MEDICAL WARS:
THE PHILOSOPHICAL BATTLE OVER ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE
By CHARLES W. MOORE
1997 Charles W. Moore
Note: A version of this article appeared in the Summer 1997 edition of Gravitas magazine.
(gravitas@interlog.com)
"When the doctors organize themselves into an association, their main responsibility
is to that organization, and not the patient."
James Earl (Jimmy) Carter Jr.
Dr. Jozef Krop sounds tired. The stress of an eight-year inquisition he's been subjected
to by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) is obviously taking
its toll. It is mid-May, 1997, and the Mississauga M.D. has just finished a grueling three-week session of hearings before a CPSO disciplinary tribunal. His defense
has cost approximately a half $million, with three more weeks of hearings scheduled
for August and November. "If people want this type of medicine," Dr. Krop remarks,
"now is the time for them to support the fight for it, or it will be gone."
In January 1994, the grassroots group Citizens For Choice in Health Care (CCHC), accompanied
by several complimentary physicians including Dr. Krop, lobbied the Ontario Ministry
of Health (MOH) regarding CPSO-proposed amendments to Bill 100, which CCHC contended "were directly and specifically targeting complimentary medical practices
for discriminatory control and licensing." On May 29, 1994, the MOH rejected the
CPSO proposal, and requested that the College insert a clause reading: "The fact
that a member uses or recommends a non-traditional treatment is not, in itself, determinant of
deficient clinical ability."
According to CCHC members present when the decision came down, this defeat infuriated
the CPSO. One week later Dr. Krop, who had been under investigation by the college
since 1989, was informed that he would be referred to a disciplinary hearing on charges of professional misconduct and incompetence.
Alternative health care advocates charge that the CPSO intends to make an example
of Dr. Krop because of his prominence in a field of medicine that the medical establishment
refuses to acknowledge.
WHAT IS ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE?
No clear definition obtains for terms like "alternative," "complimentary," "wholistic,"
"natural," or "fringe" when applied to medicine. These categorizations are routinely
used to describe vastly dissimilar activities. One Internet glossary lists 128 different "alternative medicine" categories. The terms "alternative" or "complimentary"
medicine are used as a catch-all designation for any medical modality not taught
in Western allopathic medical schools. They are thus a definition by exclusion, and
no more helpful or precise than calling something "foreign." The average Canadian setting
out to comment on "foreigners" in general, would be about as accurate in describing
non-Canadians as the average conventional physician is in discussing alternative
medicine. The Canadian's observations about foreigners would tell us more about his/her personal
prejudices than about the actual characteristics of non-Canadian people.
PERFECT BALANCE
Some methods grouped under the "alternative medicine" umbrella require four years
of full time training akin to undergraduate medical school, while others can be learned
in a few weekend seminars. It is inappropriate, and does injustice to reasoned debate, to lump all categories of "alternative medicine" under one definition, and then
to either praise or condemn it categorically. However, one common concept shared
by most if not all alternative therapies, is that health is the condition of perfect
balance in the body--the state in which the least effort is expended.
"NORMAL POOR HEALTH"
Conventional "allopathic" medicine, especially in areas where a materialistic, mechanistic
approach is appropriate, such as in mending traumatic injuries or repairing congenital
defects, can be truly wonderful. In its attitude toward, and approach to treating chronic and degenerative disease, there is considerably less to admire. Allopathy's
Achilles' Heel is the fact that it doesn't work very well at promoting genuine wellness.
Theologian Paul Tillich observed that "particular medicine" (that is: medicine focusing on specific parts of the whole person) results at best in a phenomenon he
called "unhealthy health." Or as two-time Nobel laureate Linus Pauling described
it: "normal poor health."
UNSUITABLE APPROACHES
Millions of people know all too well just what Tillich and Pauling were getting at.
