by Randy Pope
Which do you value greater - the protection that you have from medical quacks by government edict, or availability of alternative methods of treatment that may or may not be beneficial for your family's health? History is replete with medical quacks that have preyed on people's emotions at a time when they are seeking hope from anywhere, because of bleak medical realities. Are there treatments available, though, that are not approved by government agencies, that could be the answer to your malady?
From Paul Chamberlen, who sold necklaces to place around a baby's neck while teething to protect them from early death during the 17th century, to Dinshah Ghadiali, who claimed that his patients could drink liquids from an appropriately colored bottle to heal any disease except broken bones, to Josef Mengele, who performed all kinds of grotesque experiments on his Jewish “patients” in Hitler's Nazi Germany, there has never been a shortage of men who will commit all kinds of disgusting evil to advance themselves, either financially or for fame.
History also informs you that mankind is often slow to recognize the validity of new discoveries in medicine, specifically or science in general. By using government to suppress treatments until they can pass a series of rigorous tests you assure that many in need of relief will not receive that relief. Government works slowly by necessity, and extremely cautiously, assuring that new treatments will take much too long to get to the market place where they are available to the consumer. A side effect of this is the high cost of health care, from which Americans are presently clamoring for relief. It is ironic that they are looking to government to bring this relief, when it is government involvement that has caused this condition.
A short look at some alternative cancer treatments in modern history should give you pause in trusting the government to oversee such grave matters. In 1922 Rene Caisse was given an herbal formula used by Indians to cure cancer. She had an 80% cure rate until government officials in Canada harassed her into moving so she could continue offering Essiac to the public. In the 1930's Royal Raymond Rife, M.D., developed the Rife Generator, which he used successfully to treat cancer patients. Unlike modern x-ray therapy the Rife Generator did not destroy healthy tissue along with the cancerous cells. The Rife Generator never reached the market place. The AMA used harassment of physicians and threatened them with loss of license and jail terms and forced Rife himself to court to stop this treatment. A French biologist, named Gaston Naessens created a nitrogen-enriched camphor solution that he called 714-X. Again, in spite of some success, Canadian medical officials have continually harassed Naessens. A Texas physician, Stanislaw Burzynski, discovered that a group of peptides inhibit the growth of cancer cells. The treatment that he developed out of this knowledge has successfully cured thousands of patients in advanced stages of cancer, yet Bruzynski has been in and out of court trying to keep his clinic open. Finally, in 1954 an independent team of 10 physicians inspected the clinic of one Harry Hoxsey and concluded that he was; “successfully treating pathologically proven cases of cancer, both internal and external, without the use of surgery, radium, or x-ray.” This team went on to report that a sufficient number of patients had remained cancer free for 5-6 years, and some for as long as 24 years, and that they were experiencing exceptional health.
Though all of these treatments have demonstrated some success, some do not have good scientific data to indicate that the success is a result of a particular treatment. The question that needs to be answered here is this; should the government be the deciding factor as to whether you choose these treatments over traditionally accepted treatments or should you have the legal ability to choose for yourself whether you wish to partake of these unproven methods of treatment? It should be noted too that harassment from government agencies have hindered the collection of proper scientific data that may prove the efficacy of some of these treatments.
Though all of these treatments have demonstrated some success, some do not have good scientific data to indicate that the success is a result of a particular treatment. The question that needs to be answered here is this; should the government be the deciding factor as to whether you choose these treatments over traditionally accepted treatments or should you have the legal ability to choose for yourself whether you wish to partake of these unproven methods of treatment? It should be noted too that harassment from government agencies have hindered the collection of proper scientific data that may prove the efficacy of some of these treatments.
The final question that must be answered in this discussion has to do with proven quacks.
Is it necessary for a culture to allow the perpetration of fraud in order to allow alternative treatments availability in the market place? The answer is an emphatic no. The fraud will certainly be present in a society that opens itself up to the free distribution of medical treatments, but when an unmitigated fraud is found out it must be prosecuted, and according to Biblical standards, if the fraud is the cause of death, the perpetrator of that fraud should receive the death penalty for his part in the death of innocent victims. This would discourage purposeful fraud in large measure.
Opening the practice of medical treatment to a Biblically-based free market economy would protect the consumer from purposeful fraud. It would increase the availability of treatments for all kinds of medical conditions. Finally, the competition fostered by new entries to the market place would decrease the cost of health care, solving the major problem that government is feebly attempting to address at this time.
No comments:
Post a Comment