08.30.06
Posted in History, Hmmm Moments, Uncategorized at 9:15 pm by Administrator
Every once in a while I run into something that makes me go, “Hmmm. . . ” Well today I experienced one of those “Hmmm. . . ” moments. It came by way of a book called, Bones of Contention by Marvin L. Lubenow. In chapter 30 of his book Lubenow quotes part of an article from Science* which read, “For almost 30 years, researchers have asserted that the DNA of humans and chimps is at least 98.5% identical.” And another journal called NewScientist** wrote that the 98.5% figure is touted so widley it has almost become a mantra. In the many times you’ve read and heard that claim, have you ever questioned it?
Well, side by side chimps and man look so very different, one would be suspicious that there is only 1.5% DNA difference between the two. Now, now ladies, I know we’ve seen some men that act like chimps, but that’s another topic. . . My “hmmm moment” didn’t occur yet until I read the next paragraph where Lubenow points out that the first draft of the entire human genome, the project of sequencing or mapping the entire human DNA, was not completed and published until 2001. That’s when it happened. Hmmmm. . . If the entire human DNA sequencing wasn’t completed until only 5 years ago, then how was it determined 30 years ago that humans and chimps have at least 98.5% identical DNA? What was the bases for that statement that has been widely disseminated to the public for 30 years? Apparently, there were two separate teams working on the human DNA genome and published their results separately. One was published in the journal Nature, and the other was in the journal Science. The two results had considerable differences. Then to top off my Hmmmm experience, Lubenow stated that “a project by a five-nation consortium to sequence the full genome of the chimpanzee was not even organized until 2001.” Double Hmmmmm!!!!
I don’t know about you, but it’s stuff like this that make me wonder about the competency of our scientists. Or is it their honesty?
*Elizabeth Pennisi, “Jumbled DNA Separates Chimps and Humans,” Science 298 (25 October 2002): 719.
**Andy Coghlan, “Not such close cousins after all,” NewScientist (28 September 2002): 20.
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08.29.06
Posted in Health-related--Natural Alternative Treatments, History, Uncategorized at 9:35 pm by Administrator
Okay, I confess, I’m a library nut. (A libnut? Heh). I went there again. . . and this time I browsed through the video section. A DVD called “Nazi Medicine” caught my eye, so I added it to the books I wanted to check out and headed for the checkout desk. When I got home, I plopped it into my son’s laptop when he wasn’t looking (he knows I do this occasionally, so he’s okay with it). That way I could read my emails on my computer and watch the DVD at the same time. As expected, the documentary had a lot of information that I had already heard about, you know, the more commonly known stuff. But interestingly, it started to delve into a little more detail about some Nazi medical experiments and a little background regarding eugenics. The first thing I started thinking was, “oh, how awful!” I had always equated the Nazi with eugenics as we’ve all been taught about their ideology of a superior race and their attempts at eliminating the undesirables. However, this DVD documentary pointed out that eugenics had been promoted first in the United States. And that the Nazi admired the United States and adopted the concept of eugenics from the United States. This was something I had not known!
So I did a small search on eugenics and found that according to Wikipedia eugenics is “a social theory advocating the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention. The purported goals have variously been to create healthier, more intelligent people, save society’s resources, and lessen human suffering. Earlier proposed means of achieving these goals focused on selective breeding while modern ones focus on prenatal testing and screening, genetic counseling, birth control, in vitro fertilization, and genetic engineering.” As far as the history of eugenics, Rethinking Schools Online claim that it was English mathematician Sir Francis Galton who first coined the term eugenics in 1883. They also have a little more history on eugenics of how it came to be accepted in America by feeding off of the fears of white middle and upper class Americans due to the influx of poor immigrants and southern slaves and rapid social and economic change. Eugenic ideology, it goes on to say, “worked its way into the educational reform movements of the 1910s and 20s, playing a key role in teacher training, curriculum development, and school organization. It also provided the guiding ideology behind the first IQ tests. Those tests were used to track students into separate and unequal education courses, establish the first gifted and talented programs, and promote the idea that educational standards could be measured through single-numbered scores. Eugenic ideas about the intellectual worth of students penetrated deeply into the fabric of American education.”