Allopathy tends to ignore first causes of illness, and concentrates primarily on
symptomatic interventions that ostensibly permit people to go on living in the polluted,
high-stress environments that made them sick in the first place. Professionals and
patients alike embrace the false notion that symptoms constitute the illness itself,
and believe that if the symptoms can be suppressed or eliminated (EG: by drugs or
surgery) the illness has been "cured."
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
Many people genuinely prefer a mechanistic, particular, theory of illness, since it
absolves them of personal responsibility for the state of their health. Disease becomes
something that just "happens," more through fate or bad luck than bad management--an interloper from outside, rather than a consequence of some deficiency in one's life
or habits. Also popular is the illusion of control provided by inoculations, pharmaceutical
therapy, surgical interventions, and other heroic medical techniques. Adopting the view that scientific medicine can fix most anything that goes wrong with the human
machine frees people to eat and drink whatever they choose, whenever they like, and
in whatever quantity satisfies them.
FIRST CAUSES
In contrast, wholistic medicine emphasizes identification and examination of first
causes, and affirms the principle that illness is often caused by lifestyles, habits,
diet, behaviors and value systems that are inappropriate to the individual. According
to French M.D. and acupuncturist Isabelle Dumazeaud, the wholistic therapist's role
is to help the patient understand his or her illness, and to realize that it did
not happen by pure chance. Dr. Dumazeaud believes that illness results from conflicts
among the various levels of one's being, and that in order to be healed, the patient must
discover how to promote harmony at all levels. Wholistic therapists carefully consider
patients' values, attitudes, behavior, emotions, and spirituality, and employ them
as levers to promote healing, as opposed to allopathic Medical Model's emphasis on
the notion of specificity--that each disease is caused by a particular pathogen.
Environmental medicine, the category that got Dr. Krop in hot water with the CPSO,
is really a hybrid, based largely in allopathic concepts but also utilizing various
alternative therapeutic techniques. Environmental medicine practitioners (formerly
known as Clinical Ecologists) are medical doctors, which is why they are singled out especially
for attack by the medical establishment.
As environmental medicine skeptic Carroll M. Brodsky, M.D., explained in a medical
journal: "Those medical groups that do not accept clinical ecology react to it far
more intensely than they do to nonphysician alternative health care approaches. Clinical
ecologists are physicians, are graduates of the same medical schools, and frequently
have gone through the same specialty training programs as have those who oppose them.
Not challenging them would suggest that the medical establishment accepts their views. The medical establishment must challenge the views of medical physicians that run
counter to what it sees as scientifically proven explanations and practices."
Unfortunately, environmentally ill patients get caught in the crossfire of this controversy.
Writing in the same journal as Dr. Brodsky, Robert K McLellan, M.D. observes that
clinical ecology "tells the medical establishment that patients for whom it cannot provide will trigger the development of an alternative health care system...a system
that has come into being in part because there were patients who were dissatisfied
with what the medical establishment had to offer," forming "not only a medical entity but a political constituency."
CONSUMER DRIVEN
According to Statistics Canada, in 1995 at least 3.3 million Canadians paid more than
$1 billion for "alternative medicine" therapies not covered by Medicare. Other polls
put the number of Canadian health care consumers opting for non-conventional treatment at nearly 5.5 million. The "nutriceutical" market, including vitamins and other
health supplements, herbs, and homeopathics, is growing by 20 percent annually. "Complimentary
therapy is the leading edge of tomorrow's medicine," says Dr. Ken Wiancko, vice-president of the Canadian Complimentary Medicine Association.
The trend to seek health-care outside established, allopathic, medicine is consumer-driven,
especially by the more-affluent and better-educated who are 60 percent more likely
to choose alternative therapy than those in the lowest income bracket. These people demand more involvement and control, and are better able to afford non-insured
treatments. According to a study of alternative medicine consumers published in The
New England Journal of Medicine, all were high-school educated; 56 percent had bachelor's degrees, several had advanced degrees, and most were financially well-off.
