Set'm straight Deepak!

Hi Deepak, as you probably know I agree with what you write and have written much of the same here on IntentBlog since it started. I have been working on this ticket since the early 1980s and started running awareness campaigns in 1989 calling into radio talk shows and then onto bulletin board systems and took it onto the Internet in 1994. I have studied human biochemistry and associated research for 30 years with the intention of bringing of understanding and bringing the awareness to end disease.

Some thirteen years ago I launched the End of Disease Campaign on one of my web sites.

So anyway I developed the constantly evolving with new understanding, master plan and initiative for the End of Disease and challenges to the pseudo science of the medical industrial complex.

For those that have not read how to end disease already they can Click My Name.
The key points in application are health, a large reduction in taxes and increased wages for the worker and reduced costs for business and therefore the consumer.

A simple meme for everyone to propagate is that the status quo medical industry is not a health industry it is a disease industry.

I first figured this at a young age when I saw livestock being pumped with vitamins while humans were told they did not need them. Obviously profit is made from healthy animals and sick people which explained the contradiction.

This is related...

As some might remember back in the historical Socratic dialog I indicated that there was a big global issue with magnesium deficiency for multiple reasons. This deficiency results in increased violence, depression and reduced energy. It is very important in the production of serotonin and it is vital in the utilization of stored energy in the body. If one has inadequate magnesium, ATP molecules (stored biochemical energy) fire at random and not as part of a cellular process, which means wasted energy and chronic fatigue. Not to mention it’s affect on all processes and system throughout the body which all depend on energy, the Krebs cycle, which would include as affected the immune system.

Well I also indicated that soft drinks would based on chemistry leach magnesium from the body, which can create and imbalance especially when produce is also lacking because it is grown in mineral depleted soil. So COKE the brand decided to put magnesium into the product which I had suggested be done planet wide. It would have a calming effect. They even added some B-12 and other nutrients. Then they named it Diet Coke “Plus”. Good effort on their part provided they actually provide enough of the nutrients. But guess what happens the FDA which is supposed to represent our interests or perhaps not, that is not clear, sends coke a letter stating you can’t do that and you can’t call it “Plus”.

Well the label FDA can’t actually do anything; only individuals at the FDA can make decisions. Now I wonder what these individuals had in mind that would cause them to in effect harass Coke for doing something that is technically beneficial to the consumer.

It is important for the citizens of the United States to realize the FDA is not mostly funded by the citizens as we might assume but rather is mostly funded by the drug companies that pay to have their drugs approved. This is why individuals at the FDA are often rewarded with lucrative industry jobs. As we can all see there is a distinct conflict of interest between the FDA and the interests of the people as a result of the dependency on the drug companies to put the bread and butter on their plates. Who would bite the hands of those that feed them, and would later reward them? So as we can see the whole intent and purpose of the FDA must evolve as well as how it’s functions are funded.

Due to the reduced demand for new drugs as a result of the amelioration of most disease the function the FDA will be shrinking in the health regulatory function and simply become predominantly an advisory board in this regard. This way they can expand and focus on safety regulation of most types of foods, dietary supplements, drugs, vaccines, biological medical products, blood products, medical devices, radiation-emitting devices, veterinary products, and cosmetics. The FDA also enforces section 361 of the Public Health Service Act and the associated regulations, including sanitation requirements on interstate travel as well as specific rules for control of disease on products ranging from pet turtles to semen donations for assisted reproductive medicine techniques.

Now let’s talk about expanding the FDA in it’s new evolved role. With the new Universal Information System there will be lot’s of jobs for inspectors and certification. Everything is going to be certified from field to plate, from mine shaft to car. The consumer will always no what they are getting, it’s true level of quality and not it’s appearance. This will allow the consumer in our free market capitalist system to determine which companies are actually most efficient producers allowing the to take a smaller profit margin while yielding the same return.

What I have found baffeling about Doctors for decades now is the fact that it is blatent that Diet is the main cause of Illness; especially western diets. Eating a diet of mainly cooked, Processed and dead food and very little living, fresh and living food will most certainly kill you and saddle you with many different side effects along the way.

Wild Animals that live totaly independent of human influence - do not suffer the same Illness that mankind does. As soon as animals are domesticated by man such as cats and dogs and are fed foods that are cooked, processed and dead. Guess what happens... they get Cancer, blood sugar level problems, bone disfunction, digestive problems. This is because like us their bodies have been poisoned by the foods they are eating.

The medical profession constantly sweeps this fact under the carpet... yet I for one know that this is the most important area of health that doctors should be talking about and trying to make a difference to the food industry and the way in which people are poisining themselves with food.

Even if a medical practitioner has been practicing for a 1 years or 100 years - If he or she can not understand this blatent fact of human behaviour then they know nothing about medicine or health.

