedic medicine; you get better. What else matters? The only problem is everyone is not better. Until then, we must try to understand how to choose.

The traditional medicine of India, Ayurvedic medicine, is not nearly as prominent as Chinese medicine in this country. Acupuncturists are common now. Ayurvedic doctors are harder to find, and our understanding of Ayurveda is more limited. Nevertheless, on a personal level, I have gradually drifted from an interest in the Taoist traditions of China to the spiritual traditions of India over the past 10 years. I find the spiritual traditions of India to be subtle, complex, and easy to misunderstand at first exposure. Westerners tend to get a taste of it through yoga, but this is the tip of the iceberg. The relationship of the individual to the cosmos is an entirely different one in the Ayurvedic tradition. In my current understanding, jyotish the complex astrology of India, forms a dominant, perhaps the dominant, underpinning of the entire Ayurvedic tradition. In India, how one fits into the cosmic order is what is important to understand. The western mind tends to come at it the opposite way: how can I get the cosmos to revolve around me?

Thus, Ayurvedic medicine, like that of the Chinese, is a cosmic medicine, concerned with keeping the body and mind in energetic balance both within itself and the universe (what I call a 3rd level intention, see categories on right). Yet, the language and understanding of energetic balance in Ayurveda is quite different from the Chinese. The Chinese primarily understand energetic balance in the human being in terms of the 12 energetic (acupuncture) meridians, intricately mapped out. In ancient India, balance concerned the three doshas: vata, pitta, and kapha.

These three categorizations roughly relate to the three body types: ectomorph, mesomorph, and endomorph. People who have dominant vata tend to be thin (ectomorphic), dry, and there is an emphasis on the nervous system, i.e, there is a lot of anxious mental energy. In the terminology of the ancients, vata is made up of the elements of air and ether (ether was the ancient’s idea of empty space). Pitta people tend to have a large boned, muscled (mesomorphic) frame. They are hot, action-oriented types, and in more ways than one, need ways of cooling down. This relates to the element of fire. with a bit of water thrown in for some steam. Kapha is heavy, cool, and slow, corresponding to the round, endomorphic frame, which tends to easily put on weight. There is a pulling downward. The corresponding elements are of earth and water. Kapha people can suffer from inertia. Once comfortable, on the couch, at their job, in whatever way, change can be difficult.

Everyone has a dominant and subdominant dosha, and balance in Ayurvedic terms is to offset the tendencies of one’s nature. If one is an anxious vata, for example, there is an emphasis on calming and steadying influences. If one is pitta, cooling influences become more important. And for kapha, it becomes important to counteract inertia through action and heat. Thus, for example, hot and spicy food is usually good for kapha people, but it may aggravate people who are predominantly pitta.

It is not a bad idea to familiarize oneself with one’s Ayurvedic constitution and how we use this to promote healthy balance. Yet the genius of Ayurvedic medicine, in my understanding, lies in its detoxifying procedures called Pancha Karmas. The idea is that toxins, both real (i.e. material) and energetic, accumulate in the body that interfere with its proper function and also with medicinal therapies. That is to say, medicines “won’t take” as well if the body is not prepared for them—like trying to paint an unprepared surface covered with dirt and grime.

This detoxifying branch of Ayurveda is vast, using many different therapies and substances (e.g. oils), and drawing on the rich spiritual heritage of India. We westerners can begin to approach it by taking time--particularly at the beginning of seasons when detoxification is most recommended--to find an Ayurvedic clinic or spa using Pancha Karmas, getting to know some of their procedures. Although my experience here is limited, my sense is that those in the Ayurvedic tradition have the inside track on detoxyifying procedures. Because detoxification is an essential piece in the living a long and healthy life, I plan to explore it further in the future.

Life, Risk, and Preventive Medicine

Depending on your vantage point, preventive medicine can have different meanings.  From the viewpoint of our medical system, it means vaccinations; preventive procedures, e.g colonoscopies, mammography, pap smears; tests that detect latent conditions; medications that treat potentially harmful conditions, e.g. high blood pressure medication; and diet and exercise.  Preventive medicine here has to do with the management of perceived risks in the physical plane.   

