Positive Health Online

This is Positive Health PH Online July 2011 Issue 184. Each issue, I endeavour to select a group of eclectic yet authoritative articles which span the entire remit across Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Not formulaic, nor repetitive is my goal; I hate it when I can spot the sameness in journals and magazines, that sort of hand of bureaucracy which is stamped across especially professional titles. Some of the articles featured in this issue discuss sugar metabolism and diabetes, Lichen Planus and its phytomedical treatment, induction of labour in pregnant women and what we can do to transform our lives and the planet.

www.positivehealth.com/article/skincare/lichen-planus-a-disease-profile

www.positivehealth.com/article/diabetes/ayden-byle-canadian-diabetic-athlete

www.positivehealth.com/article/nutrition/the-sugar-solution

www.positivehealth.com/article/women-s-health/induction-of-labour-the-dilemma-for-complementary-therapists-working-with-pregnant-clients

www.positivehealth.com/article/environmental/three-things-that-you-can-do-to-transform-the-planet-and-your-life

Away from the articles are equally important content:  Letters, Research Updates and Book Reviews. A letter in this issue by Dr Brian Isbell PhD BSc DO MRN and Nicky Howard-Kemp BSc RS Hom describe the cuts which are being made at University of Westminster:

www.positivehealth.com/article/letters-to-the-editor/letters-to-the-editor-issue-184

“An extensive review of provision at the University of Westminster has been completed to ensure courses continue to meet the needs of practitioners, CAM professions as well as adapt to the current financial constraints. The introduction of full cost tuition fees in 2012 on top of the recent Government reductions in funding have led Universities to scrutinise viability of all their activities. With their requirement for clinical training and high levels of staffing, most university CAM courses are under severe pressure…

Three Years of Cuts

“Since September 2008, a third of the undergraduate student intake has been lost due to the previous Government's introduction of Equivalent and Lower Qualification (ELQ) legislation, which means that a graduate applicant has to pay full cost fees (in the order of £9,000/year) to complete a second undergraduate degree…  On top of the cuts described above, as with other courses categorized as 'Anatomy and Physiology', the Funding Council has reduced the financing of courses by about 20%. Therefore, in total over the past 3 years, the loss of students and reduced funding has led to a 50% decrease in income…  The essential recent review of the University's provision has concluded that it will be necessary, after this year's intake, to suspend its BSc Nutritional Therapy and Naturopathy courses from September 2012.  …a new portfolio of postgraduate courses - four new MSc courses – has been developed at the University that builds on all the years of experience of providing the BSc Complementary Medicine Scheme.”

Some people might look at certain articles in Positive Health PH Online as being promotional, as many authors are practitioners or experts in their field. My remit when commissioning authors is for them to write articles which are authoritative and informative to professional and general readers alike. As we all have to live in the real world and pay our bills, unless being fabulously wealthy, which most of us are not, it is virtually impossible to not have at least a smidgen of self-interest in most articles.

I was attacked by journalist Duncan Campbell in 1989 in one of his articles about Organic Germanium entitled Pretty Poison, in which the use of inorganic germanium, the type used in transistors, resulted in cases of renal toxicity in Korea. He was not able to reach me at the time to interview me, not surprisingly since I was doing research at Bastyr College in Seattle USA. So in the absence of my non-availability and my publishers (Thorsons, now Harper Collins) not being in contact with me, Campbell, in this article, insinuated that I had fled the country and also accused me of being paid for my work about germanium. I had been commissioned to compile research about organic germanium and from this work, for which I was paid, as would be expected, I published a journal article titled Therapeutic Effects of Organic Germanium in Medical Hypothesis: 26: 207-15. 1988 and also a book published by Thorsons entitled Organic Germanium – The Health and Life Enhancer. Thorsons.1988.

Over 20 years have passed since that time and the assault on natural medicine described in Martin Walker’s book Dirty Medicine, which covered just about everybody involved in Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the UK: The Bristol Cancer Help Centre, Dr Stephen Davies, Dr Jacques Benveniste, Patrick Holford, Dr Jean Monro, Belinda Barnes, Robert Woodward, Positively Healthy, myself [Sandra Goodman], as I had been involved in attempting to put together a clinical trial to test the potential efficacy of organic germanium in HIV / AIDS, and many others.

Martin Walker’s new book Dirty Medicine The Handbook continues on from Dirty Medicine, HRT: Licensed to Kill and Maim, Cultural Dwarfs and Junk Journalism, With Extreme Prejudice and brings us up to date, this time naming individuals (many of the great and the good in science, medicine and the media), websites, corporations and institutions which are at the centre of our nation, and funding links behind campaigns which have attacked and discredited individuals and natural healthcare approaches, especially homeopathy, vaccination and sufferers of chronic fatigue syndrome – cfs /me. Martin Walker’s genius lies in his detailed research and the myriads of footnotes revealing little-known tidbits of vital information.

I have been shocked by the information revealed in The Handbook, despite my being a victim and having been witness to many of the major principals for over 20 years. The book is reviewed by Jonathan Lawrence in this issue, and I have started to blog about it as well. I hope to publish another review, mentioning more of the political analysis and links, which are not as well known to me as the figures in the complementary and alternative medicine world.

www.positivehealth.com/review/dirty-medicine-the-handbook

www.drsgoodman.com/blog-goodman

The perspective of history is invaluable, and so is our commitment to carry on the good fight for natural healthcare approaches, as part of our role in defending ourselves against more toxic and iatrogenic treatments.