Maybe...and I say this with a big maybe.. like the food industry that is killing us the medical industry that is supposed to be healing us does not want to throw a spanner into the works and expose the real reason behind Illness. After all if we were all healthy which we would be if we ate properly, then there would be less need for doctors except for in accident cases.

You must know this and if you can't see it then how dare you call yourself a healer.

Love

Simon xx

In the west, we have the unfortunate widespread of the concept of division between body and mind. This leads many people into buying the "Doctor as a mechanic" point of view. But Dr. Louise Hay became famous by providing mantras to cure diseases. They work by changing the mental component so then the body adapts to the change in the mind and heals itself. It maybe a light in the end of the tunnel.

Rafael,

You see that is what can be called a side step to the actual reality of a situation...

You talk there about the division of body and mind and how the mind, spirit can heal the physical body. In my experience in this area sometimes it works the opposite way. The appreciation of the body in its physical domain can sharpen the instrument of being and in turn can bring the body mind and spirit into greater harmony. The body as a living entity is reinvented by an unseen, unfathomable intelligence, this great intelligence utilizes the physical to recreate us. This recreation is dependent on the right physical elements being present - otherwise the process of recreation will fail and the physical will be unsustainable. In the case of most people the body is being fed toxic foods with no living quality in them. The intelligence within then usues this fuel as it is the only fuel it has to work with and it recreates a toxic body laiden with disease and ailments...

No meditation, ritual, oil that you rub into your skin, holy person, doctor, philosophy, Mindbody expert or shamen will change that.

The body itself is a combination of uncalculable power. It is the body who is the great healer but in order to access this great power that the body has within its arsenal - you must first give the body the respect and correct food it needs to create this power. That fuel is living food, fresh fruit and less or no dead, processed poison that we are calling food.

There is no other.. there is no mind body technique you can use to overcome illness outside of the core fundamental process of giving the body what it needs to preserve itself as a living functioning entity.

When we talk about health, well being, being healthy.... That line of talk refers to life. It refers to being alive and being alive to a degree. If we talk about the soul or the spirit - That is combined with the physical in order to bring life into existence - But the spirit or the soul will be after the physical is no more. So spiritual practice on the one hand is unrelated to health. I know hundreds of people who are very healthy - they are bursting with life but they are very egotistical to a point and do not do any form of spiritual practice... on the other hand lets look at Nisargadatta Maharaj or the images of Buddah we see, Ghandi, Osho and so on... did these people all look extremely healthy to you? Yet these are extremely spiritual to the point of enlightenment.

As a physical entity the body has physical needs. These needs are your duty to see that they are met and that the body is nourished and cleansed to the best of ones ability. As a gift from the almighty you must look after it and respect it if you want the best from it. This is the key to all health and this will sharpen this instrument of being so that the spirit will not be silted with toxin and will be ever closer to the heart.

Love

Simon xx

I'm sorry Simon, I agree with you in many ways as a raw salad a day man, but suggesting Rafael is side-stepping only means to me that you are, too.
I think there are much deeper spiritual blindnesses, (psychological,for the scientist ;) and these reflect out into what we chose to diet on, and that's a simplification there being so many facets, anorexia, for an extreme.

Sure, I'm all for your educative approach from the outside in, but it was your intuitive spiritual nature that I believe opened your consciousness to the connection, as I see it. I'd prefer others arrived there on their own and by spiritual practice, and for that reason, I would fully support Rafael's other side of the validity, ie from the inside out.

Lol, I remember you are a crab, don't I ;)

My late mother beat cancer twice. She beat breast cancer, and about 20 years later she beat skin cancer, in both instances 100% eradication, no remissions.

Yes, she had surgery. And she became a vegetarian, ate well and exercised. She religiously completed all physical therapy regimens, and signed on for exercise and "swimercise" classes.

That is to say, she used an integrative approach (although she wouldn't have known what that means, she was from the generation way before "alternative", "integrative" or "wholistic" became buzzwords - she was just doing what made sense to her to work together with her doctors for her health).

And she had a determined attitude, high belief in her ability to heal, and a sense of humor.

I believe all those aspects played a role in her healing.

Now, the medical establishment may not care for anecdotal evidence like this. But she was my mother, and I saw what she went through.

No WSJ pundit can hold a candle to that. Sorry.

And as I have said before, the WSJ is now a Rupert Murdoch rag, and, as it's original owners feared (and thus resisted the buyout), the editorial content has been compromised politically in a manner similar to FOX News.

Hi Yogi-one

Thats a nice story about your mother; I am glad that she was able to extend her life as long as she needed. Peace be upon her.