From this and further explanation at the Rethinking Schools Online link, it does appear that America had in fact already adopted the ideas of eugenics and were already putting some of its principals into practice years before the Nazi regime came into power in the 1930s and culminating in the 40s. According to the Nazi Medicine DVD, the bold implimentation of euthanasia and other eugenic concepts by the Nazi were actually applauded by United States leaders. This I found surprising because today when we think of eugenics it has a negative connotation of racism including the killing of the weak and handicapped. We don’t think of the U.S. being allies with the Nazi and involved with any of that. But here we see that the U.S. leaders did not find eugenics to be a negative concept, but rather saw it as a positive step Germany was taking towards the advancment of their society. U.S. medical doctors even met at conferences with Nazi medical doctors who had been conducting human experimentation. The results and information of their experiments on human subjects were known and discussed. Yet Nazi doctors are now commonly thought of as monsters, while U.S. doctors are thought of as icons even though they both have been cut from the same fabric. That is, not only did U.S. doctors know and meet with Nazi doctors, but it has been discovered that U.S. doctors also conducted unconscionable human experimentation during the same time period.
At first it’s hard to fathom why so many questionable medical experiments on human beings have been conducted and even sanctioned by our own government. But when I realise the implications of eugenics and that the American people accepted it, then U.S. medical experiments such as those
described by Gregory E. Pence in his book Classic Cases in Medical Ethics starts to make sense. The goal of eugenics is to improve and further the advancement of society, thus those of us considered less than perfect are expendible and are mere pons along the road to the ideal society. In Pence’s section titled, “Secret Nuclear Medical Experiments: A Parallel Episode?” [In reference to his previous discussion on the Tuskegee Study] he writes that, “In 1994, Hazel O’Leary, Secretary of the Department of Energy, began to declassify 32 million pages of secret documents about research on nuclear energy by the federal government during World War II and through the cold war. Among the initial findings was the revelation that physicians working for the government had used many Americans as human guinea pigs in radiation experiments.” Examples of such experiments were the use of 130 male prisoners, most of whom were African American. They were paid $200.00 to undergo x-ray radiation of their testicles. Afterwards these men had vasectomies. I’m pretty confident that these men did not realise the danger for which they were exposing themselves. I mean who in their right mind would allow their testicles to be exposed to radiation for a mere $200.00 unless they had no idea of the damage that could be caused. Another unfortunate victim was a poor Texan with a leg injury. He was injected with plutonium in the injured leg, which was later amputated. A woman by the name of Eda Charlton suffering from mild hepatitis entered Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester New York and was “secretly” injected with plutonium-239 to study how the body eliminates radiation. She was followed for years so that the effects could be observed. Joseph Hamilton of the University of California at Berkeley injected 18 unsuspecting patients diagnosed with cancer with plutonium. From the 1940s until the 1960s, as many as 1,500 military aviators and members of submarine crews were given radium treatments. The treatments involved exposing them to encapsulated radium on the end of wires inserted high into their nostrils for several minutes. They were not told why they had been selected or what the purpose of the experiment was. In the 1950s an experiment called the Green Run took place wherein federal scientists deliberately released a cloud of radioactive iodine-131 in eastern Washington state to see how far downwind it would get. The cloud reached Spokane and the California-Oregon border carrying hundreds of times more radiation than was emitted by the accident in 1979 at the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor. These are but a glimpse of the studies hidden from the public. It’s mind boggling to think that there are 32 million pages documenting evidence to the unspeakable disregard for human life.
