from Environmental Health News via IAOMT

A study raises concern about children’s exposure to mercury through fish eating, tying it for the first time to hormone changes that increase chronic stress and associated immune system dysfunction.

The mercury levels measured in the children were well below the levels considered a health risk by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

This new study from Oswego County, New York, finds that higher mercury levels measured in the children’s blood are significantly associated with lower cortisol levels. The hormone cortisol is released in response to stress and is important for metabolism, immune responses and blood pressure. Its levels naturally fluctuate during the day – levels are higher in the morning and lower in the afternoon.

Even lower cortisol levels and responses can result in chronic stress even though stress increases the hormone’s level. The study’s results suggest that mercury exposure at levels commonly seen in fish eating populations may do this. It may act as a chronic stressor and disrupt the stress response. Chronic stress means the body doesn’t relax – cells continually function in high gear and do not return to a normal state. Long-term stress can have many negative health effects such as increased heart disease, more metabolic disorders and lowered immunity.

The findings are in line with prior studies in people and fish. The toxic metal increased inflammation in miners exposed to mercury. Animal studies find reduced cortisol levels in mercury-contaminated fish after capture stress.

Fish consumption is a major source both of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids and toxic mercury. Omega-3s benefit health by protecting against heart disease. Mercury is potentially harmful because it affects the brain and nervous system in children. Although there are fish advisories in many states, it is still uncertain whether the benefit of eating fish outweighs the potential harm in children.

To address the pros and cons of fish eating in children, the researchers examined 100 children from 9 to 11 years old in New York State. Parents reported children’s fish consumption, which was categorized as eating or not in the analysis. Blood mercury levels, blood lipids, cortisol in saliva and inflammation markers were measured. Blood lipids indicate future heart disease risk; cortisol reflects changes of stress response; and inflammation markers indicate immune response differences.

Fish eaters had higher HDL – or so called good cholesterol – related to lower heart disease risk, than non-fish eaters. However, the fish eaters also had much higher – almost three times higher – mercury levels than non-fish eaters (1.1 and 0.4 microgram per liter, respectively).

Mercury levels were related to lower cortisol levels at all time points in the study. The highest mercury levels had about 20-25 percent lower cortisol in saliva samples compared with lowest mercury levels. At the same time, children with higher mercury also had higher inflammatory markers in their blood.

The study is limited by its design as a one-time survey, not a follow-up study. More work is still needed to examine whether the association is robust in larger studies with a follow-up design.

from GreenMedInfo

The Polio Global Eradication Initiative (PGEI), founded in 1988 by the World Health Organization, Rotary International, UNICEF, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, holds up India as a prime example of its success at eradicating polio, stating on its website (Jan. 11 2012) that “India has made unprecedented progress against polio in the last two years and on 13 January, 2012, India will reach a major milestone — a 12-month period without any case of polio being recorded.”

This report, however, is highly misleading, as an estimated 100-180 Indian children are diagnosed with vaccine-associated polio paralysis (VAPP) each year. In fact, the clinical presentation of the disease, including paralysis, caused by VAPP is indistinguishable from that caused by wild polioviruses, making the PGEI’s pronouncements all the more suspect.¹

According to the Polio Global Eradication Initiative’s own statistics² there were 42 cases of wild-type polio (WPV) reported in India in 2010, indicating that vaccine-induced cases of polio paralysis (100-180 annually) outnumber wild-type cases by a factor of 3-4. Even if we put aside the important question of whether or not the PGEI is accurately differentiating between wild and vaccine-associated polio cases in their statistics, we still must ask ourselves: should not the real-world effects of immunization, both good and bad, be included in PGEI’s measurement of success? For the dozens of Indian children who develop vaccine-induced paralysis every year, the PGEI’s recent declaration of India as nearing “polio free” status, is not only disingenuous, but could be considered an attempt to minimize their obvious liability in having transformed polio from a natural disease vector into a man-made (iatrogenic) one.