Research indicates that the general public is way out in front of the medical establishment
on the alternative medicine issue. A poll conducted last fall by the Angus Reid organization
found that 75 percent of lay-people surveyed, but only 38% of physicians, agreed with the statement: "I believe Canada's health-care system should financially
support further exploration of herbal and alternative medical therapies, such as
those used in Asia and Europe."
NO OTHER CHOICE
For some people, using alternative therapies is a philosophical and political choice
to rely as little on the establishment medical system as little as possible. But
for many, it is a matter of having no other choice, since allopathic medicine has
proven ineffective or useless in treating their condition. This is the case for most environmentally
ill individuals.
DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT
Alternative medicine's growing popularity has the medical establishment worried. Disinclined
to relinquish the virtual monopoly over medical care and clinical judgment it has
enjoyed for nearly a century without a fight, the "Empire," as it were, is striking back. Here are a some dispatches from the front in Canada's medical wars:
In 1994, the British Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons (COPS) introduced
regulations stipulating that members may not use "unproven and conventional treatment,"
and that "accepted treatment [must be] supported in the mainstream scientific literature."
On October 21, 1996, the Vancouver Hospital and Health Science Centre opened the
Tzu Chi Institute for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, which aims to integrate
Western medicine with traditional Asian therapies. According to hospital president,
Murray Martin, the project provides traditional practitioners with a work space at a
major Western hospital, and will make it possible to evaluate the value of these
practices scientifically.
In April 1996, Alberta's legislature unanimously passed an amendment to the province's
medical act to prevent harassment of medical doctors who use any complimentary medical
procedure that cannot be proven to do more harm than conventional drugs or surgery. The Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons (ACPS) and several pharmaceutical
companies lobbied heavily against the bill's passage, arguing that it would "spread
quackery," but it became law Oct. 1, 1996.
The ACPS retaliated by introducing regulations prohibiting its members from practicing
complimentary therapies unless they apply for approval from the College and provide
written proof that the treatments are safe and effective. That amounts to a classic
"Catch-22" say complimentary medicine practitioners. ACPS registrar Dr. Larry Oldhauser
concedes that: "The definition of complimentary therapy is unproven or unconventional
therapies. Because physicians wish to be registered with us...we should be regulating them."
The Manitoba Ministry of Health recently refused to fund treatment of Multiple Chemical
Sensitivities (MCS), citing a study by the Manitoba COPS that does not recognize
this disorder.
In Quebec, Dr. Josèe Rancourt agreed to stop using complimentary therapies under
threat from the Quebec COPS that her license would be revoked. Dr. Guylaine Lanctot,
disheartened by the closed-mindedness of the Quebec College, voluntarily gave up
her license during a disciplinary hearing against her for holding non-conforming medical
opinions.
In November 1991, the Medical Society of Nova Scotia invited Stephen Barrett M.D.,
to address its annual meeting. Barrett, a Pennsylvania psychiatrist and "health fraud"
critic, vehemently opposes all alternative and complimentary medical therapies. Barrett railed against environmental medicine practitioners: "I think something ought
to be done about them....People who practice clinical ecology...should be examined
by licensing authorities to see whether they are fit to remain in practice."
Not long after Barrett's speech, several doctors filed a letter of complaint against
Dr. William La Valley and his now-retired partner Dr. David Baker, two Chester, N.S.,
M.D.s using alternative therapies to compliment their practice of conventional medicine. Their office was raided and files seized. This attack on two popular doctors
in the absence of any patient complaints sparked a firestorm of protest from individuals,
editorial writers, and opposition politicians, and the society was forced to back
off.
Partly as a consequence of the embarrassing LaValley/Baker affair, in January 1995
the Medical Society of Nova Scotia became the first medical association in Canada
to set up a complementary medicine section--sweet vindication for Dr Will LaValley,
who was named acting chairman of the new section. Included in the "complimentary medicine"
generality are homeopathy, environmental medicine, acupuncture, electroacupuncture,
nutritional counseling and supplementation.
