FEEDBACK: Doug Firby, Editorial Page Editor
Usurping Alternative Health
Re: Calgary to Lead Way for Holistic Research
(front page story by Mario Toneguzzi, Feb 7, 2005 )
A new danger is threatening nature-cure health in Canada . The new danger is that presented by self-appointed medicos pretending to be holistic.
I have sounded alerts in the past stating that the greatest danger to the Alternative-health paradigm was the health supplement industry (See “The End of Natural Health,” www.arcadyholistic.ca/ah01h.htm).
“The more you teach health in a pill, the more you promote health in a name-brand product, the more you state this or that natural substance is the cure for what ails us ... then the more the point that natural methods are the best cure will again be corrupted by convenience, international standards, accreditation, and commercial concentration.”
The problem now is public innocence. Nature-cure health in Canada is in such demand that medico-based entities, un-invited, are presenting themselves as our representatives. Words such as “integrated,” “complementary,” “wholistic,” and “naturopathic” have been co-opted by medico interests. They purport to operate under a nature-cure banner but in fact are either bait-and-switch entities or are wolves dressing themselves within nature-cure woolens.
More and more doctors are taking up the cloak of nature-cure practices. They are self-appointed, for the most part, with few deeming to accredit themselves holistically. Although every bit of their training is Standard paradigm; their tools, methodologies, environments; their thinking and science; their organizations and staff; they simply think they can self-declare themselves representative of holistic health. There must be a word for such people (mountebank? shill?) who switch sides for money instead of belief, and usurp the new environment into they have arrived.
I find it galling that, in Canada , federal monies to research Alternative health must be approved by a Standard health physician. I find it galling that supposedly “holistic” non-profit organizations are being set up by the medico community to deliberately siphon off well-intentioned Alternative-health paradigm research. In Alberta , CAMera (http://www.cameraresearchnetwork.ab.ca/) and the Integrative Health Institute (http://www.integrativehealth.ca/) cohort with the University of Calgary and Mount Royal College . Such entities are not supportive of nature-cure health – they do not teach it, employ its practitioners, operate nature-cure clinics, respect traditional knowledge, or endorse the paradigm – and yet they purport to represent the finest aspects of the tradition and so are deserving of funding. They are capable only of promoting a medico-directed exercise in conformity.
Nature-cure used to be commonplace in Canada . In fact, it was far more popular than Standard medicine. Yet, the Standards claimed to have proven over-and-over again that their mantra of drugs and surgeries were far better than simple nature-cure practices. Like new & improved laundry detergents or cosmetic wrinkle-removing creams each iterative improvement of medicine was claimed to be increasingly better than quaint herb & health therapies of the past. Yet, things seem to be moving full circle.
Nature-cure practitioners have saved natural healing from oblivion. Try as the medicos might to have legislated natural health out of existence it is now here to stay. Popular support, driven largely by the ease of self-publishing and the internet, has made it impossible for the medicos to suppress knowledge on nature-cure healing. Empirical, results-based outcomes of nature-cure methods now stand in direct confrontation with the feckless double-blind studies upon which Standard medicine is based.
To whom should holistic research funding be directed? Certainly not to the medicos who have tried to destroy a legitimate competitive system of medicine. But rather to the nature-cure practitioners who fought to save and preserve the effective practices of the Alternative-health paradigm.
Let us fund Alternative health paradigm structures: an Alberta Alternative health association and professional society, schools, hospitals, clinics, and, yes, research. Alberta , one of the most backward provinces in Canada , might then step forward along the path toward holistic health.
Mark Taylor, Medical Herbalist
Director
Arcady Holistic Clinic
Calgary , Alberta
(403) 263-6568
Healer J. Mark Taylor, Medical Herbalist
5, 1922 - 9 Avenue SE.
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2G 0V2
