| |
|
There are many aspects to my
philosophy of health.
The first is that you understand that very
few drugs were ever designed to cure an illness. The purpose of a drug
is generally to alleviate (suppress or make go away) a bothersome symptom.
Since the drug does this without ever addressing the true cause of
the symptom, no healing generally takes place; and in addition, your
body now has to deal with eliminating the toxic chemicals of which
the drug is composed.
The second is the time aspect. It took many
years of assaulting your body with the wrong foods, toxic chemicals,
a poor environment, and possibly a great deal of various forms of stress
in order to bring it to its current state. You must accept that it
will take, at the very least, many months before any great strides
can be made in the process of reversing some of this damage. If you
are looking for a quick fix, there is none. If you are looking for
a quick reduction in symptoms, and are not interested in helping the
body heal, try an allopathic medical doctor and some prescription drugs,
for I cannot help you.
The third is responsibility. It is your
body, and you get to do all the hard work. If you are willing to alter
your diet and take the necessary supplements to help push yourself
in the direction of healing, then I will happily help you do so. If
you are simply looking for an herb or vitamin to replace a drug, please
look elsewhere. I do not work by addressing symptoms but rather by
addressing causes. Symptoms take care of themselves when their causes
are healed. If you have been following the FDA food pyramid, then you
are pushing your health in the wrong direction. If you are interested
in taking a brief look at some of the diet principles that I teach,
you might want to read through my own Food
Pyramid.
The fourth aspect of my philosophy deals
with facts. A fact or truth is simply something that is,
regardless of how many people know it or recognize it. A fact will
not change with time, only our beliefs of what are facts will change.
With this in mind you need to understand that a great deal of facts
regarding healing, are not recognized or accepted by traditional medical
science. Every year, more and more of the facts that we in the holistic
profession have known for years, get proven to the satisfaction of
a small but growing number of open-minded physicians. On the other
hand, a few things are proven wrong, and many approved but harmful
drugs are finally taken off the market and replaced by equally harmful
alternatives. If you will not take any herb, vitamin or nutrient which
has not had a double-blind placebo controlled crossover study published,
I cannot help you. I train with scientists, clinicians, and physicians
who have proven what works in a clinical setting but who may not have
published studies, especially in the United States. The U. S. Government
conducted a study that showed less than 30% of our prescription drugs
or surgeries have been adequately proven to do what is claimed of them.
In addition, they showed that over 100,000 people each year are being
killed by properly prescribed prescription drugs. In contrast, there
are no properly documented cases of death due to unadulterated nutritional
supplements. Slight difference to say the least.
The final aspect of my health philosophy
is a combination of history and individuality. The longest running
research study is in fact our own history. Our history shows a number
of very important things. First, it shows a tremendous diversity in
cultures and in climates. Reading through Nutrition and
Physical Degeneration by Weston Price; The
Paleolithic Prescription by Boyd Eaton, et al.; and Western
Diseases: Their Emergence and Prevention by Trowell and
Burkitt, a few important things become very clear. First of all, we
are a part of a very diverse world. Different populations consume very
different foods. Second, the more we process foods, the easier we make
them to prepare, and the longer we make them last for storage, the
less healthy we all become. Third and last is the apparent total non-existence
of any society which has been able to thrive on a strict vegetarian
(vegan) diet. It appears that natural selection and history have made
it quite clear that we were indeed hunter-gathers and not fruitarian's
or vegetarians. In fact, we were also not grain farmers until quite
recently in the overall scheme of things. Scientists tell us that it
takes in the neighborhood of 60-90,000 years in order for an animal
species to adapt to a different diet or food source. What some may
say about our stomachs, our teeth, or our digestive tracts is actually
quite irrelevant. History is history. From what I have read and from
years of observation and working to help people get well, it is apparent
that the strict vegetarian diet is being gravely misrepresented. It
may be good for cleansing and for temporary (2 weeks to 3 months) detoxification,
but long term (5+ generations) it will not support continued life.
The people I have worked with who spent years living in religious ashrams
have told me that few if any of the inhabitants were strictly vegan.
They all "cheated" and in many cases were actually instructed by the
elders to occasionally eat meat for their health. With the tremendous
bio-diversity on our earth, surely if a "vegan" diet were one of the
many diets which could support continued health, there would be at
least one long-term historical society with this type of diet. Whenever
the time is taken to properly study a supposed vegan society, it is
found that they are not.