VAPP is, in fact, the predominant form of the disease in developed countries like the US since 1973.³ The problem of vaccine-induced polio paralysis was so severe that the The United States moved to the inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) in 2000, after the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended altogether eliminating the live-virus oral polio vaccine (OPV), which is still used throughout the third world, despite the known risks.

Polio underscores the need for a change in the way we look at so-called “vaccine preventable” diseases as a whole. In most people with a healthy immune system, a poliovirus infection does not even generate symptoms. Only rarely does the infection produce minor symptoms, e.g. sore throat, fever, gastrointestinal disturbances, and influenza-like illness. In only 3% of infections does virus gain entry to the central nervous system, and then, in only 1-5 in 1000 cases does the infection progress to paralytic disease.

Due to the fact that polio spreads through the fecal-oral route (i.e. the virus is transmitted from the stool of an infected person to the mouth of another person through a contaminated object, e.g. utensil) focusing on hygiene, sanitation and proper nutrition (to support innate immunity) is a logical way to prevent transmission in the first place, as well as reducing morbidity associated with an infection when it does occur.

Instead, a large portion of the world’s vaccines are given to the Third World as “charity,” when the underlying conditions of economic impoverishment, poor nutrition, chemical exposures, and socio-political unrest are never addressed. You simply can’t vaccinate people out of these conditions, and as India’s new epidemic of vaccine-induced polio cases clearly demonstrates, the “cure” may be far worse than the disease itself.

¹ Cono J, Alexander LN (2002). “Chapter 10: Poliomyelitis” (PDF). Vaccine-Preventable Disease Surveillance Manual.
² http://www.polioeradication.org/Dataandmonitoring/Poliothisweek.aspx
³Strebel PM, Sutter RW, Cochi SL, et al. Epidemiology of poliomyelitis in the United States one decade after the last reported case of indigenous wild virus-associated disease. Clin Infect Dis 1992;14:568-79.

Please visit GreenMedInfo to access their vast database of articles and the latest information in natural health.

by Aaron Turpen, BreastCancer.co

A new study from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, published in theJournal of the American College of Surgeons this month, shows that most women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer are not well-informed of their treatment options. Many, in fact, are not even meaningfully involved in treatment discussions or asked their preferences regarding the treatment’s approach.

The study is a retrospective conducted amongst women who were treated at one of four academic medical centers in Boston, San Francisco and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The women were surveyed with questions regarding their knowledge of breast cancer treatment options and then asked about their dealings with physicians and surgeons before treatment began.

The women averaged only 52.7% in their test scores on treatment knowledge and understanding and only 48.6% of them said they’d held conferences with surgeons or physicians about their treatment options in light of the options given on the test itself.

The knowledge gaps are considered a big problem, though this is the first time a study has attempted to get an overall picture of breast cancer awareness amongst those diagnosed with it. Most studies to this point have focused on specific treatments or cancer types.

One of the more problematic issues raised was the fact that most women were not informed that survival rates for alternatives to mastectomy, such as breast-conservation therapy, are the same. Further, those with a partial mastectomy were less likely to understand recurrence rates versus those who had a full mastectomy – despite the fact that rates are usually higher in partials.

The study sheds light on the long strides needed to improve education in breast cancer amongst the general populace and especially in women who have been diagnosed or are at risk.

by Jonathan Benson, NaturalNews

The more that researchers truly study the effects of antidepressant drugs on depression patients, the more it becomes painfully obvious that these mind-altering medications are utterly useless. A new study conducted by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has revealed that antidepressant drugs work no better than talk therapy, placebo pills, or basically anything else, at relieving depression.

Funded in part by the drug industry, the new study follows the same pattern as several other recent studies that, even though they were not intended to do so, actually expose antidepressant drugs as a scam. Though the study’s authors and various commentators were quick to dismiss the findings as not necessarily indicative of the fact that antidepressants provide no medical benefits, any reasonable person looking at the study with an open mind can clearly see that this is, in fact, the case.

For the study, which was published in theJournal of Clinical Psychiatry, researchers randomly assigned 156 depression patients to either take the antidepressant drug Sertraline (Zoloft) daily for 16 weeks; a form of psychotherapy called supportive-expressive therapy twice a week for four weeks, then weekly for 12 weeks; or take inactive placebo pills for 16 weeks.

