:: July/August 2006 Volume 5/Number 5

OP ED: Opinion
Why Western Medicine should be the
Alternative

By Bob Belinoff

Vioxx, the Merck painkiller that has been proven to cause heart attacks, is only the latest symptom of an outmoded western medical model whose days as the dominant health care system should 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 know that all forms of energy affect our well-being and that belief is something that takes place on 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 is to sideline it; even to integrate this care threatens to lose it in the dominant Western model.

Whether 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 lawsuits 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 result of an adverse reaction to a prescribed medication. 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 health - something that should come naturally - the most expensive thing on the planet. 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 bypass surgeries the high tech healthcare mess continues. There’s no end to the cost of life, or a prolonged death. Why? Because these systems are already in place. Cemented there by BIG players, BIG money, BIG science and the very simple fact that expensive disease based Western medicine has a BIG built in appeal in market driven economies.
Western medicine 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 dinner lectures 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.

Let’s 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 the mindbody’s own ability to self correct once toxins are removed and balance is restored through cleansing, diet, mind set or movement. Nothing very expensive here.

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 three minute visit with a primary care physician, the answers are very much in.

This year more Americans will visit a chiropractor, herbalist, acupuncturist and other software provider than that primary care physician. For them western medicine is already the alternative. All but two of the nation’s 120 medical schools offer courses in Eastern Medicine, natural healing and other soft care arts. Consumer demand for herbal medicines is close to $6 billion a year.

Hundreds of organizations are springing up to help re-label the “alternative” as the dominant form of care: associations of Integrative Medicine, Yoga Therapists 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 mend-able internal surgical situation. I want to see universities and independent laboratories pursue research in treating AIDS and developing vaccines for exotic new viruses. In any other situation 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 four trillion dollar a year medical applecart. Just what the doctor ordered.

Bob Belinoff is a documentary film maker, speaker and writer on Cause and Social Marketing issues. He has worked in the Public Health and consciousness arena for twenty years. He can be reached at bob@digitalwkshop.com.

 

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