I used to think that nutritional approaches for cancer treatment were the only fields marginalized vis à vis conventional medical orthodoxy.

I used to think that nutritional approaches for cancer treatment were the only fields marginalized vis à vis conventional medical orthodoxy.

However, it is far, far worse; all 'complementary', i.e. non-pharmaceutically oriented therapies and practices are totally ignored by the medical profession. It is as if all the scientific research, clinical experience and historical Materia Medica built up by ancient and venerable professions such as herbal medicine, Chinese medicine and acupuncture, Ayurvedic medicine and in more recent times homeopathy, are all for nothing. All this expertise exists in a parallel universe black hole, only to be accessed by those professionals and patients aware of the vast goodness, wisdom and efficacy brought about by natural approaches to healthcare.

Today a large, highly reliable study was published in the Lancet which demonstrated that the risk of breast cancer was doubled in women taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT). This is not the first time that such evidence has been reported within the scientific and medical community; a large randomized trial in the United States showing increased cancer risks in the HRT group was actually halted early due to similar phenomena. However, amidst all the earnest (patronizing) discussions on the media, imploring women not to panic, advising doctors not to change their prescribing patterns, promoting the benefits of HRT in alleviating horrific menopausal symptoms, not a whisper have I heard that there might be other ways of treating menopausal symptoms. No, not a mention about nutritional, herbal, homeopathic tried and true remedies which don't carry these increased risks of breast and ovarian cancer.

This is a disgrace, verging on the edge of complicitly ignorant negligence.

Here is the same government so keen to deprive the entire population of the UK of hundreds of nutritional supplements demonstrated by scientific research to reduce the risks of cancer, heart disease and a myriad of other conditions. When the EU Nutritional Supplement and Herbal Directives are finally implemented, highly important nutrients such as boron, and forms of multiple minerals and vitamins will be banned across the EU. Please refer to Annex 3 of Mike Abrahams article in Issue 74: www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Nutrition/abrahams74.htm
www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Nutrition/Abrahams_annexe3.htm

This Issue No. 92 publishes a wide array of authoritative features which point the way to alternative approaches to the approved medical orthodoxy with many conditions, including Heart Disease (see Catherine Crawford's article page 27), Infertility (see Tanya Leung's article page 22 and review of Anne McIntyre's The Herbal for Mother and Child page 55), Autism (see Kate Neil's column page 30), Bone nutrition (see Dr Mark Tallon's feature page 32), use of boron for Arthritis (see Dr Rex Newnham's article page 37), Hypo- and Hyper- Thyroid problems (see review of Dr Barry Durant Peatfield's The Great Thyroid Scandal page 56) and Cancer (see review of Dr Sandra Goodman's Nutrition and Cancer: State-of-the-Art page 57).

Have we really come such a long way since Gallileo had to recant that the world was round? That so-called witches were burned at the stake? I have spoken before about the entire 20th century being a century when great medical and scientific pioneers in the field of alternative cancer treatments were pilloried and persecuted because they developed successful non-drug cancer treatments. Even Nobel laureates such as Linus Pauling and genius cancer doctor Max Gerson were ridiculed for suggesting that nutritional approaches to cancer and other conditions were clinically effective.

As a fully fledged PhD scientist I feel deeply ashamed of the scientific and medical professions for their ignorance and infuriated at the obvious marginalization of medical and scientific knowledge in all complementary and alternative areas not driven by drug treatments.

However, this is an era blessed with unprecedented and extraordinary knowledge and information dissemination via the internet. There are huge areas we need to battle against: the vast degree of illness brought about by environmental toxicity; damage caused by inappropriate use of vaccinations and failure to redress the valid complaints by parents of damage caused to their children by vaccines; restrictions on natural treatments for life-threatening illnesses such as cancer and heart disease, to name but a few.

Positive Health readers are the converted and wise repositories of precious knowledge of many effective therapies. Once you have experienced the superior efficacy of non-toxic treatments, once you have realized that restoring health is not merely about fixing a complaint, but about restoring the body's innate self-healing mechanisms, no bullying functionary or campaign of disinformation will ever convince you to subject yourself to dangerous treatments. Hopefully we will continue to battle on until effective natural treatments are the norm, rather than the forgotten and sidelined.