Alternative Therapies on 60 Minutes With Mike McRoberts

Alternative Medicine: Does It Work?

22nd September, 2010.  Last night, on ‘Close-Up’, Channel One TVNZ, we were given what I consider to be a very unfair  and misleading representation of alternative therapies in a documentary presented by Mark Sainsbury.

I really think that the more recent documentaries on  Channel 3: 60 Minutes with Mike McRoberts have given us more valuable information on alternative therapies than any of the recent ‘Close-Up’ docos, but then, 60 Minutes perhaps has more time to prepare, with  only one whole hour of screening  once a week, compared to ‘Close-Up’s half an hour, week-days.

Hocus Pocus: The whole of the  “Close-Up” documentary was very quickly put together, by the look of it, without giving us any examples of people who  have been cured of disease by natural means. The emphasis really lay on the side of orthodox medicine.

The reason why our government is NOT RAISING the drinking age in New Zealand, when, with so many drinking-related car accidents amongst youth,  it obviously would be sensible to do so, was questioned:

“Is our government being held to ransom by liquor barons? we were asked in  the same programme:  Good question.  Great coverage here.

But regarding alternative therapies, and their being dismissed as ‘ridiculous’, I wonder who is being held to ransom on this issue?  Drug companies and the conditioning of doctors were not discussed in this programme.

The documentary  looked briefly at only  three therapies which were administered by ‘alternative’ practitioners.  These were  Reiki healing, Reflexology, and the cupping technique used in Chinese medicine.  It overlooked the fact that many health practitioners will use not just one of these techniques, but several techniques for treatment depending on what the ailment or the sickness is. Diet and detoxification are generally two high on the list.

Combined modalities such as homeopathy, acupuncture, and macrobiotic diets have many successes in treating disease, including cancer.

The Royal Homeopath: The Queen and all the Royal family have  their own  family homeopathic doctor, who has kept them all well for years.   How old was the Queen Mother when she died?  100? 101? She was a fan of homeopathic medicine. No doubt, there would have been occasions when allopathic medicine was used in the Royal household, but homeopathy is the preferred medicine of the Royals.

There are, in fact, six homeopathic hospitals within the National Health Service, and of these, at least one is in London.  This information is to be found in  Dr Andrew Stanway’s book entitled ‘Alternative Medicine’:

• ‘The Faculty of Homeopathy in London is recognised in law just like all the other learned medical faculties”…….. yet Victoria University  doctor Shaun Holt says homeopathic medicine is not valid because he says there’s nothing to prove that it works.

Just how a doctor from a university such as Victoria Uni in Wellington can remain so ignorant about alternative treatments beats me:  There is  heap of literature on well-documented cases of people who have recovered from degenerative disease, like cancer, using alternative therapies.

Dr Ann Wigmore wrote a book on how she  healed herself of cancer by natural means.  She then proceeded to help thousands of people over the years, healing many of them, in her cancer clinics which she ran in several places – America, and Sydney, Australia.

There is the famous cancer therapy of Dr Max Gerson:  He also wrote extensively about his ‘alternative’ treatments, about 50 odd years ago.

Hocus Pocus was the signage, written in bold red type,  at the top right of the documentary when the alternative therapies were “on”. Is that impartial? Definitely not.  Dr Shaun Holt,  who works at Victoria University, Wellington,  which is hard to believe, considering his  prosaic turn of phrase and his profound ignorance on the subject of alternative therapies,  told us that alternative therapies were ‘a waste of time’, that they were ‘ridiculous’, and that they are ‘wishy washy’.

This Dr Shaun Holt appeared on a programme just two nights ago, on TV One’s “Sunday’ programme.  It is a bit of a worry that TV One drags this uninformed man up twice  in the same week, to damn the use of natural therapies.  Of course, he was against the use of Vitamin C in hopitals, on the ‘Sunday’ programme, and claimed that ‘there is no compelling evidence’ for the use of vitamin C in treating people with cancer.

Wrong, Dr Holt.  I suggest you talk to Dr Goodhope in Melbourne, Australia:  he is a vitamin C specialist who might enlighten you. Dr Goodhope said, on an earlier programme, that he considers it  ” is absolute neglect to refuse Vitamin C for an acute illness,  like swine flu, in the early stages.” I am sure that he would also consider Vitamin C to be  useful in the treatment of cancer.

Get hold of some books by Dr Max Gerson, Dr Ann Wigmore, Walter Last: there are hundreds to choose from, written by qualified people, which recount their successes using ‘alternative’ therapies such as diet and detoxification.

So Shaun Holt says alternative therapies are “just nonsense” and ‘ridiculous’. He dismissed the idea of ‘energy’ being utilized in Reiki healing and said there was no evidence that this type of energy exists.

Dr Holt does not seem to have heard about the ancient Chinese/Tibetan methods of healing – these are recognised by many doctors in the profession today as being totally valid:  the twelve main meridian lines can be equated with the modern nervous system of an individual. Yoga, acupuncture, acupressure, shiatsu and other reflexology techniques are based on the science of these meridian lines, which most surely do have a foundation. So Dr Holt’s claim that there is no science behind reflexology is either an outright lie, or just plain ignorance.

People die of cancer and other disease every week, after having gone through the orthodox channels of treatment in the hospitals.   Sadly, Dr John Pollock, a very well-loved and respected man and physician, died this week from cancer. He was only 61 years old.  Orthodox medicine did not save him.

It was encouraging to hear Dr Sue Levin stating on an earlier programme  that Vitamin C  reduces pain, which was one good reason for its use in hospitals.  She said that intravenous Vitamin C has a strong role to play in treating cancer, but that it was not a ‘stand-alone’ treatment.  Combining ‘alternatives’ with orthodox treatment could prove to be interesting.

Of course there is a place for orthodox medicine, but let’s face it:  It does not work for everybody and for every condition.  People still die of cancer under treatment given by the hospital doctors.

To be fair, we should acknowledge that natural therapies do not always work either, but at least they should be given an equal chance as that of orthodox medicine, and not dismissed as ‘just nonsense’ by the likes of Shaun Holt, or as ‘Hocus Pocus’ by ‘Close-Up’.