Healthy Eating Habits

I read a lot about the

topics of health and especially diets. I have been experimenting with

diets since 1990 and keep journals about my

observations. Over time I tried several very different diets - ranging

from the politically correct ones to highly controversial, along with diets

of my own design. My general observation is that a healthy diet plays an essential

role in the overall scheme of well being.

Why eat healthy?

Eating the natural foods humans are well adapted at utilizing, enhances

ones ability to cope with the reality of every day life. This in essence

improves the probability of living a longer, healthier life. Quality food consumption becomes

especially important in the present world of high stress and pollution -

making a healthy diet an essential aspect of modern self health care.

(Although food is not the only aspect contributing to health or disease, it

is significant enough to consider it's effects seriously.)

I think anybody who seriously tried living healthier through a better diet,

proper physical activity, adequate rest, and by addressing mental and

spiritual factors have experienced a vast range of natural health benefits.

Common benefits are overall better health and a sense of well being, better sleep,

improved physical endurance and strength, sharper mental abilities and lower

sleep requirements. Further more, no or little time and money and energy is

spend on doctors, hospitals and health insurance bills.

What is a healthy diet?

Since this article deals with healthy eating, a question remains

to be answered: what constitutes a healthy diet? Unfortunately, there are

more opinions about this than there are health experts. To further complicate

the matter, dietary concepts change over time, leaving most people confused and uncertain

about what or whom to trust. One solution to this problem is to become sufficiently

knowledgeable about the relevant subjects and rely on common sense to draw basic

conclusions. Along with personal experimentation, such an approach will

enable one to establish healthy eating habits. This takes time and energy, but considering

the long lasting benefits a healthy diet can provide, the effort is more then well worth it.

In order to determine the minimal basic requirements of a healthy diet, I

concluded that it is safe to start with the following two objectives:

examine human diet over time - the foods humans consumed since the arrival of our species.
examine diets of ethnical groups known for their good health.

Looking at the type of diets humans lived on through out pre-history, provides good

insights into the kind of foods human body should be well adapted at utilizing and dealing with.

Further, the diets of certain ethnical groups that are well known for good health -

the people of Okinawa(Japan), traditional cultures in the Mediterranean region and many hunter-gatherer

societies - suggest certain health promoting dietary habits. Upon closer examination, two main

denominators emerged:

diets are based on natural, whole or minimally processed foods in accordance to heritage.
diets are lower in calories compared to a typical western diet.

In the context of present time, one can therefore make two general assumptions in regard to

the question of what constitutes a healthy diet: 1) generally, the less a food is processed the better.

2) eat less - eat what is adequate, do not over eat.

Generally, the less a food is processed the better

The reason for this is simple. For 99.9% of human existence, our species

lived on foods that were either raw or minimally processed. The technology

needed to increase food processing did not exist until very recently.

It is therefore reasonable to assume that our bodies are best adapted at

utilizing and dealing with the raw or minimally processed foods which sustained

us for hundreds of thousands of years: fruits, vegetables, meats, nuts and seeds.

Often, the more recent the food is, the more likely it is to be less beneficial

or even directly harmful - possibly due to lack of full adaptation to such foods.

For example, it is estimated that food cooking started about

500 000 - 250 000 years ago (depending on the source, the range may vary). During

this time frame, it is likely that human species have at least adapted in some way to cooked

animal and vegetable foods. On the other hand, the beginnings of grain consumption

are much more recent. Evidence of earliest known, systematical collecting of grains

for food goes back to about 23 000 years ago - giving less time for

adaptation to grain based foods.

Now, let's fast forward to recent times and consider all the new, human invented,

highly processed foods so common today: fast foods, pizza, sweets, chips, convenience

foods, canned foods, etc. along with the dramatic rise in heart attacks, high blood pressure,

stroke, cancers, diabetes, kidney problems (and all the complications that arose from these

conditions) during the past 100 years or so.

Considering the declining health of most western

nations as opposed to good health of the ethnical groups described above, it seems reasonable

that the most recent food inventions are directly harmful to human health.

Further, it has been repeatedly observed that as ethnical groups around the

world adopt the modern western diet, their health dramatically declines and they develop

the same diseases that are so common to westerners. Not to mention the fact that

the above mentioned diseases were far less common among westerners

themselves barely 100 years ago.

The more a food is processed - through excessive cooking, pasteurization,

homogenization, high heat, mechanical processing, etc, - the less natural and nutritious it becomes to a point

of becoming a harmful burden to the body, rather then a useful and health promoting food. Some

industrial processing practices deprive food of their nutrients to such a high degree that the food

has to be "enriched" by artificially adding some nutrients back into the food. This is especially

true of flours where vitamins are added back in after the processing is done.

A good diet is based on natural, whole or minimally processed foods. A large portion

of it should consist of foods that can be eaten raw, such as fruits and vegetables.

Fermented or cultured, unpasteurized foods such as kefir, yogurt, cheeses, miso, sauerkraut and pickles

are considered highly beneficial. Cooking should be minimal and only applied to foods that

must be cooked in order to be edible. Ancestral heritage also plays an important role

as certain foods may need to be excluded or emphasized.

Eat less - eat what is adequate, do not over eat

During the past several decades, food in the western and westernized nations became

increasingly affordable and more readily available then ever before in

human history. This very fact combined with the enjoyment food consumption brings,

results in all too frequent over eating. Which again leads to the above mentioned health

problems.

In the past, as in the traditional way of living among the ethnical groups mentioned

earlier, food consumption has always been significantly lower. Food quality, on the other

hand, has always been higher. Resulting in a lower food intake, but of nutrient dense foods.

Finally, as an interesting note, it has been repeatedly confirmed through laboratory experiments on animals,

including monkeys, that cutting down calories considerably lowers their susceptibility

to diseases and prolongs their life up to 50%. It is believed by many,

that life long caloric restriction can have similar effects on humans.

Health promoting eating habits

Over time, through reading and experimenting, I gradually arrived at several

basic health promoting habits that in my experience are the most important:


Avoid or minimize:


Avoid all junk, sweets, canned and convenience foods - including
all foods with added sugar: most commercial yogurts, kefirs and juices, fruit and soft drinks.


Avoid all refined or overly heated fats: margarine, any oil that is not cold
pressed, leftover fat from cooking, all foods that contain hydrogenated or
partially hydrogenated fats and trans fatty acids (read the labels). Such
fats are considered to be among the most health damaging foods.


Avoid consumption of fish and water animals unless certain they came from unpolluted waters.
Especially predators should be avoided as the toxins accumulate in them in
far greater quantities.


Keep the intake of foods high in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) low - mainly
nuts and seeds and any products made from them (mostly oils). PUFAs are unstable,
they oxidize readily resulting in harmful free radicals. High PUFA intake have
been repeatedly linked with cancer, heart and inflammatory diseases.


Do not cook meat or fat at high temperatures while exposed to air. Such practice
will avoid fat and cholesterol oxidation - believed to be responsible for build up
of arterial plaque and injury to arterial cells. Grilling and frying is especially
harmful. Boiling is probably the safest way of cooking meat.


Minimize or eliminate consumption of foods frequently contaminated with mycotoxins: alcoholic beverages,
wheat, rye, barley, corn and peanuts. Mycotoxins are poisonous substances produced
by certain molds and fungi which cause a wide range of health problems including cancer,
asthma, multiple sclerosis and diabetes.


Emphasize and do:

The more natural and less processed the food the better. Emphasize whole, fresh foods.
Replace white rice with brown rice; white bread with whole grain bread; sugar with
small amounts of raw honey or dry fruit; pasta with millet or whole grain pasta; canned
foods with fresh; candy and other sweets with dry or sweet fruit;
etc. Organic foods are best as they are higher in nutrients and do not contain
harmful pesticides, hormones or antibiotics found in conventional foods.
Always choose fresh over frozen, dried or canned foods. Fresh foods taste better,
have more nutrients in them, have no added salt, sugar or unhealthy additives.


