The Fight For Good Medicine

"Alternative" is the adjective we often use to describe natural, non-invasive medical procedures. "Complementary" is another. It’s a modality that is not considered "real" medicine but can, perhaps, be applied to enhance doctor-approved drugs and surgery.

That’s the way it’s been in the last 25 years. We accept the terminology. We even accept the concept that vitamins, minerals, herbs and nutrition are okay as long as they don’t get mistaken for the real stuff. Now, however, the war between medical orthodoxy and the new wave of medicine is heating up.

One example of this is the conference "Critically Evaluating Alternate Medicine: Assessing the Efficacy and Safety of Unconventional Medicine," which is making the rounds of big cities in the US. It may soon appear in a prestigious hotel near you. It hit Vancouver in November 1999

The conference is not for the masses. It’s for doctors and is sponsored in cities all over the continent by the Institute for International Research. The people behind the Institute have a mission. The speakers are all known for allegiance to the status quo of orthodoxy in medicine with no love lost for upstarts. At the Vancouver Conference we had the entrenched old boys from BC universities, public health, pharmacists, et al headed by the heavy weight: Dr Wallace Sampson, Professor of Clinical Medicine at Stanford University and editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine. Dr Sampson unequivocally describes non-drug doctors as charlatans and quacks: anyone who seeks advice from them is, at the least, grossly misled and probably psychologically unbalanced!

The Institute for International Research is a marketing firm. In this case its client is the medical industry. The conference is for the education of naive practitioners who might be lured into the "alternative" web because of patient pressure.

As if to "complement" the conference, Time magazine came out with its Beyond 2000, a special Canadian edition, in November. Questions for the New Century, said the cover copy,Your Health, Our Planet.

The article that caught my attention was entitled, What Will Happen to Alternative Medicine?

"Most [alternative] will go the way of snake oil and orgone booths," wrote Leon Jaroff. "Alternative medicine is merely a politically correct term for what used to be called quackery. Any alternative therapy that can be proved valid will swiftly be incorporated into mainstream medicine. Any ‘medicine’ that is based on myth, irrationality and deception will eventually be rejected."

Jaroff writes a regular column in Discover magazine that "skewers bogus science." He’s set himself up as an expert of what’s real and what’s not. He adds that "purveyors of this voodoo medicine point with pride to the fact that most US medical schools, influenced by research grants and public opinion, have launched courses in alternative medicine. But the result will not be what they expect. Legitimate medical schools--and most of them are--will dispassionately dissect the alternatives and evaluate their effectiveness. In so doing they will breed new generations of doctors who will urge patients to be skeptical about false claims and bogus science."

The motive of Time Warner and its pharmaceutical friends is curiously hand-in-glove with the Institute for International Research.

What Dr Sampson and his cohorts are really saying is that those "alternative" guys are obviously in the way and that medical doctors shouldn’t work with them. Their motto could be "Run over them. It’s war. Stake out your medical territory, put up the skull and crossbones--and take the next hill."

The only trouble is, generals can’t win the war without dedicated followers, and the rank and file of patient-consumers is deserting the old guard, right and left.

Time magazine has a lot more financial clout behind it than alive, but alive readers are true believers. That’s what it takes to win a war and to make a medical turn around in the 21st century. Natural medicine happens to have what it takes to succeed--results!

Incidentally, it’s no longer the alternative. Natural medicine is primary health care for a bunch of us!

The fight is on and the battle lines are drawn. What’s obvious is that orthodoxy is on the defensive, regarding the anti-alternative conference and the not-so-subtle attacks by Time Warner. alive is poised for the challenge. To take us into the new millennium I welcome a new colleague and editor, Gwynn Alcorn. She will occupy this space each month and I will take my column to another section: The Politics of Health. See you there!