Tuesday, November 03, 2009
“Unproven” Holistic Medicine
Christopher Johnson, ND
ThriveNaturopathic
www.ThriveNaturopathic.com
There is a series of articles on holistic medicine, recently published by the Associated Press which starts out with the claim “EDITOR'S NOTE: Ten years and $2.5 billion in research have found no cures from alternative medicine. Yet these mostly unproven treatments are now mainstream and used by more than a third of all Americans.”
All of the articles in this series show holistic medicine in an extremely negative light. Unfortunately, this sort of approach is what prevails in today’s mainstream media.
The most recent joint CDC/NCCAM report on holistic medicine use found that 38% of Americans visited a CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) practitioner in the year 2007. Yet, the mainstream media continues to insult its audience by publishing uninformed, junk journalism which unfairly criticizes holistic medicine.
The authors of these articles have no medical training whatsoever, yet they feel entitled to publish critiques of medicine (presumably for the purpose of pleasing the pharmaceutical companies and other medical interests which advertise in their publications). In the case of this AP series, their claims are factually incorrect and deliberately misleading.
There is abundant evidence to show that holistic medicine works, and a growing body of medical research attests to this fact. My field – homeopathy – has been shown to effectively treat depression, hot flashes, ADHD, fibromyalgia, childhood diarrhea, sinusitis, acute and recurrent middle ear infection, psoriasis, eczema, and much more.
In fact, homeopathy is capable of effectively treating the entire spectrum of human (and animal) disease. Conditions that have not been proven in clinical trials to respond to homeopathy exist solely because the studies have not yet been run.
Homeopathy is the 2nd most popular form of medicine worldwide (“allopathic” medicine ranks 4th), and has been safely and effectively used by literally hundreds of millions over the last 2 centuries. Furthermore, the medicine hasn’t changed – the same remedies used to treat, for example, depression in 1809 are just as effective in 2009.
One of the ways in which homeopathy proved itself over the centuries is in treatment of epidemic disease. At a time when allopathic medicine had basically no tools to deal with conditions such as yellow fever, cholera, diphtheria, influenza, typhoid, etc. homeopathy was consistently shown to work with tremendous efficacy. These facts are a matter of historical record.
Yet somehow, the authors of this AP series, and numerous other “journalists” in the mainstream press attempt to paint homeopathy and other august medical traditions like acupuncture, as “unproven”. It should come as no surprise to these media dinosaurs that their readership is leaving them in record numbers.
Christopher Johnson, ND is a naturopathic doctor specializing in the use of homeopathy and nutrition to address a broad range of conditions in both the adult and pediatric populations. He is owner of Thrive Naturopathic, a holistic health care facility located in Alexandria, Virginia. He speaks widely on how homeopathy is the answer to many of today's health challenges, and is available for phone consultations for those not in the area. Visit his website at: www.ThriveNaturopathic.com