So, why again does our government allow these outrageous experiments to be conducted? Notice who conducts these experiments. It is not some rogue mad scientist tucked away in a remote island, but our own government hired and paid scientists and doctors. These types of experiments were being conducted by our military, the Department of Energy, the University of California, Strong Memorial Hospital, and others facilities of similar caliber–institutions that we know and trust. We disdain the Nazi doctors for the crimes we feel they have committed, but our own doctors have also committed the unthinkable. Perhaps eugenics is the driving force that we should disdain and take heed that it does not creep back into our current medical system. But I’m afraid eugenics may still be alive and well in America. Aborting the unwanted, invitro fertilization for the selection of specific genetics in a child, genetic studies aimed at weeding out unwanted genetic traits, the right to assisted deaths, genetic cloning are all considered acceptible by a great many Americans today and are the same vehicles by which eugenics thrives. Are we continuing to flirt with a possible re-enactment of a tragic history? Or is it not history but what is currently happening right now? Are there currently secret tests being conducted on unsuspecting people today? Would the recent approval of the FDA to allow viral additives to our food supply without our knowledge of which foods contain those additives be another mass experimentation study? Should we be so trusting to enter clinical trials? It appears that experiments such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, radiation experiments conducted on prisoners and other citizens, drug testing on third-world country citizens, and various other tests that were declassified years after testing had been performed on unwitting subjects is the natural outcome of embracing eugenics. How else could such actions be justifed?
We need to be independent thinkers and consider the natural outcome of our decisions. We need to be careful which philosophies we accept to live by and stand firm by those choices, otherwise, others will bestow their wills upon us, and our leaders may one day wield our lives as if we were nothing more than pawns.
I didn’t expect that this one trip to the library would stir such misgivings in me, but I am grateful to be reminded of the importance of learning and understanding history. The health and safety of my children may depend on it.
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08.27.06
Posted in God, Uncategorized at 4:05 pm by Administrator
Yesterday morning, I stepped out on my front porch to find this flower that had bloomed overnight. 
But today it is completely withered away.
I couldn’t help but think of the passage that reads like this:
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”
I think it’s pretty cool that God creates beauty just for His pleasure. I imagine there are flowers blooming in all parts of the world, even in places where there is no human to enjoy the splendor. But God allows it to be even if it’s only for one day like the flower that bloomed on my front porch. I feel like it was a special gift for me that morning.
Here are a couple pictures I took at Turkey. It was this past spring, and the wild poppies were in full bloom decorating the empty fields and springing up between the rocks of tombs gracing them with their beauty, never mind that there was no one there to see or tend to them.
I wonder what other special gifts God gives us each day that we are too busy to stop and see?
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08.26.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:15 am by Administrator
My cousin sent this to me this morning. I found it rather humorous, so thought I would share. . .
What’s the difference between a nerd, geek, and a dork?
We’ve been called all three, and to be honest, we always assumed they meant the same thing. however, according to the cool kids, there are differences. Official definitions for nerd, geek, and dork each use the words “inept” and “foolish.” Nerds have the added distinction of being “unattractive.” Ouch. While it’s hard to argue with the dictionary, we sought out definitions from the Internet at large.
According to Whatis.com, nerds are people of above-average intelligence who place little importance on their appearance. Nerds are often aware of their status, but they don’t mind. In fact, many take pride in the putdown, as it means they’re smart and not wrapped up in superficial worries.
Geek is a more specific term. Back in the day, geeks worked at carnivals, and (according to the dictionary) “bit the heads off live chickens.” Thankfully, the term now has a different connotation. Like nerds, geeks are smart, but they tend to focus more on technology. As Urban Dictionary explains, these are the people you make fun of in high school and later work for as an adult.
Being called a “dork” is the biggest insult of the three. There’s no way you can spin it into something positive. After all, even the dictionary writes that dorks are “stupid” people. And to make matters worse,dorks assume they’re cool. Oh, and they smell, too.
So, to sum things up, if someone calls you a geek or a nerd, thank them. If someone calls you a dork, consider going back to school and investing in some new deodorant.
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Posted in Treatment Decisions at 9:02 am by Administrator
I’m opening this new category as another spinoff from Patti’s suggestion on Steele’s MDS Herb Chronicle. I have reposted her post below as an introduction to this new topic. So, without further ado, I look forward to reading your comments. 
Marla,
I wanted to have a very frank discussion about medicine and I’m not sure where to put it so maybe you can take this and run with it and we can all chat about it. Not sure if you want to move it.