At the conclusion of the study period, researchers reported virtually no difference at all among the groups in how depression patients responded to their treatments — roughly 25 percent from each group saw an improvement in their depression symptoms, while the rest continued to struggle with their symptoms.

“I was surprised by the results,” said lead researcher Jacques P. Barber, dean of the Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York. “They weren’t what I’d expected.”

And to those who put their faith in Western medicine’s drug-based solutions for depression, how could the results not be surprising? After all, a study such as this one is an embarrassment to both the drug and mental health industries, as it shows that their so-called solutions are no better at treating depression symptoms than taking a sugar pill.

It’s not that the drug doesn’t work, it’s that everything works, including the drug!

And in trying to gloss over the results, some outside commentators inadvertently admitted that virtuallyanythingcan work to treat depression — yes, anything. Dr. David Mischoulon, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, for instance, actually told Reuters Health that, rather than disprove the effectiveness of antidepressants, the study actually shows that “everything seems to work to some degree.”

So when a scientific study proves that a certain pharmaceutical drug fails to live up to its hype, experts trying to defend that particular drug just have to claim thateverything, including that drug, can be helpful in treating a condition, and voila, it is still effective. This is, of course, an amazingly unscientific and absurd way of looking at the findings, but it is the only way apart from scrapping the useless drug that its defenders can (very poorly) try to justify its existence.

Sources for this article include:

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111221/hl_nm/us_antidepressant

Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/034625_placebo_depression_antidepressants.html#ixzz1jfzITsLo

by Michael Snyder, BLN

Most Americans do not realize this, but we are on the verge of a major doctor shortage in the United States.  All over America, good doctors are going broke.  The way that our health care system is currently set up, they simply cannot make it.  These days a lot of politicians are warning us about the dangers of “socialized medicine”, but the truth is that we already have it.  About half of all health care dollars in the United States are now spent by the federal government, and a lot of health insurance companies base reimbursements on what the federal government does.  In addition, there are a whole host of parasites that have gotten between the doctor and the patient these days.  Everyone wants a piece of the health care pie.  Health insurance companies, pharmaceutical giants, lawyers, health care “administrators” and government bureaucrats all make a sweet living off of the doctor/patient relationship.  It really is sickening.  And now Obamacare is going to make things much, much worse.  As you will read about later in this article, a stunning percentage of doctors say that they plan to leave the medical profession because of Obamacare.  What this means is that we are headed for a chronic doctor shortage and there is a good chance that there will be no doctor for you when you really need one in the years ahead.

Today, approximately 40 percent of all doctors in the United States are 55 years of age or older.  Large numbers of them are getting ready to retire.

Even before Obamacare was passed, we were already facing a massive shortage of doctors in the coming years.  The American Association of Medical Colleges has projected that we will experience a shortage of more than 150,000 doctors over the next 15 years.

Unfortunately, the passage of Obamacare is going to make this crisis even worse.  A whole host of surveys have shown that a massive number of doctors in America are headed for the exits because of the new health care law….

*According to a Merritt Hawkins survey of 2,379 doctors for the Physicians Foundation that was conducted in August 2010, 40 percent of all U.S. doctors plan to “retire, seek a nonclinical job in health care, or seek a job or business unrelated to health care” at some point over the next three years.

*A shocking IBD/TPP Poll taken in 2010 found that 45 percent of all U.S. doctors are considering leaving the medical profession or retiring early as a result of Obamacare.

At the moment, there are approximately 960,000 doctors in the United States.

So what is going to happen if a couple hundred thousand of them suddenly leave the medical profession?

Already we were in desperate need of a lot more doctors.  The following comes from an article in the Wall Street Journal….

Health-care reform will add an estimated 32 million people to the ranks of the insured, driving them to seek medical attention that in the past they may have avoided due to expense. The aging population will also create much greater demand. The number of seniors who need more medical care is expected to soar to 72 million by 2020—nearly double today’s number.

