Section I
The Suppression of Alternative
Medical Therapies
Ralph Moss is, perhaps, the best medical journalist in the
United States today. His book The Cancer Industry uncovered the
corruption of the second most profitable business in the twentieth
century—cancer. His latest book, Questioning Chemotherapy, is also a
gem. Moss is very persuasive, although it may not take a genius to
realize that if powerful drug magnates are sitting on the board of
directors of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York
City, and other major cancer hospitals and research centers, it will
be difficult, if not impossible, to get any favorable results for
non-pharmaceutical therapies.
In an interview with Gary Null (WBAI radio in New York City),
Moss elaborated on this idea:
What my research has shown is that
many of the top directors (what they call "overseers") at
Memorial Sloan-Kettering are also top directors at drug
companies. For instance, Richard Furlow, who is the President of
Bristol-Myers Squibb and Director of the Pharmaceutical
Manufacturers' Association, is a top official of Memorial
Sloan-Kettering. Richard Gelb, who is the Chairman of the Board
of Bristol-Myers Squibb, is a Vice Chairman of Memorial
Sloan-Kettering.
James D. Robinson, a Director of
Bristol-Myers Squibb, is another Vice President of Memorial
Sloan-Kettering. The President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center, Paul Marx, is a Director of Pfizer
[pharmaceuticals]. And others [officials of Memorial
Sloan-Kettering] are Directors of Bio-Technology General, Life
Technologies, Merck, and so forth.
And so what happens, in effect, is that you have a... closed
circle of people who are, on the one hand, directors of the
world's largest cancer center; on the other hand, they are
either officers or directors of the very companies that are
producing the drugs which are used and advocated by these
centers... There are many, many ways that the drug industry
influences the direction of cancer research, and of AIDS
research. You have to look at it from an economic point of view
. . .
Moss points out that nutritional
therapies—impossible to patent—and therapies like ozone and vitamin
C and many others, have been either suppressed or ignored by the
cancer establishment, by people looking at the issue, as he says,
"from an economic point of view." The only treatments chosen are the
ones that, strangely enough, turn out to be toxic—because these are
the only ones that can be patented.
And patenting new drugs is extremely expensive. So if you were the
head of a pharmaceutical company spending millions of dollars on a
new drug that could earn hundreds of millions of dollars in profits,
would you want people relying on herbs and vitamins to treat their
illnesses? Would you want a regulatory agency like the FDA to be an
advocate for safe, nontoxic treatments, rather than chemical
therapies?
Interesting alternatives like
Hoxsey's herbal treatments, and
Royal
Raymond Rife's frequency machine, that reputedly scored a
100-percent cure rate on terminal cancer patients, are not available
options for patients searching for cures less harmful than the
disease itself. And you might be surprised to learn that people
living with HIV may not have to inundate their systems with drug
cocktails, but could instead benefit from the restorative powers of
oxygen in its purest form.
Yet because giant, far-reaching drug
companies stand to lose so much, most patients are not made aware of
the many alternative treatments that have been developed. To this
day workable, testable alternatives to corporate medicine are not
recognized by a system that is geared to maximize the profits of a
pharmaceutical/medical establishment.
Censorship extends to information regarding the very nature of
deadly viruses and crippling degenerative diseases. Mercury from
dental fillings, for example, is actually toxic, and is thought to
be the cause of some neurological disorders. And although we are
confronted daily by the media with news about HIV, or even if we
know someone who is living with AIDS, we probably don't know as much
as we think about its origin. It's clear that what we don't know can
hurt us. This is what happens when profits are prioritized over our
health and our very lives.
This section contains descriptions of several revolutionary
therapies for diseases that were formerly accepted as "untreatable"
or "fatal." While the treatments described in this book have been
shown to be effective for many people, they may not represent the
best treatment for all cancers, immunodeficiency diseases, or other
degenerative illnesses. Choosing a therapy for any life-threatening
disease is a serious matter.
You should read widely and discuss your
options with a health professional in order to make an informed
decision about which therapy or therapies you will use.
Does Medicine
Have a Bad Attitude?
by James P. Carter
"... And besides, looking
through those spectacles gives me a headache."
Professor Cesare
Cremonini
in 1610, explaining why he
would not look through Galileo's telescope at the moons of
Jupiter.
