ShareThis: Why Almost Everything You Hear About Medicine Is Wrong - Newsweek

"The upshot for consumers: medical wisdom that has stood the test of time—and large, randomized, controlled trials—is more likely to be right than the latest news flash about a single food or drug." Sharon Begley, author of the News Week online article

Ladies and gentlemen, I rest the case I began to make when I started the Sparkling With Crystals blog.

It'll be three years ago next Monday when my father died.  I knew he was dying.  I believe he himself knew he was dying.  Starting at the end of April, he would ask me the date of my younger daughter's high school graduation every day or two.  We buried him on a Monday, and she matriculated on Wednesday.  He hung on until classes were over.  All she had left was cap-and-gown day.

I had watched the finest medical research to be had on this Earth keep my father alive but unwell for 18 years.  He was awfully sick when he died.  He had two separate and unrelated cancers, one of which had metastasized; he had Type II diabetes; he had high blood pressure; he was depressed; he had developed what I've seen called chemo-brain; he even had a bedsore.  He was very, very sick for the last two years of his life, and unwell since his prostate diagnosis when he was 56.  He delayed surgery and starting his treatment for about six months.  I want to write that story some day.

For the vast, overwhelming duration of his life after his diagnosis he was sick, tired, hurting, suffering, oppressed, and so were we.  

I was ready to change to a new direction in managing my health.  I was not improving, my father did in fact die of the disease that the urologist treating his cancer had told him would not kill him -- so, I closed my eyes and jumped on rocks.

Using what Western medicine considers alternative and complementary treatments were old hat to me.  It's one of those family stories, my brother teasing me about my homemade 'oils and unguents, salves and balms' when we were teenagers.

I knew from simple public school history classes that all ages have dealt with snake oil.  The Age of Reason produced some of the most interesting medical reading:  If the explanation and/or treatment for an illness sounded right to the prominent doctors of the day, it must be right and was exempt from further discussion.  To challenge or deviate from the "what sounds right" path was to collect little more than scorn, desperate cases, and less money.

Faith and funding of the wise-woman or cunning-man healers has waxed and waned.  The Church had valid spiritual reasons to oppose healing which utilized methods not in line with Church teaching. I recommend Witches, Midwives, and Nurses (Second Edition): A History of Women Healers by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English.  Seeing this topic from both sides, it's clear that the Church saw sick souls as spiritually at risk when consulting healers who worked with non-human spiritual and energetic beings.  And it's plain risky no matter how well you believe you are able to protect yourself from the fully sentient beings' agendas.  As well, they're unnecessary.  Perhaps convenient, but nothing is free in this world.  Make a deal with the devil and you will pay the price.  You will.  God Himself will see to it that you do unless you repent.

Anyway...

I had made up my mind that I wouldn't explore or share traditional healing techniques that had not withstood the test of time.  No trying things like packing open wounds with fresh horse dung for me.  I've never had an interest in dealing in incorporeal beings to accomplish what I was after.  Even angels work for God, not for me, so I don't talk to them or to demons either one.

God gave us logical minds and doesn't appreciate when we're so open-minded that our brains fall out.  New ways to use the ancient techniques that worthily continued to be taught to succeeding generations are assuredly worthy of being considered.

When I started this blog, I had planned-out and considered standards for what I would do and what I would not do, is what I mean.

Now, a clear and well-written article that was no doubt planned to stir the pot (or cauldron, as the case may be) has been published that substantiates my personal belief that much of what Western doctors give us orders to take, do, and submit to are nothing more than...wait for it...

Snake oil.

Please read the attached article.  Consider your own health, the regimens you follow, the advice, prescriptions, protocols, and pharmaceuticals that your health consultants order.  Decide what you will and will not do.  And keep in mind:

• When someone dies from a Western medical treatment during a study or afterwards, he or she has in fact died.  That information is the least likely to be published, least likely to be known to your doctor, and possibly never accessible by anyone looking for it. 
• Age of Reason thinking has not withstood the test of time.  Simply seeming to be correct isn't enough of a reason to chose any medical treatment no matter the source. 
• Cutting edge is not necessarily better or wiser.  Ecclesiastes is always there to remind us that there is nothing new under the sun.
• If your logical mind can't wrap around anything you read or hear from anyone, take that seriously.  Talk with others and continue to study until you can figure out why.
• Be strong in your belief system, whatever it may be.  You will not be able to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong to you if you are not solid in what you believe.

And know that the Sparkling One never gives medical advice and most assuredly wouldn't dream of diagnosing anyone with anything.  She hasn't cured herself yet, so she's not coming anywhere near you.  :)

Why Almost Everything You Hear About Medicine Is Wrong - Newsweek Source: newsweek.com If you follow the news about health research, you risk whiplash. First garlic lowers bad cholesterol, then—after more study—it doesn’t. Hormone replacement reduces the risk of heart disease in postmenopausal women, until a huge study finds that it doesn’t (and that it raises the risk of breast cancer to boot). Eating a big breakfast cuts your total daily calories, or not—as a study released last week finds. Yet even if biomedical research can be a fickle guide, we rely on it. But what if wrong a...
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