Side Effects Include......

“I would say most drugs work in 30 to 50 per cent of people.  Drugs out there on the market work, but they don’t work in everybody.”[i]  Alan Roses, President of genetics at Glaxo-SmithKline, December 2003

The modern practice of medicine has hit a wall.   People are getting sicker and sicker and some drugs just aren’t working as they claim they should.  We are bombarded on a daily basis with prescription drug commercials that portray vibrant and healthy actors running through an open sunny meadow, and then promise relief from symptoms and an end to your suffering. But what follows these wonderful claims is a laundry list of side effects that sound much more like another horrible disease or condition than the possible complications from a healing drug. The following is an actual list of side effects for the popular antidepressant drug Fluoxetine[ii]:

Sexual side-effects: delayed or non-existent ejaculation, hypo-sexuality; nausea, dizziness, anorexia, anxiety, agitation, vivid nightmares/dreams, urinary retention, tinnitus, tremors, sleeplessness, palpitations, Tachycardia, restless legs, jaw tension, dry mouth, scalp muscle tension, confusion and psychosis, Haematuria, Thrombocytopenia. 

It’s like trading one disease for another. And these are the kind of drugs that are pushed onto doctors by pharmaceutical companies, and in turn handed out without hesitation to millions of ill people.

In a study by a medical diagnostics company in Chicago on the efficacy of various prescription drugs, it was found that that the efficacy rates ranged from approximately 25% for cancer drugs to 80% for painkillers. In addition to not treating the problem at hand, drugs are actually killing people at an alarming rate.  According the American Medical Association, prescription drug side effects are now the 4^th leading cause of death in America.[iii] [iv] FDA scientists now claim that Vioxx, the infamous arthritis drug, may have single-handedly caused as many as 139,000 heart attacks, strokes and deaths.  There is clearly a problem with the way mainstream medicine deals with health problems.

The allopathic/ orthodox approach of today really only encompasses two discreet routes to healing: drugs or surgery.  While prescription drugs mask or suppress symptoms in most cases, surgery is a dangerous method used to remove the problem altogether while never finding the cause.  Many proponents of alternative therapies condemn and ridicule orthodox medicine and claim it to be ineffective.  This, however, is nearsighted and naive.  The fact is that modern mainstream medicine is the culmination of hundreds of years of careful empirical study and research.  The problem is that the orthodox approach is now used as the sole approach to treating all medical problems.

This is not to say we should abandon prescription drugs or surgery all together. It is understandable and advisable for antibiotics to be given to patients with chronic bacterial pneumonia, chemotherapy be used for advanced malignant cancer, or surgery be performed for serious injuries or imminent death situations.  But these are situations where the body has lost all control and its ability to self regulate is lost.  These are so called emergency room situations where the allopathic approach saves lives.  The problem is that most sick people aren’t in critical stages of illness.  You can do more harm than good if you prescribe the same antibiotics for a cold as you would for pneumonia. 

Another dilemma is the mentality that if an organ is ill, the organ must be the problem and ought to be fixed. This mentality has the effect of treating a person as a machine with broken parts rather than an integrated, complex, multifaceted being with systems that interrelate in a multitude of ways. If you have a skin problem, you go to see a dermatologist who gives you a cream to band-aid a problem.  But if the source of the problem is really a nutrient deficiency or heavy metal toxicity, then in reality, all you are doing is suppressing the symptom while aggravating the problem.  A holistic or alternative approach is better suited to this situation because it recognizes the body’s immense complexities.

The body is a very intricate and intelligent system that has the ability to regulate itself and adapt to a huge array of situations and circumstances. In its natural state, with no outside influence, the body works in perfect harmony with no flaws. An alterative approach understands this and seeks to restore the body’s natural balance and in turn return the body to its healthy normal function.  The alternative approach uses natural remedies that help boost and support the body’s defenses and self regulating systems rather than suppressing or eliminating symptoms.

Let’s look at a problem such as kidney failure from both standpoints.  If your kidney fails, the orthodox approach will mostly likely seek to remove or replace the kidney.  With an alternative approach, the source of the problem must be ascertained first.  Once the source of the problem (which can be anything from diet, to lifestyle, to a toxicity of some sort) is eliminated or solved, the kidney can than be aided to its healthy state. Not only do you get to keep your own kidney and avoid the dangers of surgery, you now know the cause of the problem and can avoid it in the future.

After all is said and done, it seems that the ideal approach to medicine is one that combines both orthodox and alternative approaches.  The orthodox approach should be recommended for problems when the situation reaches a critical phase and where the body can no longer self regulate.  The alternative approach is best suited for situations when the bodies system needs help, support for proper functioning, and preventive measures. 

There is a light at the end of the tunnel for the medical field, but in order to reach it, changes must be made, minds must be open to new ideas, and people must be ready to take charge of their own health. There is no magic pill to cure all illnesses, but with the proper knowledge and use of what we know about healing today, every one of us has the opportunity to live healthy lives

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