ARROGANT IGNORANCE
The sort of excuse above has delayed medical discoveries for
decades, even half-centuries. Canadian nutritionist Dr. David
Rowland describes this repression of medical innovation as a bad
attitude which he termed "arrogant ignorance." This negative
attitude toward many great discoveries represents a tremendous ego
threat. Today such negativity is com-pounded with the
industrialization of medicine, which has brought on that "greed is
good (for me)" philosophy expressed in the recent movie Wall Street.
Segments of the medical profession take what they want when they can
get it.
Arrogant ignorance has followed science and medicine throughout
history.
Beginning with the learned colleagues of Galileo who
refused to even look through the glass of his new invention, the
telescope, because they believed they already knew all about the
laws of physics, that not-invented-here attitude is alive and well
at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Is it only a coincidence
that "not invented here" shares initials with our government's
National Institutes of Health?
Past suppressions—at least those safely back in past centuries—are
readily admitted by contemporary medicine. French explorer Jacques
Cartier, for example, in 1535 learned from the American Indians that
pine-needle tea prevented and cured scurvy, a vitamin C deficiency
disease. Upon his return to France, Cartier excitedly shared his
discovery with French doctors, who turned a cold shoulder—such a
primitive therapy was witch-craft. If we pass this off as
Eurocentrism, we miss the similarities to pre-sent-day
rejections of alternative healing methods that are getting the cold
shoulder.
The case of Dr. Charles Peres, M.D., of Ft. Meyers,
Florida, pro-vides an excellent example.
Dr. Peres was diagnosed with a stage D2 prostate cancer spread
throughout his body. In lay terms, you can't have a gloomier
prognosis. After he adopted a natural regimen based on a low-fat
vegetarian macro-biotic diet, his cancer went into complete
remission. Naturally overjoyed, upon his return to functional living
he noticed that many of his medical colleagues actually appeared
angry that he had survived.
Would they rather he die than heal
himself with this unorthodox treatment?
This very same disdain has been noted by
cancer patients who have sought out alter-native cancer doctors and
have gone into permanent remission, only to be told by their first
doctor that they never had cancer to begin with (despite the
complete diagnostic work-up that he had witnessed). Negative
reactions range from obvious anger to feigned indifference. It must
also be told that there are doctors who secretly recommend
alternative treatments but warn their patients to never tell the
wrong party lest the doctor get in trouble.
In 1747, James Lind, a surgeon's mate in the British Navy, conducted
dietary experiments on board ship. He concluded that citrus fruits
pre-vented and cured the killer disease scurvy which ravaged
sailors. Captain Cook was one of the first ship commanders to
supplement his sailors with rations of lime. The captain sailed
throughout the world for over three years without a single death
from scurvy—unprecedented for that time.
But it took forty-eight years before the British Admiralty made it
official policy to distribute one ounce of lime juice daily for each
sailor. This simple nutritional supplement of vitamin C was a factor
in Britain's ascent to being the world's greatest sea power. It was
as though they doubled their forces. Britain sailed farther than any
other navy into uncharted territory, easily defeating weakened
enemies who had lost many sailors to scurvy.
Now, neither the British nor the American Indian performed any
double-blind, cross-over studies to arrive at their discovery. In
their respective ways, they learned that it worked very well for
their needs. James Lind had conducted empirical studies (based on
observation) to determine that a citrus fruit could save naval
forces from certain death. Ridiculed by their rivals for this use of
lime juice, the British were derisively referred to as "limeys." Had
they never conducted their simple experiment, or had another sea
power done so, world history could have been altered.
Dr. Jenner, a British doctor, discovered in the early 1800s that
milkmaids who had previously contracted cowpox were protected
against smallpox. Jenner scientifically developed a vaccine from the
crusty lesions of small-pox patients to inoculate others against
smallpox. It took more than fifty years for the medical power
structure to endorse his simple remedy for a killer disease.
In 1848, Dr. Semmelweis, a graduate of the prestigious University of
Vienna Medical School, introduced a revolutionary idea while
assisting in the Vienna Obstetrical Clinic: he required medical
students to wash their hands in chlorine water before entering the
clinic. There was an immediate and dramatic decrease in the high
death rate from puerperal (child-birth) fever. The good doctor
became an outspoken advocate, pleading with obstetricians to tend
maternity patients only after proper hand washing. After a vicious
attack on his personal and professional integrity, he was fired from
the hospital where he had just eradicated a cause of death.
