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Commentary on Efforts to Regulate Complementary
Medicine
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Reject More Regulations
by Ingrid Naiman
More federal regulations should be rejected for a
number of reasons. First, despite the serious warnings of former
Surgeon General C. Everett Koop regarding the absence of meaningful
outcome research, there is an implicit assumption that because
a drug has somehow navigated its way through the hurdles of the
FDA that it is safe and effective. If the FDA had been performing
a meaningful task in an appropriate way, we would not now still
be arguing over whether or not mercury in
amalgams and vaccine preservatives is safe and we never would have
permitted Thalidomide or a host of other hugely dangerous drugs
onto the market. The reality is that drug companies submit applications
and that if the paperwork looks all right, the drugs are approved
whether or not they are safe and effective.
Second, the truth is that conventional medicine is not winning
any meaningful battles against any chronic diseases, and its arsenal
for acute diseases is swiftly becoming ineffective.
Third, the premises of much of conventional medicine were based
on a historic debate between Pasteur
and Bechamp and nearly the whole of 20th century medicine was
predicated on an argument Pasteur put forth: i.e. that specific
germs cause specific diseases. On his deathbed, Pasteur admitted
that his data did not support his arguments and that Bechamp should
have won the debate, but his estate was prevented from publishing
this for two generations. His grandson has now published the correct
data, which amounts to a retraction of statements, but academia
has yet to catch up because it spent so long denying pleomorphism
that it hasn't even got the tools to examine such basic concepts.
Fourth, had 20th century medicine really been progressive, we would
know as much about the immune system as about microorganisms, but
since we can see microorganisms and only interpret the immune system
through secondary observations, we don't really know what enables
a person to fend off disease.
I could go on and on. I heard a surgeon
on TV boast that he had performed over 7000 operations and that
he could state with absolute certainty that he never saw chi inside
any body he opened up on his table. There are some real geniuses
out there, most of them sitting on conservative medical boards
that would freeze knowledge at the mediocre "C"
average they obtained 40 years ago.
Here is my vote, an absolutely serious recommendation. The FDA
should be permanently shut down because it does not perform a needed
service. Every profession should organize into regional and national
chapters that are represented by a combination of eminent persons
from their own profession. These persons should come from different
segments of the profession: professors who teach the disciplines
practiced by graduates, practitioners who are in the field and
seeing patients on a daily basis, and researchers who are contributing
to the future of their profession. All persons serving in national
chapters should be elected by their own members and have limited
terms. Anyone deriving unusual benefit from patents or investments
related to their profession should be barred from holding office
and anyone who accepts a nomination for office must be willing
to disclose any potential for conflict of interest.
All professions will set the standards for membership and/or licensure
of their own members and all governmental and insurance agencies
must be bound by the judgment of the boards representing members.
Board members must, in turn, be governed by the membership so that
they are representing their profession rather than themselves as
individuals.
There is zero basis for any further
regulation at this time. The government has wholly failed to protect
the public from unscrupulous medicines and medical practices. The
fact that it foots the bill for certain services does not give
it the right to determine efficacy. The merits of a treatment or
protocol or procedure depend on outcome. Outcome is not an aspect
of the current process for obtaining the recognition required in
order that something becomes credible and legal. If conventional
medicine were willing to subject itself to scrutiny, it would no
doubt be forced to back down.
Finally, the methods used to determine credibility require enormous
sums of money. Unless these sums are allocated to those who offer
complementary health services and unless they are allocated on
the same basis as other grants for research, there would be no
way for anyone to perform the required trials . . . and no way
to challenge the claims made for superiority of previously approved
methods.
If a ballistics missile treaty is out of date because technology
has changed, imagine how many medical patents and procedures are
based on concepts and treatments that are completely out of date.
Give that some thought.
For instance, if DNA is the cutting edge of medicine today (personally,
I believe it is another hype but I have no illusions about the
number of patents that will be granted for genetic medicines),
then we have to ask how many patented and approved drugs cause
damage to DNA? Should they all be removed because we now understand
more than when the rubber stamps were put on applications? Should
Bayer surrender its rights to aspirin because the standards for
drug approval must meet the same safety standards as herbs?
If kava kava can be yanked from the market because someone complained
of liver problems, then there is hardly a single pharmaceutical
drug on the market that could pass the standard being held as appropriate
for kava kava. I would wager a lot of foods are not as safe as
kava kava. For instance, is there any inorganic food on the market
that is safer than kava kava? I will bet that if you drink 16 cups
of pesticide enriched coffee or even grape juice that you will
be much sicker than anyone taking a medicinal dose of kava kava.
Medicine belongs in the hands of those who understand the needs
of patients, not the demands of multinational corporations.
For more information:
http://www.healthfreedom.info/Cancer%20Food%20Herbs.htm
Poulsbo, Washington
Copyright by Ingrid Naiman 2002, 2006, 2009, 2014
