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| Hpathy Ezine - August, 2006 | |||||
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Alan Schmukler<-- Interviewed by Elaine Lewis |
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| Alan! You were our very first Homeopath in the Hot Seat! At the time, we probably had only 500 readers, now we have nearly 13,000; so, I thought it only fair to have you back; plus, I hear your book was picked up by a major publisher, given a new title, new formatting, a new cover...and your publisher has been sending you to talk radio shows, book-signings at Borders and Barnes and Noble, and, I'm just dying to hear what's been going on! Maybe you should begin by telling our readers who you are.
I'm sixty years old and have been either studying, writing about, consulting or teaching homeopathy for over sixteen years. Prior to that I worked as a respiratory therapist in a large hospital in Philadelphia, and got to see the limitations of allopathic medicine first hand. I was editor of "Homeopathy News and Views", the first popular culture newsletter on homeopathy. I founded a study group and taught homeopathy to housewives, secretaries, nurses and doctors. I've taught homeopathy on college campuses, at health food stores, in churches and in people's homes. In homeopathic practice I meet people with serious and complex health problems....problems that started out as something simple, that you could have cured with homeopathy in a few days. They've been suffering for years and I think, "If only they knew about homeopathy before!" It's so important to get the word out. If you look at the magazine section in a big bookstore, youll see three magazines for cigar smokers, six on body piercing, and ten on hairstyling,... but not one about homeopathy. There's a lot of needless suffering just because people don't know about homeopathy. I'm on a sort of mission, to help homeopathy move from our exclusive club, into the mainstream.
I know. It's mind-boggling that something that can act so magically, as to even reverse the effects of head injury within minutes, is so resoundingly unheard of by just about everyone! But Alan, let's talk about mainstream medicine. Admittedly, you'd have to agree that their "gold star" is antibiotics, without which their tool box is practically empty, as they have nothing for viruses, absolutely nothing at all; but at least, thank God, they've got life-saving surgery and emergency medicine going for them; but if their antibiotics fail, the practicality of modern medicine diminishes tremendously. Recently on the hpathy discussion board, I found myself hopelessly bogged down with a homeopath who claimed repeatedly that antibiotics were the responsible way to go if you had an infection, especially a serious one such as an STD like gonorrhea. He acknowledged that perhaps such treatment might drive the infection inward (or in homeopathic parlance, create a "miasm", which is the long-term damage caused by suppressing an infection) but he said that homeopathy could then be employed to undo whatever mishchief the antibiotic might possibly have caused. What was interesting to me is that even homeopaths, to a degree, are convinced of the integrity of this approach to health care. Where do you weigh in on this?
Well, there's what's possible and then there's what is. Famous homeopath Dr. John Clarke wrote a little book called Diseses of the Heart and Arteries in which he describes curing serious cardiac pathology using just homeopathy. So we know that such results are possible. But when you look at how he tracked the cases, changng remedies at critical moments, you have to be in awe. Dr. Clarke did grand rounds at homeopathic hospitals, but most homeopaths today never get that kind of experience. (Perhaps Indian homeopaths are the exception.) Then there's the liabililty issue. Doctors must use "state of the art" practice or they can be sued and lose their license. Properly chosen homeopathic remedies allow the body to heal itself. But if you guess wrong, then nothing happens. Prescription medicines make something happen, so in a way they have more certainty. A shot of morphine will almost always relieve the pain. That's the allure. But, these drugs do enormous damage! Over a hundred thousand deaths every year in the United States from properly prescribed prescription drugs, that's according to JAMA itself, and those are only hospital deaths! The true figure is probably double that. And that doesn't include the long term effects and untold suffering from suppressive drugs and vaccines. How do they get away with it? Most people, including doctors, think there is no other way. That's due to Pharma's huge propaganda machine. They create what Noam Chomsky calls "manufactured consent". We think we want this system because we've been programmed that way. There's all the ads on TV, the