I have seen myself this kind of thing happen in people. I once met a lady called Kim who had suffered extreme physical and mental abuse. When I first knew Kim she was about fourty years of age. She looked to be about late fifties to early sixties. She began to get involved in a meditation group that I used to visit and she managed to break free of her abuser and started to live a more spiritual lifestyle. She became Vegetarian - Cleansed her body with life giving foods and cleansed her mind with positive thoughts and emotions.After a year This woman was seriously unrecognisable from her former self. I am talking Grey hair regaining its color and not through dying it. Wrinkles vanishing, teeth glowing white, eyes sparkeling a complete metamorphic change occured.

I know that the body has the ability to perform miracles because I have seen it and I know it. I am it; as are you.

Ed,

Pain.. Thats what opened my consciousness to the connection, just like Yogi-one's mother it was the suffering of life that gave me a harsh lesson in my relationship toward my body. In my humble opinion I think that in order to obtain clear spiritual peace then the instrument of perception must not be in turmoil. By eating the wrong food or toxifying the bodymind instrument in any other way will throw this instrument into turmoil. A poisoned bodymind is hypocritical to the goals or searching for spiritual peace.

It is a bit like...

I loan you my car ok?... and pretty soon I will be buying a new car and you are a good friend of mine. You are hoping that when I buy my new car I might consider loaning you that one.... Yet each time I loan you my old car, you bring it back to me covered with dirt, uncleaned, unwashed and filth inside and out.

If you want to obtain higher spiritual awareness, it begins by taking care of your physical state of being first. You are in the physical state to learn this... thats what life is about. If there needs to be a point to life (Which there does not need to be) then the point of life is experiental progression through lifetimes or lifestages. Part of experiental progression is to appreciate everything in any form or in any none form. If one is blind to the fact that the human being in order to function with health and vitality must have the right fuel to sustain it - Then you are not looking after my car says he.

Love

Simon xx

#9 Perhaps you are missing my point, Simon. What makes us careless with our bodies in the first place?
The ability to interpret our cravings differently, ie really think for ourselves, settle for our own innate, unique, birthright creativity, that's what sets us free and floating.

Interesting for me how the 'two' approaches coalesce into a more indefinable dynamic Oneness. The 'pain' itself can be food for the soul, at least according to some. There seems a 'mean' in there somewhere and what we eat, merely flies off it after impinging on it, always in a Self-correcting way.....just like these words of ours!

Shake, brother :)

Well, I believe in holistic treatments since we are holistic beings.

The challenge that I have faced in going to holistic practitioners is that there are a lot of
incompetent ones and you end up getting frustrated after seeing little results and spending lot of money out of your pocket.

The problem is that you read about a modality from the true top expert from a book or article and then you end up going to the local guy practicing that.

Being a alternative modality practitioner is very tricky as it requires you to be holistic, aware of the body, mind and spirit, I mean, be truly aware and it is hard.

What you find typically are ones that have scratched the surface of spirituality and have some degree in alternative medicine which is ok but that leads to incomplete treatments.

It appears to me that the kind of certification that works for the main stream medicine will not work for this alternative/complementary medicine.

I feel something has to be done to ensure that only the truly holistic, those who actually "get it", practice it.

A very poor piece.  Ad hominems, appeals to authority, appeals to science was wrong before – and yet not one shred of evidence your alternative therapies work.

"The spectacular failures of "evidence based" medical theories include the millions spent on ineffective AIDS vaccines…"

Conveniently forgetting the actual treatments for AIDS that have prolonged lives and reduced HIV to largely a manageable disease.

"A new integrative medicine system would marry the superb options of high tech emergency care, its brilliant surgical achievements, the tried and least harmful pharmaceuticals, by empowering and educating its citizens to maintain wellness and prevent disease, through improved nutrition, exercise, stress-management, and a wide range of other proven integrative approaches. Sadly, mainstream medicine largely ignores these viable health approaches."

“New”?  Have you visited a doctor recently?   The last time I went I was asked:

- did I smoke?  (No – but if I had said yes she would surely have told me to stop)

- what did I eat – and advised me to reduce butter and cheese and meat intake

- how much did I exercise – and told me to exercise more

“Mainstream medicine largely ignores these viable health approaches”? – Bullshit.

Your silly piece has been taken apart today by Orac:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/01/the_woomeister_supreme_returns.php

What evidence do you want, beyond that of people dying each year of cancer after spending
lots of money in chemotherapy and other treatments that only make suffering longer and don´t
succeed in curing the causes ? How does that contrast to therapies such as that from Dr. Louise Hay, which teaches cancer patients to cure their emotional resentments which have caused the cancer in the first place, thereby having their physical bodies cured as a consequence ?

PS:

"Conveniently forgetting the actual treatments for AIDS that have prolonged lives and reduced HIV to largely a manageable disease."

Yes, *very* manageable. After all, a definite treatment, ie: -teaching people to love and approve themselves- would kill the demand for drugs, ending the party of an industry that needs diseased people in the some way a restaurant needs hungry costumers.

To obtain and preserve ones health requires a proactive sensible relationship to ones body... there is no "Hocus Pocus" that will make you healthy, you are what you eat.