Enjoy simple meals. Generally, the
simpler the food preparation the more nutrients are preserved and the easier it is to
digest. Simple meals are easy and quick to prepare and use fewer
resources like electricity and water - thus are more environmentally friendly and less costly.


Only cook foods that need to be cooked in order to be edible (beans, grains and some vegetables).
Foods that are edible in a raw state (fruits, most vegetables, sprouts, nuts and seeds)
should be consumed on a daily basis and preferably with every meal. Raw foods are higher in nutrients,
which to some degree get lost during cooking, and are easier to digest. At least 50% of
the diet, by volume, should consist of raw foods.


Steam vegetables that need to be cooked - steaming preserves more nutrients which
when boiled leech into the water. Do not overcook. Cooked vegetables should be crunchy
when you eat them, not soft.


Chew food well (simply chew it longer) and eat at a comfortable pace. This improves
digestion which already starts in the mouth while saliva gets mixed with the food.



Variety in diet is very important - to prevent allergies, malnutrition and to lower
exposure to natural and man-made toxins found in many natural foods.


Always properly wash fruits and vegetables before consumption. This lowers the
exposure to agricultural chemicals (used to cultivate conventional plants) and harmful microorganisms.
Peel the skin if washing is not sufficient.



Nuts and seeds should be soaked before consumption - to lower or eliminate natural
anti nutrients like enzyme inhibitors. Soaking makes them much easier to digest.
Do not eat more then a few handfuls a week as they are high in PUFAs and difficult
to digest.


Grains (except amaranth, millet and rice) and beans must be soaked before
consumption. This lowers or eliminates anti nutrients like phytic acid which inhibits
mineral absorption that can lead to mineral deficiency.


Fruits are best eaten alone as a snack between meals. To improve digestion only eat
one type of fruit at a time.


Regularly consume unpasteurized fermented/cultured foods like sauerkraut, miso,
pickles, kefir, yogurt, etc. These are pre-digested foods that are high in
probiotics (friendly bacteria) and enzymes which provide numerous health benefits.
Start with what your ancestors consumed and later experiment with other foods
as well.


Regularly consume enzyme rich foods: sprouts, raw honey, grapes, figs, avocados,
bananas, papayas, pineapple, kiwi, mango and fermented/cultured
foods (see above). Enzymes obtained from raw foods ease the digestion by reducing
the body's need to produce digestive enzymes.


Consider the diet your ancestors ate for thousands of years - you will most likely
do very well on such a diet due to the long period of adaptation to it.
For example, the traditional Chinese diet is high in carbohydrates and low in fat and protein;
Europeans, on the other hand, have been eating less carbs and more protein and fat;
North American Indians did not eat grains.


Drink adequate amounts of liquid through out the day. Water is best. Under normal conditions,
most people need 2-3 liters of liquid/day.


Unless very hungry, do not eat for 3-4 hours before bedtime. That way the nightly fast
can be prolonged considerably. This gives the body more/adequate time and energy to perform the
countless nightly tasks that are so essential to good health. (Rather then digesting the
just eaten meal)


Eat only when hungry and do not overeat regardless of food. I found this to be among the
most important of all health promoting habits.


Good sources of protein:

any meat that comes from organic, free range animals that are fed their natural diet (hard to find)
when not organic: lean poultry meat (high fat cuts are high in polyunsaturated fatty acids which oxidize readily during cooking and in the body; toxins accumulate in the fat)
beans
fresh, soaked or sprouted nuts and seeds
raw fermented milk products: sour milk, kefir, cheeses, etc (hard to find)
wild game
eggs

Most commercial meats including pork and beef, unless organic and not fed corn/grains/beans,

contain antibiotics, hormones and too many polyunsaturated fats - thus should be avoided.

Good sources of carbohydrates:

vegetables
fruits
whole or minimally processed fresh and mold free grains: rice, oat, amaranth, millet, barley, wheat, etc.
beans
potatoes

Good sources of fats:

avocados
butter
fresh, soaked or sprouted nuts and seeds (mostly source of omega 6)
coconuts or coconut oil
full fat raw milk products (cheese, milk, cream, etc) from pasture fed cattle
olives or first cold pressed (extra virgin) olive oil

Shopping

I always try to find organic foods to avoid harmful substances like hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, etc.

The most contaminated fruits are: raisins, cherries, peaches, strawberries, mexican

(winter) cantaloupe, apples, apricots, Chilean (winter) grapes. And the most

contaminated vegetables are: spinach, celery, green beans, bell peppers, cucumbers,

cultivated button mushrooms, potatoes and wheat. Lean poultry is probably the safest meat

to eat if not organic.

Meal examples

What follows are weekly meals that closely resemble my diet at the time of this

writing. When planning meals, the key idea is to have variety in diet and to rely on

food combinations that agree with ones digestion.

TBS = table spoon

tsp = tea spoon

/ = or

any fruit eaten alone
0.5L sour milk, 300g potatoes, fennel
0.5L kefir, 50-100g oatmeal, 25g raisins
0.5L plain yogurt, 300g grapes/2-3 bananas
50-100g oatmeal, 1-2TBS honey, cinammon
½ salad head, 1-2 tomatoes/pepper fruit, ½ cucumber/squash, 1-2TBS olive oil
medium avocado, 1-2 bananas, cinammon
50-100g brown rice, 1-2 hardboiled eggs, 2-4 radishes, 25-50g leeks, 1-2TBS ground flax seeds, 50g sprouts
50-100g amaranth, 1-2 steamed parsnips, 1 steamed onion, 1-2 steamed carrots, celery stick, 1tsp freshly grated raw ginger, parsley, 1TBS olive oil
200g mung bean sprouts, 1-2 carrots, 25-50g leeks, 25g soaked pumpkin seeds/almonds/sesame seeds
½ steamed broccoli/cauliflower, 1-2 tomatoes/pepper fruit, ½ squash/cucumber, 150g turkey/chicken breast, 2-3 cloves of minced garlic, 1TBS olive oil
100g buckwheat sprouts, 2 carrots, florence fennel stick, 25g sprouted sunflower seeds, 25g raisins
50-100g amaranth, steamed onion, steamed asparagus, florence fennel stick, 1tsp freshly grated raw ginger, parsley, 1TBS coconut oil
50-100g millet, celery stick, 2-4 radishes, 25-50g leeks, 25g pumpkin seeds

I plan meals loosely, 1-2 days ahead. The meal preparation is very simple: meat and

eggs are boiled in water, vegetables that need cooking are steamed. Since certain food vitamins

become more bioavailable once exposed to low heat cooking, it is a good idea to alternate

between cooked and raw vegetables. For example,

Bio-carotene found in carrots becomes more absorbable after light steaming.

I adjust the quantity of food according to how physically active I am during the day.

In addition to the above foods I also take vitamin and mineral supplements and

drink bottled water. I use spices and salt. Kefir and sour milk are made at home

from organic full-fat, unhomogenised pasteurized milk. Sprouts are home grown as well

for maximum freshness. Both are very easy to make and require only few minutes of

daily attention.

Final thoughts

Although a healthy diet can enormously improve ones health, it is only one essential part

of healthy living. The other parts are proper and adeqaute physical activity,

mental and spiritual well being, and adequate rest. All need to be addressed in order to

achieve better health.

An important thing I learned while experimenting with diets and other health

related approaches is to always pay attention to the signals from the body. It is essential to

do this - in order to maintain good health - and adjust accordingly. As one gets

better at reading the body, it becomes natural to self diagnose a lot of minor problems (which can

become major if not paid attention to) and remedy them by simply adjusting the diet or other aspects of life.