The Nova Scotia government has approved the establishment of a state-of-the-art
Environmental Medicine Clinic at Fall River N.S., in cooperation with Halifax's Dalhousie
University--the first such government-funded clinic in North America. Some Nova Scotia physicians remain opposed. Skeptic Dr. Kempton Hayes dismisses environmental medicine
as "gobbledygook," and claims that the clinic will make Nova Scotia "the laughingstock
of the medical community."
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) revoked the license of
Dr. Carolyn Dean, an MD who uses complimentary medicine, in absentia (Dr. Dean now
practices in the U.S.). The College stated that although "there was no evidence that
Dr. Dean had harmed any patient by her treatment," and "despite being a caring physician,"
she nevertheless "fell below an acceptable standard of medical practice and was unfit
to continue in practice."
THE INQUISITION OF DR. KROP
Dr. Jozef Krop, 52, emigrated to Canada from Poland in 1972, and has been a physician
for 29 years. He has practiced environmental medicine for the past 16 years. Dr.
Krop is a board member and Fellow of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine
and a founding member of the Canadian Society of Environmental Medicine.
When Dr. Krop's disciplinary hearing began Dec. 4, l995, his lawyer, Morris Manning
QC., refused to enter a plea, arguing that the standards his client had allegedly
transgressed were not specifically defined in law or in the charges. Mr. Manning
compared the situation to a Franz Kafka novel, "The Trial," wherein the hero is obliged to
defend himself in court against charges that are not made known to him.
Mr. Manning argued that the College was on a "fishing expedition," since there has
never been a patient complaint filed against Dr. Krop. He moved for a stay of proceedings
based on abuse of process and lack of jurisdiction, contending that the investigation against Dr. Krop was launched because some CPSO members reject the concept of
environmental medicine.
"DEALING WITH THESE CLINICAL ECOLOGISTS"
A 1989 memo from CPSO Deputy Registrar, Dr. John Carlisle, tabled at the December
1995 hearings, corroborates the allegation of bad faith. "This [investigation] will
be a costly and lengthy process, but may be the only way of finally, once and for
all, dealing with these clinical ecologists," Dr. Carlisle wrote. Testimony revealed that
Dr. Carlisle and his colleagues didn't bother to read almost 50 pages of references
to various journals, texts, and articles supporting environmental medicine supplied
by Dr. Krop.
The first round of hearings resulted in a Committee verdict rejecting all of defense
council's arguments. A second round ran from April 28 to May 17, 1997. Several CPSO
witnesses attempted once more to discredit Dr. Krop, and environmental medicine.
Dr. Susan Tarlo, author of a damning report on Dr. Krop's practice prepared for the College,
testified that she was not familiar with much of the literature or procedures in
the field of environmental medicine, but that her approach to immunology and allergy
treatment was, of course, "right."
Dr. Tarlo's report was used by the CPSO Disciplinary Panel only because two reports
previously written for the College (by Drs. MacFadden and Binkley), and which had
formed the basis of the College's charges against Dr. Krop, were withdrawn by the
authors.
Defense witness Professor Roy Fox, head of the new Environmental Medicine Clinic--Dalhousie
in Nova Scotia, testified that he uses similar techniques to those administered by
Dr. Krop, and that the N.S. clinic's long waiting list has resulted in him referring patients to Dr. Krop.
Dr. John Boyles, President of the Pan American Allergy Society and an expert in environmental
medicine, described in detail the extensive standards, education, peer review, and
published literature supporting environmental medicine. He testified that environmental medicine's approach to treating allergies and sensitivities is both more
effective and safer than conventional allopathic treatments. When asked to review
patient charts seized from Dr. Krop's office, Dr. Boyle pronounced them well established
and in good order.