[#15] Not even "eat healthy food" ?

skeptico writes, "“New”? Have you visited a doctor recently? The last time I went I was asked:

- did I smoke? (No – but if I had said yes she would surely have told me to stop)

- what did I eat – and advised me to reduce butter and cheese and meat intake

- how much did I exercise – and told me to exercise more

“Mainstream medicine largely ignores these viable health approaches”? – Bullshit.

Your silly piece has been taken apart today by Orac:"

Afaid you are dead wrong about this little ditty skeptico "“Mainstream medicine largely ignores these viable health approaches”? – Bullshit."

I was at a dinner with a number of folks who are all taking the "fave" drug for lowering cholesterol.......all, of course, have been told by their Doctors they need this "miracle" drug to lower their cholesterol but none of their Doctors had advised them before they prescribed the drug to try changing their "high cholesterol" diet, except one....who was advised to change their diet, and, low and behold, their cholesterol went down, considerably, to the point where they do not, now, need the drug.....so, out of, say, nine people, one, was advised by their Doctor to try to change their diet before prescribing the drug....also,

a number of folks I know who have had heart problems, were not even advised about diet change until a few years ago......it is only in the last maybe seven years that diet now plays an important part in the recovery process for heart patients.....

so skeptico.....I beg to differ with what you claim.....

Doctors in this Nation are more "drug pushers" than not....many, many, Americans are on more drugs than they really need.

I would say the American Doctor, today, in many instances, does more harm prescribing the "quick fix."

I know too many people who have to take the lead in asking their Doctors for the drug alternatives, such as, a change in diet, exercise, or life style and in many cases the Doctors seem to be inpatient with this kind of attitude.

ruth

I have seen a major offensive to maintain the status quo ignorance which is very profitable for a small percentage of the population and very detrimental to the rest.

There has been a recent small flurry of anti-vitamin and holistic system propaganda full of fictitious conclusions. I suspect that more than anything this born by the realization that the medical industrial complex could owe the people of the United States over a trillion dollars in tort damages and could face criminal racketeering charges not to mention contributory negligent homicide charges.

Status quo credentials don't mean much in reality although some have some merit they are not actually an indicator of qualification due to the result of corruption by industry and educational inefficiency. What matters is one’s direct expereince, intention and where you have placed your attention over the past few decades and most importantly where you have placed it in the last few years.

If a doctor was out playing golf and seeing patients and going to seminar vacations paid for by drug companies, I doubt they had the time to study the volume of research, new revelations and understanding that has become available. As a result of the bureaucratic, industry influenced monopoly maintaining nature of many medical schools with their compromising dependency on funding for research from profit making corporations, the curriculum could not keep up with it either.

The greater percentage of what doctors have been taught is erroneous science if it could even be called science. To be fair it also depends on the medical specialty, physical injury repair and critical system failure intervention stand apart from a drug dealing disease practice.

Medical opinions are opinions because the medical professional does not understand the detail workings and they are guessing.

Molecules and biological systems don't function on opinion or guessing and demonstrate advanced intelligence and communication. It’s not bio “opinion” or bio “irrational” it is bio “logical”. The complex system design is not one of accident or trial and error but one demonstrating at least an innate field level intelligence.

Rafiel,

Define what you consider healthy food..

As for Doctors being "Drug Pushers" I think much can be said about this.

First of all as you all must know, Drugs are never the cure for illness but simply an interfierence to the symptoms of illness and in most cases the side effects from drugs are equally as bad as the illness.

Illness is mainly caused by Food.

Even in very young humans... lets face it; a lot of babies in western society are not breast fed and have poisoned tins of processed junk shoveled down their poor innocent throats before they can even walk. Illness is being prevoked right from birth - it may even be prevoked prior to birth as the sperm and egg as the rest of the body of the parents are created from food... Toxic food in most cases and toxic reproductive juices.

It hardly bares thinking about it is so serious - yet most are blind to something so serious. Many people are up in arms about wars going on in the world, Drug abuse and crime yet the meat and dairy industries are murdering more people than any of these combined.

love

Simon xx

In the last few days there were the following articles emerging, mostly cut and paste repeater journalism with no application of investigative discerning mind journalism being very important since the originating source having the possibility of financially compromised intentions.

Just few days ago the propaganda was that

“Vitamin supplements fail to reduce cancer risk in women”

“Vitamins C, E, beta carotene fail to cut cancer risk among women”

“Antioxidants fail again in cancer prevention study”

In this Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston study Dr. JoAnn Manson, Jennifer Lin and colleagues tracked 7,627 women who were an average 60 years old at the start of the study, who took supplements for about 9-1/2 years. Some took 500 milligrams of vitamin C daily, 600 IU (international units) of vitamin E every other day or 50 milligrams of beta carotene every other day -- or various combinations of the three supplements. Others were given placebos.
Women who took the supplements had similar rates of cancer and cancer death compared to those who took a placebo, the researchers said. The study suggested that vitamin E supplements might reduce colon cancer risk and that beta carotene supplements might modestly raise lung cancer risk. The researchers, however, acknowledged that while the women took the supplements for almost a decade, the study "may still be of insufficient duration to assess effects on cancer incidence, given the long latency for cancer."

