Positive Health Online

In the almost 25 years since becoming Editor of Positive Health PH Online, I have never before felt as I do today such a complete polarization between the so-called orthodox / conventional and the complementary / alternative / natural treatment healthcare communities. With reference to PH Online - which covers a very wide spectrum of topics regarding health, embracing mind, body, emotions and spiritual - these schisms have been evident in treatment approaches to virtually all conditions including cancer, dentistry, cfs/me, depression, bodywork, immune resilience - almost since the launch of PH Online. Here are a few examples to illustrate the seemingly depressing lack of progress throughout the past 20+ years.

Here is a brief extract from one of my prognosticative articles Cancer Prevention, Detection and Treatment – The Way Forward from Issue 7 Aug 1995:[1]

• “The continued preference among oncologists for drug or high-tech cancer treatments – chemotherapy, radiotherapy, bone-marrow transplants – and clinical trials to test hormone-based agents like tamoxifen as a cancer preventive in healthy women.
• “The almost universal marginalisation of other therapies – herbal, homoeopathic, Chinese, Ayurvedic, energy-based – from mainstream oncology practice, even those disciplines solidly based in conventional research, such as nutrition. Why, despite the tens of thousands of published research studies concerning the role of nutrition and diet in cancer prevention and treatment, is nutrition ignored, and nutritional treatment of cancer, by qualified physicians, criminalised in countries including Canada and the USA?”

And here is an extract from my review in PH Online Issue 236 published Jan 2017, of Ty Bollinger’s book The Truth about Cancer:[2]

“Along with his discovery of the effectiveness of a wide variety of cancer treatment approaches, he researched and has documented in an entirely readable manner, the virtually total suppression of these treatments and witch-hunt-like persecution of the many pioneering and innovative developers of these treatments including remedies such as Essiac Tea, giants such as Royal Rife, Max Gerson, Hoxsey and latter-day researchers such as Dr Stanislaw Burzynski.”

Regarding the condition of CFS/ME, Dr Derek Pheby wrote in his article Management and Treatment of ME - Part II - Issue 58 Nov 2000.[3]

“Some types of therapy have been controversial, and have attracted considerable misgivings among some patients with ME. One such is graded exercise, a regime in which patients undertake steadily increasing physical activity, irrespective of their clinical state. The study comparing fluoxetine and graded exercise has already been referred to.[53] This showed that graded exercise was capable of bringing about improvements in functional work capacity. This finding was confirmed by another randomized controlled trial of 66 patients without psychiatric disorders or sleep disturbance.[63] However, it is likely that both these studies were conducted in particular subgroups of ME patients (for example, not including the severely incapacitated, who may account for a quarter of all people with ME), and the findings may not therefore be applicable to people with ME as a whole.”

Here is an excerpt from Nancy Blake’s article in Issue 236 - Win the Fight Against ME/CFS by Doing Nothing[4]:

“You have a range of symptoms, which taken one by one, are apparently unrelated.  And they vary, depending on exertion.  The pattern taken altogether is quite specific.  You couldn't make it up, and you haven't.  

“What you've got is ME/CFS/SEID, and that is a 'disease' in which 'exertion of any type' 'may adversely affect many organ systems'.

“Exercise can cause damage to many systems.  Exercise is toxic.  Exercise will do you harm. Exercise poisons every system in your body.”

However, what has been perhaps the most shocking and rapidly progressing issue has been the vitriolic, seemingly insurmountable impasse regarding vaccinations - their efficacy, safety / harm and the apparent conflicts of interest within the CDC [Centre for Disease Control].

Here is an excerpt from the Letters to the Editor in Issue 217 – Oct 2014: CDC Whistleblower: Widespread Manipulation of Scientific Data - Higher Autism Rate Among African-American Boys Receiving MMR Vaccine.[5]

“Whistleblower Says CDC Knew in 2003 of Higher Autism Rate Among African-American Boys Receiving MMR Shot Earlier Than 36 Months.

“A top research scientist working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) played a key role in helping Dr Brian Hooker of the Focus Autism Foundation uncover data manipulation by the CDC that obscured a higher incidence of autism in African-American boys. The whistleblower came to the attention of Hooker, a PhD in biochemical engineering, after he had made a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for original data on the DeStefano et al MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) and autism study.

“Dr Hooker's study, published August 8 in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Translational Neurodegeneration, shows that African-American boys receiving their first MMR vaccine before 36 months of age are 3.4 times more likely to develop autism vs. after 36 months.”

Here is an excerpt from a posting in May 2016 by Jefferey Jaxen. Nurse Whistleblower: Hospitals Vaccinating Patients by Force Without Their Knowledge On May 15, 2016.

“The momentum, consciousness and continual discussion around truth and education related to vaccine injury has never been greater. Parents and communities have taken the initiative to find answers for their sons and daughters who’ve suffered severe adverse events from immunization.

