I recently listened to the very inspiring Inheritance Tracks of Peter Tatchell on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live who selected We Shall Overcome by Joan Baez and Imagine by John Lennon.
This ingenious device of choosing a track of what you
have inherited and what music you would like to pass on provides a
snapshot, a kind of encapsulation of important themes in one’s life.
In Peter Tatchell’s case, he cited his experiences of
marching in the anti-Vietnam war protest marches during the late 1960s,
where lyrics such as We Shall Overcome and We are not Afraid provided the impetus to keep going and not be afraid of the riot police. John Lennon’s Imagine
enabled the visualization of a world without war and weapons, where
people could live in peace and harmony – a better world than the one in
which we spend billions, even trillions of dollars / pounds on weapons
of war instead of helping people to live more healthy and fulfilled
lives.
These sentiments resonate strongly with me, not
surprisingly, given we are of a similar generational age; also that I
have harboured a similar idealistic vision, despite the current warlike
situation across all parts of the world and the complexities of
political and tribal alliances which with one hand arm and train rebels,
and on the other hand sanction and wage war on those very same rebels.
I, along with many others, see a similar analogy /
dichotomy in health and medical worldviews – the conventional medical /
pharmaceutical–led treatment establishment and the natural or holistic
treatment disciplines, encompassing nutrition, herbal medicine,
bodywork, energy medicine, indeed all the therapies published in
Positive Health PH Online.
The ‘default’ view of the general media, the public and
the medical profession is to view drug and medical treatments such as
surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy for cancer, for example, as the
norm, and to view therapies outside this camp – homeopathy, Ayurveda,
massage, nutritional medicine – as somehow ‘dodgy’, non-scientific, even
pseudo health or even worse, belief- or cult-based approaches. These
medical professionals and the media view every clinical improvement or
success as mediated by the placebo effect, or the belief of the patient,
despite the fact that many conventional and natural treatments are very
often analogous or have common elements.
When it comes to Nutritional and Herbal Medicine, the
merging of nutritional and herbal science and development of drug
treatments from isolated nutrients and herbs make it difficult to
separate the two fields, except of course for the vital difference in
approach. Likewise, whereas physiotherapy is considered to be part of
conventional medical treatment, osteopathy, chiropractic, and sports and
therapeutic massage are considered ‘alternative’. This point of view is
ideologically driven due to a certain mindset which predisposes
conventional medicine as sound and complementary and alternative
therapies as something apart.
A few days ago a fifteen year old girl died of a drugs
reaction following a party with other teenagers. The father of the girl
in whose house the party was held was arrested and bailed, accused of
drugs possession and child abandonment. This man, a University Research
Fellow at the Institute of Education aged 60, was also a practitioner of
the Alexander Technique; his website about his Alexander lessons was
portrayed on TV, with the implied innuendo that this was some strange
practice. Whatever the tragic facts of this case, this man’s Alexander
Technique practice doesn’t appear to be relevant to the death of the
young woman.
The Alexander Technique, named after actor Matthias
Alexander who developed these techniques to counter his breathing and
voice (hoarseness) problems, teaches posture, deportment and retrains
our bad habits in how we through ourselves about, leading to various
musculo-skeletal and other symptoms. A more conventional therapy cannot
be envisaged. The world is agog with congratulating speech therapists
following the success of the movie The King’s Speech; why not the rest of the bodywork professions who support all of us in our everyday endeavours, including sports and acting.
This May 2011 Issue 182 of Positive Health PH
Online publishes a wide array of features, including an Interview with
filmmaker Len Richmond regarding Cannabis for Cancer, Depression,
Homeopathy for High Blood Pressure, META-Kinetics, Energy Medicine, ME,
Iodine, Research regarding Macrobiotics and Cancer, the Liver / Gall
Bladder Flush, Osteopathic Evaluation, Diagnosis and Treatment of
Headache and Yoga Therapy for Dyspepsia. The Letters page reviews the
use of Intravenous Vitamin C as Cancer Therapy and the Research Updates
include the topics anxiety, cancer, depression, fibromyalgia, heart,
immune function, meditation, pain relief, safety and regulation,
women's health and yoga.
www.positivehealth.com/issue/issue-182-may-2011
www.positivehealth.com/article/letters-to-the-editor/letters-to-the-editor-issue-182
April 2011 saw the start of EU Directive laws regarding
the availability (or should we say the restriction) of nutritional and
herbal supplements.
“The EU Directive for Traditional Herbal Medicinal
Products is due to be implemented after April 2011. It states that any
herb that claims therapeutic properties will be illegal unless it is on
an “approved list.” In order to be on the approved list it will need to
be strictly tested and controlled in accordance with
pharmaceutical-industry standards, undergoing virtually the same testing
that drugs endure…
“It is uncertain how far this Directive will go in
sweeping away herbal medicines. The EU is being quite secretive and
there seems to be no hard-fact information about what is actually going
to be affected. Herbs used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda,
and the like will be affected to the extent that they make therapeutic
claims, but it is unclear what the immediate spill-over effect will be
upon aromatherapy, homeopathy, and certain health foods, although the
general consensus is that anything that is to be sold with health or
medical claims will become illegal unless specifically approved by the
government. It has also been suggested that herbs such as lavender may
even be illegal to grow in our own gardens. Maybe this is what
eventually will happen if we let it; however, at the moment growing
herbs may be the only sure way we will be able to obtain them once the
Directive comes in, although herbal supplements, herbs in food form, and
those dispensed by licensed herbalists are supposed to remain untouched
as well.”
www.thenhf.com/article.php?id=2805
I urge all PH Online readers to keep up the pressure to retain availability of nutritional and herbal medicine supplements.
www.anh-europe.org/news/high-profile-for-eu-herb-law-at-natural-organic-products-europe
www.thefinchleyclinic.com/shop/herbal-remedies-banned-april-30th-2011-a-527.html?pages_id=5