So what is going to happen if the number of doctors starts declining rapidly?

Most Americans think of doctors as being “wealthy”, but that is not the reality of what is going on out there these days as a recent CNN article explained….

Doctors in America are harboring an embarrassing secret: Many of them are going broke.

This quiet reality, which is spreading nationwide, is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists.

Americans spend more on health care than anyone else in the world and yet thousands upon thousands of doctors are going broke.

How can that be?

Well, one huge contributing factor is the mismanagement of the federal government.

The following comes from an article in the New York Post….

Existing government programs already reimburse physicians at rates that are often less than the actual cost of treating a patient. Estimates suggest that on average physicians are reimbursed at roughly 78% of costs under Medicare, and just 70% of costs under Medicaid. Physicians must either make up for this shortfall by shifting costs to those patients with insurance — meaning those of us with insurance pay more — or treat patients at a loss.

So guess who has to make up the difference?

You and I.

When we go to see the doctor we get smacked with a huge bill in order to make up for the Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Things have gotten so bad that a lot of doctors won’t even see Medicare and Medicaid patients anymore.

Just check out what some researchers found when they called around to doctors in Illinois back in 2010.  The following comes from an article in the New York Times….

The study used a “secret shopper” technique in which researchers posed as the parent of a sick or injured child and called 273 specialty practices in Cook County, Ill., to schedule appointments. The callers, working from January to May 2010, described problems that were urgent but not emergencies, like diabetes, seizures, uncontrolled asthma, a broken bone or severe depression. If they were asked, they said that primary care doctors or emergency departments had referred them.

Sixty-six percent of those who mentioned Medicaid-CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) were denied appointments, compared with 11 percent who said they had private insurance, according to an article being published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.  Without Medicaid, millions of children would not receive health care.

But now large numbers of doctors are rejecting patients on Medicaid because they simply cannot afford to treat them.

And now as Obamacare is fully implemented over the next few years it is going to make our health care mess a whole lot worse.

Obamacare is going to burden our doctors with a gigantic mountain of new regulations and red tape.  It is going to become incredibly difficult to make a living as a doctor and the federal government is going to be pretty much running the entire health care system.

Did you know that Obamacare is so oppressive that it is even causing the cancellation of new hospitals?

According to the executive director of Physician Hospitals of America, Obamacare has already forced the cancellation of at least 60 doctor-owned hospitals that were scheduled to open.

In addition, as Obamacare is fully rolled out the wait to see a doctor is likely to get much longer.  If you urgently need to see a doctor you may simply be out of luck.

If you doubt this, just check out what happened in Massachusetts.  As a result of Romneycare, the average wait to see a doctor in Massachusetts is now much, much longer….

In fact, we have already seen the start of this process in Massachusetts, where Mitt Romney’s health care reforms were nearly identical to President Obama’s. Romney’s reforms increased the demand for health care but did nothing to expand the supply of physicians. In fact, by cracking down on insurance premiums, Massachusetts pushed insurers to reduce their payments to providers, making it less worthwhile for doctors to expand their practices. As a result, the average wait to get an appointment with a doctor grew from 33 days to over 55 days.

Is that the kind of health care system that you want?

The more doctors that leave the system, the worse that things are going to get.

We need a system where doctors can make a living.  It is just as simple as that.

The following is one example of a doctor that is going broke from a recent CNN article….

Beau Donegan, senior executive with a hospital cancer center in Newport Beach, Calif., is well aware of physicians’ financial woes.

“Many are too proud to admit that they are on the verge of bankruptcy,” she said. “These physicians see no way out of the downward spiral of reimbursement, escalating costs of treating patients and insurance companies deciding when and how much they will pay them.”

Donegan knows an oncologist “with a stellar reputation in the community” who hasn’t taken a salary from his private practice in over a year. He owes drug companies $1.6 million, which he wasn’t reimbursed for.

The following is another example from that same article….

Dr. Neil Barth is that oncologist. He has been in the top 10% of oncologists in his region, according to U.S. News Top Doctors’ ranking. Still, he is contemplating personal bankruptcy.