Let’s see where we start, these women were already 60 years old and already had substantial accumulated free radical damage (aging) which is what “anti-oxidants” could have helped prevent earlier in life. Furthermore we would have to inquire as to what type of vitamin E were they given some do not have the biological activity that others do. Was the vitamin C a tablet bound with fillers and binders traveling undigested through the intestinal tract? Did they take into account that if one were to utilize Vitamin C as a preventative one would want to have doses distributed throughout the day since it is used or eliminated from the body within about 5 hours reaching peak serum blood level in about 2.5 hours. Was the food consumed monitored as well as the toxins they were exposed to during the course of the study? What about the level of stress endured by each participant during the study? Stress produces cortisol shutting down the immune system. These factors also influence the statistics making any conclusions meaningless.
Those that did the study did not have the knowledgebase to qualify them to do such study, which was flawed from the start, the real culprit is the propaganda machine, the media that interpreted the study to produce broad fictional statements that would result in billions of dollars of future revenue if taken as truth by the people.
The media does have a financial incentive for biased reporting, because they get a cut of disease industry profits via advertising for drugs and might feel obligated to keep their clients happy by playing their chosen tune.
As I have written before having discerned from reading volumes of research and the scientific knowledge base and through system analysis and the application of biologic, life threatening cancer is the result of the failure of three different systems and could also be in certain instances a failed immune system response. There is not in general a single cause of life threatening cancer, what is life threatening in general is the treatments, very few people are actually killed by cancer cells for the vast majority mortality is the result of the treatments if not during the course of treatment later due to the resulting damage to the bodies systems.

Since there is no single cause, there is no single cure. The American Cancer Society along with most of the “cure finding organizations” are nothing more than bogus endeavors to have the general population fund research into drugs and treatments for symptoms and could never be a cure. These drugs will later be sold back for a profit to those donated and funded the research.

I suspect that flooding the body with carcinogenic chemicals to kill cancer will some day be understood to be the height of medical ignorance right along with draining the blood from the body and stimulating orgasms in women to treat them for hysteria. Along with this will be the taking of aspirin for fever which thwarts the body’s attempt to raise it’s temperature to stop viral replication, meaning the taking of aspirin actually prolongs infection. Also included would be the taking of anti-histamines and decongestants which thwart the bodies attempt to block the entry and spread of pathogens with anti-body containing mucous. Note that it wasn’t some medical school graduate or funded researcher that that came up with these last two revelations, it was me.

This below was a small bit written by Rob Watson someone who has their intentions in the right place and is in alignment with the new consciousness health industry not the old consciousness disease industry.

Although we’ve embarked upon a new year, one thing remains the same—the media’s inaccurate attack on vitamins. The latest assault was from The New York Times, in an article titled, “News Keeps Getting Worse for Vitamins.” Columnist Tara Parker-Pope writes, “The best efforts of the scientific community to prove the health benefits of vitamins keep falling short.” She then highlights a handful of negative studies about various vitamins.
One of those studies mentioned in the column was a recently published report that concluded neither vitamin E nor C could reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events in male physicians. In addition, subjects who took vitamin E experienced a 74 percent increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke. (JAMA. 2008 Nov 12;300(18):2123-33.)
Pope, however, neglected to quote anyone who could point out flaws in this or any study mentioned in her article. The above study was impressively large and was an eight-year follow up of a ten-year study, but it was riddled with holes. First, in the placebo group, 23 subjects suffered hemorrhagic stroke and in the vitamin E group 39 suffered strokes. That is a 74 percent increased risk, but it’s statistically insignificant in a study of only 14,641 subjects. Second, the study used alpha-tocopherol, a synthetic form of vitamin E considerably less effective than mixed tocopherols. Furthermore, the subjects were instructed to consume a 400 IU vitamin E supplement only every other day!
The fault, of course, isn’t entirely the media’s. Scientists need to pay attention to the trial’s structure. In a recent study, ginkgo biloba extract was not effective in preventing dementia in older adults. However, the study included subjects in their late seventies who are at greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s and who may already be experiencing disease progression. It did not investigate middle-aged subjects where prevention could best be analyzed.
Thousands of studies have reported upon the beneficial effects of various vitamins, minerals, and botanicals. Funny, though, how negative, flawed studies capture the most attention while the positive ones get shoved into the background.
-end

“The spectacular failures of ‘evidence based’ medical theories include the millions spent on ineffective AIDS vaccines, the collapse of interferon as the wonder drug for cancer, and the marginal decrease in cancer deaths despite billions wasted during decades of fruitless research”.

