Positive Health Online

I co-launched Positive Health PH Online some 20+years ago to help bring together - integrate - the disparate treatment approaches / world views of so-called orthodox allopathic and natural complementary / alternative medicine. In 1997 I illustrated the two-solitudes of the Orthodox and Complementary Medicine worlds and put forward an Integrated Medicine Healthcare system to which I have recently referred.

www.positivehealth.com/article/editorial/editorial-issue-214

Today I find deafening the increasing shrillness of stridently asserted divergent views regarding every aspect of healthcare. In my view, far from healthcare being more integrated - it appears to me that the mainstream healthcare system is almost entirely based upon pharmaceutical drugs, whereas the many disciplines comprising complementary and alternative medicine exist in their own universe.

Twenty years ago, the assertion was that there was no research about the efficacy of complementary / alternative medicine, which spurred many clinicians, researchers and physicians to publish the findings of their natural treatment approaches - nutrition, herbal, Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, osteopathy, massage, healing, NLP and myriad other techniques - in journals devoted to communicating such progress. Positive Health PH Online is but one publication which has amassed thousands of articles and research updates testifying to the clinical efficacy of such treatments.

It has proved to be virtually impossible to satisfy the conventional medical establishment: the research generated is not of the correct variety - anecdotal, the evidence / statistical significance not of high enough quality, or the results simply ignored. Here are a few brief snippets - illustrating the divergent views about the Saatchi Innovation Bill - intended initially to remedy the 1939 Cancer Act, which, according to Complementary Practitioner Christine Johnston “states that it is illegal for anyone to advertise or practise any cancer treatment apart from surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. It is also illegal to make any claims about cures or potential cures using complementary / alternative or integrated health methods.”

www.positivehealth.com/article/letters-to-the-editor/letters-to-the-editor-issue-220

“...the Medical Innovation Bill was passed by the Lords and sent to the House of Commons. The Bill now includes a requirement to register all innovations under the Bill. This unprecedented register of innovation, which has been called for by many organisations and individuals, will make it a mandatory requirement for anybody using the Bill to register both the treatment and the outcome results, both positive and negative. It moves treatments that without sharing and transparency could become just an anecdote into sharable evidence that can be used to treat other patients and inform clinical trials. Oxford University have already offered to host the Medical Innovation Register and the Medical Innovation Bill team is consulting widely on how the register will be set-up, managed and funded… The Bill has now moved to the House of Commons and is a step closer to helping patients receive novel and innovative treatments.

http://medicalinnovationbill.co.uk/medical-innovation-bill-is-passed-by-lords-and-sent-to-commons-at-third-reading/?utm_source=Saatchi+Bill&utm_campaign=73690085b8-3rd_Reading_House_of_Lords1_22_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_87c59b6bfe-73690085b8-338080097

And from an opposing camp:

“…I regard this well-intentioned Bill as a recipe for quackery, dangerous for patients and with little potential for improving science, let alone as a cure for cancer… Anecdote is not a good reason for primary legislation, let alone a law that would sweep away patients’ rights in the event of mishap… the Medical Innovation Bill is sweeping, affecting not just cancer but every form of treatment with the sole exception of cosmetic surgery, and touching every age group including children. There is no requirement for ethical overview. Any maverick doctor could experiment on the sick, every charlatan could prey on vulnerable patients, provided only that he or she had consulted a single colleague who might also be a maverick or charlatan. But quackery aside, even a fine and evidence-based clinician is likely to do more harm than good through uncoordinated experimentation on individual patients.   

Nick Ross. The Medical Innovation Bill: kill or cure? HealthWatch Newsletter 96. www.healthwatch-uk.org   January 2015.

In my opinion, the Saatchi Bill will not achieve what I believe to be the best way forward in cancer treatment - which would be to minimize highly toxic treatments and to utilize robust integrated alternative treatment protocols - regimes including diet, herbs, metabolic and immune-based approaches, infusions of high-dose anti-proliferative, as well as mind-body approaches, which will not be poisonous but will create an environment within the patient’s body and immune system not conducive to support the proliferation of cancer. Several clinicians and their regimens have been discussed on these pages:

www.positivehealth.com/article/editorial/editorial-issue-219

www.positivehealth.com/article/cancer/research-proposal-cancer-patients-survival-comparing-integrated-alternative-therapies-and-chemothera

This Issue 220 of PH Online publishes no less than four articles explicitly devoted to aspects of alternative cancer treatments:

• Gene Targeting using Sequence Specific Homeopathic DNA Remedies for Health Promotion and Disease Protection
• Turmeric Extract Strikes to the Root Cause of Cancer Malignancy
• Curcumin vs Cancer
• Cancer Killing Medicinal Mushrooms

To highlight the imperative for innovative and clinically more effective cancer treatments, data to be presented at the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) on 17-18 February state that worldwide spending on cancer has now reached levels equivalent to the GDP of Hong Kong, the 35th largest economy in the world. The WISH report will highlight that health economies worldwide are expecting increases of 16–32 per cent in new cancer diagnoses over the next 10 years and projections from the US, United Kingdom and Australia suggest that cancer costs in these countries could increase by as much as 42–66 per cent above current levels by 2025… the report will also present evidence that in many cases, cancer could be treated very differently and that there are too many instances of over-treatment and needless use of expensive technology. The report will highlight innovative projects from around the world that have driven efficiencies and improved treatments for patients.

www.positivehealth.com/article/letters-to-the-editor/letters-to-the-editor-issue-220

Also, significant among the  Letters to the Editor in Issue 220 is well-argued research evidence which runs counter to the generally held medical view regarding vaccination in The Disney Measles OutBreak - A Mousetrap of Ignorance.

“Measles outbreaks have consistently occurred in highly immunization compliant populations.
www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/measles-rash-misinformation1

“one underreported fact of immunology: vaccine-induced antibody elevations do not guarantee real world protection against the pathogen the vaccine is intended to immunize us against, which is the only true measure of their value.
www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/2013-measles-outbreak-failing-vaccine-not-failure-vaccinate1

“one can create a synthetic immune response through vaccination, but it is not likely to result in enhanced immunity, insofar as real-world effectiveness is concerned, which is the only true judge of whether a vaccine is valuable or not. www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/vaccination-agenda-implicit-transhumanismdehumanism?page=2

..a ground-breaking study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, whose authorship includes scientists working for the Bureau of Immunization, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA, looked at evidence from the 2011 New York measles outbreak that individuals with prior evidence of measles vaccination and vaccine immunity were both capable of being infected with measles and infecting others with it (secondary transmission). This finding even aroused the attention of mainstream news reporting, such as this Sciencemag.org article from April 2014 titled "Measles Outbreak Traced to Fully Vaccinated Patient for First Time." Titled, "Outbreak of Measles Among Persons With Prior Evidence of Immunity, New York City, 2011," the ground-breaking study acknowledged that, "Measles may occur in vaccinated individuals, but secondary transmission from such individuals has not been documented." www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/measles-transmitted-vaccinated-gov-researchers-confirm

This is in addition to the usual wide spectrum panoply of editorial features  encompassing Healing, Violence, Lupus, Identity, ME-CFS, Migraines, Reflexology for Sleep, Candida Testing, Oestrogen, Progesterone Synthetics, Soft Tissue Therapy,  Sit Up Straight, Spinal Touch, as well as Research Updates and Letters to the Editor.