Dr. Krop's defense against the CPSO's eight year campaign against had cost close to
$500,000 in legal expenses as of May 1997, and he is now $100,000 in debt. "Whether
you win or lose," says Dr. Krop, "you lose because the College bankrupts you...Lawyers
cost $600 - $700 per hour." He noted that while many people express moral support,
cash donations to his defense fund are slower to materialize, and he appeals to anyone
concerned about preserving health care freedom in Canada to contribute what they
feel they can spare.
Dr. Krop says his eight year ordeal has been extremely stressful for him and his family,
but he has "no choice but to live with it and fight it." "The charges against me
are misconceived, misguided, and without foundation," says Dr. Krop. "They represent
an attack against complimentary medicine, against patients' right to treatment and
options, against doctors' rights to provide treatment of choice. These charges are
a violation of the international Helsinki Agreement which guarantees doctors the
right to use any treatment which in his or her judgment will alleviate suffering. They are
an abusive attempt to suppress preventative, nutritional, complimentary, orthomolecular,
and PARTICULARLY environmental medicine, all of which are cost-effective in the long-term, successful in outcomes, and make a very real and definite improvement in patients'
health and quality of life."
ORTHODOXY AND THE MEDICAL MODEL
For most establishment medical professionals and bureaucrats educated during the past
50 years, there are simply no legitimate alternatives to the allopathic "Medical
Model". Medical doctors, most of whom sincerely desire to engage in an honourable
and effective practice, feel tremendous pressure to maintain the status quo.
The allopathic establishment claims possession of scientific authority, and tends
to manipulate discussion of non-allopathic medical techniques from the bully-pulpit
of "science," dismissing all others as quacks or as employing "unproven methods."
A typical tactic used to discredit non-standard therapies is to label them "unproven." This
strategy works especially well among professionals, who are predisposed by their
training to equate "unproven" with "ineffective" or perhaps even "dangerous."
Complimentary practitioners argue that conventional medicine's claim to being purveyors
of the only "scientifically proven" therapies is bogus. "Only 10 percent to 20 percent
of conventional medicine is based on clinically controlled trials," says Dr. William LaValley.
Critics of allopathy contend that science has been hijacked and corrupted by a special
interest group. By wrapping themselves in the cloak of science, they charge, allopathic
leaders seek to camouflage their underlying political agenda, which is to maintain and expand their control of public health care policy to suit their private interests.
In so doing, they dis-enfranchise individual consumers from controlling the direction
of their own health care. They paternalistically prefer to keep the public in a state of dependency, ignorance, and obedience.
"UNLAWFUL BOYCOTT"
In November 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed lower court rulings that the American
Medical Association had engaged in a "systematic, successful and unlawful boycott"
of the chiropractic profession. The US Seventh District Court of Appeals ruled earlier that year that the AMA had demonstrated its intention to "destroy a competitor."
The case (Wilk et al. vs. AMA et al.) began 14 years earlier, when four chiropractors
filed suit against the AMA. A September 1987 District Court ruling found the AMA
guilty of conspiracy, and issued a permanent restraining order against the association..
AMA activities had included suppressing research favourable to chiropractic, undermining
chiropractic colleges and postgraduate education programs, using new ethical rulings
to prevent cooperation between MDs and chiropractors in education, research and practice, subverting a 1967 U.S. government enquiry into the merits of chiropractic,
and basing an extensive misinformation campaign against chiropractic on the calculated
portrayal of chiropractors as "unscientific," "cultist," and having a philosophy
incompatible with Western scientific medicine.
In September 1963, the AMA set an objective of "the complete elimination of the chiropractic
profession," which was repeatedly confirmed by its Committee on Quackery over the
next ten years. In 1966, the AMA's House of Delegates passed a resolution describing chiropractic as "an unscientific cult." A year later, the AMA's Judicial Council
declared it unethical for a physician to associate professionally with chiropractors,
and indicated that it "would withdraw and refuse accreditation of a hospital that
granted privileges to chiropractors," which would effectively lead to the hospital's
closure.
