A Third of Americans Say Government Is Suppressing Access to Natural CuresApril 29, 2014
Are you alarmed by the safety and integrity of our food system? Do
you worry about fluoride in your food supply? According to
an article published in JAMA Internal Medicine, a publication of the
American Medical Association, you are a head case. As reported in the March 17 Reuters Health, the so-called study—an
online survey containing six questions posed to 1,351 respondents—looked
at the “medical conspiracies” frequently “believed” by consumers. The
questions ranged from the claim that a US spy agency infected a large
number of African Americans with HIV to the notion that the government
“prevents citizens from accessing alternative medicines.” Included were
theories that the government knows cell phones cause cancer but does
nothing about it, that GMOs are being used to shrink the world’s
population, that routine vaccinations cause autism, and that water
fluoridation is a way for companies to dump dangerous chemicals into the
environment. Some 49% of the survey participants agreed that there was
substance to at least one of the conspiracy theories. Note how the more paranoid fantasies are given equal footing with
claims that have abundant and credible evidence—such as the government
suppressing alternative medicine. We have reported extensively on the
FDA’s
attacks on integrative practitioners and their innovative treatments. At the heart of the JAMA study, as well as the Reuters Health
article, is a sneering condescension toward any who question any part of
the mainstream medical position. For example, according to the article,
there’s a strong correlation between believing in conspiracy theories
and taking dietary supplements: “While 13 percent of people who did not
believe in any conspiracies took herbal supplements, 35 percent of those
who believed in three or more theories took supplements. Overall, the
researchers say people who believed in conspiracies were more likely to
use alternative medicine and to avoid traditional medicine.” In other words, it’s just our paranoia that’s keeping us from
traditional medicine—and not the
210,000 to 440,000 patients who die every year from medical
mistakes. “Conspiracy theorists” are also assumed to be profoundly
unscientific: “Science in general—medicine in particular—is complicated
and cognitively challenging because you have to carry around a lot of
uncertainty,” according to the JAMA study’s author. The article concludes by encouraging doctors to set their patients
straight about “conspiracies,” since skeptical patients are less likely
to submit unquestioningly to prescription regimens. Apparently ANH-USA
and its grassroots activists have been going about this whole “health”
thing wrong—we should just sit back, relax, and let all those smart guys
in Washington tell us what to believe, and what to swallow—literally. Is this what the American Medical Association believes? No one can be
sure, but based on the evidence we have seen over the years, we think it
is entirely representative of the organization’s attitude. In this context, it is worth remembering the old saying about how
ideas change. At first ideas that challenge the conventional wisdom and
entrenched interests are mocked. Then, as they begin to gain ground,
they are studiously ignored (hush—don’t let people hear about this!). In
the third stage, the establishment feels really threatened and fights
tooth and nail to destroy the new ideas. When that fails and the new
ideas finally triumph, the opponents simply shrug their shoulders and
say: Oh, we knew that all along. The day is coming when JAMA will say about integrative medicine: Oh,
we were in favor of that all along! Copyright © 2013 Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-USA). http://www.anh-usa.org/a-third-of-americans-say-government-is-suppressing-access-to-natural-cures/ |