Other
Dean
Articles:
ARE
YOU MAD ENOUGH TO BECOME A HEALTH FREEDOM FIGHTER?
PART 2 of 2
Dr.
Carolyn Dean, MD, ND and
Elissa Meininger
September 22, 2005
NewsWithViews.com
It is common practice to ask others in the health freedom movement how they got involved and while the details of the answers may vary from ours, the principles remain the same. Practitioners (both MDs and others) want to serve the public with safe, low-cost, common sense methods that we all know work very well. Many practitioners have been harassed by licensing boards, law enforcement agencies and/or have seen colleagues held up to public ridicule and ruined financially for doing the right thing for their patients. Some have even ended up in jail.
Patients want to have control of what products and services they use and often describe horrific experiences of suffering and maltreatment of themselves or close family members, and often these experiences are not because of uncaring MDs but because the system itself, will not allow availability of products and services for individual need or preference.
One of the most prominent health freedom fighters is a man named Berkely Bedell. He is a former Iowa Congressman who had enough of his own troubles with modern medicine that he not only had to quit Congress but he became committed to expanding access to natural healing modalities such as those that saved his life. He is responsible for the establishment of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH and, he, himself founded The National Foundation for Alternative Medicine, a private group that sends researchers around the world to find effective alternative medical treatments not part of modern medicine in America.
Berk testified before a Senate committee in 1994. His story is pretty similar to many others you will hear. The bill he is talking about was called �Access to Alternative Medicine Act of 1994�. It didn�t pass but his testimony below remains relevant.
�Thank you, Mr. Chairman for this opportunity to testify on this important legislation. I have been involved in its formulation and efforts to perfect it. It has been a great joy to work with you and Senator Daschle and your staffs. I want to especially acknowledge the great work and cooperation of Patti Mitchell on Senator Daschle�s staff. Patti has worked long hours in formulating this bill, and making corrections when suggestions have to come forward for improvement.
As you know, I left Congress because I came down with Lyme disease. My Lyme disease was cured by a milk product at a cost of about $500 after the pharmaceutical treatments costing an estimated $26,000 were not effective. I also came down with prostate cancer, and again it appears that a $600 alternative treatment was successful after it appeared that my surgery and radiation at an estimated cost of $10,000 had not cured my cancer.
It breaks my heart to have to tell the Lyme disease patients who contact me because their pharmaceutical treatments are not curing them, that the cow�s milk treatment that I believe cured me is not available to them because of government regulations.
Mr. Chairman, we have a serious health care problem in our country today. In the United States, it is illegal for anyone to sell a medicine without spending millions and millions of dollars to get FDA permission to do so.
This causes two problems.
First, it guarantees that we will not get low cost medicines into the system. No one is going to spend millions and millions of dollars for permission to market a product unless they can patent it and charge enough to get their money back.
Secondly, it gives a monopoly to the giant pharmaceutical drug firms. Most alternative treatments are non-toxic, non-patentable, low cost treatments and medicines developed by firms and individuals of limited means. They do not have the money to go through the expensive FDA approval process.
The purpose of this legislation is to make it possible for people to try these treatments while prohibiting sellers from promoting them by making claims of their effectiveness.
S-2140 for the first time allows the government to set up a regulated procedure for individuals and licensed health practitioners to access the treatment of their choice. Americans who seek more options for their health will no longer have to look for medical �bootleggers� to provide them with alternative treatment options in the underground or abroad. Practitioners will know that they can be innovative and still be protected provided they follow the rigorous requirements of the legislation.
Be warned, Mr. Chairman and members of this committee. There are some powerful forces that are doing very well financially under the present system. Pharmaceutical firms and some sectors of organized medicine are seriously threatened by alternative treatments. If Lyme disease patients were to be cured by the $500 treatment I received, or if the $600 I spent to overcome my cancer were to become common, it would be great for the people, but there are some powerful interests that would lose a lot of income.
To defeat this legislation, these special interests can be expected to spend whatever is necessary, using their supporters and the press, some of whom they have convinced that all alternative treatments are �quackery�.
It is pretty hard to sell a worthless product without making false claims about its merit. This legislation not only prohibits sellers of alternative medicines from making false claims of effectiveness. It prohibits them from making any claims, period.
The legislation is tightly drawn. It will not change the FDA approval process. Because of peer pressure, pharmaceutical advertising, malpractice insurance problems, and insurance policies, the vast majority of doctors will not change the way they practice medicine.
But it will break the current monopoly and make it possible for people to try some of the alternative treatments such as the one I used.
Mr. Chairman, our government was established to serve the people. To protect them from powerful special interests.We have anti-trust laws to prevent monopolistic practices.
I do not think the government intended it, but unless laws are changed, the government is a partner in maintaining a monopoly in medicine.
We let people smoke; we let them drink alcohol; we let them gamble; but we will not let someone who is incapacitated with Lyme disease be treated by a milk product. What a disaster.
I challenge this great Congress, in which I was privileged to serve to give to the people the freedom of choice they enjoy in almost every other area of our society � a freedom they would enjoy if they lived in some of the other countries of the world � the freedom to choose for themselves the type of medical treatment they desire.
I urge every member of Congress to support this important legislation.�
In the eleven years since this testimony was given, the debate over whether or not natural healing arts products and services should become part of the American health care system has expanded greatly.
We cannot say enough about the fact that without massive, active and ongoing pressure from individuals, small, under-funded mostly volunteer humanitarian groups (aka health freedom groups) and courageous but all-too-few public servants, what freedoms we actually have, are a direct result of these actions.
What we are all working for is a multi-model medical system where practitioners of all medical and health philosophies can practice without unnecessary restrictions and products, such as dietary supplements, can remain available despite Codex/CAFTA and any other FEMA-like government restrictive forces.
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Opportunity for citizen action knocks at all levels of government. If you�re mad as hell and don�t want to take any more of the America�s modern medical monopoly and want health freedom instead, please come join us at our international health freedom meeting in Minnesota.
Click
here for part -----> 1
October
28-30, 2005
National Conference for Health Freedom Advocates
And World Health Freedom Assembly
Minneapolis, Minnesota
www.nationalhealthfreedom.org
ACT
FOR HEALTH FREEDOM NOW: Go to www.friendsoffreedominternational.org
and purchase "Death by Modern Medicine" and view and purchase the
new movie on Codex and Free Trade called "We Become Silent" by Kevin
Miller. Proceeds from the sale of these products are crucial to help
fund our health freedom action. For state action go to www.nationalhealthfreedom.org.
� 2005 Carolyn Dean -
All Rights Reserved
Dr. Carolyn Dean is a medical doctor, naturopathic doctor, herbalist, acupuncturist, nutritionist, as well as a powerful health activist fighting for health freedom as president of Friends of Freedom International. Dr. Dean is the author of over a dozen health books, the latest of which is "Death By Modern Medicine".
Elissa Meininger, is Vice President of Friends of Freedom International and co-founder of the Health Freedom Action Network, a grassroots citizens' political action group. She is also a health freedom political analyst and can be heard on the natural health radio show SuperHealth, broadcast weekly on station WKY (SuperTalk AM 930) in Oklahoma City.
Website:
www.deathbymodernmedicine.com
Website: www.carolyndean.com
E-Mail: holeopharm@pol.net
Many practitioners have been harassed by licensing boards, law enforcement agencies and/or have seen colleagues held up to public ridicule and ruined financially for doing the right thing for their patients. Some have even ended up in jail.
