For Tom Daschle and Barack Obama: Part 2: Seven of Honest Medicine's Articles / Audios Advocating Integrative Healthcare

I have long advocated, through HonestMedicine.com, the careful combining of conventional and alternative modalities. My point has always been that a sensible medical system would treat patients with carefully chosen, unique combinations of treatments -- both conventional and “alternative” -- that will work best for their particular conditions; and that often, a treatment is ignored, because it is not “standard of care” –- meaning, essentially, that it is not generally accepted by a majority of doctors.

This attitude has always struck me as limited, and I often think, as do many others, that doctors’ are literally “blinded” by the results of pharmaceutically funded “studies,” that are often “rigged” by Big Pharma, so that they will produce the “right,” pro-Pharma results. (Please see "Is It Possible Some Doctors Still Don’t 'Get' the Extent of Big Pharma’s Financial Ties to 'Standard of Care' Research?")

I am posting seven of my pro-Integrative Healthcare articles here. Most have appeared previously on HonestMedicine.com; two are articles I wrote for Alternative and Complementary Therapies Magazine, a professional publication for integrative medical/health practitioners; and two are book reviews: one for HonestMedicine.com; the other, for Amazon.com.

I hope that, after reading these articles, anyone who might have been skeptical about Integrative Medicine as a viable healthcare solution, will come closer to agreeing that it may actually provide the only answer to a system that will  stem today’s out-of-control healthcare costs -- while at the same time, providing excellent healthcare for everyone.

♣ Silverlon and Surgery. This article, published by the National Brain Tumor Foundation, gives my very personal account of how Silverlon, an FDA-approved, but non-“standard of care” treatment, healed my husband Tim’s non-healing suture line, eight months after his 2001 brain tumor surgery. For eight months, until I found -- and convinced his doctor to let me use -- Silverlon on Tim’s head, his doctors’ invasive, though “standard of care,” treatments (i.e., repeated surgeries) only made the problem worse.

I wrote this article in an attempt to inform both doctors and patients about this FDA-approved treatment for non-healing wounds. I hope that my article also serves as a reminder that all conventional treatments may not work equally well for all patients; and that, in fact, some standard of care treatments are often costly, as well as ineffective, and that there may some better, less expensive, non-toxic (albeit, non-“standard of care”) treatments, that they really should at least consider using.
 
♣ Four Lifesaving Medical Treatments: Not So “Anecdotal,” After All describes three treatments, all similar to Silverlon, in that they are effective for many patients, although – again – NOT “standard of care.” Like Silverlon, these three treatments – Low Dose Naltrexone for auto-immune diseases; the Ketogenic Diet for Epilepsy; and intravenous alpha-lipoic acid for liver regeneration -- often work better than the “standard of care” treatments doctors routinely use to treat these very serious, life-threatening conditions. Some of these examples are “alternative;” others are innovative, off-label uses, of already-approved medicines. But, in all three cases, they are treatments that work better for many patients than the more expensive, more toxic treatments their doctors routinely use. In each of these cases, there are no available pharmaceutical or surgical treatments that work as well for the patients I have written about, while being almost completely non-toxic.

♣ How Calling Lifesaving Medical Treatments “Anecdotal” Keeps Doctors From Being Curious. Here, I take a closer look at possible reasons doctors are not more open to learning about the successes their patients are having with some non-toxic, very effective, non-traditional treatments.

♣ BOOK REVIEW: David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD's Excellent New Book Panned By the New York Times for Citing “Anecdotal Evidence." This article is my shocked response to New York Times physician/reviewer Dr. Abigail Zuger’s damning review of a very important book by integrative physician David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD, who used an integrative approach to successfully treat his own cancerous brain tumor. Dr. Zuger called the treatments he used (mainly nutrition and lifestyle) “snake oil.” The “proof,” for me, is the fact that Dr. Servan-Schreiber has survived a virtual death sentence for over 15 years, using these integrative treatments. Even more impressive is the fact that he has survived with such a high level of cognition and quality of life. My book review calls for the medical profession to be open –- curious, even –- about treatments like these, rather than being derisive, as they so often are.

