When I was a young child, I used to roll my eyes when my father told me things such as "things don't change" or "children think they are re-discovering America".

I am starting to get a glimpse of what he meant when I reflect over the state of Complementary or Alternative or Natural Medicine approaches. The longer I have been a researcher, contributor and publisher within these therapeutic disciplines, the more knowledge and information I acquire across a whole swathe of topics - from natural approaches to Cancer, Nutritional and Herbal Medicine, Homeopathy, Ayurveda, Yoga and treatment of many chronic conditions using these therapeutic practices.

In the mid-1980s, when I moved from being a molecular biology scientist to becoming a researcher / author / publisher of nutritional approaches to cancer and AIDS / HIV, I had a brainchild eureka idea that organic germanium - an immune enhancing mineral - might be clinically effective in the treatment of AIDS/HIV. I felt all the excitement of identifying a new treatment, with the prospects of perhaps contributing to alleviating the scourge of this horrific illness.

At that time during the late 1980s, considerable research was ongoing exploring a myriad of treatment approaches to AIDS / HIV, including Nutritional, Homeopathic, Chinese and Herbal Medical and Electromagnetic techniques. I distinctly recall the seriousness and focus of these diverse holistic treatment communities at a Conference in Los Angeles in 1989.

Some twenty plus years later, most of these exploratory treatments never even took off and the only publicized treatments for AIDS / HIV are retroviral drugs such as AZT. The very lengthy story of how many of these therapeutic avenues of research and development never came to fruition has been told in the book Dirty Medicine by Martin Walker, which can now be downloaded as an e-book: www.slingshotpublications.com/dirty.html 

I 'accidentally' stumbled into the universe of non-pharmaceutical treatments while suffering from acute pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) during the early 1980s, having explored and endured all the medical and diagnostic tests and x-rays available in the USA, where I was working at the time. The answer to PID from the Consultants was to surgically and sequentially remove each ovary, then the womb.

I was in such pain following a laparoscopic investigation that I told an acquaintance who phoned me and asked how I was, that "I was in agony", instead of the usual reply of "fine". It turned out that this person, having almost been killed in a skydiving accident, had learned and trained in NLP and Hypnosis. Following a hypnosis session of which I don't remember much, and suggestions that I get in touch with some practitioners who practised chiropractic and macrobiotics, I went for the cold turkey approach - macrobiotics and bodywork. Within about 1 month, my pain had reduced and I had stopped taking antibiotics the doctors had advised me to take non-stop.

This transformation of my health in a few months following years of miserable pain after following a macrobiotic diet, i.e. eliminating meat, dairy and eating a whole grain and sea vegetable regime was a revelation to the scientist I was at the time, but it is hard to argue with tangible clinical results.

Thus it has been entirely satisfying to publish clinical material of such high calibre in PH Online since 1994, including the current issue with clinical features discussing Healing, Chronic Fatigue / ME, Homeopathy, Vitiligo, Nutrition and Raw Food, Bodywork, Women's Health and Yoga. It has been a privilege to publish the detailed feature about Homeovitality, the newly discovered system combining the molecular knowledge of specific genes which promote health and fitness across a range of body systems - heart, mind, immunity and weight loss with homeopathic principles. The author, Dr Peter Kay had his eureka moment when he realized that, since highly dilute molecules may influence gene expression, that he could create a system in which identified gene sequences for aspects of hybrid vigour could be introduced via homeopathically diluted preparations. Dr Kay has patented his method of identifying and producing novel mRNA sequences which target genes with the capacity to synthesize hybrid proteins that promote hybrid vigour.
www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?wo=2005075668&IA=AU2005000141&DISPLAY=STATUS  

However, returning to my initial ramblings about how things never seem to change, although each generation re-discovers America, I must draw PH Online readers to the urgency of their support for Herbal Medicine - please sign the Downing Street Petition, as well as the parlous state of Nutritional Supplements because of the EU Directive and Codex, despite the fact that there has not been a single death from Nutritional Supplements. For more information please see the Brief Takes and Letters sections of this issue.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/herbal-ban/  
www.positivehealth.com/article-view.php?articleid=2691  
http://www.positivehealth.com/article-view.php?articleid=2692

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