Finally, we are all different - what works for one person may not work for another - thus it's

important to experiment with ones diet to find out what works and what doesn't.

Disclaimer: This article represents personal views and should

be treated as such. Implementation of any ideas contained

herein can only be done at own risk.

(If you found this article helpful, you may return the favor by buying a poster of one of my images at www.art.eonworks.com/gallery/gallery.html.)

Copyright © 2005 Dawid Michalczyk. All Rights Reserved. This content

may be copied in full, with copyright, contact, creation, information and links intact, without specific permission, when used only in a not-for-profit

format. Author's email: dm@eonworks.com

Dawid Michalczyk is a freelance illustrator and an artist. He enjoys learning about health, anthropology and computers. He loves to ride a bicycle and does it almost every day. To see examples of his work and other writings visit his website at http://www.art.eonworks.com. He can be reached at dm@eonworks.com

Health Care Reform is Not Healthy

HEALTH CARE REFORM IS NOT HEALTHY!

LET'S CALL IT WHAT IT Is - HEALTH INSURANCE MONEY ALLOCATION AND RE-DISTRICTING

Health insurance premiums are driven by the success or failure of actual health recovery maintenance and the costs required to deliver of service. Harris L. Coulter, Ph.D., of Washington, DC, and editor of the 8th edition of the HPUS,is an internationally renowned medical historian and author of over 30 books and essays, which include: THE DIVIDED LEGACY, a four volume epochal history of medicine, which covers its origins to present day.

"Society today is paying a heavy price in disease and death for the monopoly granted the medical profession in the 1920's. In fact, the situation peculiarly resembles that of the 1830s when physicians relied on bloodletting, mercurial medicines, and quinine, even though knowing them to be intrinsically harmful. And precisely the same arguments were made in defense of these medicines as are employed today, namely, that the benefits outweigh the risks. In truth, the benefits accrue to the physician, while the patient runs the risks."-Harris Coulter, Ph.D., (Divided Legacy Vol 3)

There is no question we need reform in the areas of disease elimination improvements in Health, better delivery of health care when it is needed and health insurance parity. Personally, am all for reform, but let those reforms ring with the clarity of Truth and illuminate our way through the fog obfuscation.

Overall chemo-therapy and radiation are documented to be an absolute failure in the so-called war against cancer. The long-term survival rate of cancer patients using orthodox therapies remains abysmal and the statistical reportage is obfuscated.

Refer to: New England Journal of Medicine, "Progress Against Cancer," May 8, 1986 by John C. Bailar, III and Elaine M. Smith, and a ten-year follow-up "The War on Cancer" which appeared in Lancet, May 18th, 1996, by Michael B. Spoorn. Therein is published in leading medical journals, but they remain as the only therapies and pharmaceutical companies enjoy federal mandate.

Stated simply you cannot poison a sick person well.

HEALTH CARE REFORM is a meme used to numb the mind and sway political process but has little or nothing to do with health and certainly is neither, reform in the ways the public perceives, nor what they dearly need.

Merely by changing who and how much they profit for health services is only a small fraction of the underlying problem and ultimately it's you who pay. Current Congressional debates will not offer true reform of our systemic disease CARE, but strengthen insurance profits and control.

The fruit of the healthcare tree, while certainly abundant, is altogether rotten, because the roots are corrupted by disease. If the Food and Drug Administration which regulates both FOOD and drugs while having far reaching powers that are beyond the Constitution of the United States of America, is powerless to effectuate the genuine change required to modify the so-called health industry.

Nor can the FDA provide the reforms by its far reaching power and control, then how can we expect it to come from mandates from an under educated over lobbied congress?

Give credit where due, the FDA has been effective in causing millions of tones of ground meat and spinach. A little too late perhaps as the FDA has done nothing to stop chemical companies from pouring oceans of deadly toxic, and known carcinogens on our crops.

"Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans" ~ Jacques Cousteau

HOW CAN YOU HAVE HEALTH IF WE DON'T HAVE CLEAN WATER AND AIR?

We must stop poisoning our earth with unnecessary toxic chemicals, which leaches out the elements and minerals building blocks of the cells of our bodies, and support and teach the farmers on bio-dynamic farming.

Why is there no respect for and replication of how the Hunzas and several other tribes on earth, wholive to be well over 120, and disease free.

These tribes drink the water which comes off of the slow grinding of the glacier across mountain terrain and gives minute quantities of every element and every mineral. Their cells have

access to all the natural building blocks of life and therefore remain impervious to invasion and disease.

Health and Old Age Places with High Longevity: Hunza Pakistan the area of Hunza in Pakistan which has a high level of longevity. A Guide to Shangri-La: The Leading Longevity Sites on Earth

For Americans and the world at large where the crop land is awash in chemicals the minerals and elements are leached out of the soil and the roots of our food crops are have no way to chelate them so that we can digest them into our bodies.

What follows is a well known symptom called pica, and we are constantly looking for something to eat to satisfy the hunger of the cells and this leads to obesity and disease on a national scale.

There are solutions, but the FOOD administration, has done nothing to listen to, study, implement, nor promote the use of Bio-Dynamic Farming, which is proven to produce greater volumes of crops far healthier and do not poison our water aquifers.

One fairly recent proactive move; the FDA and the FTC have enforced the little known Federal Law under USC Title 21 Part 56, INFORMED CONSENT. This activity is evidenced by the too frequent drug commercials and advertisements. To name one example the anti depressant drug, ABILIFY, is known to cause death and suicide.

To our detriment and demise, the FDA has a tunnel vision partisan perspective and always reactive, rarely proactive when a patient actually dies from using an FDA approved drug, they routinely avoid any blame and state "there is no conclusive evidence to prove it was because of the drug." No drug company is ever charged with a crime and no executives, nor doctors, are criminally charged for manufacturing, nor for prescribing the drugs.

WHY? Because the drugs are FDA approved so it would mean they are culpable.

However, when a substance derived and used by another Healing Art, i.e. Homeopathy, is found to be highly effective in combating and eliminating a disease such as cancer, or reversing the side effects of AIDS, a stroke, or Cystic Fibrosis, to name a few, the FDA routinely states there is no scientific evidence to support the claims moves swiftly to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.

We must continue to strengthen the education of the public on sound fundamentals of health maintenance.

We must allow for access and coverage to all branches of the Healing Arts. This is known as the ECLECTIC. The allopathic cartel are not the arbiters of truth, nor have they proven to be honorable stewards, nor have they provided viable solutions where other forms of healing arts have been successful, in some cases thousands of years.

THE PROBLEM

The problem is that over the past 67 years, a Federal Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, created in 1938 as an agency to ensure that Food, Drugs and Cosmetics moving in interstate commerce, were pure, unadulterated, contained what was stated on the label and safe for human consumption.

Over the years the FDA has undergone a metamorphosis and has become a threat to the civil liberties and public health of Americans, as well as added incredibly to the cost of the products it regulates.

The FDA has a long history of using the resources of the agency to conduct Gestapo type raids on medical clinics, terrorizing patients, staff and practitioners, seizing quantities of vitamins, manuals and harmless natural products, issues completely inaccurate, indeed, deliberately mendacious publicity releases slandering practitioners, nutritional products and innovative drugs and has so far departed from the purposes for which it was created as to become a menace to both the public's health and their civil liberties.

Under 80 or more years of Allopathic domination, the standardized American health care system is unable to:

(1)Control the resurgence of Tuberculosis in the country;

(2)Control the rising rate of Cancer deaths;

(3)Control the rising rate of coronary artery deaths;

(4)Lower the infant mortality rate;

(5)Find an effective cure for AIDS.