That move could shutter his 31-year-old clinical practice and force 6,000 cancer patients to look for a new doctor.

Are you starting to get the picture?

There are already not enough doctors, and the number of doctors is going to continue to decline unless something is done.

We need to fundamentally restructure the way that health care is done in the United States.  What we are doing now is not working, and Obamacare is going to make things much worse.

Today, the average medical school student graduates with over $295,000 of student loan debt.

So if doctors can’t make any money, then where is the incentive to go into so much debt?

Something has gone very wrong.

It isn’t as if we are not spending enough money on health care.  Just consider the following stats….

-What the United States spent on health care in 2009 was greater than the entire GDP of Great Britain.

-According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980.  Today they account for approximately 16.3%.

-Over the past decade, health insurance premiums have risen three times faster than wages have in the United States.

-According to a report released in 2010, Americans spend approximately twice as much as residents of other developed countries do on health care.

So we are definitely spending more than enough money on health care.

So where is it all going?

Well, it is going to the parasites….

-According to a report by Health Care for America Now, America’s five biggest for-profit health insurance companies ended 2009 with a combined profit of $12.2 billion.

-The chairman of Aetna, the third largest health insurance company in the United States, brought in a staggering $68.7 million during 2010. Ron Williams exercised stock options that were worth approximately $50.3 million and he raked in an additional $18.4 million in wages and other forms of compensation.  The funny thing is that he left the company and didn’t even work the whole year.

-There were more than two dozen pharmaceutical companies that made over a billion dollars in profits each during 2008.

-According to the CDC, the percentage of Americans that say that they have taken a prescription drug within the last month has risen to almost 50 percent.

-Lawyers are certainly doing their part to contribute to soaring health care costs. According to one recent study, the medical liability system in the United States added approximately $55.6 billion to the cost of health care in 2008.

Are you starting to understand?

This gigantic mess is causing an increasing number of Americans to seek medical care outside of the country.  According to numbers released by Deloitte Consulting, a whopping 875,000 Americans were “medical tourists” in 2010.

Our health care system is irretrievably broken.  The federal government has messed it up beyond all recognition and it is not going to get better any time soon.

by Aaron Turpen, FindDiscountInsurance

In brief: A growing trend is happening where uninsured and under-insured people in America turn to daily deals sites to get coupons for health care.

The full story

Groupon, one of the most popular of the daily deals sites, occasionally has coupons from medical clinics and dentists and says that they are often some of the most popular, selling out fast.

The deals usually offer 50% off to consumers who purchase it through the site and present the coupon to the provider.

Another similar site, LivingSocial, has seen trends that are much the same. A recent posting for a dentist in New York there received overwhelming response and sold out within hours.

The sites often feature everything from Botox injections to spa treatements to Lasik eye surgery, dental cleanings and exams, and even health checkups including one ad for a Department of Transportation health check for professional drivers.

It’s a growing trend that is helping some Americans who would otherwise not be able to afford coverage to get basic health care.

from BreastCancer.co

Breast cancer survival rates are higher now than they’ve ever been in the past, but health challenges including high rates of depression are still a problem. Researchers at the University of Missouri have been testing how meditation techniques can help with this.

The researchers in the Sinclair School of Nursing have found that breast cancer survivors’ health improves after they learn Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a type of mindfulness training that incorporates meditation, yoga, and physical awareness.

“MBSR is another tool to enhance the lives of breast cancer survivors,” SSN doctoral student Jane Armer says. “Patients often are given a variety of options to reduce stress, but they should choose what works for them according to their lifestyles and belief systems.”

The MBSR program includes eight to ten weeks of group sessions where the participants learn the MBSR skills. The study found that survivors who utilized MBSR had improved moods, more mindfulness, and less depression overall. It can be used for anyone in post-diagnosis, during or after surgery or treatment.

from BreastCancer.co

New research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute this month shows that targeted radiation for breast cancer has been widely overused. The research uses new criteria established in 2009 by the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) for the use of brachytherapy (targeted irradiation for breast cancer). It compares that new criteria with patient records from the past several years, showing that 2/3 of those receiving brachytherapy probably should not have.