The above may be true but please let’s not forget this:

PEPFAR was the result of President Bush's groundbreaking 2003 State of the Union pledge to bring two million HIV positive Africans and others into treatment and prevent seven million new HIV infections via a five-year, $15 billion US-funded program. It currently operates in 15 focus countries and claims to support antiretroviral treatment for 1.4 million people worldwide. PEPFAR has been one of the most successful global humanitarian programs in recent memory, providing medical care to millions of people with HIV/AIDS, it has given hope to the 33 million people with HIV/AIDS in the world.

http://www.abilitymagazine.com/news_PEPFAR

In every country that uses ARVs (Anti-retroviral drugs), there has been a dramatic drop in AIDS-related deaths and illnesses.

Treatment works for women, men and children. It works no matter how you were infected with HIV. Whether this was sexually, through IV drug use, or by blood or blood products.

Taking HIV drugs, exactly as prescribed, will reduce the virus in your body to tiny amounts – but it does not get rid of the virus.

This then lets your immune system recover and get stronger by itself.

Re. 21

Steve Salerno, who's article "The Touch that Doesn't Heal" seems to have upset Deepak Chopra, posts a comment on Orac's blog:

"I'm the guy who wrote the Journal piece. Just thought I'd mention that the feedback so far has been (a) overwhelming, which is not unexpected--WSJ pieces always draw a lot of feedback, and (b) roughly two-to-one against me, which is also unsurprising, because the people motivated to write are usually those who hate you and what you said. The latter category of feedback is itself divided into two camps. Half of my critics are temperate and thoughtful, reminding me that "conventional medicine does not have all the answers"--which I, of course, agree with. And half of my critics express the hope that I will contract some exotic new rainforest microbe and die a horrible death, my last agonal plea being, "Save me, Deepak! Save me....!"

"Look, all I'm saying is that the scientific method puts the burden of proof on the person making the claim. If they're so convinced that this stuff works, SHOW US. And please don't tell us that your vaunted methodology exists apart from the normal rules of science and logic. Because then--as I noted in the piece itself--you're in the same category as the ballplayer who superstitiously refuses to shave before a game. (Incidentally, in my manuscript the analogy was "refuses to change his underwear." I guess decorum won out over comedy.)

"Oh, and finally, apropos of credentials, I should mention that I do a passable job as an armchair cardiologist, thanks to my personal investigation of the recurring bouts of A-fib that began about 25 years ago. Come to think of it, that's also when I started writing. Hmmm...."

Speaking of Deepak Chopra's statement on Thalidomide...

JustaTech writes "Where do these people get off the reality train? Now, I understand that the use of Thalidomide as a morning-sickness suppressant has been thoroughly disproved, but hasn't it recently been found to have use in cancer treatments? I mean, really, if you're going to bash a drug, please chose one that really is out of use."

***

Dangerous Bacon:

regarding that bit from Deepak et al: "Many once-standard treatments devised via this theoretical model now stand discredited, like the use of Thalidomide and Thorazine."

When was thalidomide a "standard" treatment for anything and then discredited? I know the alties love to cite its use as a sedative as an example of the failings of the U.S. medical system - but the reality is that the drug was __never__ approved for use in the U.S., thanks to the F.D.A. that alties are always bashing (an alert staffer at the agency, Frances Kelsey, is credited with holding up the drug's application until its dangers came to light in Europe).

http://www.fda.gov/FDAC/features/2001/201_kelsey.html

Give Chopra and friends some more negative points for mistakenly glomming onto another staple of woo-fantasy. Since they're already citing Gary Null, I expect that before long they'll be praising Mike Adams' "Natural News" and hosting their own forums on CureZone. :)

PalMD of the Denialism blog at Science blogs weighs in:

The war has begun...

...and I'm just itchin' for a fight. The medical "De-lightenment", that movement to marginalize the role of science in medicine, has just made a strategic error. Like other weak movements, they've formed unwise alliances. Orac reports that so-called mainstream altmed folks like Andrew Weil and Deepak Chopra have now made friends with the more obviously wacko altmed gurus, such as Gary Null.

Perhaps "friends" is pushing it, but these supposedly educated physicians are actually citing HIV-denialist Null as a reliable source for health information. I'm tempted to coin a new internet Law here, perhaps The Chopra Blunder:

"In an argument regarding medical science, when a person cites Gary Null as a source, the argument is over, they have lost, and anything they say in the future may be safely ignored. And they may be laughed out of the room without guilt."

As an educated physician, I have the ability to comb the medical literature with tools such as Ovid or PubMed. Hell, even Google Scholar isn't half bad. If I have to resort to quoting a charismatic TV health guru with a fake PhD who thinks that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, perhaps my argument wasn't that great to start with.