There are available answers to all these deficiencies, but none of them are embraced in Allopathic Doctrine.

The question presented is, if there is any legal control over this vast agency and any way citizens can take legal action to cause the agency to be brought under control and be forced to comport itself in accordance with the intent of Congress in creating it, and the additional question of whether or not citizens who have been harassed by its Ultra Vires activities may sue for damages or other relief.

If such legal action is possible, is such legal action the best, or the sole means which can or should be employed to bring the agency under control.

A further question may be what or who is responsible for the agency getting out of control and what, if anything, can be done to ensure that the agency does not get out of control in the future and once again become a menace to society.

ANALYSIS

The agency in question, the Food and Drug Administration, is an out of control bureaucracy, undertaking to perform some proper regulatory functions but devoting many of its resources to illicit functions not contained in its enabling legislation and not permissible under the constitution.

The agency [which was] directed by Commissioner David Kessler, M.D, JD, who assumed the position after the enforced resignation of Joe Young, PhD, has done little to change its behavior except put on a fresh face from time to time.

An investigation revealed widespread corruption with many officials, taking large bribes, not to mention every member of Congress who are heavily lobbied by industries it was supposed to regulate, and the entire agency was demoralized and ineffective.

The agency has openly and notoriously formed "partnership" with private trade associations and special interest groups for the purpose of aiding and abetting non-price predation in the health care market.

The agency has lawful jurisdiction over some Foods, Drugs and medical devices which are in interstate commerce and has no jurisdiction over the practice of medicine or other healing professions.

Despite this rather clear distinction, the agency repeatedly attempts to interfere with health care practitioners by means of its enforcement powers and by liaison with state regulatory agencies, and by conducting Gestapo type raids on the offices and clinics of health care practitioners who practice in Schools of Practice other than the Allopathic School and by attempting to suppress the use of techniques of healing and of products for use in health care which are not within its regulatory jurisdiction.

THE BUREAUCRATIC ANTI-COMPETITIVE CAMPAIGN

WHICH POSSIBLY INADVERTENTLY or INTENTIONALLY CREATES GENOCIDE

This claim is born of deliberate suppression of health technologies which are non-toxic, effective and inexpensive; to name only a few in critical areas, these include:

I. CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES

EDTA Chelation - Adrenal Cortical Extract

II. STROKE PREVENTION AND REHABILITATION

Oxidative Therapies / Hyperbaric Chamber / Ozone

EDTA Chelation

Human Growth Hormone

III. CANCER AND AIDS

IAT, Laetrile, L-Arginine, Black & Yellow Salves, Gerson Therapy, 714-X, Homeotherapeutics, Krebiozen, Essiac, Immunostim, anti-neoplastin, Hoxey, Glixoxide, Revicci Therapies and many others, too numerous to mention here.

THE STATE AND FEDERAL AGENCIES INVOLVED IN ANTICOMPETITIVE ACTIVITY

California (most active)

Department of Consumer Affairs

State Board of Medicine

State Board of Dental examiners

State Board of Osteopathic Examiners

State Board of Chiropractic Examiners

Acupuncture Committee

Food and Drug Branch

Attorney General's Office

San Diego City Attorney's Office

Other States (Generic)

State Board of Medical Examiners

State Board of Dental Examiners

Attorney General's Office

Private Organizations Involved

Pharmaceutical Advertising Council

National Council Against Health Fraud (and affiliated organizations)

National Federation of State Boards of Medical Examiners

Administrative Agencies

NCI - National Cancer Institute

CDC - Centers for Disease Control

FDA - Food and Drug Administration

NIH - National Institutes of Health

Private Organizations

American Heart Association

American Cancer Society

Memorial Sloan Kettering Institute

Mayo Clinic

American College of Allergy

Roswell, et al

In HEALTH UNITED STATES, an annual publication by the federal government, our national death rate from cancer is approximately 2,500,000 people per year and the rate is rising. Assuming a cost of $80,000 to $160,000 per person over the last 20 years, that figure represents $200,000,000 to $370,000,000 per year and 50,000,000 lives, or $4 TRILLION to $7.5 TRILLION dollars funneled from our collective economy into the hands of the medical pharmaceutical cartel. Is it any wonder, then, why we cannot find a cure?

In addition One of the first targeted, the FDA, or "Big Medicine," since the early 1900's, in this country was Dr. Royal Raymond Rife. His powerful evolutionary microscope, capable of shattering cancer cells and viruses with radio frequency vibrations, was destroyed and his books burned by federal authorities and he was imprisoned.

Some other embattled pioneers include, but are certainly not limited to: The healing arts of Ethno botany, Naturopathy Chiropractic and Acupuncture and Chelation, which all met intense resistance and violent opposition by federally protected orthodoxy.

Dietmar Schildwaechter, Ph.D., MD, was invaded in his home office in a militant style by state and federal authorities in the late 1980's for introducing a cure for squamous cell cancer, which was proven in a 20-year study in Germany.

Andrew Ivy, MD, a pillar of the A.M.A., who came back from Germany after participating as a panelist in the Nuremberg war crime trials with a cure for cancer called Krebiozen, had his career shattered.

Bruce Halstead, MD;

Warren Levin, MD;

Vincent Speckhart, MD;

Royal Raymond Rife, MD

Wilhelm Reich, MD;

Jossef Issels, MD; and Max Gerson, MD;

Joseph Gold, MD,

Emmanuel Revici, MD;

Stanislaw Burzynski, MD;

James Privitera, MD;

Ed McCabe, author of Oxygen Therapies, jailed for 547 days; a best selling author.

Hulda Clark, ND;

There too many more which are not listed here. These gifted pioneers brought relief to a suffering humanity and were ruthlessly attacked by medical authorities and scientific dogma. Each paid a high price but distinguished themselves by their courage and resolves to stand up for their convictions, even in the face of overwhelming opposition, loss of license and jail. For a closer look at the inner workings, read: THE CANCER INDUSTRY: the Classic Expose 'on the Cancer Establishment, by Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D.

The FDA regularly approves dangerous, often lethal pharmaceuticals. The side effects of these potentially deadly, or harm causing pharmaceutical drugs can only be fully discovered by wide-spread use. This is despite the average $250-500,000,000 and 15 years to bring these drugs to market, including phase trial tests, trying to prove the elusive "efficacy" requirement of the F.D. &C. Act.

Typically, after one of their highly publicized "wonder" drugs fails, causes death or serious side effects, no FDA official nor PAC member company president, research assistant, corporate official, company doctor, nor testing lab will be subjected to raid, investigation, indictment or jail term.

To the trauma and suffering to the patients and their families and the productive work force, it comes with a hefty price tag.

Both Gaston Naessens and Dietmar Schildwaechter, Ph.D., MD, spent the last 40 years perfecting independent blood tests, which are able to pre diagnose any type of cancer and immune disorders up to two years prior to their onset, with a 1% margin of error. The industrial average false/negative ratio remains extremely high by comparison, yet these new tests are ignored or met with resistance.

THE RELEVANT SERVICE MARKET AND SUBSTITUTABLE ECONOMIC COMPETITORS

The Eclectic Practice of Medicine*

In 1906, Dr. Rolla Thomas completely revised the 1866 teaching manual by John Milton Scudder, and revised it yet again in 1907. This was the culmination of a thirty-year frenzy of published creativity at the Eclectic Medical Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was the main teaching text at that school until the1930s...the college closed in 1939.

"...it were better for the doctor if he can forget that his patient has typhoid fever, pneumonia, dysentery, or whatever he may have, and study the conditions that are present. This may be wrongs of the circulation, of the nervous system, of the secretions, of digestion, of assimilation, or wrongs of the blood, but whatever the basal lesion, it must be overcome if the patient is to be benefited by medication."