BULLY-BOY TACTICS
Bully-boy tactics are nothing new for the AMA, which was established in 1846 partly
to counter the growth of homeopathy. Soon all physicians who practiced homeopathy
were expelled from the new organization. In 1855, the AMA added a "consultation clause"
to its code of ethics, asserting that any member who consulted with a homeopath or
other "nonregular" practitioner would be booted out.
In 1900, some 20-30 percent of all physicians used homeopathy. There were 22 homeopathic
medical schools, over 100 homeopathic hospitals, and over 1,000 homeopathic pharmacies
in the U.S. in the late 19th-century. Many homeopathic practitioners were graduates of elite medical schools including Harvard University, Dartmouth College, Boston
University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Iowa.
THE FLEXNER REPORT
In 1910, Abraham Flexner was commissioned by the Carnegie Foundation under AMA auspices
to evaluate American medical schools. Predictably, homeopathic schools received low
ratings in the Flexner Report, and the U.S. government was persuaded to decree that only graduates of highly-rated schools would be permitted to take medical licensing
exams. By 1923, only two homeopathic colleges remained, and by 1950--none.
BLACKBALLED
During the 1950s, the AMA blackballed unorthodox cancer therapy pioneer Max Gerson
(who Dr. Albert Schweitzer, a Gerson patient, called "one of the most eminent medical
geniuses in the history of medicine"), by putting pressure on testing laboratories,
hospitals, and other physicians to refuse to do any work with Dr. Gerson. Very few doctors
and labs, and no hospitals, had the courage to buck the AMA edict, so Gerson lost
all hospital privileges. Several young doctors who began working with Gerson were
collared by the AMA and warned that if they persisted in associating with the heretic,
they would likewise be denied lab and hospital privileges. Dr. Gerson was refused
malpractice insurance because of AMA, influence.
Norman Fritz, Executive Vice-President of the Gerson Institute operated by Max Gerson's
daughter Charlotte, says that rumours were spread that fees at Gerson's clinic were
hundreds of times higher than he actually charged. Dr. Gerson was gratuitously investigated five times by the New York County Medical Society, although none of his thousands
of patients had ever filed a malpractice complaint against him. When Dr. Gerson appeared
on a popular New York talk show, the radio network was threatened by the AMA and the show's host, John Nebel, was fired the next day.
In 1956, many of Dr. Gerson's patient files and all copies of the manuscript for his
book, "A Cancer Therapy," disappeared under mysterious circumstances (Dr. Gerson,
then 75, re-wrote the book, and succeeded publishing it in 1958, a year before his
death.)
PROPAGANDA
Dr. Jozef Krop believes that our society in general is unwilling to acknowledge the
problem of environmental illness. "Our chemically-dependent world is very comfortable,"
he says. "Society has believed the propaganda and everyone is in a general state
of denial regarding the effects on human health of cumulative high and low level exposures
to chemicals and the degradation of the biosphere. There is some acceptance that
trees and birds and animals are affected but reluctance to see all the indications
that environmental toxins are causing both physical and psychological deterioration in
our own human species."
"The allopathic medical establishment generally rejects the idea that a cumulative
load of environmental toxins can cause a wide variety of disorders," says Dr. Krop.
"Industry, business, and the general public choose to believe the medical establishment
and happily continue indulging themselves." Other critics also charge that conventional
medicine is beholden to powerful vested interests for research and medical school
funding, interests whose balance sheets would suffer if it were established that
common chemical products and pharmaceuticals are making people sick.
In their award-winning 1991 book, "Chemical Exposures: Low Levels and High Stakes,
Nicholas Ashford Ph.D. and Claudia Miller M.D. write:
"If clinical ecologists are involved, there seems to be more of a desire to shoot
the messenger than to take the problem seriously.... Numerous university and government
scientists who are knowledgeable about chemical sensitivity feel it is worth taking
seriously. However, many fear for their own professional careers and are reluctant
to write or speak openly on the subject."