doctor sitcoms, E.R. shows, movies, dolls for children, medical experts on the news....it goes on. Pharma spends $12,000 a year on each doctor in the country, giving away everything from free samples and expensive meals to vacations. That's how you become the dominant medical model in a culture. It seems impossible to fight this Goliath except for one thing: It's becoming too expensive, it's dangerous and ...it doesn't really work. People are figuring that out and spending their money out of pocket for alternative healers. Almost everyone has a friend or relative who's been harmed by the medical establishment. I see this largely as a matter of education. We need to start at the grass roots level, informing as many people as we can. We need to keep it simple, and explain homeopathy in a way that people can understand. We learn with our bodies. When someone experiences the effects of a remedy, they suddenly believe in homeopathy. We need more advertising by the homeopathic pharmacies. We need courses in beginner's homeopathy that are affordable. Someone who just heard of homeopathy is not going to put out $250 for two afternoons of lectures. We need more publicity, with homeopaths going on talks shows and writing articles for popular magazines. Homeopathy could use a universal symbol. Exxon and Mobil have symbols, why not us? Let's have a contest with a prize going to the person who comes up with the best symbol. The major homeopathic organizations should lobby insurance companies so they'll cover homeopathy. The insurance industry has everything to gain. They'd save money on healthcare and medicine costs. And let's keep knocking on the doors of those medical schools. Homeopathy should be included in all physician education.
Alan, you worked in a hospital. What does the medical system do? Take your average person who gets involved with the medical system for one reason or another--an infection, a sinusitis, a rash, asthma, a dietary-caused problem like diabetes...people think the responsible thing to do is go to their doctor. What typically happens? Where do these people wind up? Let's talk about hospitals, because that's where modern medicine "shines", so to speak. When people are sick and go into the hospital, they feel safer, thinking someone is taking care of them. It's just an illusion. A modern hospital is a Tower of Babel. A new study from the Instutite of Medicine (7/20/06) found that your chances of getting the wrong drug or the wrong dose on any given day are ....100%! Another study found that Medical errors kill 98,000 people a year. The numbers are probably much higher, since these are just the "reported events". Those are the mistakes. But even when you get the right medicine, you're in trouble. 106,000 people die every year from properly prescribed and properly taken medicine (JAMA 4/15/98). So let's assume you dodged all the mistakes and survived your medicine. Are you safe now? Not really. A further 90,000 people perish from hospital-acquired infections. A lot of those infections are resistant to all or most antibiotics, so when you get them, your goose is cooked. People often go into the hospital for "evaluation", thinking they'll find out what's wrong with them. According to another study (reported in USA TODAY 02/20/2001) one of every five patients who died in the ICU at one of the nation's best hospitals were misdiagnosed by their doctors. The error rate, in radiology alone, ranges from 10-90%! The American College of Radiology often quotes the more conservative rate of 30%. In the hospital you see those starched white uniforms, the high tech equipment, and those distunguished looking doctors. You think everything is under control. But it's just a crap shoot. In fact, you'd do better rolling dice. My friend's mother, at 94, was cheerful, lively and living independently. A month ago she developed a small boil on her ankle. It was red, hot and throbbing. I said "Give her Belladonna and she'll be better by tomorrow." "She'll only take what the doctor gives her," he told me. A few days later her leg was inflamed half way up the calf. She was admitted to the hospital where they gave her I.V. antibiotics and pain medication. The antibiotics didn't work, so a few days later they tried another one. Still in the hospital a week later, her right arm became inflamed and exquisitely painful because the I.V. had infiltrated. The painful arm had been keeping her awake, so she was exhausted. The pain meds made her constipated and she didn't have a bowel movement for three days. This normally cheerful person was now totally depressed and feeling hopeless. Her son brought her some vitamins, which she had used for years. The nurse promptly took them away. It's now been almost a month and she's still in the hospital, wracked with pain and is soon to be transferred to a nursing home. This all started with a little boil.