This courageous, principled doctor then spent ten years gathering
evidence to prove that hand washing would prevent terrible misery
and death from childbirth fever. He published his research in 1861
and distributed the medical text to the major medical societies
throughout Europe. It was completely ignored. In one of those years,
40 percent of the maternity patients in Stockholm, Sweden,
contracted the fever; 16 percent of those new mothers died.
The deadly fever continued to ravage women while the hand washing
prevention/cure was "put on hold" by Organized Medicine. The poor
doctor could no longer cope with the preventable death and misery
of so many women. In 1865 he died after a mental breakdown; such
tragedies still occur among gifted researchers whose great
discoveries are ignored. So, from the safety of the next century,
Dr. Semmelweis can be credited by the medical profession with his
lifesaving discovery—hand washing.
In 1867, Dr. Joseph Lister introduced sanitation in surgery, but not
without a big fight with the leading surgeons of nineteenth-century
England.
His paper, "On the Antiseptic Principle
in the Practice of Surgery," was read before the British Medical
Association in Dublin, Ireland. His noteworthy summary concluded:
Since the antiseptic treatment has
been brought into full operation, my wards though in other
respects under precisely the same circumstance as before, have
completely changed their character, so that during the last 9
months not a single instance of pyemia,*
hospital gangrene or erysipelas**
has occurred in them.
*
Blood poisoning caused by pyogenic microorganisms (pus).
** A
disease of the skin and underlying tissue caused by hemolytic
streptococcus, a bacteria that destroys red blood cells.
Dr. Lister's contribution outraged the
leading surgeons of the day. An 1869 conference of the BMA devoted
the surgery address to a scathing attack on the antiseptic theory.
What presumptuous London surgeon would believe a lowly provincial
from Scotland who was telling them how to improve surgical protocol?
As evidence of similar incredible intolerance in the United States,
U.S. Senator Paul Douglas related the following story, which was
recorded in the Congressional Record in 1963:
I spent a part of 1923 with Dr. W. W. Keen. In the Civil War he was
a surgeon and had seen many men die from the suppuration of wounds
after he had operated.
He went to Scotland and studied under Lister. Dr. Keen came back
from Scotland. He was referred to as a crazy Listerite. He was
denied an opportunity to practice in every hospital in Philadelphia.
Finally there was one open-minded surgeon in the great Pennsylvania
General Hospital. He said, "Let us give this young fellow a chance!"
So they let him operate.
No one died from infection under Keen. Keen began to chronicle the
results in statistical articles. He was threatened with expulsion
from the Pennsylvania Medical Society.
This was in the 1890s. Finally he was accepted as the greatest
surgeon in the United States.
Next came Dr. Louis Pasteur, a chemist. His germ theory for
infectious diseases provoked violent opposition from the medical
community of the late 1800s. How could a mere chemist poach upon
their scientific turf?
Dr. Harvey's monumental work on the theory of blood circulation was
forbidden to be taught at the University of Paris Medical School
twenty-one years after Harvey published his findings. And it doesn't
end there.
Austrian botanist Gregory Mendel's theory of genetic composition was
generally ignored for thirty-five years. His pioneering work was
dismissed as that of an idle, rich dilettante by the leading
scientists of his day.
Dr. Fleming's mid-twentieth-century discovery of the antibiotic
penicillin was ridiculed and ignored for twelve years before this
life-saver was admitted into the medical circle. Once scorned, Dr.
Fleming was eventually knighted and received the Nobel Prize in
Medicine for what had once been denounced.
As a final example, Dr. Joseph Goldberger unraveled the mystery of
pellagra, a disease which ravaged especially the poor in the
American South. Pellagra was at first thought to be an infectious
disease causing the three Ds of dermatitis, diarrhea and dementia.
Goldberger discovered that, like scurvy, pellagra was a
vitamin-deficiency disease. The milling or refining process of corn
removed important vitamins and minerals from the husk. Those people
dependent on corn-based foods such as grits, corn bread, etc.,
became deficient in vitamins and minerals. Goldberger's
recommendation—to re-fortify corn flour—is now a routine practice in
refining most flours. But the foot-dragging over this minor business
expense by the greedy flour barons of the time dragged on for fifty
years.
