The other day, I was thinking about how much I love Cornell’s Cooperative Extension program. If you are gardening (I don’t really garden right now at least) or are trying to remedy some sort of lawn or other problem on your yard, you can send soil samples to the Cooperative Extension people. They will do analysis, figure out what minerals are lacking, and what you might have too much of. One thing I’ve learned because I’m part of Rochester Farmer’s Connection is how important the soil composition is for growing healthy food. A typical plant gets between 20-45% of its nutrients from the soil that it is growing out of. So if your soil is growing the same plant year after year, many times the nutrients in the soil would tend to become depleted unless you take action to make sure that it is remineralized.
Anyways, here’s the thing I like about Cooperative Extension — faced with a set of problems (whether it is pest, too much weed, depleted soil, etc), you can send your soil sample, or contact them for ideas on how to remedy your pest problem. They will do the analysis for you, then they will give you several different solutions for your problem. The solution can range from 100% pure organic to conventional approaches that use weed killers and pesticides, and everything in between (maybe even combining some from both). They will give you information, what works, how it works, and the relative strength or weakness of the various approach. Especially as it relates to our climate. Then it is up to the customer which option to go with for their garden or farm.
The other day, I was thinking, hey, why cannot our health care system, or medical system be like that? I mean, seriously, I’m not opposed to conventional medicine if others believe it really does work for them. In some cases, I’ll admit that some of those things *DO* work. What I feel is that consumers should be given information on everything from conventional to integrative (combining both approach) to completely natural/holistic approaches. I feel there is something fundamentally wrong with our medical system when number of different approaches are not given, and I get the impression (I’d love it if I’m wrong) that they are basically ordering patients to go with whatever approach the doctor thinks is most healthy. I’d like to see options given like how we could change our diet or supplements in order to over time overcome our ailment and make ourselves more healthy.
For instance, I started this essay by explaining how lot of soil is depleted. This is very much true: it is scientifically proven that organic food actually are more nutrient dense than their conventional counterparts. It should logically follow that lot of people’s health problems is due to the fact that they are nutritionally deficient in some stuff. If you consider this, why is it that not much effort, or testing in our medical system focuses on correcting the nutritional deficiency that patients have? Why is it that if they come to the doctor’s office complaining of some ailment, that the doctor matches the ailment with some medicine instead of doing blood tests to check for a number of common nutritional deficiency, and fix that. Mind you, if the medicine really does help to provide comfort for a time, I have no problem with people taking it as long as it is their choice, not something they feel compelled to do or else.
That isn’t what I see happening. What I see happening instead is if someone claims to have a natural approach to cure x, and a drug company A has a product to treat x, then company A would complain to the FDA, and attempt to sue the person promoting a natural approach to shut them down. I’m sorry to say this, but this isn’t my idea of liberty. Mind you, if company B, promoting a natural approach is misleading consumers, and telling consumers that their product (or solution) would cure them instantly and miraculously when it does a dismal job — I have no problem with charging them with fraud. Fraud is a type of crime that encompasses any deception or misleading of people. I also think that if drug companies make promises that are not working — they, too, should be taken to task for it in court and not be able to use the fact that they are FDA approved as a shield against unsatisfied consumers.
Note that I said the *consumer* can bring the company to court. I did NOT say that a competitor can do that. No way — the right to sue a company rests only on those who have purchased the product and found that it really does not work nearly as well as the company said it works. This means — doctors, pharmaceutical companies, or even the FDA should never be allowed to take a natural health company or practitioner to court simply because they do not like or agree with their solution. Mind you, I have no problem with those people taking the natural health company to court — BUT they must do it on behalf of a consumers. This means they must find consumer who have bought the product, feel defrauded, and willing to testify in court — and I’d say they need at least 2 (2 or 3 witnesses principle). There is something unconscionable with the idea of taking someone to court when there is no consumer victim. The FDA acting on behalf of a competitor is a violation of free market principles that our country was founded upon since you are basically choosing one company’s solution and squashing another company’s solution rather than allow the customers to choose for themselves. What I’m saying is if there are lots of happy consumers, then it is especially wrong to shut them down just so that the few, and the powerful can sell their product to those people. Bottom line: no victim, no injunction, got it?
Why not, instead of fighting against each other, we work together? Seriously, pharmaceutical companies looking to sell drugs are not the only ones who do scientific researches. They also aren’t the only ones who have cured people: there are some truly amazing healing stories among those who have taken natural approaches. I have hardly seen anything good come out of fighting against each other. I think the real enemy here isn’t the people who are buying products, but those who are looking to have a monopoly in the medical industry by making their solution the ONLY solution and banning all others.
In almost all other facets of life, everyone knows that there is not ONE correct approach to anything. Why do I get the feeling that in the medical industry, there is only one approach or philosophy given. Those approaches often involves a handful coming from multi-billion dollar company that also happens to have undue influence on the FDA, and, yes, even our medical school system. There is something wrong with that picture.
We could have a better picture. Check your motives — is everything we are doing really all about making people more healthy and happy. If somebody got healthy using drugs, we should be happy, we should stand with them, support them, and encourage them. Likewise, if somebody got healthy using a completely holistic approach, we should be cheering them on. We all have different philosophies in our life, and many times working within those philosophy could actually bring better result than what might be the ‘ideal’ approach. Sometimes there are even religions (like JW and blood transfusion) that rules out solutions that might be most effective, and we need to work with that. We cannot force our views upon anybody else, that isn’t liberty. Above all, we should never wish that somebody else was to get sick, or fail to become healthy simply because they chose an approach that we think does not work. Forbid it if you wish that upon somebody because they chose not to buy your product or service!