Please note that this is not to say that
I condone the horrendous treatment given to our feed animals. I am
also not saying that the poor quality of meat, poultry, and eggs available
in most supermarkets today even remotely resembles what we ate throughout
our history or should eat today. I am only stating the facts as I have
researched them, and these facts are extremely important to our continued
health as individuals and as a society.
Naturopathy, traditional naturopathy, naturopathic medicine, medical
naturopaths,
power, greed and the twisting of facts. By David Getoff, CCN, CTN, FAAIM
Although
some of this was covered in the interview I did for the CHEK Institute’s
CHEK report http://naturopath4you.com/PDFs/CHEKReport16thIssue2007Email.pdf
it deserves some additional discussion of its own, hence this more
thorough and
complete article.
It is close to impossible to find any health (or other) profession
in which all of the
professionals agree. Nonetheless, naturopathy is so divided and the
public is so
misinformed (what else is new) that the problem seems to be even
worse than it is with
many other occupations. My goal is to greatly reduce this confusion.
I fully understand
(and accept) that due to the rather fierce and forceful opinions
on each side of this
issue, my article may possibly lead to even more arguments.
I have been in full time private practice in this profession,
naturopathy, for close to 20
years For over 15 years, I have also been teaching classes and
giving lectures in the
field of nutrition and holistic health and medicine. Although we
may call it holistic,
complimentary, alternative (which it is not), nutrition based,
or some new as yet to be
coined term, the facts remain the same. To the public, we are practicing
a form of
health care which they believe is NOT drug based and which is designed
to locate the
cause, rather than to simply suppress undesirable symptoms, while
letting their cause
continue without ever being addressed. Many of our severely misinformed
public, as
well as most of the medical profession, also believe that none
of it is based in sound
science and that it generally does not work. What a pity, since
neither of those
statements is even remotely correct.
Naturopathy has been around for a great deal longer than any of
the current four year“
Naturopathic Medical” Colleges, such as Bastyr, National and
Southwest. Traditional
naturopathy (not necessarily naturopathic “medicine”)
generally involves investigating a
patient’s diet, lifestyle and symptoms, and then helping educate
the patient to improve
both diet and lifestyle while at the same time often adding in
various nutritional
supplements. These might include vitamins, minerals, homeopathic
remedies, flower
essences, super foods, probiotics and others, as well as special
products for supporting
specific organs, or helping to remove toxins from their body.
Although this is a rather
simplistic explanation, it gives a general idea of what I consider
to be the original
principles of traditional naturopathy.
The old saying that power corrupts, and that absolute power
corrupts absolutely, too
often applies to all fields and subsets of health and medicine.
Power and greed (often
couple with tremendous ignorance) actually make their way into
every single part of our
society. In some states, physical therapists did not want massage
therapists to be
licensed and felt that only the physical therapists should
be allowed to give a massage.
For years, the American Medical Association told all its member
physicians, that they
were NEVER to recommend chiropractors or chiropractic care
or they could lose their
licenses. The AMA was (and is) so strong and influential, that
even after the courts
found in favor of the chiropractors in a huge lawsuit, the
public never even heard about
the lawsuit, or it’s results, which were 100% in favor of the
chiropractors. On the flip
side, so to speak, acupuncture is many thousands of years old
and proper training in
this field takes many years of intense study. Medical doctors,
who are already licensed
to pierce the skin, made sure to get the “rights” to
practice this field of medicine with
only a tiny amount of additional study. In this case, I take
the side of the licensed
acupuncturists, who feel that this is very improper as well
as unsafe, and puts the public
at risk. If an MD wishes to become a CPA or an attorney, they
would have to go
through the entire schooling for these occupations. This should
also be required for
acupuncture, unless they can show, by taking appropriate examinations,
that they
already have this knowledge (which they do not).
This brings us to naturopathy. Traditional naturopathy, or
traditional naturopathic
medicine does not include the use of any prescription or
non prescription drugs or
surgical procedures and does not require any unclothed examinations
of the patient.
In the United States, only a minority of states have laws
currently regulating the practice
of naturopathy. Currently, I believe this number is around
20, and of these, only a few
regulate or license traditional naturopathy.
Before I continue, I need to explain that although we (the
public) are continually told that
licensing laws are put in force to protect us, this is
most often an out and out lie and a
grave misrepresentation of the facts. The main purpose
of licensing is to bring in
revenue for the city, state, or county which issues the
license. Many states will often
look for new professions to license so as to bring in additional
revenue. Have you ever
noticed how the best and worst mechanics, plumbers, contractors,
painters, dentists,
and doctors, all have the same licenses? The state received
its money, so the state is
happy. Regulations to stop the bad ones from continuing
to practice rarely ever get
enforced and therefore, EXTREMELY BAD (but properly licensed)
professionals and
tradespeople, continue to harm our homes, our automobiles
and our bodies each and
every day.