If you were faced with let’s say, a cancer, would you (or should we, I, etc.) consider conventional chemo or are we better off to do a Gerson type treatment, etc.? I’ve been giving this a lot of thought regarding my own beliefs in light of mom’s illness and frequently wonder what I would do if I was told I had cancer, specifically. I use that one since that’s the most likely scenario for a person requiring chemo. Would it depend on the “cure” rate a certain cancer has with chemo? Would I do integrative medicine? What would I do? I’m curious if others have thought about this in light of the illnesses that we are all dealing with today.
Patti
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08.25.06
Posted in Health-related--Natural Alternative Treatments, Uncategorized at 9:37 am by Administrator
Every so often I like to browse through the library and pick up a book that looks interesting. One of the books I happened to pick is called Classic Cases in Medical Ethics by Gregory E. Pence. There are several cases he discusses, which makes one really think, gee, who is right and who is wrong? Or wonder what I would have done in that situation. I think I’d like to explore some of the cases he brings up, but for today, the one I’m currently reading is on the use of animals in medical experimentation. That’s something I’ve hardly ever given much thought to until now. First of all, I had no idea of the magnitude of animal usage in the development of medicine. I just thought that it’s necessary for the advancement of medicine and study of how the body works. After all, isn’t it better to test on animals first before humans? But upon reading Pence’s book, he writes that, “In one year, 1983, a single institution, the Charles River Breeding Laboratories (called the ‘General Motors’ of the American animal breeding industry), produced 10 million animals destined to be research subjects.” Wow, “research” subjects. . . does that mean that that figure doesn’t even include the ones used for making drugs like serums and hormone replacements? And what would that mean to be a research subject? I start to think about the research subjects during the Nazi Holocaust, but that’s another topic for another day! But is there any similarity to how we currently treat animals? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not an animal rights fanatic, I do enjoy my steaks, but I do wonder about the extent to which animals are used in experimentation. Is it necessary to experiment on 10 million animals a year? Certainly not all experiments are the same or equal in value, but consider one such experiment conducted in the 80s using primates to study head injuries. Thomas Gennarelli used primates to study head injuries by conducting head-smashing experiments. Pence quoted the argument of Nedim Buyukmichi, an activist and veterinarian, that “Gennarelli’s studies were too inconsistent to result in a reproducible model of head injuries and too limited in scope to adequately mimic injuries sustained by human victims of accidents: After 15 years and $11 million to $13 million, essentially nothing has come out of this research that hasn’t already been known from studies of human head trauma.” Whether there was any value to his study is up for debate.
This research was being conducted at the University of Pennsylvania. I’m amazed that this kind of thing happens right under our noses, right in our Universities, using American tax dollars. Pence went on to write that, “Interestingly–even amazingly–in all the commentary on Gennarelli’s studies, no one on either side has specifically attacked or defended the hypothesis of his research. The explanation may be that it is unclear whether Gennarelli actually had a hypothesis; he seems to have had no goal other than creating one exact injury in one baboon after another.”
I have to stop and ask myself does this matter? We kill animals every day to eat. But this is not the same. Animals killed for food is part of the cycle of nature. It is not the act of systemic torture routinely performed in the name of science by burning, injecting cancers and toxins, severing nerves, limbs, and organs, and bashing of skulls. I am reminded of a verse in Proverbs (12:10), “A righteous man regards the life of his animal, But the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” What does this say about our society or the use of animal experimentation for medical research? How accountable are we to this? I suppose I am a bit horrified in two parts–1. the knowledge of how some animals are treated and experimented on is shocking, and 2. I’ve read studies which had used animal subjects for which the resultant information I was very interested. Example is the study Francis Pottenger did on his cats by removing their adrenal glands in order to study the effects of the body without the adrenal glands. Similarly from some of the attrocities carried out during the Holocaust, some scientific knowledge was gained using human studies to learn about hypothermia. Hans Selye also gained knowledge on the effects of stress on the body with the use of rodents. Alexis Carrel used dogs to learn how to perform anastomosis–stitching arteries and veins end to end. Carrel developed a triangular method which he made small stitches on three points around the vessel. His method made possible the ability to reattach limbs of animals that had been experimentally severed. But do the ends justify the means? Was the knowledge gained worth the suffering of those people or the thousands of animals currently being used as guinea pigs?
