Deepak Chopra, MD Andrew Weil, MD and Rustum Roy, PhD
On December 26, 2008, the Wall Street Journal published "The Touch that Doesn't Heal," an article by Steve Salerno. Without discernible professional credentials in health reportage, the writer opened his piece by pledging allegiance to "scientifically proven, evidence-based medicine." He next declared opposition to integrative medicine, and characterized as "gurus" two proponents of integrative medicine, Deepak Chopra and Andrew Weil, choosing to overlook that we both are highly trained MDs with almost 40 years of clinical-experience. Joining us in our response is Rustum Roy, an internationally known scientist, and member of five major National Academies of Science Engineering, who has spent ten years researching a wide range of health technologies, both ancient and modern. We predict that while they may try to dismiss us, the Wall Street Journal writer and editors will find they can't dismiss a burgeoning field of medicine currently saving and improving millions of lives worldwide.
We believe that Salerno's piece is the opening salvo from the right aiming to influence the incoming administration as it strategically allocates resources for improving the U.S. health and wellness system. Fortunately, Tom Daschle, the upcoming Health and Human Services Secretary is better informed than either the WSJ writer or those who dictate WSJ editorial policy. The co-author (along with Jeanne Lambrew) of "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crises," Daschle names the principal challenge to true reform, "[S]pecial interests are especially numerous and influential in the health-care system. Health care comprises one-sixth of our economy...since cutting costs is tantamount to cutting profits for many of these special interests, it is reasonable to expect (an) all-out war to defeat reform."
As in Mr. Salerno's article, this war extends to advancing ill-informed pseudo-scientific arguments to discredit effective low-cost health care options precisely because they compete with the current high-cost system.
"There are many factors driving up health care costs," writes Daschle. "One problem is that 'supply side' forces exist in our health-care system. Physicians both diagnose and treat illness - in economic terms, they create and satisfy demand. . . . Conditions such as 'restless leg syndrome' weren't conditions until drugs were developed to treat them."
In his article Mr. Salerno acknowledged several factors in America's present health care crisis: "disenchantment" over spiraling costs, a bloated bureaucracy, and ''possible drug side effects."
While these clearly demand attention, he overlooks the crisis' principal cause: The poor results of the present health care system. Numerous surveys show that for all its bank-breaking expense, the American medical system lags behind the rest of the developed world in most health indicators.
Nor does it sustain a doctor's sworn duty to "first do no harm." Abundant evidence uncovers high-tech medicine, with its powerful drugs, as a major, possibly the leading, cause of death in this country. The National Academy's data attributes 100,000 deaths per year to physicians' errors, added to well over 100,000 deaths due to severe drug interactions and another 100,000 fatalities from hospital-based-infections. (For a detailed analysis, see Death By Medicine, by Gary S. Null, et al.)
Why is the allegedly "scientifically proven" health care that the WSJ writer champions so dangerous to health? The blind allegiance to "evidence-based medicine" overlooks how readily this form of research can be manipulated. It was first developed to isolate patentable agents for drug formulations. In scientific arenas outside of mainstream medicine, this "statistics-based medicine" is regarded as dubious science at best. Narrowly confining itself to costly, selectively published, industry-sponsored clinical trials, to promote pharmaceutical products, "evidence based medicine" is the marketing "icon" used by the current system to squelch lower cost competitors.
Science's only gold standard are facts derived from reproducible results, however unpalatable those facts are to current theory. When theories fail to explain the facts, they lose viability. The spectacular failures of "evidence based" medical theories include the millions spent on ineffective AIDS vaccines, the collapse of interferon as the wonder drug for cancer, and the marginal decrease in cancer deaths despite billions wasted during decades of fruitless research. Many once-standard treatments devised via this theoretical model now stand discredited, like the use of Thalidomide and Thorazine.
As Mr. Salerno and his editors stand bullish on the persistent investment of health care dollars into a model with runaway costs, poor results, lack of available personnel, and questionable science, we are convinced America can do better. Over the last three decades, millions of Americans, and a dedicated group of physicians and practitioners have front-line, hands-on experience with integrative health care. Via concerted research and clinical practice, international scientists and practitioners, have progressively uncovered the root causes and the most effective treatments for health maintenance and restoration. This is science's cutting edge.
Yet like both the mainstream medicine and media, Salerno remains stubbornly ignorant of this vast field, which Daschle and the Obama Administration will undoubtedly consider before allocating billions more to the present, failed, high-cost medical system.
One sine qua non for any future sustainable U.S. health system is the necessity to empower, rather than undercut each citizen's right to choose health care and take responsibility for his/her own wellness. Countless chronic diseases result from the neglect of basic wellness measures. The blame for underutilizing such proactive, cost-saving approaches lies directly with the official policy of blind reliance on drugs and surgery, whatever the cost. The public has been lulled into medical apathy on the false assumption that if something goes wrong, fix-it mechanics will tune up your body the way a garage tunes up your car.