These examples are just a handful of so very many courageous doctors
and scientists who braved a battle with Organized Medicine on behalf
of what could help patients. They have the honor and distinction of
representing "The Enemy of the People" that was portrayed in Ibsen's
drama of that name.
The role of deficiency in causing disease is carried a step further
by Dr. Max Gerson in his text for doctors, A Cancer
Therapy—The Results of Fifty Cases. He exposes the depletion of farm
soil from chemical fertilization as early as the 1930s and concludes
that the depletion subsequently affects nutritional levels in the
plants growing in depleted soil.
IT'S THE SAME IN SCIENCE
Throughout the course of Western Civilization, there has been a
strong resistance to new information in the other scientific fields.
There is so much evidence of this bigotry that only a few brief
examples are offered here.
Thomas Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolution (2nd
Edition, University of Chicago Press, 1970) relates the typically
bitter conflict between an independent science researcher who
discovers something important and the current power structure which
fights to maintain the status quo.
German biologist Hans Zimmer wrote,
"Academies and learned societies
are slow to react to new ideas, this is in the nature of things . .
. The dignitaries who hold high honors for past accomplishments do
not like to see the current of progress rush too rapidly out of
their reach!"
In his 1966 book, DeGrazia recounted the mistreatment of scientist
Immanuel Velikovsky for his theories in astronomy. Velikovsky had
pro-posed that the catastrophic events recorded in the Old Testament
and in Hindu Vedas and Roman and Greek mythology were due to the
earth repeatedly passing through the tail of a comet during the
fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, B.C.
DeGrazia wrote,
What must be called the scientific
establishment rose in arms, not only against the new Velikovsky
theories but against the man himself. Efforts were made to block
dissemination of Dr. Velikovsky's ideas, and even to punish
supporters of his investigations. Universities, scientific
societies, publishing houses, and the popular press were
approached and threatened; social pressures and professional
sanctions were invoked to control public opinion.
The issues are clear:
-
Who determines scientific truth?
-
Who are its high priests, and what
is their warrant?
-
How do they establish their canons?
-
What effect do they have on the
freedom of inquiry and on public interest?
In the end, some judgment must be passed
upon the behavior of the scientific world, and if adverse, some
remedies must be proposed.
Philosopher and professor of physical chemistry Michael Polanyi
commented in 1969, referring to the persecution of Velikovsky, that
new ideas in science are not accepted in a rational manner, based on
factual evidence, but instead are determined by random chance, the
ruling economic/political powers, or the ruling ideology.
A recent paper by sociologist Marcell Truzzi, "On the
Reception of Unscientific Claims," delivered at the annual American
Academy for the Advancement of Science, proposed that it is even
harder today for new discoveries and ideas to break through, due to
the escalating economics of research.
Truzzi wrote,
"Unconventional ideas in science are
seldom positively greeted by those benefiting from conformity."
Truzzi predicted that new forms of
vested interest will emerge from today's programs that must compete
for massive funding. He warned,
"This has become a growing and
recognized problem in some areas of modern science."
There is another reason for resistance
to scientific discoveries. Many of the major advances have come
either from a scientist in another scientific discipline or from
researchers who just don't qualify for membership in the scientific
elite (as in high school "in crowds").
No wonder advances so often come not
from the "in crowd" who are blinded or corrupted by prevailing
dogma.
ORGANIZED MED IGNORES SUCCESS
Currently there exists impressive statistical and clinical (case
study) data on alternative approaches to reversing or controlling
some cancers with-out the use of chemotherapy, radiation and
surgery. But covert politicking and overly rigid systems of testing
and approval suppress these biological approaches that Americans are
increasingly accessing.
Desperate cancer patients rarely learn
about all their medical options; in fact, a full 80 per-cent of
those who travel outside the U.S. for alternative cancer therapies
are so terribly advanced in their diseases that it is too late, even
for alternative approaches. This fact alone obscures the value of
these therapies when they are promptly applied under competent
medical supervision and not tried as a last resort, following, for
example, chemotherapy. Chemotherapy alone can
destroy a patient's immune system, and biological methods
usually require a functioning immune system.