Few states regulate the field of nutrition and even fewer
regulated the practice of
naturopathy until not too long ago. Then began a slow
but dramatic change, which
continues today, and although some will tell you it is
being done to “protect” the
public I
vehemently disagree. The published research on just how
bad “modern
medicine” really is, has become so overwhelming
that it is extremely scarey. The number of
people who die every year due to “correctly prescribed” prescription
drugs has been
estimated between 120,000- 60,000 and this has been published
in peer reviewed
Medical Journals! Death by medicine is one of the best
articles ever written on this
subject and it was written in collaboration by three
MD’s and two
PhD’s http://naturopath4you.com/images/Death_by_Medicine.pdf
Once again, the main point I am trying to make here is
that although regulation and
licensing is fairly strict for medical doctors, it
does not seem to in any way be preventing
or even reducing this HUGE number or annual deaths.
Enter the newest form of
naturopaths that I personally have coined my own term
for many years ago. Since they
DO NOT practice traditional naturopathy, since they
badly want the legal rights to
prescribe drugs and to do surgery as well as to do
full body unclothed examinations,
since they DO NOT represent the drugless ideals of
traditional naturopathy, I refer to
them as Medical Naturopaths.
As a traditional naturopath, I do not consider myself
to be competing with true
physicians (MD’s and DO’s). Most of our population incorrectly
believe that these
professions have the knowledge to help them get well
and retain their health. Far too
few in our population understand the difference between
suppressing a symptom and
addressing its cause. Even fewer truly understand
the published statistics on medical
interventions and so they continue to rely on their
physician whenever they have a
problem. To show just how ignorant the public really
is in this area, I will give a general
example regarding nutrition and medicine.
Although a large percentage of people do in fact
know that medical doctors receive
almost no nutritional education, they still ask
their MD’s for
nutritional advice. It is like
asking your plumber how to invest your money or
your locksmith about how to re-wire
your home. I always try to educate my patients
to be better and more aware healthcare
consumers. Some, however, will still seek approval
from their MD’s
for the nutritional
supplements I recommend. This very sad, and occasionally
even fatal mistake has
bothered me for many years. The MD is asked about
something of which he/she
knows very little and worse still, they will generally
give an opinion instead of saying
they do not have adequate expertise in that area.
The patient is generally the one who
suffers. I have a number of patients who have told
me that family members, who they
are convinced might still be alive today, were
so scared by they MD’s
about taking some
healthy nutritional supplements, that they stopped
them all, even though they could tell
they improved their health, just to NOT go against
their doctors “orders”.
I like to make
sure all of my own patients understand that we
have (incorrectly) accepted the term “doctors
orders”. In reality, unless you are in prison
or in the locked ward of a
psychiatric institution, the doctor is actually
giving you his or her honest
recommendation of what to do or what to take. I
refuse to call it an order, since he or
she is not your commanding officer, and if you
choose not to follow the recommendation
you will not go to prison nor will you get a ticket
or be fined.
Enter the “Medical Naturopath” an entirely new
field and one which has been, and is
being developed and pushed into the field of
medicine. In order to carve our a larger
niche with a huge reservoir of possible patients,
the field of medical naturopathy was
quietly born a few decades ago. I have even personally
spoken with some individuals
who met with Dr. Joseph Pizzorno when he was
discussing his plans and goals for
developing and licensing this field of health
practitioner across America.
The medical naturopath (my term) is a strange
combination of allopathic (drug and
surgery based medicine) and naturopathic (holistic
non drug medicine). It is being
populated by the schools which produce this rather
different kind of health practitioner.
Their group is going from state to state with
only one clear agenda which they are
slowly accomplishing. Find ways to get each state
to pass legislation which licenses
their medical naturopaths, prevents all other
naturopaths from remaining in practice,
and gets the states to allow these practitioners
to call themselves physicians and not
simply doctors. This part is a clear power and
status grab since dentists, PhD’s,
chiropractors, acupuncturists, optometrists,
and a few others are only allowed to use the
term doctor in almost every state. The word physician
has been previously “sewn
up”,
most likely by the AMA for MD’s and DO’s, the people
who are fully licensed physicians
in every state for all specialties and surgeries.
Some of the definitions I found on web
based dictionaries, actually said that physician
is another term for Medical Doctor or
MD.
The medical naturopaths and their political groups,
clearly want their members to be
looked at as equal to these other physicians.