Using records from 138,815 U.S. women who’d received brachytherapy from 2000 to 2007, the study shows that most of them do not fit into the currently recommended criteria for the therapy. This would likely account for some higher recurrence rates amongst the women.

The study compared women who received targeted radiation and those who received the more common whole breast irradiation (WBI). It found that 29.6% of the women receiving brachytherapy would have been classified as “cautionary” (not likely to benefit) and 36.2% would have been classified as “unsuitable” under current ASTRO criteria.

The study briefly discussed cancer return rates (versus recurrence in WBI), but admits that this data would be too preliminary given the specific scope of the study itself.

Targeted irradiation is more convenient for women, since it requires only about a week of therapy instead of a full month, but is designed for very specific situations that only about 7-10% of breast cancer patients fall into. Its use, the study found, varies greatly by geographic region, by rural versus urban (urban is more likely), and by racial demographic (whites are more likely to receive it), but not necessarily by means or income (Medicare covers it).

Findings from another study published this year show that women who receive brachytherapy at twice as likely to eventually have a mastectomy than those who receive WBI.

by Dr. Mercola

The medical profession has a long history of opposing alternative healing professions.

While always claiming public safety as its reason for the attacks, the true reasons often involve protecting their monopoly of the healthcare market.

Medicine’s opposition to chiropractic was its strongest under the leadership of Morris Fishbein, Secretary of the American Medical Association from 1924 to 1949, who led a 50-year anti-chiropractic campaign in both professional publications and the public media.

Historical Antitrust Lawsuits Against Medical Societies

In 1975 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Goldfarb vs. the Virginia State Bar, that learned professions are not exempt from antitrust suits.

In 1982 the Court ruled that the FTC could enforce antitrust laws against medical societies.

These two suits paved the way for five chiropractors to file an anti-trust suit against the American Medical Association (AMA) and several other heath care agencies and societies in Federal District Court (known as the Wilkes Case).

Judge Susan Getzendanner found the AMA and others guilty of an illegal conspiracy against the chiropractic profession in September of 1987, ordering a permanent injunction against the AMA and forcing them to print the court’s findings in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Even with success of the Wilkes Case and other anti-trust litigation, the AMA continues to this day to wage a campaign against chiropractic.

The American Medical Association (AMA) has maintained a decades-long battle against “alternative” healing traditions, dating back to the 1920s and arguably even earlier. The courts eventually ruled in favor of the chiropractors in 1987, finding the AMA guilty of a conspiracy to take down the chiropractic profession, as the above article recounts in detail.

But was this the end of it? Has the AMA resigned itself to the fact that chiropractic, as well as other forms of natural medicine, are here to stay? Not a chance.

The AMA’s Bedfellows

Even with the success of the Wilkes Case, the AMA has continued to wage war against natural medicine for the past 20 years—but in more covert ways. It’s the “Cold War” phase of this battle, but every bit as fierce. And now the AMA has rallied up a few significant allies, including:

• The American Dental Association (ADA)
• The American Cancer Society (ACS)
• The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and
• The American Psychiatric Association (APA)

… not to mention governmental regulatory agencies; all willing to march toward a common goal—a monopoly on medical care in this country. Together, they form a formidable lobbying force that controls just about every regulatory and legislative body in America. The truth is that chiropractic, naturopathic, and osteopathic medicine have PROVEN to be medically effective and cost effective for the patient, and the AMA can’t stomach this, viewing natural medicine as a huge threat to their bottom line.

Federal Courts Rule AMA “Guilty as Charged”

In 1987, the federal courts found the AMA and several other medical groups guilty of seeking to create a healthcare monopoly. Specifically, they were found guilty of the following actions (published in the January 1988 issue of JAMA):

1. Systematic defamation of naturopathic, chiropractic, and osteopathic physicians
2. Publishing and distribution of propaganda specifically intended to ruin other healthcare professionals’ reputations
3. Forcing MDs to refuse collaboration with naturopathic, chiropractic, and osteopathic physicians in the co-management of patients
4. Denying hospital access to naturopathic, chiropractic, and osteopathic physicians

The attack on osteopathic medicine has largely faded away since then, but chiropractic and naturopathic practitioners, as well as other legitimate natural medicine practitioners, continue to be the targets of suppression and misrepresentation. The war isn’t over, but the rules of engagement have changed.

