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January 6, 2003
SECOND OPINION
THE HEALTH BATTLES AHEAD
By Nicholas Regush
We are badly underestimating the entrenchment of greed, corruption and interlocking influences that are obstacles to well-being and change. Frankly, I’m tired - and bored - of hearing about how a new and much wiser form of medicine is transforming the health field. I wish that those who keep muttering this mantra would get their heads out of the sand and face up to the powerful influences that shape our daily health - everything from the powerful environmental toxicities that are unleashed to the exploitive strategies of Big Pharma (the drug industry) and Little Pharma (the "holistic health" industry).
Medicine is not getting any better at attending to the complex needs of patients, and, before long, it may well have an appendage known as "complementary medicine." Do you really think for a moment that mainstream medicine will not absorb what we consider today to be an alternative form of health professionalism?
I’m not speaking here about individuals; there are certainly many kind, devoted and innovative health professionals that practice either conventional or alternative medicine or a mix of both. I’m referring to an evolving infrastructure that absorbs everything in its path; an infrastructure driven by hard cash, status, privilege, corporate influence, politics, disregard for debate and the exchange of ideas, and the know-it-all attitude of far too many health professionals (both conventional and alternative), who, for the most part, forget that their craft is, at best, crude, and who are badly in need of a wake-up dose of humility.
In 2002, we often had a glimpse of how corruption has spread throughout medicine. Even the medical journals have focused attention on the corporate contamination of the doctor-patient relationship. On the alternative side, now it seems that every Dr. Tom, Dick and Betty has the "best nutrition or dietary advice" or "magic cure" to offer a growing number of disenchanted people who have veered away from the mainstream. Just because the mainstream system is rotting to hell, this doesn’t mean that the alternative side has all the answers. What we may eventually end up with is the worst of both systems.
Add to this unsavoury scenario all the politicians and journalists that have become toadies to powerful corporate reality-construction and you might get a better whiff of why I feel the health battle is only beginning.
Don’t let your guard down. Be vigilant. Beware of medical gurus. Make it personal.
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MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION
PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS
OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR
LEGAL ADVICE. THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND
COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH
YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.