THE MONOPOLIZATION OF MEDICINE

The health care industry during the Progressive Era is well documented in academic studies and can reasonably be accepted as a given here without describing in great detail how or why it occurred. However, it was funded largely by the Rockefeller and Carnegie fortunes and was done to guarantee a dominant place in health care for the products of the petrochemical industry.

The Allopathic School of Medical Practice was picked to become the dominant survivor of the monopolization because it was:

(1) Numerically the largest,

(2) Had no well established system of doctrines which made it antagonistic to the use of a system of therapeutics based on petrochemical therapeutics,

(3) Was represented by a fairly well organized and active Trade Association which was receptive to a take over by the funders,

(4) Urgently needed a large infusion of cash and political influence to stop the growing public acceptance of its economic rivals and competitors,

(5) Had little to offer its members without such an infusion of cash and political influence,

(6) Were headed by a staff which welcomed any help - motivated by absolutely no idealism and almost entirely by avarice, the staff of the AMA was easy to enlist in the monopolization and proved extremely efficient - particularly Morris Fishbein, whose role was pivotal and whose service spanned several decades of the monopolization.

One of the chief monopolization strategies was through take over of medical education and the schools or universities which offered this. There were several hundred which offered a two year course in Allopathic Medicine and granted the M.D. degree, which was the sole credential necessary for practice at that time.

Competitive medical universities operated by Homeopathic and Eclectic interests were fewer, but at least 75 existed - some well established and endowed.

The monopolist could have selected any of these; they were all easy targets, but the Allopathic School of Practice had a void in its therapeutic system which made it ideal for the monopolist and the Homeopathic and Eclectic Schools had therapeutic systems which offered little room for the

incorporation of petrochemical technology.

Many Americans, at least those who could afford to do so, went abroad for their medical education, initially to England or Scotland but eventually to Germany where State supported Universities had better facilities and foreign students who could and would pay tuition to augment the salaries of the faculty were welcomed to the extent that lectures were offered in English as well as German to facilitate and accommodate these foreign scholars.

To a man, the initial faculty of John's Hopkins, the first of the Medical Universities to be established and funded by the monopolists were graduates of German Universities and brought to the University both the medical and the political orientations gained as students at German universities, which they passed on to the students of John's Hopkins, most of whom went out to become the faculties of other American medical colleges and further incorporate both the medical and the political orientations of German universities into the graduates of American Medical Universities funded by the monopolists. Those orientations remain a part of Allopathic medicine in the United States today.

This is primarily important in considering the role of the Allopathic School in genocidal activity, which the German medical profession entered into without protest between 1934 and 1945 under the National Socialist Regime in Germany.

Federal control started in earnest around 1938 with the Pure Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and this became what it is today in 1962 with the Kefauffer Amendments to that Act, which amendments included for the first time, an efficacy requirement which gave the FDA far more power to control both drugs and information about drugs.

The Federal Act was not intended to give the agency any control over the practice of medicine or other health care professions and both its language and many decisions of Federal Courts make that clear. Nevertheless, the agency has made and continues to make increasing excursions into attempts to control the practice of medicine.

Since 1910, a combination of some practitioners and some manufacturers of goods involved in this market has attempted to attain a monopoly in the market to the exclusion of substitutable economic competitors.

Some of the goods in this market, particularly those consisting of synthetic petrochemical pharmaceuticals, are preferentially used by the practitioners involved in the monopolization to the virtual exclusion of other goods.

However, a large amount of the goods involved may be purchased and used by consumers without the recommendation or authorization of health care practitioners and the consumer is free to consult such practitioners or not as he or she sees fit, in most circumstances.

Licensure of health care practitioners is a function of State governments, all of which have a system of examination and licensure of some health care practitioners. There is some variation from state to state in which practitioners are licensed and which are not licensed.

There is universal licensure of physicians and surgeons, osteopathic physicians and surgeons, dentists, chiropractic physicians and there is considerable variation as to the licensure of naturopathic physicians and Oriental medical practitioners (acupuncturists) on a state by state basis.

Despite the state by state variation, all of these practitioners practice in a virtually uniform fashion all have trade associations and specialty societies which are national in scope and all receive fairly standardized training.

Licensure for physicians and surgeons was initially begun around 1890 on a state by state basis at the instigation of the American Medical Association, which is the trade association for the Allopathic School of Medical Practice.

When the process was begun, State Legislatures typically created three separate State Boards of Medical examiners, to examine and license medical practitioners of the Allopathic, Homeopathic and Eclectic Schools of Medical Practice; in many states the Osteopathic School was also given a Board of Examiners.

Initially, the licenses granted to these practitioners was to treat any human disease, disorder or condition by drugs, surgery or any other means and all persons not so licensed were forbidden to undertake such activities for compensation.

Shortly thereafter, other health care practitioners were also given licenses which carried out certain exceptions to the universal licensure of physicians, such as Dentists, Podiatrists, Pharmacists, Nurses, Midwives, Physiotherapists and eventually, Acupuncturists.

The campaign for licensure carried out by the AMA was for the purpose of attaining for its members an exclusive license to practice health care for compensation and to exclude all substitutable economic competitors from the market.

This was not accomplished as State Legislators usually saw fit to license their economic competitors as well in order to maintain competition in the Relevant Service Market.

The campaign to attain exclusive licensure not having succeeded, the AMA next attempted to bring about a merger between the competitive schools of medical practice; that campaign is ongoing and has succeeded in some states to a degree, although all states continue to license health care practitioners who are substitutable economic competitors to allopathic physicians and have clearly articulated policies encouraging competition between different sorts of health care providers, set forth in state legislation.

The AMA and its component state medical societies, nevertheless, continued with unrelenting efforts to monopolize health care and have been convicted of Antitrust violations repeatedly.

The Federal Trade Commission brought an enforcement action against the AMA and its component societies resulting in information concerning anticompetitive misconduct and subsequently a private enforcement action by 4 chiropractors resulted in further permanent injunctions against anticompetitive misconduct.

The later action, Wilk, et al. v. AMA was based upon a campaign conducted by the AMA through its Department of Investigation and Council Against Quackery "to first contain then eliminate Chiropractic".

During the litigation, the Department of Investigation and the Council Against Quackery were hurriedly disbanded by the AMA and files of these organizations were handed over to a private organization which, funded by the Pharmaceutical Advertising Council, continues the anticompetitive campaigns as an ostensible private organization, which is actually an AMA front organization. Its anticompetitive activities have intensified since the injunctions against the AMA were issued and affirmed.

A large part of the plan of monopolization has been and continues to be the suppression of information about health care providers and modalities which are competitive with those of AMA members.

The AMA initially formed a sub rosa organization, the "Health Information Control Council" which had members from several bureaucratic regulatory agencies as members. This was also broken up during the Wilk litigation.

As a part of the Wilk litigation, the Court held that calling a licensed competitor a Quack would constitute an antitrust offense; since that time the AMA front organization has substituted the word "fraud" for "quack" in its anticompetitive campaigns which increasingly are undertaken with State and Federal bureaucrats into whose "hidden agendas" the achievement of monopoly by the AMA and standardization of therapeutics fit extremely well.

During the past 25 years, most of the monopoly activity of this AMA front organization has been with bureaucrats and third party payees, such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which are both private insurers and pay agents for governmental programs such as Medicare.

In these situations, these "insurance companies" do not function in their traditional roles as casualty insurers, but rather as cost-plus contract pay agents and, in this role, their activities neatly interface with both the AMA's monopolization efforts and the "hidden bureaucratic agendas" of regulatory agencies.