AMA Declares New War on Natural Medicine in 2006

In 2006, the AMA declared war on natural medicine by publicly stating on its website its intention to forcibly oppose licensure and practice of naturopathic physicians. Although they quickly removed this from their site, the following is a direct quote from that post, according to Naturopathy Digest:

“RESOLVED, That our American Medical Association work through its Board of Trustees to outline a policy opposing the licensure of naturopaths to practice medicine and report this policy to the House of Delegates no later than the 2006 Interim Meeting. (Directive to Take Action) Fiscal Note: Implement accordingly at estimated staff cost of $10,836.”

Translation: Eliminate the competition.

According to The Integrator Blog, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) joined the battle with a statement that their goal was to “thwart the growing threat of expansion of scope of practice for allied health professionals” and included psychologists on the list of medical practitioners who needed to be “thwarted” (in addition to naturopaths, chiropractors, and midwives). The APA pledged their allegiance to the AMA in assisting them with “coordinating research to help medical specialty societies and state medical associations fight expansions in non-medical scope of practice, and improve information sharing among those groups.”

Other medical associations have made similar pledges, such as the Minnesota Medical Association and the New York Academy of Family Physicians. They maintain that their position is based on concern for quality of care and patient safety, but the REAL agenda is just an attempt to destroy the competition.

As Chiropractor Louis Sportelli writes in his 2010 article in Dynamic Chiropractic:

“Just look around and you will see clear and compelling evidence that the long-standing war between the AMA and everyone else who does not come under the AMA umbrella is far from over. The names have changed, the venue has changed, but the intent has remained the same: to maintain monopolistic control over the delivery of health care.”

Old Mission, New Tactics: AMA Learns How to Discriminate with Impunity

In 2010, the AMA House of Delegates introduced a resolution regarding scope of practice that contains limitations on who can be considered a legitimate physician, and who can medically diagnose. Specifically, the AMA’s “Definition of a Physician” (H-405.969) contains the following language:

“The AMA affirms that a physician is an individual who has received a ‘Doctor of Medicine’ or a ‘Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine’ degree.”

This is proof, without a doubt, that the AMA as well as individual state medical associations intend to continue doing everything they can to prevent you from accessing natural healthcare. Texas and Connecticut medical associations were the first to join the cause, and others will likely follow. Similarly, the AMA’s “Comprehensive Physical Examination by Appropriate Practitioners” reads as follows:

“…the performance of comprehensive physical examinations to diagnose medical conditions [should be limited] to licensed MDs/DOs or those practitioners who are directly supervised by licensed MDs/DOs.”

State Medical Associations Jumping on Board

In 2010, the Texas Medical Board of Examiners filed an action against the Texas Chiropractic Board of Examiners challenging the authority of DCs (Doctors of Chiropractic) to perform some of their medical procedures, and challenging their authority to diagnose. How can medical associations get away with such shenanigans now, when they were given such a clear message to back off in the injunction of 1987? After all, these are very similar tactics to what they were found guilty of back in 1987.

Well, according to Sportinelli, the AMA has learned some lessons about how to beat the law—loopholes that allow them to go on the attack while sidestepping “restraint of trade” or “illegal boycott” violations:

“It [AMA] now understands that government action is protected under the Constitution, as is action in petitioning the government. It can lawfully petition local, state and federal legislators and attempt to influence any legislation without fear of committing actionable restraint of trade or illegal boycott. (However, the AMA does seem to be getting dangerously close with its resolution regarding the “definition of a physician,” in that it appears to involve hospital action without the intervention of government.)”