This is really, really good news for those of us advocating science-based medicine. It means our foes are weak, and they know it. Their status is lessened by alliances with obvious cranks. While some of us have chosen to work with the likes of Steven Novella and Wally Sampson, the Chopras and Weils have reached down into the sewer of pseudoscience just to find a shred of support for their absurd ideas.

I'm kvelling.

Of course, it's not as if real medicine is on the ropes. Any one of these idiots would call 911 if they had chest pain, and submit to a cardiac cath to save their lives. They'd probably do it for their patients, too, but the kind of people they are starting to hang with might not be as careful. Once you open the door to non-science-based medical practices, anyone can walk right in.

The New Year promises to be a good one in the fight against fake medicine. You'll be hearing a lot more about it, both in this space and on the podcast. As the cult medicine folks become more desperate, I think we will see more of the Chopra Blunder.

Vive la guerre!

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism

***

PalMD is a practicing internist in the Midwestern United States. Aside from the great joy he finds in his family and his work, he likes communicating some of that joy to others. He has a special interest in the ways patients---and we are all patients at one time or another---are deceived by charlatans. He aims to change the world, one reader at a time.

when it comes to health
and longevity ...
What are the key ingredients?
Here is one life that has passed through this journey ...

"Maria de Jesus was nine days old when New Zealand became the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote. The year was 1893, during which Mahatma Gandhi committed his first act of civil disobedience and a crash on the New York Stock Exchange sparked a grave depression.

Yesterday, at the age of 115 years and 114 days, Mrs de Jesus, the oldest person in the world, died.

Widowed in 1951, she had outlived two of her five children but was survived by 11 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren and six great-great-grandchildren.

She had only been to hospital once in her life.

In her homeland of Portugal, she had lived through the 1910 revolution that deposed the monarchy, the 1926 military coup that installed the Salazar dictatorship and the 1974 "Carnation" coup that heralded democratic reform.

Born on 10 September 1893, Mrs. de Jesus married Jose dos Santos when she was 26 and worked all her life on the land in Ourem, a town near the pilgrim centre of Fatima in central Portugal.

While she never smoked, drank alcohol or ate meat, she had a weakness for rice pudding and ice cream all her life.

Her later years were marred by problems with her hearing and sight but she remained alert and said a few years ago she still enjoyed sunbathing on her porch and looking through family albums.

Her daughter Madalena, 84 on Christmas Day, continued to look after her at home. Her family said she had become ill there yesterday and died in an ambulance on the way to hospital."

What about another perspective:

The future of health:

Sensors, attached to ones computer that can smell, taste, hear, etc.

So if you forgot to shower this morning, your computer will tell you that you smell and directs you back to the bathroom.

Guess same advice will be given on what you should eat.

And what would be the healthiest music for you to listen to.

Etcetera, etcetera

Welcome to another alternative health reform of the future!

What about another perspective:

The future of health:

Sensors, attached to ones computer that can smell, taste, hear, etc.

So if you forgot to shower this morning, your computer will tell you that you smell and directs you back to the bathroom.

Guess same advice will be given on what you should eat.

And what would be the healthiest music for you to listen to.

Etcetera, etcetera

Welcome to another alternative health reform of the future!

The more I read anti-chopras, the more I see people afraid to loosing their jobs(either as doctors or drug instutry members) to treatments that really works. Face it folks, your days are over. As Chopra said "Leave the titanic before it sinks"!

The more I read anti-chopras, the more I see people afraid to loosing their jobs(either as doctors or drug instutry members) to treatments that really works. Face it folks, your days are over. As Chopra said "Leave the titanic before it sinks"!

Digestible bark
Eat a piece of me. Be fine!
Chew the stupid fat

Vitamins at risk
Chances are--I'll hedge my bet
One dose at a time

Self-induced with guts
Help yourself, you fruits and nuts
Vacate premises

Resistance is found
Slow exposure deemed a need
Vaccinations truth

Little bit tainted
Recognition by the host
Mulling 'round for health

Learn to distinguish
Sympathetic systems know
Unawares they work

We, with inborn smarts
Our God installs what will be
Impermanent facts

You won. Now I will quit giving cancer patients the incentive to treat their ressentments, and
will start to push them into chemeotherapy to fill doctors and drug industry member´s pockets.
They are still trying! What a madness!

For those who are still skeptical, and need more evidence, I suggest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoneuroimmunology

There comes a point where explaining a thing to a particular mind set becomes pointless. Here: like so many fractions of society it is at that stage. Like trying to educate a heroin addict that what they are doing is terribly destructive. equal to that scenario is trying to convince most of human society that the food they buy and eat is equaly as destructive as being a drug user.