With the excepton of diet and exercise, this sort of preventive medicine does not figure strongly in my approach to health.  Why?  The major problem of this preventive medicine system is that, by its very nature, it drags people into a system they would prefer to avoid.  There should be a feeling of freedom in the state of being healthy, and being in the system feels anything but free.  It is too often dehumanizing and unpleasant.  Think of medical procedures you have had.  At best, they are not fun.  Many induce discomfort that bring to mind the word “torture.”  Worst, once pulled into the system, it can be difficult to get out again. 

Our medical system tends to take an “anything that can go wrong likely will” approach to health.  Obstetrics is my favorite example.  Ever ready with the forceps and the scalpel for the c-section, obstetricians don’t trust women to labor on their own, and tend to take control of the entire process, driving labor at the speed of their choosing with the IV pitocin valve.  The produces far more c-sections and invasive interventions than occurs with midwives. 

This defensive posture of doctors automatically polarizes patients.  Every patient who walks in the office is that patient who will sue you if you make a mistake.  Thus, the system spends much time and energy dotting i's and crossing t’s, spending little energy, if not outright ignoring, the holistic picture.  A major part of being a doctor is learning to trust, believing in health and freedom more than you believe in disease.  To believe in the relentless nature of disease is to participate in bringing it about. 

For this reason I tell my patients that my definition of health includes the right to say No to the preventive medicine the system offers—if they choose.  I only strongly take this stance when I’m confident a patient has taken an accurate homeopathic prescription.  It requires personal responsibility, the understanding that life is full of risks.  Bad things happen.  Yet, health in any deep sense must include an inner peace, even when confronted with the possibility of injury, debilitating disease, or our own death.  This inner freedom is exactly what creates long-lasting health in the first place.  It follows that it is my responsibility as a doctor to create it in my patients.  Welcome to one of the deeper reasons I chose to become a classical homeopath.  Choose to be well! 

The Politics of Health Care

I am not sure how many of you have heard about Governor Rick Perry of Texas signing a law mandating girls in Texas to be vaccinated against HPV, the virus associated with cervical cancer.  The pharmaceutical company Merck makes the vaccine, called Gardasil.  It is well-known that Merck has doubled its lobbying budget in Texas, funneling money through Women in Government, an advocacy group made up of female state legislators around the country.  Moreover, one of Merck’s key lobbyists in Texas is a man named Mike Toomey, Gov. Perry’s former chief of staff. 

I don’t need to mention that a mandate in Texas alone will mean billions of dollars in Merck’s coffers.  Plenty of reason to be heavy handed—perhaps losing any studies that suggest little benefit or possible harm from the vaccine. But that’s beside the point, which is that people in government often believe that they know enough about health to take the reins and dictate to us how to be healthy. 

I confess that the politics of health care have had an impact on my own personal politics.  As a doctor I regularly receive mandates to write checks out to governmental agencies.  What justification for this?  The reasoning, I suppose, is that I as a doctor should support, (i.e, send money) public health.  Never mind that my own ideas about what supports health often run counter to government agencies. 

One odd thing about alternative medicine is that it is often associated with “liberal” thinking.  Counter-culture types are supposedly those who go out on a limb and choose treatments such as homeopathy or acupuncture.   How then to explain the situation in Sweden, where, apparently, there have been laws interfering with the practice of homeopathy?   A homeopath would have found more freedom under the Nazis than in Sweden.  I’m sure those who make laws in Sweden had the best interest of Swedes in mind.  Exactly the reason I tend to distrust do-gooders in government. 

I am appalled that American men and women are dying in Iraq, but ultimately I accept that the state will make decisions—often wrongly-- regarding the use of force for national security.  I can only hope that those in power have some trace of clarity.  When the government makes decisions regarding how I should be healthy I draw the line, and I hope you do too.  It will make for some interesting debates as universal health care comes to center stage.