It is this combination of the AMA, acting through a front organization, the "insurance" companies who are not insuring but acting as cost-plus contract pay agents and the regulatory agencies involved in a "hidden agenda" which in combination, are bringing about and attempting to bring about the monopoly in health care which the AMA has been engaged in creating since 1890.

This combination has already succeeded in dangerously decreasing the quality of goods and services and astronomically increasing their price in the Relevant Service and Goods Market.

This has been accomplished by bureaucratic activity which is directly violative of the clearly articulated policies of the States and has as its purpose both increasing such costs and decreasing the quality of goods and services, and although it is state action, it is not such state action as is protected from Antitrust scrutiny by the State Action Exemption to the Antitrust Laws.

RESOURCE READING

A FEW OF THE MANY AVAILABLE

Thoma Szasz, Ph.D.

Books by Harris Coulter

[1994] Empiricism vs. Rationalism in Medicine by Harris L. Coulter, Ph.D.

Childhood Vaccinations and Juvenile-Onset (Type-1) Diabetes by Harris Coulter, Ph.D

Vaccination and Social Violence by Harris Coulter, Ph.D

Vaccination and Violent Crime by Harris Coulter, Ph.D

Critique of government funded studies--Harris Coulter Ph.D.

SIDS and Seizures by Harris L. Coulter, PhD

Do Vaccines Cause Cot Deaths?---Harris L. Coulter (1996)

An Italian Study Finding Biochemical Markers of Vaccine Damage 1996, Harris L. Coulter, Ph.D.

Books

1972, Homeopathic Medicine

1975, Divided Legacy (Volume I): The Patterns Emerge: Hippocrates to Paracelsus

1977, Divided Legacy (Volume II): The Origins of Modern Western Medicine: J. B. Van Helmont to Claude Bernard

1981, Homeopathic Science and Modern Medicine

1982, Divided Legacy (Volume III): The Conflict Between Homeopathy and the American Medical Association: Science and Ethics in American Medicine 1800-1910

1986, A Shot in the Dark, ISBN 089529463x ---Harris Coulter & Barbara Loe Fisher

1987, AIDS & Syphilis -- The Hidden Link

1990, Vaccination, Social Violence and Criminality ISBN 1556430841---Harris Coulter

Medical historian Harris Coulter presents evidence to show that disabilities caused by vaccines are often "disguised" under different names: autism, dyslexia, learning disability, epilepsy, mental retardation, hyperactivity & minimal brain dysfunction. Up to 25% of American schoolchildren suffer from "development disabilities". A classic.

'...It is the thesis of this remarkable book that early vaccinations can result in mild cases of sub-clinical encephalitis which, in turn, may well be responsible -- at least in part -- for the increase in autism, hyperactivity, dyslexia, sociopathy, and developmental disabilities, a rise that roughly coincides with the initiation of infant vaccinations. Coulter suggests further linkages to the increase in adolescent crime and suicide, and the decline in SAT scores.' Stanley Kripner, AHP, January 1993.

1990, The Controlled Clinical Trial: an Analysis

1994, Divided Legacy (Volume IV): Twentieth-Century Medicine, The Bacteriological Era"

HEALTH CARE REFORM

HEALTH INSURANCE

HEALTH CARE TAX

HEALTH CARE DEBATE

Producing a Healthy Populace on a Budget - Who in the World is Getting the Job Done? Part 2

The debate on health care reform in Congress continues. Who's right and who's wrong? Are those who oppose some of the proposed reforms evil, selfish people who delight in seeing their fellow man suffer? Are those who staunchly support the proposed reforms living in a dream-world?

I am not qualified to give a definitive answer. But what I am qualified to do is poke around online and see who in the world is achieving the objective of health care reform explicitly laid out by President Obama - providing a way for all individuals to receive health care without fear that they are "one illness away from bankruptcy", and reducing costs in the process.

So, who is doing the best job in the world achieving this goal?

The answer might surprise you.

In this relatively small island-nation, you can be treated to views of towering skyscrapers, mosques and temples of ancient Malay and Hindu civilizations, as well as innumerable Western-style shopping malls. Welcome to Singapore!

Singapore boasts the 6th best health care system in the world with an infant morality rate almost 1/3 of that of the U.S. (there are just 2.3 deaths per 1,000 live births in Singapore as opposed to 6.4 deaths per 1,000 live births in the U.S.). Its populace is the fourth longest-lived in the world, with an average life expectancy of 81.98 years.

And Singapore accomplishes this by spending only 3.7 percent of its GDP (only $381 per capita) on health, as opposed to America's 15.4 percent expenditure!

What can account for Singapore being a shining example of a functional, frugal health care system? How does this system work?

In Singapore, individuals are required to set aside 6-8% of their income into what is essentially a health savings account (employers contribute to these accounts as well). This money earns interest, is tax-free, and can be withdrawn at any time to cover the health care expenses of ones' self or family members. Unspent money accrues and rolls over from year to year. This program is called Medisave.

Citizens of Singapore may purchase additional coverage for catastrophic events with Medishield (or Medishield Plus which offers even more coverage), and their premium payments may come out of their Medisave accounts.

The government subsidizes the health care of those who cannot cover their expenses with either Medisave or Medishield through the Medifund program. For the elderly and disabled, government-subsidized ElderShield pays for health care expenses that the individual cannot cover himself.

Here are some important points:

o Singapore's vision as a state is "adding years of healthy life," by focusing less on healing sickness, and in the words of the Singapore Health Ministry, more on "the more difficult but infinitely more rewarding task of preventing illness and preserving health and quality of life."

o The people of Singapore willingly take responsibility for their own health by spending their own money to fund most of their health care costs.

o "The reason the system works so well is that it puts decisions in the hands of patients and doctors rather than of government bureaucrats and insurers. The state's role is to provide a safety net for the few people unable to save enough to pay their way, to subsidize public hospitals, and to fund preventative health campaigns."

o 75% of the populace of Singapore uses less-expensive holistic/complementary medicine at least once per year in preventing and treating illness.

o Complementary medicine is widely accepted by the medical community at large as an important contributor to the nation's health.

Phua Kai Hong, associate professor of health policy and management at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore gives the following reasons for Singapore's successful health care system:

o "the creation of incentives for responsible behavior and the efficient delivery of services;

o the discouragement of overconsumption through cost-sharing;

o the regulation of hospital beds, doctors, and the use of high-cost medical technology;

o the promotion of personal responsibility;

o targeted government subsidies;

o and the injection of competition through a mix of public- and private-sector providers.'"

What can we in the United States of America learn from Singapore? Why don't we try to emulate some of the things that have worked in Singapore in our own health care reform?

Before I discuss this in a subsequent post, in my next post I will outline the health care system of a part of the world where a push to give health insurance to all is doing just that, but costs are continuing to skyrocket and hardships for middle class citizens in obtaining health care continue in full force.

Unfortunately, the latter is the system we are emulating, and it appears that almost no-one is paying attention!

Julie Behling invites you to become a follower of her blog at http://www.juliebehling.com.

Producing a Healthy Population on a Budget - Who in the World is Getting the Job Done? Part 1

Are you familiar with the saying that if you want to become successful at something, find someone who has what you want and do what they do?

Applying this simple wisdom to the healthcare debate, I decided to see what I could turn up. Out of all the countries in the world, which nations have the populations with the best health measured by the highest life expectancy, and how is this accomplished?

I was hoping to come across a comprehensive study by some think-tank or prominent university giving detailed statistical analysis of factors affecting life expectancy and health, showing which nations around the world have the healthiest populations, and how they accomplish this, but I couldn't find anything substantial.

I will attempt to provide some rudimentary findings in this article.

