For treatment of chronic conditions, the allopathic (meaning, conventional) medical approach taught at most medical schools—and practiced by the majority of medical doctors—relies on identifying diseases or symptoms, then prescribing drugs to manage or combat those conditions. It is a belief system that considers the disease or symptom to be the actual problem, as opposed to addressing the underlying causes that produced the disease or symptom in the first place.

There exists a wide variety of tests, procedures, and equipment specially designed to identify diseases and symptoms. While these tools could be used in discerning the underlying causes of chronic illness, they rarely are. Instead, once a diagnosis is determined, test results are frequently plunked into the patient’s file as conclusive evidence of his or her condition. The allopathic medical practitioner then attempts to manage that condition, usually with drugs. This chapter enumerates the reasons why the conventional medical approach ultimately cheats people who are seeking a health solution—be it for an ordinary cold or a neurological problem such as ADD/ADHD. 

Treating Symptoms Instead of Causes

Consider ear infections, a common affliction in American children (ninety-five percent of children before the age of five have had an ear infection). The allopathic model recommends treatment with antibiotics. That’s treating the symptom. The infection may go away, but the underlying cause of the infection could still exist—and even worsen with continued reliance on antibiotics. Antibiotic use not only destroys offending bacteria in the ear, but also kills immune-building bacteria in the gut, creating a spiraling effect of ear infections and antibiotic treatment.

This can lead to even more ear infections and severely compromise the inner ear—which affects more than the ability to hear. The inner ear houses the vestibular system, which provides us with the ability to process information about movement, gravity, balance, and space—in short, it monitors everything we do. It is foundational to many other neurodevelopmental systems and therefore enables us to multi-track. A weakness in vestibular/inner ear functioning can cause pervasive problems, including issues and challenges seen adults and children diagnosed with ADD/ADHD.[1]

With overall health in mind, the natural medical practitioner will look beyond symptoms—and question why the immune system has weakened to such a degree that an ear infection could occur. The underlying cause may be an allergy, such as to dairy; poor nutrition; excessive sugar consumption; fluoride use (a chemical that in sufficient concentration damages the immune system and interferes with enzyme production); or stress (in utero, during birth, and/or after birth).[2] Other factors influencing ear infections include structural irregularities in the ear, as well as irregularities with the endolymphatic sac and its articulation with the dura mater (the outer meningeal lining of the brain).

Whatever the cause, the natural doctor seeks to identify it and address it—strengthening the immune system as she treats the symptoms of the infection. Treatment of the ear infection itself may include the use of homeopathy and/or nontoxic herbal formulas, such as garlic and mullein, to subdue harmful bacteria. This natural medicine stops the current ear infection and improves the immune system to treat an underlying cause—making future ear infections very unlikely. (CLICK HERE for more info on how to treat and cure ear infections.)

Reliance on Drug Therapies

Drugs—when used for chronic conditions (as opposed to acute trauma conditions)—are almost always designed to control or manage certain bodily systems for the long term. They have serious side effects if they are toxic to the body. For example, Ritalin and other stimulant medications may artificially speed up neurological processing so that a child or adult can function more “normally.” The downfall is that the underlying causes of slow or disordered neurological functioning are never addressed. In addition, the child may suffer horrible side effects—which are in fact evidence of drug poisoning.

In certain situations, drugs may be required for short-term use. But long-term use can produce even more problems from side effects. Meanwhile, underlying conditions go unnoticed and untreated, and overall functioning may deteriorate further. From an allopathic perspective, this deterioration would require even more drug intervention, leading to an escalating spiral of medication and adverse reactions to the medications. Bottom line: when drugs are used to treat symptoms and no further action is taken to understand and treat the underlying cause, the problem, or problems, may worsen. 

Overuse of Antibiotics

Antibiotics are prescribed to treat bacterial infections (and at times even viral infections, though they don’t work against viruses). While antibiotics may occasionally be useful for life-threatening illnesses, their continual use will make certain antibiotics ineffective, and more importantly, they can seriously compromise the body’s immune system by destroying friendly bacteria in the gut. In fact, as is often seen with children with ear infections, antibiotics may kill the offending bacteria in the ear, but will also kill the friendly bacteria required to build the immune system. The destruction of friendly bacteria can lead to an overgrowth of unfriendly bacteria, such as candida, which is known to cause a plethora of other health problems (e.g., leaky gut syndrome, food intolerances, and overall nutritional deficits).

From a natural medicine perspective, bacteria don’t “cause” an ear infection; the “cause” is frequently a weakened immune system that can’t prevent the bacteria from multiplying, since bacteria is around us all the time (Germ Theory vs Terrain Theory). When antibiotics are prescribed for each recurring ear infection, the immune system is compromised a little more, requiring even more use of antibiotics for each new infection. This vicious ear infection/antibiotic cycle is a prime example of how conventional medicine fails to consider the root causes of a compromised immune system, thereby hampering full recovery. 