Sadly, in this supposed age of enlightenment, the ridicule of the
medical orthodoxy and a rigid system of testing and approval
(calcified by the same suspicions of alternative therapies that
plagued discoveries for centuries) keeps these treatments from ill
patients who might benefit from them, as De Felice, Director of the
Foundation for Innovation in Medicine, in 1987, lamented:
One of the tragedies of our times is that over the past 20 years, a
pervasive and aggressive regulating system has evolved that has
effectively blocked the caring clinical innovator at nearly every
step. Let there be no doubt that we have quietly, but effectively,
eliminated the Louis Pasteurs of our great country.
DR. HORROBIN'S CALL FOR AN END TO THE
SUPPRESSION OF INNOVATION
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
in March, 1990, published selections from the first International
Congress on Peer Review in Biomedical Publications. Dr. David Horrobin presented "The Philosophical Basis of Peer Review and The
Suppression of Innovation," a classic presentation. Dr. Horrobin
stressed that the ultimate aim of peer review in biomedical science
cannot differ from the ultimate aim of medicine—"to cure sometimes,
to relieve often, to comfort always." (Believed to be a French folk
saying of medieval origin, this beautifully simplistic description
of medicine's intent is inscribed on the statue of Edward Trudeau at
Saranac Lake, New York.)
Dr. Horrobin stated that the purpose of peer review should be
nothing less than to facilitate the introduction of improvements in
curing, relieving and comforting. Even in the fields of biomedical
research that are remote from clinical practice, the peer reviewer
should always ask whether the proposed innovation could
realistically lead to improvements in the treatment of patients.
He notes the necessity for a creative tension between innovation on
the one hand and quality control on the other. The innovators who
generate the future are often impatient with the precision and
systematic approach of the quality controllers. On the other hand,
the quality controllers are often exasperated by the seeming lack of
discipline and predictability of the innovators. If either side
dominates, research progress falters.
The public is the ultimate source of money for medical research.
They agree to this use of their money for the sole purpose of
improving their medical care. When improvement does not progress
satisfactorily, support for medical research (and medical journals)
will dwindle. The public wants satisfactory progress; if such
progress is not forthcoming, the present medical research enterprise
will crumble. For satisfactory results, quality control must
comprise only one side of the editorial equation. There must also be
an encouragement of innovation. Presently, quality control is
overwhelmingly dominant, and encouragement of innovation receives
very little attention. Without appropriate balance, peer review
fails its purpose.
Dr. Horrobin notes that, in the last six decades, the accuracy of
medical articles has improved substantially but so has a failure to
acknowledge innovation. Between 1930 and 1960, patient care improved
dramatically. Many infectious diseases were controlled by drugs and
immunization. Prototypes of drugs used today were discovered during
that time. How-ever, by 1960 (despite major developments, especially
in the field of diagnosis), patients increasingly felt dissatisfied,
and we must accept the fact that their dissatisfaction stems from
our trading innovation for quality control.
Dr. Horrobin presents many situations in which, through peer review,
Organized Medicine has tried to suppress an innovative concept but
failed. He shows how the use of peer review influences journals,
conference choices and grant awards.
Pathologist Charles Harris has written editorials about the "Cult of
Medical Science" in which he says pseudo-science in medicine is
currently a cult which inhibits innovation and considers
participation in clinical drug trials (which have been designed by
statisticians) as the work of scientists because these trials reject
so-called anecdotal evidence based on clinical observations alone.
But this narrow attitude is not real science which leads to
discovery. It is merely indoctrination and a pledge of allegiance to
the flag of pseudoscience.
Harris also asserts that diagnosis, which is supposed to be the
determination of the nature of disease either by examination or by
exclusion, is not being practiced as it should be. Diagnosis today
too often does not consist of examination, exclusion, clinical or
therapeutic trials; rather, it often consists only of a rushed
referral to a medical specialist under the guise of a diagnosis. The
specialist may accept and act on the initial diagnosis which was not
valid in the first place. The initial diagnosis serves to justify
referral and satisfy the CPT code in order for the doctor to get
reimbursed.