Are we, as a society, going about it the wrong way to learn about health and healing? After all human physiology and animal physiology have their differences. An example is given by Russell Blaylock, M.D. regarding the effects on MPTP on humans and various animals. When MPTP is taken by humans, it causes a sudden onset of Parkinson’s-like disease which is permanent. However, according to Blaylock, “when MPTP is given to rodents, very little happens. Most of the animals recover completely from the initial effects. This may be because their brains clear the substance very rapidly, whereas monkeys retain it for weeks. Beagle dogs and cats recover after initial toxicity. There is considerable variablitity in the sensitivity of animals of the same species, age, and sex to the same dose of MPTP.” So again, how necessary is animal testing if the effects on animals and humans aren’t even always the same? Can animal experimentation be done humanely? Is there such a thing?
I don’t have the answers, but I do feel that some reform is needed. And I do feel that many animals have suffered needlessly in the name of science.
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08.24.06
Posted in Health-related--Natural Alternative Treatments at 7:49 pm by Administrator
This is unbelievable! Fortunately, I don’t normally eat cold cuts, sausages, hot dogs etc., but I DO eat poultry! I find this appalling and reminiscent of irradiating foods without our knowledge.
By Byron J. Richards, CCN
August 24, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
On Friday, August 18, 2006, the FDA approved a viral cocktail to be sprayed on foods we eat. This is the first time viruses have been approved for use as food additives. The FDA wants you to believe it will be safe to consume these viruses every day for the rest of your life with no adverse health effects. Not surprisingly, the FDA doesn’t want you to know which foods are adulterated in this manner, for fear you may not buy them; thus, no labeling will be required. This is a monumental announcement by the FDA, indicating they are throwing all caution to the wind regarding the safety of our food supply.
Are you willing to stand in line for a virus-laden sandwich? How do you like the idea of buying virus-infested food for your family? The first virally contaminated foods entering our food supply with the blessings of the FDA will be luncheon meat and poultry. Live viruses will be sprayed on foods such as cold cuts, sausages, hot dogs, sliced turkey, and chicken.
The full article can be viewed here: http://www.newswithviews.com/Richards/byron7.htm
We need to be more diligent now, more than ever, in learning about and understanding more about our food sources and supply. This is encouraging me to continue to avoid purchasing processed foods and eating out too much at restaurants.
Check out the following link for The Top Ten Things Food Companies Don’t Want You to Know
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Posted in Health-related--Natural Alternative Treatments at 10:50 am by Administrator
This morning I was thinking about how so much information is now at our fingertips. Tons of books and articles have been written on so many different subjects. With all this research we would think that we could easily find the truths to any one subject if we just took the time to read what others have already observed and documented. But the funny thing is that it’s not always as simple as it would seem. Instead of things being “clearer,” issues tend to become more “unclear.” An example would be the issue on saturated fats. We have been told so long that saturated fats are bad for us, but then if you look for all the literature you can find, then you’ll see that not all scientists agree that saturated fats are harmful to the body. This happens with other topics as well, such as which type of water is best to drink? Spring, distilled, RO, tap, etc. A lot of the opinions are written with their reasons for why they think they are right. So even though all the different opinions make it harder to know what is right, I do feel that these people were at least being “honest” with what they thought was right.
That reminded me that another aspect that makes finding the truth difficult is not just that people have differing opinions, but that some articles are “purposefully” misleading. In particular, medical statistics. I’ve read about the problems with statistics, but the first place I read about the deception of medical statistics was from Ralph W. Moss, PhD. in his book Questioning Chemotherapy.
For those who may not be familiar with Ralph Moss, he was a science writer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) starting in 1974. He writes that he started out as an enthusiastic believer in chemotherapy. As part of his job in the Public Affairs department, he wrote monthly articles on cancer science for MSKCC’s in-house newsletter, Center News. For that, he interviewed many oncologists. At first, guided by what these doctors told him, he wrote glowingly about their triumphs over such rare malignancies as bone cancer and Hodgkin’s disease. But he soon learned about the grave reservations that lurked behind even their most sanguine public pronouncements. Moss wrote that, “some of the scientists and administrators I encountered intimated — strictly off the record, of course — that finding cures for the common solid tumors of adults, such as breast, colon, and lung, would be an order of magnitude more difficult than treating the unusual pediatric malignancies. In a memorable phrase, one of them told me it would be like trying to dissolve a person’s left ear while leaving the right one intact.”
