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Why Western Medicine should be the Alternative.
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Vioxx, the Merck painkiller that causes heart attacks, is only the latest symptom of an outmoded western medical model whose days as the dominant health care system may indeed be numbered. Western medicine has its undisputed place,
but when it comes to treating the diseases which affect most Americans evidence suggests that western medicine – and not the many forms of natural medicine, should be labeled the “alternative”, used discreetly and only when there is no other option.
The labeling is important because it defines the terms of the debate. Most natural treatments are based on invisible lines of energy, subscribing to waves and cycles rather than mechanics. In a world filling up with more and more useless stuff, we need to pay special attention to this very real invisible world, not undervalue it or make it a secondary player. We now understand that all forms of energy affect our well being and new scientific evidence suggests that belief has a measurable impact at a cellular level. This invisible world of energy and mind should have a full size chair at the adult healthcare table. To call it the “alternative” or to suggest it is “complementary” as a way of buying it a seat may be to sideline it, even to “integrate” this care, while a worthy step in the right direction, threatens to lose it in the dominant Western model.
Wther it be energy or medicine the alternative label makes the contender the underdog every time the case comes up. This at a time when we need the leverage of this invisible world of energy and belief to turn around Titanic systems in an increasingly narrow window of time.
Vioxx has been shown to produce heart ailments, heart attacks and death in many people who took the drug. There are over 23,000 law suits pending against this “well-researched”, one time FDA approved bio-medical intervention. Vioxx we now know breaks down so slowly that “it takes 85 hours to clear out of the blood stream… and a single dose can lead to an adverse event.” It is suspected of causing over 50,000 deaths. Even the American Medical Association admits to at least 100,000 deaths a year in hospitals as a direct result of an adverse reaction to prescribed medications. If naturopathy, Chiropractic, Ayurveda or natural care of any kind - including prayer – showed these kinds of results, such approaches to healing would be banned like raw plutonium and buried in the Nevada desert.
Yet the march of high tech interventions goes on, making individual health, something that should come naturally, the most expensive thing on the planet, and population health harder and harder to fund. Avastin, a new cancer drug from Genetech will cost patients $10,000 a month. From pills like this to over prescribed CAT scans to often unnecessary $1/4 million triple by-pass surgeries the high tech healthcare mess continues. There’s no end to the cost of life, or a prolonged death. Why? Because these Western Medical models, whole systems of them are already in place, and the very simple fact that expensive disease based Western medicine has a big built in appeal in market driven economies.
Western medicine and prescription drugs in particular caters to highly motivated consumers, people in pain, or fear or desperate straits. It plays to our conditioned response to trust authority and look for solutions “out there’. It grabs our attention with branding strategies that fix labels on both diseases and their treatments. And the all powerful underlying directive in every PR, word of mouth or advertising message, beware of the “alternative”.
What’s more these medical markets can be easily expanded. Recently Pharmaceutical giants Merck, Novartis and Sannkyo have launched a stealth Campaign to redefine Hypertension, a major risk factor for developing heart disease. The new definition, being marketed through diner lecturers to doctors and well placed stories in the media, would nearly double the number of people considered pre-hypertensive, in effect doubling overnight the market for hypertension drugs, and making more and more people drug dependent for the rest of their lives. The risk marker for Cholesterol underwent a similar makeover–market expansion last year.
Lets look at what Western Medicine currently considers alternatives or subsidiary care to people at risk for high blood pressure and heart disease. Consider yoga. Here’s an “alternative” that has been proven to reduce hypertension, cholesterol and the risk of heart attack and stroke. It is low cost, and no cost if you chose to practice on your own. Side effects amount to a likely change in diet and disposition both of which further decrease the likelihood of heart disease, stroke or Type 2 Diabetes. Similar cases can be made for other low tech, non-invasive care like naturopathy, acupuncture and Ayurveda. These systems are by and large based on energy systems and pathways you won’t find in Gray’s Anatomy, as well as the mindbodies own ability to self correct once toxins are removed and balance is restored through cleansing, diet, mind set or movement.
Nothing very expensive here.
It would be negligent to paint all of Western Medicine with one brush and many physicians, scientists and institutions are moving away from the standard bio-medical model. But all too often Western medicine presents itself in the same way as big oil. They say the answers just aren’t in on the alternatives, though some might be nice to have. This manufacturing of uncertainty has become a strategy for holding the alternative at bay as long as possible while the system digs in deeper and deeper. Meanwhile for those who’ve taken Vioxx, or a host of other drugs, or undergone an unnecessary bypass or even waited an hour for an impersonal 3 minute visit with a primary care physician, the answers are very much in.
This year more Americans will visit a chiropractor, herbalist, acupuncturist or other “soft” care provider than will visit a primary care physician. For them western medicine is already the alternative. Consumer demand for herbal medicines is close to $6 Billion a year.
Hundreds of organizations are springing up to help re-label the “alternative” the dominant form of care; associations of Integrative and Complementary Medicine, and others that foster a fusion of mind body and spirit. These are crucial as long as they do not lose themselves in the big tent of modern medicine, or worse yet succumb to the same bureaucracies, academic turf battles and scientific methodologies of the western medical models they are trying to replace.
Western medicine is what I want to use in an emergency, or to treat some easily
mendable internal surgical situation. I want to see Universities and independent laboratories pursue stem cell research, nano-technology, research into treating Aids and developing vaccines for exotic new viruses. In most other situations Western Medicine – drugs, surgeries, mindset, scientific method, the whole bio-medical ball of wax should be labeled the “alternative.”
Labels are word picture bundles with great leverage to change values and perspectives, in this case possibly upsetting the whole 3.5 trillion dollar a year medical applecart, something that we may have to do if we want to have the funds and the approaches that best benefit population health as opposed to the wealthy, the lucky or the heavily insured.