This must be for the purpose of money,
power, insurance, etc., since there are no
credentials, initials, or titles, which can
make
someone better able to help you get well. I
often have to correct my patients and tell
them to NOT call me doctor. I tell them to “please reserve
that title for all of the
professionals who were NOT able to help you,
which is why you have now come to me”.
The medical Hippocratic oath which includes
first do no harm is
most definitely NOT being abided by in allopathic
medicine. If
it was, then medical doctors would always try
nutrition, supplements, and life style changes
before resorting to drugs and surgery,
except in emergencies. If the medical naturopaths
would at least bring back this
important oath’s purpose, then I would
applaud them for their effort. Alas, it has
been
shown that most medical naturopaths spend little
time covering nutrition and diet in their
initial consultations, while instead doing
more of a standard medical intake procedure.
I
have treated many patients who had previously
worked with a medical naturopath.
They were always surprised at how good my results
were in supporting their own bodies
systems. Their medical naturopaths had often
prescribed antibiotics for infections and
hormones for various imbalances. They also
often ordered thousands of dollars worth
of Medical Lab tests (just like a physician)
for each patient. Drugs for symptoms
instead of nutrients, just like a medical doctor.
In fact, if the medical naturopaths have
their way, and traditional naturopathy becomes
outlawed, there will be far fewer health
practitioners available for those educated
citizens who wish to stay away from drugs
and surgery whenever possible. True holistic
medicine would actually be taking a step
backwards!
Since I do in fact believe that there is adequate
room for both types of naturopaths
(something that their group strongly feels
is NOT possible), I would be in favor of
either
of two methods of handling the current friction
promoting situation.
The first possibility would be for states
to copy what California has done. In my
state,
the regulations allow both professionals
to legally practice, and the medical naturopaths
can only refer to themselves as doctors.
They get the opportunity to acquire a state
license and so they have to remain within
their licenses “scope
of practice”. Traditional
naturopaths remain unlicensed, but are
allowed to LEGALLY practice their healing
arts
for the public. The law requires that all
unlicensed health practitioners must have
their
patients/clients fill out a waiver form.
This form must include that the signer
understands that their practitioner is
not licensed by the state of California,
that
the
practitioner is NOT a doctor or physician,
and that any treatments they provide are
to be
considered complimentary to the treatments
of the state licensed healing arts. The
waiver must also contain information on
the training that the practitioner has
(whatever
that may or may not be) and the patient
must be offered a copy of this form to
take and
save if desired. I consider this an exceptionally
forward thinking and ethical way of
handling the two naturopathic occupations.
The medical naturopaths were extremely
upset that they were not given the right
to call themselves physicians (which they
managed to get in many other states) and
they were equally upset that the traditional
naturopaths were allowed to continue to
practice legally. They had succeeded in
getting us thrown out in most of the other
states in which they achieved their own
licensure.
The second possibility that I feel would
be equitable, fair, and good for the public,
would be dual licensure. For this to work
properly, the medical naturopaths would
become licensed and allowed to call themselves
doctors and would be able to prescribe
those less dangerous prescription drugs
that they received proper training in the
use
of.
This might include antibiotics, hormones
and some of the other non narcotic drugs.
They would be licensed to perform those
surgeries in which the state would determine
they had received proper training, and
would be allowed to order all appropriate
laboratory tests on their patients.
If the state felt it was appropriate, they
would be licensed to receive insurance
reimbursements.
The traditional naturopaths would have
to refer to themselves as such, and could
not
use the prefix of doctor. This, by the
way, will infuriate many thousands of
traditional
naturopaths as well as their professional
associations. Please note that I am on
NEITHER SIDE of this issue, I am simply
conveying the facts as I see them, and
outlining what I feel would be a beneficial
and equitable solution. Both sides would
need to get off their high horses and
be willing (they currently are not willing)
to do true
bargaining, negotiation and arbitration.
The traditional naturopaths would have
to use a waiver to CLEARLY show their
training,
and any certifications they may or
may not have, and that they are NOT
doctors.
They
would have to be trained in when to
refer their patients to professionals
with
other
qualifications and would need a second
waiver form for any patients who refuse
and
wish to stay with them for treatment,
knowing that it is not what is medically
acceptable.
They would be able to order lab tests
if it could be shown that they understand
how to
interpret them or had special lab analysis
training. Personally, I find many MD’s
fall way
short in this area. Like the medical
naturopaths, they could use all available
supplements, but unlike the medical
naturopaths, they could use no drugs
and not
perform any surgery. They would not
be able to receive insurance reimbursements,
although in a perfect world, if a person
wished to use the services of ANY holistic
professional, it would make sense for
them to be able to get insurance coverage.