I hear this kind of story all the time! They don't know what to do, Alan; if their antibiotics fail, and they often do, they're helpless! Imagine having no back-up! Imagine knowing nothing but one thing! I hear that your chances of contracting a hospital infection are now 1 in 20, which means one in twenty patients in a hospital will contract an infection they didn't have when they went in and possibly die from it because as you said, these infections, more and more, tend to be antibiotic resistant. Alan, you've been on a lot of talk radio shows, I'm sure you're only given just a few minutes to make a case for why people should make homeopathy their first choice when their inclination is to take their problem to the hospital or the doctor. What's your sales pitch, what do you say?
First of all, homeopathy is effective. It can cure chronic ailments, a claim the allopaths can never make [allopathy: healing with "anti" medicines, allo meaning "opposite"; homeopathy: healing with similars; homeo meaning "same"]. That's huge. When antibiotics fail, homeopathic remedies will still work. Germs can never develop a resistance to homeopathic remedies. The principle behind homeopathy [similars cure, opposites antagonize] holds true regardless of the disease. For the last two hundred years homeopaths have cured meningitis, endocarditis, pneumonia, nephritis, tuberculosis, plague and venereal diseases using homeopathic remedies alone. Homeopathic remedies are effective against viruses, but antibiotics are not. The 1918 the Spanish flu killed 22 million people worldwide and 500,000 in the U.S. The survival rate with homeopathic treatment was 98%. Homeopathic treatment would save money. The remedies cost about 8 cents a dose. It costs billions of dollars to treat people injured by conventional drugs. You'd save that money too. Homeopathic remedies are much safer to use. They have no chemical side effects. Their use would save the 200,000 lives taken by conventional drugs each year. People who are allergic to antibiotics or other drugs, or have kidney or liver problems can still use homepathy. Pregnant women can use homeopathy, even in the first trimester. For many ailments, homeopathy can be used safely by lay people, while regular drugs are not safe even in the hands of doctors. You can cure people before they become very ill. Serious ailments often begin months or years in advance, with strange, subjective symptoms. That odd sensation, like that a string is pulling your spine to your abdomen (Plumbum), may be the forerunner to eventual paralysis. The feeling that there are bands tied around your bones (Conium) could herald a cancerous growth. Assuming you could even get your doctor to test you, nothing would show up on your blood test or MRI! A timely remedy can head-off an on-coming disaster. Properly used, homeopathy treats the whole person, the totality of symptoms. It cures the cause, which is the energetic imbalance. Allopaths suppress symptoms resulting in temporary relief or deeper illness. Homeopathy effects real cures. You can begin prescribing without a diagnosis. This is especially important when new or exotic diseases arise. Homeopathic remedies can be used to prevent disease, without the
dangerous effect of vaccines. During a polio epidemic in Buenas
Aires (1957) the remedy Lathyrus was given to thousands of people
and not one of them developed the disease. There have been many
such successes Homeopathic remedies are tested on healthy people, not on animals. That makes them more reliable and avoids the unspeakable cruelty of drug testing. You can heal faster. Conventional drugs can relieve pain or reduce inflammation, but they don't speed healing. All homeopathic remedies, when properly selected, speed the healing process. You can sometimes avoid surgery. Polyps, tonsillitis, hemorrhoids, ulcers, abscesses, gallbladder problems, adhesions and more, can often be cured with homeopathy. Homeopathic remedies remove toxins from the body. Conventional drugs increase the toxic load. In skillful hands, homeopathic treatment can reduce the incidence of ailments that run in families. Hahnemann's theory of miasms suggested that an energetic "taint" could effect the descendents of people who had contracted a disease. This non-gene inheritance has finally been explained by the science of epigenetics, validating Hahnemann's theory. In a nutshell, they discovered that an acquired disease effects the expression of a gene in succeeding generations. There's one other reason to use homeopathy. It's magical, exciting and empowering.
What a great segue into your new book! Alan, there are a zillion acute prescribing books out there, what's so special about yours, and why did you feel the need to write one? By the way, what's the new title?