"Powerful economic and industrial forces have joined to deny the chemically sensitive
patient compensation," say Ashford and Miller, "just as they did earlier in this
century for occupational injury and later for occupational disease, by accusing the
worker of malingering and bad faith."
"IGNORANCE AND FEAR OF CHANGE"
"This is a philosophical battle," affirms Dr. Krop. "[The issues] are the same ones
that have plagued humanity from the beginning: ignorance and fear of change. We have
an invisible wall of control, prejudice, and intolerance."
Indeed, the allopathic establishment has a long history of stubborn reluctance to
embrace new or innovative ideas. "It took 40 years for doctors to accept Pasteur's
theory that boiled milk prevented tuberculosis," notes Dr. Ken Wiancko. French chemist
and biologist Louis Pasteur (1822-95) is today considered the founder of microbiology,
but when his experiments first indicated that disease-causing microorganisms could
infect people through environmental transmission--contradicting the prevailing theory
that they were spontaneously produced in disease victims themselves. Pasteur was attacked
by medical authorities like French biologist Felix Pouchet and the noted English
bacteriologist Henry Bastion, both advocates of the spontaneous generation theory.
The medical establishment of Pasteur's day contended that in any case, the role of
germs in disease propagation was secondary and unimportant; the notion that tiny
organisms like bacteria and viruses could kill vastly larger ones like people was
deemed ridiculous.
Poor Ignaz Semmelweiss, the 19th Century Hungarian obstetrician who first developed
the theory of antisepsis, was nearly drummed out of the medical profession for advocating
the preposterous idea that physicians handling cadavers in the autopsy room ought to wash their hands before entering the obstetrics ward to assist in childbirth.
In the 1840s puerperal fever, a bacterial genital tract infection after childbirth,
killed up to 30 percent of the women giving birth in hospitals, while homebirth mothers
remained relatively unaffected. Semmelweis noticed that women who were examined by
student doctors who had not washed their hands had much higher mortality rates. By
ordering his students to wash their hands with chlorinated lime before examining
patients, he reduced the hospital's maternal mortality rate to 1.27 percent within
two years. Semmelweiss nevertheless encountered fierce opposition from colleagues and hospital
officials, and was literally driven to serious mental illness by the hostility and
opposition his ideas provoked. After suffering a nervous breakdown, he went to a
mental hospital in Vienna, where he died, ironically, from an infection contracted during
an operation.
Today's pioneers the field of environmental medicine--Jozef Krop Roy Fox of Halifax;
Gerald Ross and William Rea of Dallas, Texas, and Sherry Rogers of Syracuse, New
York and many others--are running up against the same walls of prejudice, vested interest,
cognitive dissonance, and turf jealousy that stood in the way of Semmelweiss, Pasteur,
and other medical innovators. Plus ça change, plus ça meme chose.
No reasonable person suggests that allopathic medicine be abandoned, or that society
depend entirely on alternative therapies for health care. All of the doctors mentioned
in the preceding paragraph are licensed M.D.s (at least for now!) who use both allopathic and alternative medicine--whichever is more appropriate or in combination. What
alternative medicine advocates demand is that non-allopathic therapies be allowed
to take their place as peer-reviewed, insured, medical services, complimenting and
augmenting allopathic medicine, thereby giving patients a choice of health care options.
Does alternative medicine "work?" One might just as easily ask: does conventional
allopathic medicine "work?" Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Most alternative
medicine therapies are non-invasive, safe, free of side-effects, and cheap compared
with typical allopathic treatments. The testimony of millions of satisfied alternative
medicine patients may be "anecdotal" and "unscientific," but it constitutes sufficient
probable cause to let physicians choosing to utilize complimentary therapies practice their healing arts free from harassment.
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