The New York Times, on March 26, 1991, carried an article by
Philip J. Hilts entitled "How Investigation of Lab Fraud Grew
Into a Cause Celebre" recounting how scientists turned a tangled
dispute into a defense of science. This article is about a draft
report which had been recently released by the newly-established
Office of Scientific Integrity at the National Institute of Health.
This office had been investigating the
case of
Dr. Thereza Imanishi-Kari and a paper she published with Dr.
David
Baltimore in the April, 1986, issue of the scientific journal Cell
about the basis of an immune reaction. Questions about the paper
arose when Dr. Margot O'Toole, a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Imanishi-Kari's laboratory, went to Dr. Baltimore (who was then at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and told him her reasons
for doubting the authenticity of the data in the article.
She alleged that the paper made false
statements, a conclusion she reached after seeing seventeen pages of
data that supposedly, but did not, support claims in the paper. She
persisted in her accusations, and, as a result, two scientific
reviews of the paper were conducted in 1986—one at MIT, where the
work was done, and the other at Tufts University, where Imanishi-Kari
was seeking employment.
Both of these reviews found problems
with the work but found no reason to believe misconduct was
involved. Dr. O'Toole, who was eventually fired from her job at MIT,
had been told by Dr. Baltimore that she could publish her objections
to the paper, but that if she did he would also publish his views of
it.
The matter lay dormant for two years after the initial scientific
reviews conducted at MIT and Tufts, until Representative John D.
Dingell, who heads the House Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations, asked the Secret Service to examine Dr. Imanishi-Kari's
notebooks for their authenticity. This action raised the hackles of
the scientific community. Supporters of Dr. Baltimore criticized
Dingell for prying into the note-books of science and, described his
panel as the "science police."
Dingell revealed that his committee was
soon buried in letters from scientists concerned with the
subcommittee's actions, but he also said that in perhaps 50 percent
or more of the letters the scientists included disclaimers, saying
that they did not know the facts of the case. What had begun as a
small dispute within Dr. Imanishi-Kari's laboratory had become a
national debate, pitting Dr. Baltimore and his many supporters in
the scientific community against Dingell's House Subcommittee and
generating bitter controversy over a period of five years.
The controversy was eventually addressed by the National Institute
of Health's Office of Scientific Integrity and put to rest by its
draft report. In that report, the OSI concluded that Dr. O'Toole's
actions were heroic and that Dr. Baltimore's response was troubling
because he, instead of ending the matter within weeks of its
beginning, allowed it to mushroom into a national debate. Dr.
O'Toole's allegations were vindicated, and most of Dr. Baltimore's
supporters have withdrawn their objections to the Congressional
action after confronting the evidence uncovered by the OSI and
presented in their draft report.
This case of scientific fraud illustrates the need for an office
such as the Office of Scientific Integrity. Dr. David Goodstein,
Vice-Provost of the California Institute of Technology, helped to
write the rules for dealing with misconduct. He stated in regard to
the Imanishi-Kari/Baltimore case,
"The scientific community until
recently was disposed to believe that fraud didn't exist. So, in the
rare cases that it did come up, the community was not prepared for
it."
Having established that fraud can exist in the scientific community
and having acknowledged the need for an agency to investigate such
fraud, we now need to address a disturbing question:
-
What about fraud and deceit that is
conducted by individuals who work for organizations such as the
AMA and the FDA?
-
Why doesn't the Office of Scientific
Investigation inquire about what happened with the Koch reagents
and how an injunction was issued by the FDA prohibiting
interstate shipment and the making of any medical claims,
without the FDA even investigating them?
-
What about the recall by the FDA of
all contaminated tryptophan products sold in health food stores
while allowing the continued use of the contaminated product in
infant formulas and in intravenous pharmaceutical preparations?
The statute of limitations has expired
in the case of the Koch reagents, but it is arguable that there
should be no statute of limitations in science, particularly
regarding a therapeutically useful drug. In any case, the statute of
limitations has not expired in the recent contaminated tryptophan
case.
-
Why is this case not investigated by
the OSI?
-
If their mandate is not to
investigate cases like this, then what is it?
Surely their mandate goes beyond an
occasional nabbing of a cheating researcher. It appears that the
Office of Scientific Integrity is prepared to investigate individual
instances of fraud but not collusion and conspiracy within the ranks
of the government itself.
The story of vitamin C and cancer was thoroughly researched by Dr.