The new book is called Homeopathy: an A to Z Home Handbook.
This book is the most comprehensive work available on acute homeopathy.
The book starts you from scratch and is written without medical terminology, so anyone can use it. You can pick it up and begin using it immediately. It is simple enough for any beginner, but contains information valuable to the most experienced homeopath. It explains homeopathy and how it works in lay terms and with common metaphors. It justifies and legitimizes homeopathy with dramatic success stories about its effectiveness. It's a great book to give to skeptics. Even though it's in "cookbook" form, this book offers enough remedy choices to really individualize the case. Each of the thousands of remedy descriptions are written so that you can easily distinguish among them. It's meant to be user friendly, especially in an emergency. The publisher, Lewellyn, managed to price it at $16.95, so it's really affordable. An incredible bargain for an encyclopedic book. It's available from Minimum Price Books (www.minimum.com ), Barnes and Noble, www.amazon.com , etc.
I see what you mean. I have the book right here; everything's in alphabetical order; so, if I just open it at random, I see: Gunshot wounds, Hanta virus, Headaches, Heart attack, Heart failure, Hepatitis....Yes, I see what you mean! I would say most definitely this is the most comprehensive acute prescribing book, the most ambitious undertaking, I have ever seen! Every such book of this nature that I've come across, and I have many of them in my library, are careful not to tread off the beaten path of "safe" conditions, such as headache, sore throat, ear infection, teething, upset stomach, flu and so on; I have yet to see one that ventures into these "politically incorrect" arenas! What else do we have here? Mushroom poisoning, Nausea, Necrotizing fasciitis--oh my God, that's the flesh-eating bacteria! What else...Neonatal conjunctivitis...good heavens! You've literally thought of everything! Nephritis, Neuralgia, oh my God, there's even the Bubonic Plague! This is amazing. Snake bite, Sore throat....You'll be happy to know I just sent one of my clients to Amazon to order it. All my clients have to be willing to buy an acute prescribing book and a home emergency kit as a bare minimum if they expect to get help from me. Oh my God, you've even got a section on Chemotherapy side effects! It's so reasonably priced, to have so much information! Alan, I hate to tell you this but Amazon is practically giving your book away! I'd advise you not to look! Quickly changing the subject...! Alan, people often ask me, How do you explain what homeopathy is to people who have never heard of it, and yet they are telling you of some condition they have that you know can be helped, and you also know they're not going to sit and talk with you for hours about homeopathy, that their attention span for this is optimistically five or ten minutes, do you have a speech worked out for such times?
Here's the skinny version which works for short radio spots and is easiest to grasp. Homeopathy is a medical science which uses natural substances, like plants and minerals, to mimic illness and stimulate healing. It's based on two principles. First is "like cures like": whatever symptoms a substance can cause, it can cure in small doses. Poison ivy can produce an itching, burning rash, stiff aching muscles, restlessness and anxiety; therefore, poison ivy can be used homeopathically to treat an itching burning rash, stiff aching muscles, restlessness... in short, everything from burns and rashes, to rheumatoid arthritis and restless anxiety. (Needless to say, the poison ivy plant, after preparation in a homeopathic pharmacy, is non-toxic and in pill form that melts in your mouth.) The second principle is "the minimum dose", which states that you should use the least amount of medicine necessary to trigger healing. That's important because side effects of regular drugs kill over 100,000 Americans a year! Homeopaths conform to the minimum dose rule by using remedies from which all toxic material has been removed. What remains is just an energy pattern with information about healing. The remedy "downloads" information to your body, just like a floppy disk downloads data to your computer. Because the remedies "talk" to your body at the deepest level, they are able to cure many diseases which conventional drugs can't even touch.
And when people hear this, do they say, "Haaaanh?" (That's the long version of "Huh?") What has tended to be the response to that?
Sometimes I need to give more examples (the onion, ipecac, etc). But they get it.
