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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >I think you have to be just as careful with alternatives as will 
> traditional Western medication.  I think you should probably limit your 
> statement with "can be" or "some".  

I don't find myself agreeing with this.  Swayze is a good example.  Almost 
every time I've encountered someone who says "Alternative medicine .... I 
dunno...."  they are still engaging in the behavior that caused or 
contributed to 
their problems in the first place.

Now by alternatives, I don't mean invasive allopathic remedies that just 
happen to be herbal or natural.  

This is anecdotal but illustrative.  A fellow a very few years younger than 
me who was one of the research supervisors at the phamaceudical facility 
where 
I had a gig had a terrible lifestyle of horrible nutrition and no physical 
activity.  He was hugely overweight.  He developed cancer urinary tract 
cancer 
and when he had recovered somewhat from the chemotherapy (that left him much 
sicker), he drew me aside and quizzed me about my views on nutrition and 
health.  
Now this was a PhD biochemist, licensed pharmacist, with a strong medical 
background.  

He had me bring him raw milk.  I gave him sacks of steel cut oats from my 
stash and brought him all and sundry from the garden.  I personally 
introduced 
him to the produce stand owners (a produce stand less than a mile from where 
he 
lived).

His health improved dramatically.  He lost weight, lost the palor, put a 
spring in his step, and all his cancer screenings came back negative.  Then 
the 
pharmaceutical industry hit a turn in the road and the facility began 
fighting 
for its existence.  He became distracted and after a year and a half, I saw 
the 
grocery store hogie sandwich and diet sprite on his desk beside the box of 
twinkies.  He gained weight, turned an ashen color, slowed down.  And six 
months 
later he died when the cancer came back with an acute vengeance.

If this were the only instance with which I was acquainted, I'd write it off 
as coincidence.  But it isn't.

The only way I'd ammend Lynn's statement would be "almost all" rather than 
"some".  Maybe to the point of saying that you can find an isolated instance 
here and there where it isn't true, but those are themselves probably flukes.

I'm a bit testy on this point because I've lost several friends who were 
given that sachel of pills, A to treat  some condition, B to counteract the 
side 
effects of A, C to counteract the effects of B, D to counter act the effects 
of 
taking A and C in combination, and E just for the heck of it.

It killed them.  Two of them had prostate cancer.  Although the research is 
astoundingly clear that regular consumption of soybeans thwarts the ability 
of 
prostate tumors to grow, not one time did a physician or oncologist recommend 
that or even seem to know it.  They didn't die of prostate cancer, but the 
doctor said that in order for them to take the recommeded medicines, they had 
to 
have blood pressure medicind, cholesterol medicine, etc. etc. to counter the 
side effects.  They died of heart attacks or stroke.

The examples of people staying with AMA medicine but not giving up the 
underlying destructive habits is not example of the benefit of such medicine.



James