I started with searching for life expectancy rates in the different nations. I figured that life expectancy was the simplest measurement of the health of a populace. Here is the Top 10 List:

Countries with Highest Life Expectancy

Macau (part of China) -- 84.36
Andorra -- 82.51
Japan -- 82.12
Singapore -- 81.98
San Marino -- 81.97
Hong Kong -- 81.86
Australia -- 81.63
Canada -- 81.23
France (metropolitan) -- 80.98
Sweden 80.86

50. United States 78.11

Why do people living in these countries on average outlive the rest of the world?Does universal health care coverage play a key role? What about the lifestyle of these groups? What about factors that can't be changed, but still play a role such as wealth and demographics of the populations?

Wouldn't it be important to have an in-depth understanding of why these populations are so long-lived before undertaking any expensive, extensive, and potentially revolutionary changes to our own health care system?

As it turns out, each of the nations that made the top ten are relatively wealthy when compared with many other parts of the world, but those with the highest life expectancy are certainly not the wealthiest. From this, I must conclude that wealth may play a role in life expectancy, but there are clearly other factors involved.

Japan is noted for its extraordinarily low obesity rate - only 3% of Japanese citizens are obese (while in the United States, a full 32% of the populace is obese)! Since several of the top killers of Americans are chronic illnesses that occur with a significantly greater prevalence in the obese (heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes), it would make sense that America's portly and out-of-shape populace is a literal drag on the nations's life expectancy. Japan's relatively lower rates of these chronic diseases gives further credence the significant role of obesity in life expectancy.

An interesting side note about Japan's low obesity rate is how they avoid this modern plague - Japanese children are taught to eat only until 80% full, fresh vegetables and fish are eaten in abundance, sweets are eaten occasionally, and more people in Japan get exercise in their daily lives than in America. I think we can learn a lot about a healthy lifestyle from the Japanese!

In terms of demographics, some of the countries in this top-ten list have a tiny population size with a racially homogenous populace (such as San Marino, Andorra, Macau, and even Sweden). Others have larger populations, but still a very homogenous population such as Japan and Australia (92% of the Australian population is of European descent). But Canada, France, and Singapore all have a good degree of racial diversity.

A quick look at demographics reveals that having a small, homogenous populations may be positively associated with higher life expectancy, but it is clearly not the main player in the life expectancy game.

Next I wanted to look at the health care systems of each of the countries on this top-ten list. Unfortunately, a complete statistical analysis of the health care systems of nations with high life expectancies is beyond the ability of my poor little brain, and beyond the scope of a blog entry. But here's what I can say so far:

Each of the nations and nation-states with the highest life expectancies appear to give access of at least basic health care to even the poorest of their citizens. If someone is having a heart attack, they won't be turned away. If someone is mauled in an accident of some type, they will receive care. Any person with a chronic illness will receive at least basic care in a public clinic of some kind.

I have much more research to do to compare how this differs from what is currently offered to the poor in the United States under the Medicaid and Medicare program. I'm sure there are may be some significant differences, and I would like to know what they are.

In my research on health care systems, I made a very surprising find that I want to share. Did you know that in the list of countries with highest life expectancies that there is a country that is less affluent than the U.S. that has an infant mortality rate one-third less than that of the U.S., that spends one-seventh of what the U.S. government spends on health care for its populace, and its population lives an average of almost four years longer?

What country is this, and what are they doing right?

And did you know that there is a part of the world where a push to give each and every citizen health insurance has succeeded at insuring almost everyone, but has increased the cost of health care for many of its citizens while showing little or negligible increases in their actual health, while practically bankrupting its government in the process?

Stay tuned for the scoop. Julie Behling invites you to become a follower of her blog at http://www.juliebehling.com.

Producing a Healthy Populace on a Budget - Who in the World is Getting the Job Done? Part 3

In Part 1 of this article, I expressed the desire to take an objective view at the health care systems of different nations to see if I could find a good example of a country who was pulling off a healthy population, a high life expectancy, and a quality health care system without breaking the bank.

In Part 2, I discussed the shining example of Singapore in doing just that - Singapore has the 4th highest life expectancy in the world (people live to age 82 on average), has the 6th best health care system, and the government of Singapore spends only 3.7% of its GDP on health care!

In this final section I wished to contrast Singapore, who literally is getting the job done, to that of another part of the world. In this part of the world, government leaders decided that instead of finding a way to focus on having healthy citizens while cutting unnecessary costs, they would instead focus on making sure the entire population had health insurance. Health insurance, they surmised, was the key to the population's health, as well as the key to keeping down the health care costs for both the government and the citizenry.

What have been the results? Did this government achieve its objective of insuring the masses? And if so, has this brought the desired curb in health care costs? Are the previously uninsured better off now that they have this insurance? Is everyone enjoying the fruits of this initiative?

I am sad to say that this experiment took place in our very own state of Massachusetts, and so far, it doesn't look good.

According to a March 2, 2009 article in the Boston Globe, healthcare reform in Massachusetts has:

Failed to achieve universal coverage (200,000 are still without health insurance),
Failed to address the problem of health insurance being tied to ones' employment,
Failed to make health insurance affordable for many citizens (including middle and low-income individuals and families),
Failed to shore in costs for the state (healthcare costs for the state of Massachusetts have doubled from $630 million in 2007 to an estimated $1.3 billion for 2009),
Failed to assure citizens' access to healthcare.

A more recent Christian Science article from October 21, 2009 concludes that "a mandate on individuals to buy health insurance can work - just don't expect it to reduce the cost of care."

There may be some residents of Massachusetts who are happy with the results of the healthcare reform that have been enacted there, but the problems remain paramount.

If Massachusetts is, at best, no better off for its healthcare reform that has doubled healthcare expenses for the state, then should we not take some heed as our entire nation appears ready to plunge onto a similar course?

Should our main focus as a nation be universal health insurance? Shouldn't we find a way follow the example of Singapore and focus on:

Population wellness through disease prevention,

Enacting policies that put more healthcare decisions into the hands of individuals, and fewer into the hands of the government?

In the meantime, I suggest each of us take actions to give us the best chances of having good health -- eating a balanced diet low in processed foods and high in minimally-processed plant-based foods, drinking plenty of clean water, getting adequate exercise and sleep, and using low-cost and oftentimes effective holistic means for taking care of problems when they first arise (such as herbs, essential oils, massage, acupuncture, reflexology, etc...), thus potentially using more expensive Western modalities more sparingly as a result.

To your health!

Julie Behling invites you to become a follower of her blog at http://www.juliebehling.com.

The Number One Secret You Need To Know To Be Healthy

For 5,000 years, mankind has always looked from the Outside-In to be healed. Needles shooting serum in from the outside to prevent disease. Pills from the outside ingested to treat disease. Radiation, chemotherapy, all external factors used to treat cancer and other various ailments from the Outside-In.

Even vitamins, minerals, shark cartilage, and oils are all external factors that are used to treat disease from the Outside-In. Everything we do to treat diseases, symptoms, and conditions are all external to the body. And where has this gotten us?

Two trillion dollars (that's $2,000,000,000,000) are spent every year on medicine in this country. That's nearly 20% of our GDP! In 2000, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the US ranked 37 out of 40 industrialized nations in health care. In 2007, the OECD found more of the same and worse. The US spent $6500 per person on "health" care. Japan had the best ranking, a little over $2000 per person.

Now before we go any further, I do want to commend medicine for its value in emergencies. Accidents and saving people's lives that have abused their bodies so badly from poor lifestyle choices is where medicine shines and should be lauded. However, based on the above statistics, medicine has completely failed in getting people healthy.

Medicine is not alone in Outside-In treatment methods; another few hundred billion are spent on vitamins, fish oil, shark cartilage, and the next all-natural miracle cure. We've been so marketed to death, literally, that we now believe there is some miracle tree in the Amazon or some fish we can grind up that will cure cancer. And again, this is not to denounce nutrition.

