I have now finished reading Martin Walker’s new book Dirty Medicine The Handbook and have discussed some of these comments in my latest Editorial on Positive Health PH Online. www.positivehealth.com/article/editorial/editorial-issue-185
It is fitting that I have been reading this book in parallel with revelations about the Rupert Murdoch News of the World / News International phone voicemail interception / hacking scandal which has riveted much of the UK, and to some extent the USA. The exposes have revealed murky, entangled webs enveloping politics, print media, broadcasting and which has spread to the police, involving corruption among many previously respected professionals. The sums of money involved, the wining and dining, the political patronage and how social networking sites can overturn super injunctions protecting rich sportspeople and celebrities have all created a firestorm revealing the public’s insatiable thirst for gossip and the no-limit means to satisfy it used by journalists and proprietors.
Talking about scandals, tangled webs, political cronies and corporate funds to destroy – Dirty Medicine The Handbook is a similar revelation of the nastiest suspicions that have never occurred to you. As one of many victims of campaigns against complementary medicine by the Establishment, and having been fully engaged with Natural Health and Medicine with Positive Health PH Online, I have known and have seen attacks in the newspapers, broadcast media and through the courts against a multitude of individual practitioners, schools and organizations. You too will have witnessed many a documentary against homeopathy, theta healing, nutrition for cancer and observed reputations destroyed. However, until I read this book, I did not know the identity nor power or influence of the many individuals, organizations, website ranged and funded against natural medicine. These are revealed explicitly with biography, details and numerous links to comrades in arm.
Martin Walker, in his latest book has forensically researched, with voluminous footnotes, the individual Health Corporatists as they are called, with an A to Z of names, with whom they went to school, of which organizations and political parties they were members, their corporate alliances and the funds of these organizations. Be prepared for a complete alphabet soup of organization names – you will be amazed at how many government, health and media names are listed.
Not only are the individuals named – and these go far beyond the most obvious individuals you might suspect, but also organizations, groups and political organizations linked to government. A bit like the Rupert Murdoch web discussed above, but also with funds and monies paid to whom. Even more sinister are the attack websites set up to target, harass and ultimately finish off individuals, therapies and professions. We may have heard the term 'quackwatch', but Walker presents an entire A-Z chapter, annotated with his comments of a myriad of websites with a mission www.badscience.net http://holfordwatch.info/holford-myths www.ministryoftruth.me.uk
One of the most serious issues in Martin Walker’s book concerns the frankly alarming situation of Homeopathy: the step-by-step saga of how the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital (RLHH) was taken over and engulfed by University College London Hospital (UCLH), and re-named Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine (RLHIM), neatly removing the word homeopathy.
And read Martin Walker’s analysis of how the rational tactics of Dr Peter Fischer, who honestly believed that presenting the medical professional establishment with the evidence regarding the efficacy of homeopathy, would convince the skeptics proved wrong. Other dramatic battles are also discussed, including vaccinations, nutritional supplements, environmentally sensitive individuals, cfs / me. Hear the flip side of everything that has been published in PH Online, but from the other side.
I also sadly discovered in the reading of this book that several stalwart fighters for natural medicine have since died, including Isla Bourke (Bristol Cancer Help Centre), Dr Hulda Clarke and Mark Purdy.
I don't necessarily agree entirely with Martin Walker’s political analysis as my left-wing political days are in the distant past; I spent much of my professional career as a molecular biology scientist attempting to belong to the organizations Walker describes. So in reading this book I found myself discovering that the very organizations I had aspired to belong to for many years appeared to be 'the enemy'. Perhaps I now have a greater insight into why my work appears to have been sidelined. And it clarified why so many hostile columns and documentaries toward homeopathy and nutrition have been published in The Guardian broadcast on Newsnight.
There are voluminous accounts about how campaigns have been mounted against individuals - ordinary parents and professional GPs - and how their responses to the attacks fared. In fact, Martin Walker devotes an entire chapter in the book to tips and advice about rebuttals and fighting back.
I have for many years suspected that well-funded corporate interests have been waiting to pounce on their chosen targets; however I never suspected that the web is as closed knit and widespread as revealed in Dirty Medicine The Handbook. Read it to find out for yourself.