♣ BOOK REVIEW: My Amazon.com review of Michael Ozner, MD’s new wonderful book, The Great American Heart Hoax: Lifesaving Advice Your Doctor Should Tell You About Heart Disease Prevention (But Probably Never Will). This book, as I state in my review, is simply one of the most powerful “odes” to Integrative Healthcare. In Part 1, Dr. Ozner “blows the whistle” on much of invasive cardiology, pointing out that “of the more than 1.5 million angioplasties and coronary bypass surgeries performed annually in the U.S., fully 70-90% are not only unnecessary, but are also detrimental -- and in some cases, even cause death.” In Part 2, he details his solution: a combination of diet, nutritional supplements, exercise, stress reduction, and lots more – a truly integrative approach.

♣ AUDIO INTERVIEW: HonestMedicine’s interview with Ronald Hoffman, MD. This pioneering integrative physician and author has been a vocal advocate for Integrative Medicine for many years, and has written several books on the topic, including Intelligent Medicine and How to Talk With Your Doctor: The Guide for Patients And Their Physicians Who Want to Reconcile And Use the Best of Conventional And Alternative Medicine. In this interview with me, Dr. Hoffman discusses, among other things, the many ways in which so-called pharmaceutical-company-sponsored “research” into holistic/alternative treatments is often “rigged” –- with the express purpose of “proving” that natural treatments don’t work; as well as  “proving” that pharmaceuticals do work.

♣ INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE JOURNAL ARTICLE: Drug-Nutrient Interactions: Leo Galland, M.D., Discusses His New Database (published in Alternative and Complementary Therapies, a publication for integrative medical professionals) For this article, I interviewed Dr. Leo Galland, another pioneer in the field of Integrative Medicine (and like Dr. Hoffman, a celebrated author) about his new database. Dr. Galland created his database for physicians, so that they will have the necessary knowledge and skills to successfully prescribe a combination of medications and vitamins and herbs, to achieve better results -- without harming their patients because they lack knowledge about “alternative” medicine. In fact, Dr. Galland believes (as do most integrative physicians) that, to achieve the best results, the two modalities can (and should) be successfully combined in patient care. But, in order to do this, the doctor must understand how drug/nutrient combinations work. This is the purpose of Dr. Galland’s Drug/Nutrient Database. I wonder how many conventional doctors have purchased it.

To read Part 1 of this article, “Advocating the Integrative Healthcare Solution,” click here.

 

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13 Things I’d Do as Surgeon General of the United States

Paging Dr. Gupta! CNN health and medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta got the call from the Obama administration to become Surgeon General. (I kind of suspected I wouldn’t get it after all my criticism of America’s medical establishment and the pharmaceutical industry). Oprah has dibs on Mehmet Oz, so Sanjay Gupta became the next logical choice

Gupta is an adroit media communicator and a brain surgeon, so he’s certainly well-equipped to occupy a position that is essentially a bully pulpit for exhorting Americans to be healthy.

Previous Surgeons General haven’t fared so well in recent times. Dr. Richard Carmona, an avid fitness buff, blasted the Bush administration that appointed him for muzzling him on crucial health issues. And Jocelyn Elders, MD, the first African-American woman to occupy the post, left in ignominy after opining that teenagers should be taught masturbation techniques as a way of curbing pre-marital sex.

What would I do if I were Surgeon General? Here’s a list of 13 initiatives I would champion:

1) TAX BREAKS FOR EXERCISE, SMOKING CESSATION, WEIGHT LOSS.
Using current technology, we could equip Americans with pedometers to award them tax credits for mileage logged. Electronic transmitters installed on scales could relay your weight and body composition to IRS servers to incentive optimum fat/lean ratios.

