Illness Industry Addicted to Drug
Danyl Strype examines the motives of 'health' experts who continue to downplay the implications of scientific studies that demonstrate the efficacy of non-drug therapies.
BBC News reported today that scientific experiments have confirmed that acupuncture has real physiological effects on the brain. Included in the article is an interview with one Professor Tony Wildsmith of Dundee University who was not involved in the study and is quoted as saying, "I think it is a psychological manipulation technique, a distraction. We are not going to get to the stage where this could be used instead of a general anesthetic." Wildsmith's speculation is unambiguously disproven by the findings of the study, "We have found something quite unexpected - that acupuncture is having a measurable effect on the human brain." - Professor Sykes but his comments tell us a lot about where the loyalties of the medical industry and its experts lie.
Why would an expert in pain relief at a prestigious university be biased towards potentially life-threatening anesthetic drugs with well-documented side effects in many patients when an effective drug-free alternative has been shown to work and used in practice with no negative patient outcome? Why do such experts generally accept questionable vivisection (live animal) experiments supposedly proving drugs safe and effective for humans while downplaying the importance of controlled research on humans that establish the efficacy of 'alternative' therapies? Why are such experts never heard advocating for modes health care that can be provided at low cost by local communities for their members?
Non-drug health care in the developing world is a threat to the profits of corporations that are investing heavily in the 'heath industry' and champing at the bit for GATS to be instituted so they can starting buying up or otherwise taking over public health services. Low labour standards and manufacturing costs in industrializing countries allow companies to have drugs produced cheaply then add an enormous mark-up as royalties for the use of their 'intellectual property'. Increasingly the companies that claim ownership of the knowledge, often resulting from publicly funded research, are not even involved in drug production. This is left to third parties, businesses or governments in the developing countries, allowing the drug companies to profit from their enclosement of knowledge without risking their capital on manufacturing and marketing operations in often chaotic economic and political climates.
Acupuncture is a technique that can be taught to health practitioners without the need for full training as a medical doctor and could reduce the need for the manufacture of sedative drugs and as well as the profits of the multinational corporations who own the patents on those drugs. If this practice became a standard method of surgical anesthesia in the west as is it in Chinese hospitals then pharmaceutical companies would lose business. Worse for the illness industry is the risk that acupuncture becoming an accepted part of mainstream medicine would increase the numbers of patients turning to it as an alternative to drugs and surgery, an escalating threat to the income of doctors and the profit margins of drug companies.
I think it is essential that activists on the left educate themselves about the alternatives to industrial medicine and especially holistic medical philosophy - treating illness by facilitating overall good health rather than simply suppressing symptoms. Not only will they and their families and communities benefit from such education but building a holistic, community-based public health system is a powerful direct action against the pharmaceutical corporations and the various other commercial interests who stand to profit from people being and remaining ill.
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