Especially if they chose NOT to use
their insurance for standard medical
care.
If this could be done in every state
which licenses naturopaths, I feel
the two groups
might not only be able to work in the
same state, but possibly even in the
same clinic!
Heck, maybe a few might even be able
to become friends. Wouldn’t
that be nice.
I have been booked up months in advance
with only word of mouth advertising
for
almost two decades. I do understand
that I am very different from the
majority of both
groups of naturopaths. I spend an
average of 10-15 thousand dollars
each year
attending scientific nutritional
medicine conferences and seminars.
I have attained
many additional certifications over
the years and I am now flown in to
lecture
at some
of
these conferences that I have previously
gone to only as an attendee.
I was flown in to give a day long
lecture in traditional diets and
Price-Pottenger
based
nutrition at the Southwest College
of Naturopathic medicine. I have
testified as an
expert witness in court, in the field
of clinical nutrition and am board
certified in that field
as well as in traditional naturopathy
and in integrative medicine.
With all of this in mind, I still
feel that nothing is written in
stone. Six
experts in the same
field of medicine may give six
(or more) different opinions and
treatment
proposals.
Why then is every medical professional
so certain that only they are right
and no one
else should be allowed to practice?
Greed and power.
My impossible desire is to live
in a society (or better yet a world)
without arrogance,
ignorance and greed.
David Getoff, CCN CTN FAAIM
www.Naturopath4you.com And
www.NutritionEducationDVDs.com
Click here for a PDF of this article
The
following pearls of wisdom, statements, and actual quotes, will help
you to better understand my beliefs and my views towards research
and established nutritional, medical and dental "facts".
It is really too bad that neither the public, nor most physicians,
have access to the actual clinical knowledge & experience of the top
health practitioners. The knowledge of what the top practitioners have
found to work best in their practices, with their patients, is extremely
important BECAUSE -
Clinical experience and observe results (also called anecdotal evidence)
trump or outweigh published research and beliefs every time.
The most important qualities of a good health practitioner are an extremely
open mind coupled with an extremely skeptical mind. When either is missing
or lacking, their "facts" and "knowledge" are far more likely to be faulty,
inadequate, incomplete, or simply wrong.
Traditional schooling and education will always comprise the smallest
amount of the knowledge base for any exceptional health practitioner.
One must continually go outside of the mainstream and test everything
you are taught or told as "fact", in order to learn what actually works
and what does not.
There is no treatment or drug - Which can overcome or negate - The effects
of a poor diet, inadequate nutrition, lack of exercise, and an unhealthy
life style. (David Getoff 1998)
And finally, to
those in the medical and dental profession who
may not agree with some of what I say or do, I offer the
following three extremely important quotes along with an educational
challenge. Take the time to
question your teachers or professors, and look to see what research has
actually been done, before you say something that you were taught, but
that has never had much to do with the truth.
I will happily direct you to some of the top web sites if you are willing
to keep an open mind. You might start with the ATSDR division of the
CDC at www.atsdr.cdc.gov. Try searching the word mercury then
go to www.ewg.org and with the drop down menu go to the body burden.
Here are the important quotes:
"IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANYONE TO BEGIN
TO LEARN WHAT HE THINKS HE ALREADY KNOWS."
Epictetus
(55 AD - 135 AD)
(Greek born Roman Philosopher)
What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, It's what
we know for sure, that just aint so.
Mark Twain
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary
depends upon his not understanding it.
Upton Sinclair
More quotes of interest -
"Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will
come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship. To
restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges
to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws
are un-American and despotic." DR. BENJAMIN RUSH, Physician and signer
of the Declaration of Independence.
Those who say something cannot be done, should not get in the way of
those who are already doing it. (Translation of Chinese proverb)
Any time you take a food that nature or God has given us and alter it,
you make it worse. Chickens have skin, eggs have yolks, milk has butter
fat and nature made them that way. If you desire health, stop telling
Nature and God that they are stupid.
A wise healer uses what works, regardless of what any supposed authority
may say to the contrary.
.
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from
mediocre minds." Albert Einstein
"It doesn't make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess,
or what his name is - If it disagrees with real-life results, it is wrong.
That's all there is to it." Richard Feynman Winner Nobel Prize in physics
1965.
Beliefs that are not true, remain untrue regardless of how strong the
beliefs are, how many initials the believers have after their names,
or how well known or highly respected the believers may be. David Getoff
2006 |