A new integrative medicine system would marry the superb options of high tech emergency care, its brilliant surgical achievements, the tried and least harmful pharmaceuticals, by empowering and educating its citizens to maintain wellness and prevent disease, through improved nutrition, exercise, stress-management, and a wide range of other proven integrative approaches. Sadly, mainstream medicine largely ignores these viable health approaches, because they're not financially lucrative.
To increase competition, reduce costs, and improve outcomes, we recommend that Daschle and his team move toward a more humane, sustainable, and effective health system through the wider adoption of integrative health options. And we invite the Wall Street Journal and its staff writers to board the lifeboat of integrative health, rather than go down with the Titanic, in yet another failing business sector--healthcare.
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Both Mr. Salerno and Dr. Bartecchi miss the point of the Dr. Chopra's response:
"Evidence-based" medicine has been extremely problematic due to profit motive. The scientifically produced data that leads to drugs being certified is manipulated to create better-than-real outcomes to salvage a corporation's R&D investment in dangerous drugs.
Anyone who works with the public, especially older Americans, understands that the current model is flawed for many reasons, and people are suffering from their care, and it is extremely fiscally wasteful.
No one can say that the problem is completely rooted in the manupulated data from drug research, but for the mainstream medical community to continue to rely on "evidence-based" as the backbone of this "superior" medicine is an ironic joke at best.
I wish to comment on Mr. Salerno's reaction to Mr. Chopra's response to his article. Mr. Salerno you ask, "Where is your proof" in regard to the potency, validity and importance of alternative medicine. I am one of billions of people world wide who have benefited from alternative medicine when "Evidence-Based" medicine had failed me, as in the case of treating my seven year battle with endometriosis to no avail, encurring absurd medical costs, invasive surgery, trial medications which no one really knew the long term affects of, and continuing to live in pain regardless of science based medicines offerings. In dismay I turned to acupuncture and chinese herbs along with a strict macrobiotic diet it has been more than a decade since I stopped alternative treatment for endometriosis and have never had a recurrence. It is unforutnate that what really worked for me physiologically was the last thing I had access to, but the most life altering. The most life renewing. Mr. Salerno, I am not an anomaly. It is the patients of alternative practioners who are the proof and there are billions of us. Most of whom hail western medicine for its triumphs, but see it as only part of the worlds rich history, study and methodology of healing. In many ways neither western nor eatern medicine can function exclusive of the other.
As a licensed practitioner of Chinese medicine I am privileged to witness first hand the effectiveness of the medicine I practice. I often see patients after they have been run through the "scientific evidence based" medical system and they are no better or even worse off. I have treated RN's and MD's with conditions that Western medicine had little or nothing of value to offer who have had dramatic and lasting results with very little financial investment or chemical or surgical invasion of their bodies. To dismiss Acupuncture or Chinese medicine because it does not lend itself well to double blind placebo controlled experiments is like dismissing the whole scientific body of astronomy because such experiments are impossible there as well. As a clinician I am far less concerned with "how and why" and far more interested in THAT that I achieve results. Research scientists are always in position of some degree of disconnect with clinical reality.
Are there charlatans attempting to ride the CAM wave? Yes. Should we speak up against what does not achieve results? Yes. Is Western medicine bad. Clearly not. But to suggest that all CAM is flawed and worthless because some CAM is flawed and of little real clinical use is about the same as suggesting that because there is a clear profit motive and corruption in the drug and medical industries that all Western medicine is flawed.
One can't help but see Salerno's article and subsequent commentary as a self serving effort to build his "Sham" brand. Implicit in his position is that American consumers are idiots who can't discern when they are being helped and when they are not. My experience is that patients demand results and they don't waste their money or their insurers money if they are not getting substantially better. Its irrational to think that the rapid growth of the CAM field is built on misguided patients who blindly waste their time and money on therapies that don't work. Yeesh!
I want to thank Deepak Chopra, MD Andrew Weil, MD and Rustum Roy, PhD for this article. I choose a career as an Integrative Health Care Provider, trained in conventional and "alternative" methods, in order to help bridge this gap of misunderstanding that exists in healthcare today.
Instead of focusing on wellness promotion, our healthcare system is one based on disease control. In order to remedy this, we don't need to necessarily attack the tools used in this paradigm (ie. drugs, herbs, therapies) but rather in the conventionally held beliefs of health itself.
In order to help the most people on this planet, healthcare has to re-focus on the patient, not on big industry. Also, for practitioners, it can not be an us vs. them philosophy. We must unite for the good of the patient. One patient at a time, if the focus and intention is on wellness, we will be able to heal the system.
I am glad that this article was written. The public must see the whole truth in order to make empowered decisions based on true science which is an ART of answering questions. If we can't explain why something works, it doesn't negate the pure fact that it does.
We have two options to implement for natural healing modalities: 1.keep asking more questions in order to figure out why they work, and the use the therapy 2. just accept it works, though we don't know why and use it to save lives.
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