2) NO MORE FOOD STAMPS FOR JUNK FOOD. If you want to use your own money to buy poor-quality, calorie-dense food, fine, it’s a free country. But using government support to cultivate health problems for which the public health system is responsible—enough already!
3) CHECK THE VITAMIN D LEVEL OF EVERY AMERICAN MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD. Then, for those who are deficient, provide free supplements which would cost pennies a day. The savings, in terms of cardiovascular disease, cancer, autoimmune and infectious diseases, and osteoporosis, would pay many times over for testing and the free D.
4) ESTABLISH A CHILDHOOD HEALTH CORPS. We are witnessing a crisis of obesity and premature degenerative diseases among our kids. Early intervention to promote optimal weight, fitness, and healthy eating habits is just as important as literacy and math. Healthy children are a prerequisite to a healthy adult citizenry. The Corps would be empowered to ban junk food ads targeting kids during children’s programming, and to apply warning labels to kids’foods.
5) QUINTUPLE THE BUDGET FOR THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR COMPLEMENTARY AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE. Some Washington pols are calling for the dismantling of NCCAM, which does research on alternative therapies, as a cost-saving measure. They decry NCCAM as an enabler of “quackery.” Actually, initiatives like NCCAM are the last best hope for American medicine, which threatens to collapse due to its expense, inefficacy, and toxicity.
6) ERADICATE END-OF-LIFE INTERVENTIONS THAT MERELY PROLONG SUFFERING AND DRIVE UP HEALTH-CARE COSTS. It’s estimated that 80% of Medicare dollars are expended on patients’ 12 months of life. A special commission needs to be convened to investigate futile medical procedures that cause terminal patients to languish in intensive care units with little prospect of recovery, costly unnecessary surgeries, or aggressive cancer treatments with no proven efficacy for elderly patients. Patients and families must be given the resources to make ethical and humanitarian end-of-life decisions (and we’re NOT talking about euthanasia, just rational compassionate care!)
7) ESTABLISH A TASK FORCE ON CHRONIC DISEASES. Our current medical system prides itself on quick fixes. But decades in-the-making conditions like heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, prostate cancer, breast cancer, asthma and obesity account for over 75% of health care costs. All of these maladies are amenable to diet, lifestyle, and nutritional intervention. An intensive initiative needs to be mounted to come up with ways to forestall these illnesses which are sapping our nation’s productivity and resources.
8) CONVENE A SPECIAL, EMERGENCY SUMMIT ON DRUGS THAT DON’T WORK. Especially egregious examples include anti-psychotic drugs used as chemical straight-jackets for elderly demented patients in nursing homes, excess use of antibiotics for simple ear infections, sinusitis and bronchitis, and futile chemo regimens in many advanced cancers. The drug industry spends billions of dollars to get doctors and the public to use more drugs, and the government even subsidizes their overuse—a counterforce needs to be empowered immediately to stem the tide of dangerous and unnecessary prescribing.
9) LEAD THE CABINET IN DAILY EXERCISE, NUTRITIOUS EATING, AND HEALTH PRACTICES LIKE YOGA AND TAI CHI. Government officials need to exemplify healthy lifestyles—the culture of the White House and Federal Government should reflect positive values. How about a morning staff meeting conducted while jogging—or a press conference featuring healthy fare instead of the usual coffee and Danish for the White House press corps? Morning Tai Chi on the White House lawn, or a yoga break in the White House gym might inspire Americans to incorporate similar practices in their homes and workplaces.
10) BRING BACK “VICTORY GARDENS”. They helped our grandparents support the war effort in WWII. Amidst the current economic recession, more people are eschewing expensive fresh fruits and vegetables in favor of cheap processed foods. The Surgeon General should collaborate with the Agriculture Department to encourage individual and local community gardens and food co-ops to provide abundant, fresh and inexpensive seasonal produce.
11) And while we’re at it ELIMINATE GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES FOR SUGAR, CORN, AND WHEAT. These price supports artificially drive down the cost of processed foods laden in carbohydrates and fat and give them an unfair competitive advantage relative to healthier food choices. Instead, why not tax breaks for farmers who raise broccoli, blueberries, and arugula?
12) FLIP THE SCRIPT ON DOCTOR’S SALARIES. We’re currently experiencing a critical shortage of primary care docs—internists, family practitioners, and pediatricians—because their salaries lag behind those of ultra-specialists. Plastic surgeons, cosmetic dermatologists, and other niched practitioners work less hours and make bigger bucks recommending costly medicines, surgeries and procedures. Guaranteeing better salaries for doctors working “in the trenches” could help turn our bloated system around. And,
13) REIN IN THE AMBULANCE CHASERS. Easing the current malpractice crisis could help keep our “best and brightest” doctors from leaving the field, and from practicing wasteful and ultimately dangerous defensive medicine.

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