What ever illness, or abnormality your mother, son, Father, Daughter, Aunty, next door neighbor or cat has right now is caused by a singular major contributer... FOOD.

forget about drugs that are prescribed. The doctors who prescribe them are lost. The body is the answer. The body is the one thing that can overcome even incurable illness. These incurable diseases are just side stepped by a drug that masks the symptoms.

For Fucks sake man!

You are eating yourself ill,

The body needs foods that are alive and fresh from the earth, it is this food that has sustained the human being for hundreds of thousands of years.

Foods that are packaged, processed, Pasteurised, preserved, E120ed, vacum packed, boiled beyond recognition and put on a supermarket shelf are killing you. You and your family have been eating this shit for decades and look what it has done to you and yours... are you fucking blind?

The doctor is giving you pills because of what you have purposely done to yourself.

The recourse is not to swallow more pills but is to give the body the breathing space it needs from this poison in order to use the inbuilt power it has to cleanse and regain its health - that it constantly strives for.

Anything you put to me that is an Illness, has been caused by food I can garuntee it. You have been fed it since you were born and you are it to the point that you are fucked big time.

The worst part about this is that whole economies are feeding off of this. Off of you and your families toxisity. The highest tax is piled up on everything people get addicted to, such as burgers, Pizza, Dairy products, tinned crap and so on.

The war on Iraq! pretty terrible lots of people got killed right.....

How many people died last year from heart disease, Brain disorders, Cancer and bone disease?

Millions! all caused by the food industries, and I am not just talking about old people I include children.

You come to me now with an Illness that you have and I will either cure you or I will stop 90% of your symptoms without a single drug. I will do this by teaching you to put tonic into your body from the earth, that body can use to keep itself healthy as it always did.

I am sorry for swearing... but maybe people need a shock to understand how serious this situation is... you can forget everything else... this situation is more serious than any other crisis anywhere. If you can tackle this... you can heal the world of so much else. after all: toxic food creates a toxic being with a toxic world....

Think about that.

Love

Simon xx

What some seem to forget is that the body naturally produces interferon and stem cells; it already has advanced nanotechnology based machinery to locate and destroy invaders and pathogens. A vibrant immune system can normally quickly overcome bacteria and viruses, no need for vaccines; these are only needed if one has an impaired immune system with a seriously slow response time.

Due to a lack of understanding and a faulty premise that the human body was designed by accident and or trial and error, when the body generates fever to stop viral replication people take a chemical to stop it's natural process prolonging and promoting the infection. Does it make sense that the body produces antibody laden mucous to fill passageways and protect against invasion and stop the spread of pathogens and we take a chemical to stop it from doing this? Why is it that I one who is not a medical professional had to point this out? Just like when I pointed out to the doctors promoting the idea of reducing cholesterol intake that if none is in the diet the body will produce 100% and normally does produce about 70%? Where exactly did these people get their education and why is mine so much better?

In other words if the body is kept at optimum operating condition all these crutches and artificial fixes are not needed as well as the cost burdens associated with them. We have everything backwards; if we simply invested to insure consumption of undefiled to spec raw materials grown in healthy soil, in proper proportion and reduced the toxin load we would not need all the after the fact ineffective piecemeal costly remediation. This means factory farming which produces an omega 3 and 6 ratio imbalance in the livestock which is transfered to those consuming it needs to stop or taken into account and balanced through supplementation, or better yet you could just eat fish, nuts, fruits, vegetables and Amaranth.

Sure in critical situations a drug can save the day but if we are going to repair, balance and enhance then we need to use molecules that are native to the system which has proper feedback mechanisms and processes to regulate them and maintain a balance. Even then the complex systems need to be understood because there are multiple compounds required for each system and chemical reaction amounts all depending on the organism’s environment. Unnatural molecules foreign to the body and it’s systems throw the systems out of balance increasing and creating more disease.

Some industries out there better embrace the truth before it is embraced for you in a court of law with a trillion dollar class action law suit response to your ignorance causing decades of damage to society.

#26 Hey Kate, you step gracefully, you walk on water ;)
It is the unwritten in your post that eases my swearing!

Dear Pete #45,

Was taking up all that space intentional? If so, you must be starved for attention. Some people seek attention through negativity while others use more positive channels. Is it a pattern we learn in childhood and adolescence as a way to cope in this world?

You speak for yourself only. You don't speak for me and many others who know the synergetic power of joining forces with others of like mind and hearts.

I have my own point to make: This is only the beginnning of points of light representing a collective body.

I send my own image your way...two fingers representing "peace"...something strong in its positive, healing Nature.

Perhaps you will consider changing your position in attitude and what you communicate with your hands/fingers. And if not...that's your choice...or perhaps, old habit.

Trish~~

Ok, now let the rest of the special children use the computer. The institution
only has a limited amount of machines and all patients must be able to use it.

Trish: Please excuse him. He´s excited about having his turn in the machine in the institution where he lives.