I eat green stuff every day and a lot of it! Yet $2+ trillion later, we're still getting sicker and sicker. Even Bill Clinton said in 2004 that "For the first time in American history, our current generation of children could live shorter lives than their parents." Believing something outside the body can produce health inside the body has failed.

It's cliché but you can't solve a problem with the same thinking that created it. More money, more time, more "science", more "research" won't ever prove an untrue concept. Each and every Outside-In treatment method attempts to "cure" sickness and disease. At one point bloodletting was considered scientific! This incidentally took George Washington's life.

In the 1920s mercury was a panacea! What do we say today? We've warred on germs now since Pasteur and what have we done? As one virologist said, "we've advanced the microbiologic population by 400 years by trying to kill them off." Outside-In thinking has bankrupted our health, our pocketbooks, and our spirit.

Outside-In thinking assumes that all the wisdom of the universe that went into creating you from two ½ cells, was random, programmed for failure, and needs man's (un-)educated intelligence to heal. Can you ever think of a time where man has manipulated nature that has benefited the ecosystem in the long run? Outside-In thinking is destructive.

In 1895, D.D. Palmer discovered a new approach to health, so radical, that medicine, doctors, and even many chiropractors have denied its existence. Even to this day, those "in the know" In fact, some early practitioners in the early 1900s thru the 1950s who proclaimed this truth even went to jail for using it. And now you know for the first time, the answer to all your health issues is in you!

The secret to our health and healing is using an Inside-Out approach! Think about it, what heals? Only one thing: Life heals! Life comes from within. So before we believe medicine has a miracle cure, maybe we should ask if that "cure" can create life. Only life creates life. And the recreation of life by life, cell by cell, second by second, is what healing is! This gives everyone hope because now you are not reliant on a broken medical system to fix you! You are the secret to your health!

Let's look at this deductively. Assume a healthy man or woman. A healthy man must be made up of healthy parts. In man, the healthy parts are organs. Organs are made of tissues. Tissues are made of the most basic building block of the body, cells. And your body right now has 70,000,000,000,000 (trillion) cells. So if all the cells, the basic building blocks of the body, are healthy, we must deduce the tissues will be healthy, and then the organs must be healthy. The entire human being is then healthy.

Do you know your cells don't last? They die. Your body is constantly replacing itself with new cells. In fact every 60 seconds your body is manufacturing 3 billion new cells! It takes 14 months to remanufacture every organ in your body. And the entire body replaces itself every seven years! So if you've been married for 21 years, you're already on your third spouse!

In a diseased or cancerous organ, sick cells cannot be healed. They will die. And so will healthy cells. As one cell dies your body makes a new cell to replace it, via cell division. Let's take the heart for example. Your heart cells live for 90 days then they die. In fact they're dying right now as you read this. But don't worry about it. Your heart is making new heart cells that replace the old ones as they die out.

If those heart cells created are healthy cells, your heart is fine and you don't have to worry. But if a new heart cell is just as sick as the heart cell it replaced, the heart disease will go on and on forever till it kills you. But if a new healthy heart cell replaces the sick dying heart cell, your body will heal! This happens for red blood cells, the lungs, the liver, thyroid glands, the ovaries, and every other organ in the body!

So no doctor can heal you. No chiropractor. No vitamin, no medicine heals. Only your life cures sickness and disease by creating new cells to replace old ones, in spite of the poisonous medicines our bodies are bombarded with daily. This recreation of life daily is what we call healing. Healing can only come from the Inside-Out. It's as simple as that! Medicine has been a complete failure for thousands of years because it attempts to treat sick cells that are going to die anyway! Let them die! Let's just make sure the new cells replacing the dying cells are healthy!

Sick cells are the ones that produce symptoms. Symptoms are multifarious. Asthma, psoriasis, allergies, cancer, heart disease, etc. are all signs of sick cells. Treating sick cells that are going to die is a futile approach.

So if life is the only thing that heals, the only logical question to ask is not how to treat disease, but how to get more life! And this is where chiropractic comes into the picture. For your 70T cells to be organized properly, for them to produce the proper chemicals at the proper time in the proper amount, for them to divide properly, all the cells must be under control of a central computer. And the central computer of the body is the brain and the spinal cord. The brain and spinal cord was the first organ to develop in the womb because nature needed a way to control all the cells in the body!

Think of the brain as the power generator of the body. The brain sends power and messages to each and every cell. No power, no life. When the nervous system is interfered with, just slightly, it cuts down on life force flowing to the cells of the body. When those cells don't get a normal nerve supply, the cells begin to malfunction. The cells don't produce the right chemicals at the right time in the right amount. They don't divide properly or divide uncontrollably as in cancer.

Disease begins with this malfunction. When the cells malfunction, tissues malfunction. When tissues malfunction, organs malfunction. When organs malfunction, you have serious problems and most often this is the time you see symptoms. So this malfunction causes the organism to die slowly, before its time.

Disease is a process. It doesn't happen overnight. By the time cancer is detected, it has been there for 8-15 years. The first and most common symptom of a heart attack is death. There is no way a heart can go from perfect health to death overnight. All disease processes must first begin in this state of malfunction. Anytime nerve energy is not getting to the cells, malfunction begins.

The stresses of everyday life cause nerve interference. Chemicals in the air, water, medication. Physical traumas from car accidents or repeated poor posture. Emotional stresses from jobs, relationships, and financial pressures. Chiropractors call the nerve interference a subluxation.

A subluxation is when the bones of the spine move very slightly out of position and put pressure on the nerves, creating interference to nerve energy of the body. Imagine a garden hose at full blast. Bend it and it slows the water supply. The exact same thing is true in the brain and spinal cord. When the body is subluxated, it cuts down life energy flowing to the cells and chaos begins. And this is where chiropractic comes in.

Chiropractic works with the law of life. Chiropractors correct this interference. Chiropractic restores normal nerve supply to the body. The chiropractor uses an instrument to detect proper nerve flow. When the body is subluxated, the chiropractor gives a gentle adjustment by hands only to relieve pressure off the nervous system and restore normal nerve supply to the cells of the body. A series of gentle adjustments, over time, gets the pressure off the nerves, opens the life channels, and gradually restores nerve supply to the cells.

No pills, potions, surgeries, vitamins, fish oil, etc. will ever get the pressure off a nerve to allow healing. Over time, those sick cells will gradually be replaced with new healthy cells. Healthy cells create healthy tissues. Healthy tissues create healthy organs. Healthy organs make a healthy you. Healing is an Inside-Out job! As B.J. Palmer, the developer of chiropractic said, "It's as simple as that!"

Chiropractic can't heal nor can medicine. Only life heals. The only way to get more life is to get a better nerve supply. Turning up the power to 100% and letting your body create new life is the only way to heal. Only chiropractors can unlock the life force of the nervous system so you can be the best you can be in all your endeavors.

So how do you know if you're subluxated? How do you know if you have nerve interference that is sapping your lifespan, destroying your potential in all aspects of life? You don't. Unfortunately there are no symptoms associated with subluxation. Pain doesn't necessarily mean you're subluxated. I'm a chiropractor and I don't know if I'm subluxated. I drive to Los Angeles to get checked weekly by my mentor, Richard A. Gohl. It's that important.

Only a trained chiropractor can tell if you're subluxated. Don't wait till the life force has been cut down so much that your body is in a state of peril, and you're looking for a miracle. Get checked today. It's simple, painless, quick and affordable. As B.J. Palmer, DC said: "Nature needs no help, just no interference."

Dr. Joseph P. Kametz's studio is located in Encinitas, CA.