And by "onion", you mean that slicing a raw onion causes your eyes and nose to run, and therefore, Allium cepa -- homeopathic red onion -- is a great remedy for hayfever which is known for these symptoms. I should probably point out here that all our remedies are in Latin, hence the strange-sounding names. Robin Murphy, author of The Homeopathic Medical Repertory, has said, "Modern medicine has no hypothesis, no principles about what it's doing." Would you care to comment on that?
Another assumption is that you can manipulate one variable without affecting the whole. This mechanistic view is quite irrational in light of what we know about physiology. The ultimate expression of this is genetic "engineering".
That is very profound: the body being a living organism, a reactive system-- if you shoot at it, it will shoot back. Brilliant! This describes exactly the dynamic relationship between the doctor and the patient: they are shooting at each other and one of them is going to die, and clearly it is not going to be the doctor. The battlefield is the patient's body. Typical case: The patient comes in with a rash. The doctor lobs a cortisone cream grenade at it--a momentary victory is achieved. But the immune system, which creates a local symptom to protect the vital organs--a fact that doctors don't understand--shakes off the grenade and sends the disturbance back out to the skin, only worse this time because it's angry! (It's funny how even the doctors will say, "That's an angry rash." Yes, it is angry, because the body's own built-in repair system was interfered with and pushed to the ground!) Now the doctor comes back again with a stronger dose of cortisone cream and lobs it into enemy territory--your body--again! Again, the immune system is dazed and seemingly defeated, but it gasps and shakes off the blow and comes roaring back like Rocky Balboa in the 10th round and says, "If I can't put a rash out here, God help you, it's going to be asthma instead, now I say RASH!" And back comes the rash, even worse! But the medical system is undaunted, it's military budget seemingly without end. It now says, time to call out the cortisone in pill form, so here comes the unrelenting deluge of Prednisone! Well, that's it, the immune system caves in, says, "I quit. You win." A month later, the patient has asthma. The doctor will now take aim at the asthma with more steroids, there will be another eventual victory by the medical system, and the patient will now be free of asthma (Hooray?) but the eventual resultant heart disease will be blamed on something else, and more drugs will be enlisted, and eventually the patient will die. This is the prototypical medical scenario, we could call this "Everyman", or, "Everypatient". Every case poceeds in this pattern until the patient either dies or catches on and jumps off the Ride and leaves the Amusement Park for the safe haven of Alternative Medicine, where his immune system will be bolstered not bludgeoned, restored to its youth with natural whole foods, raw juices, appropriate supplements like vitamin C, aloe juice, probiotics, homeopathic remedies, omega 3 oils and other safe therapies and products. This isn't to say a person will never have to have surgery to correct a mechanical malfunction or will never have an accident and need to go to the emergency room, but it does mean that ordinary doctor visits can be dramatically reduced. Here's another example: They discovered interferon and thought that was a magic bullet. But used in isolation, without the body's feedback system, it produces some nasty side effects.
Could you elaborate please?
The body produces interferon in exact amounts, and then dissipates it when it's no longer needed. That's the feedback system. It provides a delicate balance. Doctors use synthetic interferon, and then just put into the body, byassing that feedback system. It produces some therapeutic effects, but also toxic reactions that would never occur from your own natural interferon.
I suspect a lot of people are going to ask, how do antibiotics suppress a disease if they're getting to the "root" by killing the bacteria that are causing it?