Moss continues by explaining the he later found that publicizing imminent cures for cancer was nothing new. It was commonly done for fund-raising since there was never enough money being pumped into cancer research. Media attention helped to change that so that with the creation of the war on cancer, hundreds of millions of dollars were suddenly up for grabs.
Part of the way cancer research was shown in a favorable light was with the use of statistics giving the impression that survival from cancers was increasing due to all the new medical discoveries/treatments. Well, that may be true depending upon how you look at it. As Moss wrote in Questioning Chemotherapy, “In order to make their results appear better than they are some researchers employ ’strategies of torturing [their] data until it confesses.’” This can be done in various ways, but one way is the following example, which is copied from Moss’s Cancer Decisions Newsletter Archives dated April 11, 2004 http://www.cancerdecisions.com/041104_page.html
“The US News article further claims that “nearly 10 million Americans…are living with cancer. Most were diagnosed five or more years ago; many who would have died just 15 or 20 years ago are alive today….” This is highly misleading. As the Fortune article showed, it is METASTATIC cancer that kills the great majority of those who die, and for the most common forms of the disease (such as cancers of the breast, colon, lung, and prostate) metastasis is still the relentless killer it always was. There has been virtually NO change in the survival from metastatic cancer over the last 50 years. The apparent improvement in the survival figures has mainly been due to the earlier detection of illness: people appear to be living longer, whereas in fact what has often happened is that they have received a diagnosis earlier, and have been officially on record for longer before metastasis overtakes them. In other words, many of them are the beneficiaries of a statistical artifact.
“Sophisticated screening and early detection tests have also succeeded in finding many patients who have conditions that are not life-threatening (for example, some very early precancerous or encapsulated lesions of the breast or prostate). These people are often labeled as cancer patients, thereby weighting the statistics to make it appear that people with cancer are living longer overall. But many if not most of these people would not have died of cancer even if their tumors had not been detected. Of course, none of these statistical irregularities is a secret to the biostatisticians who are the gatekeepers of data analysis in the cancer field. But these are not the sort of facts that it is considered wise to share with the general public, upon whose generosity vast enterprises such as the American Cancer Society depend.”
So next time someone tries to throw cancer statistics at you to push chemotherapy, be wary.
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08.22.06
Posted in Health-related--Natural Alternative Treatments at 10:24 am by Administrator
Apparently, the terms “Altie” and “AltNut” have been around for a while. However, I just learned of it a few days ago as a commentor on my blog was calling me an AltNut. I didn’t know what the term meant, but he seemed to use it as if I should be offended by being called such a thing. So I did a little search on it because I was curious what it was that he was calling me. I found the definition to be fairly broad, basically meaning anyone who believes and/or practices any form of treatment other than conventional mainstream medicine. (I say broad because there are so very many different alternatives that if you followed or believed any one of them, you would be considered an Altie). The term is popularly used amongst the mainstream medicine diehards who “hate” that there are people who look outside of mainstream medicine to treat their bodies. It’s from the term “alternative treatment” that the term “altie” stems, and “altnut” is a more fanatical version as I believe that one means, “alternative nut.” In short, both terms tend to be used in a derogatory fashion in reference to alternative medicine advocates.
My initial response to being called an “AltNut” was, “Hmm, I guess he’s trying to offend me (rather than civilly discuss or present his point/s of view). I think by calling me AltNut, he was showing his frustration towards me, and people like me, because he had not much else to say, or perhaps didn’t know any other way to express himself. Sort of like how some people use expletives to release energy in times of frustration and when attempting to exercise “some” restraint or show of cleverness it comes out like this: “Why you, why you, baffoon!” “You pig!” “You rotten, no-good, playboy!” “You AltNut!” Tee hee. The combining of the two words (alternative nut) to make one word is their artistic rendition of verbal graffiti. It’s my impression that the people who don’t have very good debating skills, and who have little control over their emotions are generally the ones who resort to name-calling in that fashion.