And what does one need in order to effectively influence the government? Money. This is something the AMA has—and piles of it.Sportinelli goes on to say that the medical industry is likely gearing up for a 50-state effort to put non-MD/DO physicians out of business. And this means fewer choices about your own medical care.

Profit Motives Cleverly Disguised as Concern for Your Health and Safety

According to Naturopathy Digest, the AMA and other medical groups justify their opposition to natural medicine on the basis of three areas of concern:

1. Quality of patient care
2. Patient safety
3. Quality of education of medical practitioners

As the article so eloquently points out, none of these arguments holds up, and most are based on medical and pharmaceutical industry propaganda. If they were TRULY concerned about patient care and safety, they would not be targeting natural medicine, which has an incredibly low incidence of adverse consequences, but instead going after their own allopathic medical practices that are leaving a trail of death and destruction.

Drug “side effects”, prescription errors, unnecessary surgeries, nosocomial infections, and hospital “errors” are a leading cause of death in the United States. In fact, one estimate is that allopathic medicine kills 493 American patients daily. The number of people who die each week as a result of medical treatments surpasses the number of deaths caused by the September 11^th terrorist attacks.

Yes, each and every week!

Many of the drugs advertised in JAMA (the AMA’s scientific journal) are the very same drugs that are killing tens of thousands of Americans each year. This massive funding of the AMA by drug companies is a blatant conflict of interest. If the AMA really cared about your safety, they’d be putting their substantial assets into overhauling the American healthcare system. The AMA is fond of lambasting the education and training of chiropractors, when in actuality, they should be more concerned about the educational qualifications of their own physicians. In their own publications, they have stated:

“Medical education is failing to prepare students adequately for their future practice… medical education is currently being held together with peanut butter and bubble gum.”

At least four consecutive studies have documented that most MDs are incompetent when it comes to diagnosing and treating musculoskeletal problems, something at which chiropractors excel. Another example of an abysmal lack of education of Western physicians is in the area of diet and nutrition. The AMA itself has published research showing that dietary interventions should be used before drugs in the treatment of heart disease. Yet, medical students receive virtually NO training in nutrition. Naturopathic and chiropractic physicians, on the other hand, are usually well versed in the importance of nutrition and exercise.

It’s Not Just the AMA

Perhaps it’s time to take a real look at medical associations, and the concern that they may be doing more harm than good. For groups who claim to exist in order to protect your health, they inevitably end up sabotaging it. It isn’t just the AMA. Other medical associations that claim to exist for the betterment of public health include the following:

• American Dental Association (ADA): Continues to support the use of mercury fillings and demonizes biological dentists who oppose the use of mercury in dentistry; continues to support fluoridation, in spite of the evidence it does more harm than good.
• American Cancer Society (ACS): This charity has close ties to the mammography industry, the cancer drug industry, and the pesticide industry; has rampant conflicts of interest; consistently promotes drugs and screening procedures while ignoring environmental causes of cancer.
• National Cancer Institute (NCI): Has spent billions of taxpayer dollars promoting treatments while ignoring strategies for preventing cancer; abundant ties to the cancer drug industry (for more information, read Samuel Epstein’s new book, National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society: Criminal Indifference to Cancer Prevention and Conflicts of Interest)
• American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP): Claiming to be protecting your children, the AAP is largely funded by vaccine manufacturers but refuses to disclose just how much money it gets from them; partners with Congress to protect pediatricians and drug companies from liability for vaccine injuries, while preventing you from getting truthful vaccine information.

Actions Speak Louder than Words

When someone’s words differ from their actions, chances are that their actions more accurately reflect their values—and this is true for organizations, as well as individuals. Although medical associations claim to have your best interests at heart, their actions tell a different story. It’s time to begin holding them accountable for their behavior and stop letting them hide behind the same old tired rhetoric.

You have a right to make your own choices about your healthcare, be it allopathic or naturopathic—whether you see an MD, an ND, or a DC should be YOUR decision and yours alone.

References:

• JAMA January 1988
• Naturopathy Digest August 2006
• The Integrator Blog May 2006
• Dynamic Chiropractic July 2010
• Clin Orthop Relat Res. August 2005