Antibotics are a problem for a number of reasons, supppresion being just one of them. They're toxic to the liver and kidneys and are responsible for most of the deaths due to properly taken prescription drugs. By being overused, they contribute to the development of antibiotic resistant germs. They also knock the heck out of your internal flora, giving rise to candida infections that may go on for years. Not everyone exposed to a pathogenic bacteria gets sick. So the bacteria are not the root cause. It's the state of your vital force that determines your susceptibility. Antibiotics help depress the bacteria, but they don't affect the susceptibility. They may defeat the immediate infection, but the organism is weaker rather than stronger afterwards. And the energetic disruption that allowed the infection remains. By suppressing symptoms, antibiotics may derange the body on a deeper level. Studies have shown that childhood infections treated with antibiotics are more likely to return than if they received no treatment at all. The susceptibility remains, and is even worse. People "cured" of Syphillis, Gonorrhea, skin ailments or Tuberculosis, using antibiotics, can exhibit characteristic signs of illness for years to come. The infecting agent was killed off, but the vital force remains damaged. The proper anti-miasmatic remedy will restore those people to health. I must add this disclaimer: If you have an infection and can't get professional homeopathic care, or if remedies for some reason are not working, and you have a reasonably good liver, please avail yourself of conventional, suppressive antibiotic treatment. You can take vitamins to boost your immune system and milk thistle to protect your liver and probiotics to prevent the over-growth of bad bacteria. A dose of chelidonium before antibiotics may also assist your liver. While allopaths will only use their own methods, we must be more flexible, and do what is needed at the moment.
Of course the other point that has to be made vis a vis antibiotics is that they are only useful against bacterial infections, but the medical profession has irresponsibly encouraged its use mostly for viruses! Consider this, according to the CDC, and I'm quoting from "Passing the Buck", an article by Barbara Martorana, ND from the Feb. '04 ezine: 90% of all upper respiratory infections, including children's ear infections, are viral yet upper respiratory infections account for 70% of all antibiotic prescriptions written. It is also estimated that 41 million antibiotic prescriptions are written for the common cold [a virus] annually. That comes to about $1.1 billion spent on antibiotics just for cold viruses. There are about 7 million adult annual visits to the physician for sore throats each year. Of these visits 90% are for viral infections and yet 74% of these visits result in an antibiotic prescription. Do you see what's happening here? It seems that the overwhelming majority of antibiotics are being prescribed inappropriately; are we supposed to surmise that doctors aren't familiar with their own drugs? The CDC's explanation? "Patient demand"! What do you make of this?
I heard this addressed in a documentary a few years ago. They went around interviewing physicians and asking why they gave antibiotics for viral infections. One doctor summed it up when she said, "The patient wanted antibiotics. If I didn't give it to her, someone else would." So, in other words, she didn't want to lose the patient's business. That's the answer. So it's all about money and expediency, which brings us right back to Robin Murphy's comment that "modern medicine has no hypothesis, no principles about what they're doing"! I don't know how you could knowingly prescribe the wrong drug. I am practically speechless. Can you imagine homeopaths giving out remedies based on their popularity? "The case was Nat-mur., but the patient wanted Arnica so I gave Arnica." And imagine this happening in 70-75 percent of all patient visits to the homeopath! I think that the average homeopath would be happy to explain why it wasn't Arnica and why Arnica wouldn't work, but I think the truth here is more like embarrassment at having to admit that modern medicine simply has no medicine for viruses whatsoever!
I agree.
Alan, to put things in perspective, if antibiotics were properly prescribed, for what conditions would the average child, let's say, be receiving antibiotics? And same question for the average adult.
In England, France and the Netherlands, homeopathy is covered under the National Health Service. At the General Hospital in Klagenfurt Austria, homeopathy is used alongside conventional treatment in the pediatric oncology department. At Vinnitsa National Medical University in the Ukraine, homeopathy has been used to treat atrial fibrillation. The seeds are there, we just need to push a little harder. Getting insurance coverage is one critical link. Another is getting more qualified homeopaths. If there were suddenly a demand for homeopathy, there wouldn't be enough practitioners to go around. We could solve that problem by sponsoring experienced homeopaths from other countries. In the United States, homeopathy really needs to go into a proactive state. It will take more than one generation, but we owe it to our children. Their lives depend on it. Before you go, lest everyone should forget about your book....here's some more of the medical conditions it covers--again, I'll just open it at random: Poison Ivy, Polio, Prostatitis, Rabies, Radiation exposure, Scarlet fever, Sciatica--ooh! You mean there's hope for me? Thanks Alan! Email Alan Schmukler at AlanHeal@aol.com |
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