Vaccination

Vaccination—the controversial process of injecting pathogenic viruses and bacteria, heavy metals (e.g., mercury and aluminum), dead animal tissue, chemical preservatives, and other highly toxic substances into the bloodstream to create synthetic immunity—should be questioned by every concerned parent. Numerous medical doctors, natural doctors, researchers, videos, books, articles, and lawsuits have detailed the horrors of crippling conditions (temporary or permanent)—including sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), autism, brain damage, neurological disorders, paralysis, leukemia, shock, screaming episodes, and persistent crying, to name a few—caused by subjecting the fragile immune systems of children to poison. The conventional medical paradigm (including pharmaceutical companies, medical schools, and their doctor agents backed by governmental mandates) tells us that the body requires unnatural stimulation in order to create resistance to disease. Many researchers and medical practitioners say that claim doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

The vaccination industry is a multibillion dollar a year business that facilitated a government-mandated vaccination program, even though another solution exists for disease control: natural immunity. Most diseases that have been reduced or nearly eliminated have been reigned in because of better sanitation and health practices, not vaccination; and in most cases, vaccination began after the incidences of disease and death had already dramatically dropped. Meanwhile, a multitude of studies show that vaccinated people have had higher incidences of the diseases they were vaccinated against than their non-vaccinated peers within the same geographical location/group.

The vaccination process itself—whereby artificial and highly toxic substances are introduced into the blood—bypasses the normal route of entry for pathogens (the gut, lungs or skin). This unnatural process not only fails to activate other required immune-building factors besides the building of antibodies, but can also contribute to the overall disintegration of the immune system (which may lead to a variety of sicknesses). For example, the synthetic immunity created by vaccination has a reinfection chance of eighty percent, whereas when immunity to a disease is acquired naturally, the possibility of reinfection is only about three percent.[3] Furthermore, numerous studies have concluded that a healthy body with a healthy immune system will fully recover from “dreaded” childhood diseases, even polio (renamed aseptic meningitis after polio vaccination began).[4]

Our bodies—including those of our children—are designed, by nature, to overcome any disease or condition, provided that the immune system is operating correctly and that our basic health is good. The bacteria and viruses that we fear are only doing their job: decomposing cells that no longer function properly. When mumps, measles, pertussis, or any other disease grabs hold, the body will overcome the symptoms with dispatch and create even stronger immunity. Most people do not realize this because the conventional medical paradigm continues to be disease-oriented rather than health-oriented. It’s very difficult for us to throw out a paradigm or belief system into which we have been indoctrinated.

Australian researcher Viera Scheibner, PhD, in her book Vaccination: The Medical Assault on the Immune System (Minerva Books, 1993), writes:

An extensive study of medical literature reveals that there is no evidence whatsoever of the ability of vaccines to prevent any diseases. To the contrary, there is a great wealth of evidence (direct and indirect) that they cause serious side effects…Immunisations, including those practiced on babies, not only did not prevent any infectious diseases, they caused more suffering and more deaths than has any other human activity in the entire history of medical intervention. It will be decades before the mopping-up after the disasters caused by childhood vaccination will be completed. All vaccinations should cease forthwith and all victims of side-effects should be appropriately compensated.[5]

Natural immunity is achieved by: avoiding refined sugar (which destroys the immune system and leeches minerals) and fluoride (which attacks the immune and endocrine systems and prevents certain enzymes from functioning); avoiding toxic food (foods grown with toxic pesticides and packaged with and in toxic chemicals); detoxification (colon cleansing and full body detoxification of heavy metals and other pathogens); eating whole, organic raw foods, consuming nutrient dense, whole food supplements, and getting exercise and sunlight. In short, taking responsibility for your health (and your children’s health) by living more naturally, as nature intended.

In her book, Immunization:The Reality Behind the Myth (Greenwood Press, 1995), Walene James discusses the dangers and horrors of vaccination and how to build natural immunity. Immunization is characterized by clear detail and impeccable research; James cites hundreds of studies, doctors, and researchers to explain why and how vaccines (for polio, DPT, mumps, measles, rubella, rabbis, or tetanus) can be extremely dangerous to children; the deliberate manipulation of statistical data to suggest that vaccines have reduced diseases; why their purported effectiveness is highly questionable; why “diseases” are actually a product of a compromised health condition and not the other way around; why Vitamin C and an alkaline condition prevents or cures diseases (most of our bodies are acidic due to improper diet); how indigenous people around the world developed diseases only after they adopted our highly processed food diets; and the steps to take to develop natural immunity (through natural living). This is very helpful information for parents even remotely interested in why they should avoid the vaccine paradigm and therefore prevent the risk of permanent, vaccine-induced damage to their children.

The Conventional Medicine Fallacy

The conventional medicine paradigm—based on “fighting” disease and symptom management—is fundamentally flawed. The germs (bacteria and viruses) that cause disease are around us at all times (in lesser and greater degrees). Simply stated, we get sick when we are not in optimum health and the immune system is not functioning properly. Symptoms of illness indicate imbalance in our body. Drugs may manage those symptoms, but they don’t correct the underlying root causes of their appearance. Therefore, rather than identifying symptoms (with their corresponding medical names or labels) and managing those symptoms with drugs, a healthier, more natural, and more effective solution is to first understand what types of imbalances in the body are root causes of those symptoms, then work to correct those imbalances.

[1] See Chapter 5 for more information.
[2] See Chapter 6 for more information.
[3] Walene James, Immunization: The Reality Behind the Myth (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), 43.
[4] Ibid., 235.
[5] Ibid., 108.