The naturopathic practitioner Peter Glidden once said: – calling allopathic medicine for “medicine” and naturopathic medicine for “alternative”, is like calling the German shepherd a “dog” and all other dogs for “alternative”.
Illustration: ar.inspiredpencil.com
He goes on to say that the practice of western medicine has gone through a monopolization, starting more than a hundred years ago, through the influence of the Carnegies’ – and the Rockefellers’ institutes. In 1912 the U.S. congress “granted the American Medical Association (AMA) exclusive control over who could – and who couldn’t practice medicine.” (1) This followed a report that changed western medicine into what is now often known as school – or “allopathic medicine”.
The Flexner Report
Different medical practices were flourishing in the Americas at the end of the 19 th century with chiropractic educations, homeopathy and herbal medicine, but this would take a marked turn in the early 19-hundreds. In 1910 a deputy was sent out from the Rockefeller – and Carnegie institutes to map out the different schools of medicine throughout the US and Canada, to eventually offer substantial amounts of money to the universities that supported their institutes’ early beginnings of laboratory petrochemical medicine.(2) In return they would have members from the institutes on the schools’ board of directors. This would open the door for having an influential voice when curriculum and weights of trends in medicine would be determined. The schools representing other directions of health – and medical treatments were passed -and overlooked regarding these financial incentives. It did not take long before many of the non-allopathic schools where forced to close, due to the competition that was already set by the powerful institutions of the petrochemical industry. The so-called “black schools” were also struck by the consequences of the campaign, as only two out of seven African American schools survived. (3)
With the mandate from the congress, campaigns and sanctions where engaged to marginalize -and censor the other traditions of medicine and schools of treatments. (4) A gulf between the different traditions of medicine was created, becoming wider and deeper over the coming decades and century.
A gift – and the deal was done
The Rockefeller institute didn’t stop at the boarders of the US, but even offered their financial beneficiary to countries in Europe, among them Norway. In 1926 the Norwegian Institute for Public Health was gifted with the generous amount of 1 million Norwegian kroner (100 000 US$). (5) An amount that without question would make a marked difference and influence on a then poor countrys’ budget and investment in the medical field.
Could this have anything to do with the fact that in Norway today – almost a hundred years later, anyone with a medical degree who suggests protocols outside of the allopathic standard of treatment is highly questioned and not seldom suspended from his/her practice – regardless of success-rates in treatment? (6) The polarization between those who believe in allopathic medicine and those more prone to other approaches for cures are astounding, and the word “alternative” for anything but allopathic is normalised and seemingly engraved in vocabulary and mind.
A plethora – and the right to choose
There are those in the allopathic traditions who advocate for complementary -or integrative medicine. Knut T. Flytlie, the author of the Vitamin Revolution, was a practicing medical physician from Norway, living in the south of Denmark. He’s been arguing for the protective care of vitamins and good nutrition within the orthomolecular tradition, while also being open to the use of different approaches as anthroposophical medicine, acupuncture, chiropractic therapy, homeopathy, ozone-therapy, ayurvedic medicine etc. The argument being that “humans have great differences, handle suffering differently and need different kinds of treatments.” (7) A trend – and understanding that hopefully may grow – and break through the monopolistic walls of todays western public health.
Disciplinary training and tidying of wardrobes
The monopoly of the allopathic tradition has mostly sown a somewhat patronizing attitude toward the “ alternative” practices. Some call for a more “structured education – and demand of skills and knowledge” within the other traditions to form “a serious alternative of treatment of regulative and functional diseases”, as Flytlie once put it. There is of course a truth to this, which goes for all well-developing arts of human skills – and expertise. – but I’m afraid that the allopathic tradition, fueled by a couple of petrochemical oligarchs from the early 19-hundreds, have more than a little disciplinary training to do. Today the third biggest (- some say the number one -) cause of death in the USA and in Europe is caused by medical allopathic drugs – and so-called iatrogenic causes. (8) Treatments of chronic illnesses aim to treat the symptoms rather than curing them – not dealing with root-causes, and thereby consequently creating consumers of pharmaceutical medicines for life.
How do these factors outplay the “alternative” practices? one may ask.
If the allopathic medicine does not need a disciplinary training to weed out shady parts of practice, it might need a thorough makeover where wardrobes are emptied and history questioned to find out where “something went wrong” – and what is worth keeping. While acute, trauma-intensive care is “the wheelhouse of allopathic medicine”; and the discovery of insulin has saved countless of lives, it cannot put a blind-spot to the still piling up of iatrogenic injuries showing up in its monopolistic wake.
In a situation like this it might become difficult to keep a humble attitude to the fallacies that haunts all human endeavors, but it has to lead us to see the possibilities in the variety of medical – and health practices. Counting all dogs – as dogs; where we have the right and freedom to find the one that matches our individual needs and preference of choice.
References:
- “Roots of Immunity” – documentary-series; Peter Glidden interviewed by J. Otto
- “The truth about Cancer” – documentary-series; G. Edward Griffin interviewed by T. Bollinger
- The 1910 Report That Disadvantaged Minority Doctors – JSTOR Daily
- “The truth about Cancer” Jonathan Wright interviewed by T. Bollinger
- olehartattordet – Rockefeller finansierte Folkehelseinstituttet
- Geir er uten autorisasjon: – Helsetilsynet tar leger som de mener praktiserer «alternativt» – Helsemagasinet vitenskap og fornuft
- Flytlie, Knut (2012) Nye Vitamin-Revolusjonen Oslo, Cappelen Damm AS
- Gøtzsche, Peter C. (2013) Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime London, Radcliffe Publishing Ltd.
