I drove four hours to see a specialist, waited an hour to see him, and after examining me for one minute he told me he didn’t have any idea why I was losing hearing in one ear and sent me on my way. I spent half my day trying to get help for a chronic problem that is getting worse and I got nothing in return. I don’t blame the doctor. I’m glad he was honest about the limitations of what passes for a health-care system in this country. Most doctors won’t tell you that they can do little to help with chronic health problems. But truly, there has to be a better way. That’s why I wrote the book, MenAlive: Stop Killer Stress with Simple Energy Healing Tools. As heart-surgeon, Mehmet Oz, M.D. says, “Energy Medicine is the medicine of the future.”
Lynne McTaggart is an investigative journalist and author of numerous books including What Doctors Don’t Tell You: The Truth About the Dangers of Modern Medicine. She offers some important insights into the state of our health and what men, and the women who love them, need to do to live long and well.
Three Jumbo Jets Crashing
“I want to emphasize that I am not anti-medicine,” says McTaggart. “If a building falls on me tomorrow I want the best of jazzy, gee-whizz equipment to glue me back together again. In life-or-death emergencies, high-tech Western medicine is without parallel in the world. But when it comes to chronic diseases – arthritis, heart disease, even cancer – modern medicine is not doing so well.”
Not long ago, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the official organ of the primary organization representing physicians in the U.S., publicly admitted that illness created by correctly prescribed medication – is the third leading cause of death in America, responsible for a quarter of a million deaths per year.
To put the magnitude of the problem into perspective, as one study also in JAMA, described it some years ago, the death rate from modern medicine in America alone is the “equivalent of three jumbo-jet crashes every two days.”
If any airline maintained this appalling track record, there would be public outcry, Parliamentary and congressional investigation and swift adoption of new laws. When it comes to modern medicine there is not even the airing of debate.
Conspiracy of Silence
“This has largely to do with the fact that modern medicine is not simply a conspiracy of faith but also a conspiracy of silence,” McTaggart continues. In the medical literature, where many modern treatments are subjected to scrutiny and criticism, doctors carry on a private conversation — by doctors for doctors.
Publicly they will urge you to take your medicine, to have that test or procedure. In the literature, they sometimes admit their failures and in some instances, just throw up their hands or lament the fact that studies that have been spin-doctored by pharmaceutical industry PR. “I’m also not a doctor basher,” says McTaggart. “In my view, most doctors are highly competent, extremely hardworking and well-intended.”
The Problem Isn’t The Carpenter. It’s The Tools.
“The first problem is the paradigm itself, the idea that the body is a simple machine that can be repaired by drugs. Modern medicine, as my husband is fond of saying, exists mainly as a drug-delivery mechanism.”
The second failing is that the tools are being supplied by one of the most profitable businesses in the world, where commerce has entirely replaced any shred of moral concern for getting people well.
The solution is a system that emphasizes prevention and alternative treatment for chronic illness.
Like McTaggart, I’m glad we have a system in the U.S. for dealing with acute, catastrophic problems. When I found I had a rare, life-threatening, adrenal tumor a number of years ago, I was glad I could go to a teaching hospital like U.C. San Francisco and have emergency surgery. When I discovered I had a large blood clot in my leg, I was thankful for ambulance ride to the hospital to have it removed and the follow-up medications that will keep my blood thin and hopefully avoid problems in the future.
For the few catastrophic problems that we face in our lives, we need this kind of care. But for the 99 and 44/100% of the rest of our problems we need a health-care system based on wellness and prevention. Don Ardell, Ph.D. has been advocating for this kind of health-care since the 1970’s. His first book, a best-seller titled High Level Wellness: An Alternative to Doctors, Drugs, and Disease, is still one I re-read often. He’s still going strong and continues to write a regular Wellness Report.
In my book, our health-care system should be about 5% focused on catastrophic care, 40% focused on alternative treatments for chronic care, and 55% focused on wellness. If that is the case then Dr. Oz’s statement about the future of medicine being energy medicine may prove to be true.
What do you think?
If you enjoyed this post you may like Four Energy Healing Secrets.
Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/229529792/sizes/z/in/photostream/