Evelleen Richards and published in "Social Studies of Science" in
1988. Her paper received much publicity. Dr. Richards documented in
great detail the failure of two Mayo Clinic studies to test vitamin
C in the correct manner proposed by Nobel winner Linus Pauling and
his associate E. Cameron.
Richards noted the repeated refusal of the New England Journal of
Medicine to publish letters and articles by Pauling and Cameron that
demonstrated why the second Mayo trial was not a test of their
hypotheses. Cameron showed that highly toxic treatments for cancer,
including 5-fluorouracil for colon cancer, continued to be used
despite their failure to demonstrate efficacy in placebo-controlled
trials. Richards proposed a valid question: Why does the full weight
of disapproval fall on vitamin C (which has low toxicity), when
toxic drugs with no demonstrated efficacy are widely used?
Dr. Horrobin contends that the peer review process harbors
antagonism toward innovation. While this is not the norm, it
certainly is not the exception. Editors must encourage innovation as
much as they ensure quality control, and that will require a
conscious effort of will. He points out that the hypercritical
reviews and behaviors of many distinguished scientists are
unwarranted and pathological. Such professionals are gate-keepers
against innovation unless the new thought or discovery is their own.
Dr. Horrobin concludes with a call for editors to muster the courage
to select reviewers of the highest caliber without vested interest,
or at least to note when vested interest is present. Editors must
stop rejecting innovative articles for minor details which never
keep establishment-approved articles out of the journals. An editor
must never lose sight of the ultimate aim of biomedical science—to
improve the quality of patient care.
Only after scrupulous study of both the
article's contents and the peer review should the editor make an
objective decision.
WE MUST STOP PERSECUTING ALTERNATIVE
PRACTITIONERS
To refuse to learn from history is to repeat it. The medical
profession continues to libel and slander innovative doctors. The
term "quack" has no legal definition. It is often misused to libel a
doctor who is bright, full of initiative and well-loved by patients,
and who has made an original discovery or happened to acquire the
non-toxic methods that in the U.S. are referred to as alternative.
Real charlatans should certainly be
stopped. But should there be these programs aimed at American
doctors such as the chelation doctors or those who employ
alternative methods for treating cancerous tumors or other chronic
diseases such as arthritis, multiple sclerosis, etc.?
This moral injustice should be halted. The involved branches of
business, government and medical profession will in the near future
have to answer the well-documented evidence spanning the twentieth
century, that, hidden from the trusting public, a horrible
orchestration of doctor-bashing has occurred to destroy the
competition.
And what does Organized Medicine say for itself?
Why, they believe
in an overly-rigid definition of what constitutes scientific proof.
The Canadian agriculturalist who developed the double-blind study
never intended for it to be used in such a rigid manner. It was
intended to eliminate the subjective bias of scientific
investigators and their research assistants, not to become the
gold-standard bearer for scientific proof in clinical medicine. Most
genuine scientists (the term excludes the majority of the medical
profession) do realize this fact. Real scientists understand that
a)) science starts with careful observation and the recording of
events.
This point can be best illustrated with a story. In the time of
Julius Caesar, there was a legendary bandit by the name of
Procrustes. Now, a Procrustean bed which bears his name is an
adjustable hospital bed. Legend had it that Procrustes would kidnap
people, bring them to his home and force them to lie down on his
bed. If they were too tall to fit his bed, he just cut off their
legs and they bled to death. Too short? He put them on a rack and
stretched them until they died screaming.
The highly regarded Dr. Edward Whitmont,
homeopathic physician of New York City, likens the rigidity of the
cruel Procrustes to the rigid adherence to a methodology that blinds
one to an obvious truth in medicine—that an alternative treatment
works. The obsession with a rigidly narrow definition of what
constitutes scientific proof is more slavishly believed by physician
scientists than by modern physicists. Recognizing only this rigid,
narrow definition of proof, orthodox medicine holds a sword of
Damocles* over their competition.
* A
fourth century Greek courtier to Dionysius the Elder, who, according
to legend, was forced to sit under a sword suspended by a single
hair to demonstrate the precariousness of a king's fortunes.
Do they really believe that they can keep alternatives out of
medicine? Or do they know that the exclusion will end in the near
future and so "make hay while the sun still shines"?
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