The next thing that came to mind was “Why so much hostility towards alternative advocates?” The mainstream medicine folks have a “list” of traits that are used in semi-jest and semi-seriousness as to what constitutes an altie. As I mentioned earlier the definition is broad, and some items did make me chuckle a bit as there was some truth in it, but nevertheless, since I have treated myself by means outside of the mainstream medicine, I would technically be labeled an altie. Then I thought about others who would also be labeled as alties, which made me wonder what other unifying traits we all had that would define us as alties. The one thing that came to mind is that most all of us did not start out as what they call alties. I think I only became what they call an altie about 6 or 7 years ago. Upon reading other people’s health conditions, many were like me who didn’t start out to be alties. Gee, what happened that made us transform from non-alties to alties? The common theme I noticed when reading the accounts of so-called alties is that they had a history of health problems or developed some health problem for which they had sought the assistance of mainstream doctors. Then they were either prescribed various drugs for their ailments or their ailment was elusive and the docs couldn’t even figure out what was wrong with them. Example, “Doctor, I’ve got this constant pain in this area, what is it, and what shall I do?” Doc runs all sorts of test, all the tests come back negative, doc gives out a depression drug, and possibly a pain drug, but nothing further is done. Then after weeks, or months, and in some cases years, the patient is “still” suffering from the same condition and is now developing other conditions, for which the same routine is followed–nothing found, more drugs, but now the added insinuation that it’s “all in your head.” So what’s a logical person to do if they want to find relief? Start doing his own search to get to the bottom of this miserable pain is what he does. The doc isn’t helping me (Some people even jump from doc to doc hoping they’ll be able to help, but to no avail), so I guess I have to help myself. And so the journey to the “alternative treatment” world begins. Not all find their answers, but some such as myself do. Because of our personal success, we believe in alternative treatment. At least that is my feeling and that of others I’ve met. Now that we feel better and have found relief from our illnesses through unconventional, alternative means, they have officially joined another world. So, you see, we didn’t all start out that way.
You could say in a way that alties were born out of the failures of mainstream medicine. Had the mainstream doctors “fixed” our health issues, then ill people would never have sought and joined the altie world. They would have gone to doc, paid him, been treated and healed, and that would have been it. But alas, many patients were left holding the bag, and they ran with the bag to the altie side. So in this light, the frustration with alties from the mainstream medical folks is brought upon themselves due to their lack of ability to satisfy alties. They did not provide alties with the services they had sought, thus alties took their business elsewhere. Being an altie then is a reminder to them that they have failed to heal their patients (although the mainstream drug pushers like to use the argument that they are really trying to protect patients from themselves). They are offended that alties no longer look to them for “all” their health care. And I think that is why they are so offended whenever someone uses alternative means to treat themselves. That is why their feelings are hurt and they feel the need to use emotional terms as “altie” and particularly “altnut.” It’s really not the person that they are attacking, but that knowledge that doctors are not really gods after all. Actually, altie can be just a harmless way to describe us, but altnut implies being a “nut,” so that one is more emotionally loaded.
So am I offended at being labeled an “AltNut?” Not in the least. I’ll even attach a picture of myself to show that I am now well and recovered due to my being labled an AltNut. I know it’s normally used to put people down, but “altie” or “altnut” are used just as manipulative silliness, not fitting of a professional health practitioner.
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08.17.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:03 pm by Administrator
Kim, as promised from our lovely chat today, in your honor, here are some pics of the “ostriches” that scared the heck out of me! Ha ha! This was near Solvang. I manned the camera and took the ostrich pics because after I saw how they fed, I chickened out and let Brian and Aaron feed them. Meanwhile, Brian did try to get a shot of them with me, but I wouldn’t stay put long enough for both them and me to be in one shot together cuz I kept jumping out afraid they were gonna whack me on the head! Ha ha! So you’ll probably laugh at the goofy shot with me.
Yes, yes, I admit, this is the guy I’ve chosen to live with. Ha ha ha!
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