“Evaporating fast are the days of dead end solutions and pharmaceutical answers provided by mainstream medicine’s limited toolbox. Like an untameable ripple effect, this awakening has also encompassed the discussion around mandatory vaccination, lack of informed consent, pharmaceutical control of American healthcare and an overall lack of health freedom currently resting on a slippery slope…

“Recently, another medical/health whistleblower made immediate waves by publicly recounting her continued experiences witnessing daily routine vaccine injury in U.S. hospital neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Nurse whistleblower Michelle Rowton told of a callous medical system that regularly and inhumanly chooses to give the CDC’s recommended vaccine schedule to premature infants causing massive increases in severe and life threatening adverse reactions.”[6]

And here is an excerpt from JB Handley’s Compilation of Autism Vaccination Links published in the Letters to the Editor in Issue 235 - Jan 2017:[7]

Excerpted from https://medium.com/@jbhandley/7-reasons-cdc-employees-should-be-crying-in-the-hallways-55dd2dc32124#.yktl88myw

• “The CDC is in charge of recommending the vaccination schedule for U.S. children, which has grown from 5 total doses in the 1960s to more than 70 today;
• The CDC is ALSO in charge of monitoring vaccine safety for those more than 70 doses;
• In an ironic twist (at least for parents like me), the CDC is ALSO in charge of tracking the number of children with Autism in the U.S., a number that has grown from 1 in 10,000 in the 1980s to 1 in 68 today.”

And here is an excerpt from Dr Mercola’s article Trump Sets Off Media Firestorm With Creation of Vaccine Safety Review Panel:[8]

“There are no long-term studies comparing differences in health outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. The pharmaceutical and medical trade industries claim a vaccine's benefits always outweigh the potential harms, but no solid scientific evidence is provided to back up such claims. It's really little more than opinion.

“Where's the research showing that 50 doses of 14 vaccines administered to children in combination and repeatedly in the first six years of life equals long-term health and results in few, if any, problems? What are the multi-generational effects to the immune system with so many vaccine doses? The sad fact is the often repeated mantra that vaccines are absolutely safe and that there is nothing to worry about is a case of thinking that if a falsehood is repeated over and over again, and long enough, people will believe it's true.

“The Cochrane Database Systematic Review published an update to this [July 2013] analysis in June, 2016, noting that 5 percent of health care workers who had received the influenza vaccine and 8 percent of workers who were unvaccinated had laboratory-proven influenza each season, and that health care workers may transmit influenza to patients.

“Still, the conclusions remained the same. "Offering influenza vaccination to health care workers based in long-term care homes may have little or no effect on the number of residents who develop laboratory-proven influenza compared with those living in care homes where no vaccination is offered," the authors write. They did note one study of moderate quality evidence suggests health care vaccinations may reduce lower respiratory tract infections in residents by 2 percent, from 6 to 4 percent.”

Despite the above perhaps depressing lack of forward progress, I am abundantly proud when I  review the publication of PH Online Issue 236 in Feb 2017, with exemplary articles regarding Importance of Strength of Character, Success and Happiness, CFS/ME, Naturopathic Treatment, Reflexology and Fertility, Ayurveda in the NHS, Pure Water Evolution, What Cyclists Should and Shouldn’t Eat, GI Problems and Stress, Food Reappraisal, Winter Season of Flux, Bodywork – including (Hyper)Lordosis, Flexible Sitting and the Emmett Technique.

Perhaps 25 years is the short-term; perhaps what counts is the big picture and our collective endurance and tenacity to continue in this quest.  I am convinced as never before not only in the clinical efficacy of natural treatment approaches, but also that their integration into our healthcare system will lead to the development and sustainability of good health and happiness.

References

1. Cancer Prevention, Detection and Treatment – The Way Forward. Positive Health. Issue 7. Aug. 1995.

2. Review by Sandra Goodman, PhD. Ty M Bollinger. The Truth About Cancer: What You Need to Know About Cancer’s History, Treatment and Prevention.  Hay House. 2016.

3. Dr Derek Pheby. Management and Treatment of ME - Part II – Positive Health PH Online Issue 58 Nov 2000.

4. Blake Nancy. Win the Fight Against ME/CFS by Doing Nothing. Positive Health PH Online Issue 236. 2017.

5. CDC Whistleblower: Widespread Manipulation of Scientific Data - Higher Autism Rate Among African-American Boys Receiving MMR Vaccine. Letters to the Editor Issue 217 October 2014.

6. Jefferey Jaxen. Nurse Whistleblower: Hospitals Vaccinating Patients by Force Without Their Knowledge May 15, 2016.

7. JB Handley’s Compilation of Autism Vaccination Links published in the Letters to the Editor in Issue 235 - Jan 2017

8. Mercola J. Trump Sets Off Media Firestorm With Creation of Vaccine Safety Review Panel. www.mercola.com. 2 Feb 2017.