The Govt wants integrated medicine. What is it?

 

The government is inclined towards a system of integrated medicine. It wants subjects like naturopathy and ayurveda to be included in the mainstream medicine curriculum. Different stakeholders have different ideas and apprehensions surrounding this move.

To people it would seem as if the present medical system would start prescribing herbs and spices along with the usual chemical mix. But this is not integrated medicine. Behind the push for integrated medicine is the fond hope that medicine would do less harm and medical costs would decline. That too is not integrated medicine.

Ideally integrated medicine ought to be a healing methodology that emanates after acquiring a good knowledge of holistic health. Integrated medicine should help us get out of the faulty mechanical and reductionist mindset, understand health and how the body ensures it, and help in combining the curative power of different modalities acting as per the need of the individual, and result in good mental and physical health as an outcome. It should help in eradicating the disease management mindset.

There is tremendous opposition to this move. The industry is solely dependent on the reductionist viewpoint while manufacturing its products and does not want to go beyond the dominant concept of disease and disease management. The IMA is therefore alleging that holistic medicine is not evidence based and mixing holistic medicine along with allopathy will lead to a disaster. It wants allopathy to continue as it is. The IMA is also afraid that the recent Supreme Court order to regulate the prices of services offered will hurt the hospitals.

Not many will agree. Current medical practices are unchecked and geared to harm as it encourages reckless medication without examining the need and long term outcomes. It is fixated on disease without determining what is constructive disease and what is destructive disease. It believes in medicating the healthy. It keeps the stakeholders busy by setting targets and ensuring compliance. It is happy when disease spreads as it can then expand what it calls treatment and health infrastructure.

Almost 100% of present chronic diseases are iatrogenic; that is, it is caused by medication and medical practices. The body deals with its internal problems through what is known as acute disease. Suppressing the curative functions of the body and the use of intensely toxic chemicals in medicine and environment is playing havoc with health. The doctors ought to be protesting the toxicity but cannot do so as their practices can then be questioned.

Thus there is a need for change. That change can be brought about only if the correct viewpoint can be incorporated into medical education and practice. The government is hoping that the knowledge of holism and holistic practices will bring sense into medicine.

I feel that there is a problem in the delivery. We are not dealing with a healthcare system. We are dealing with the largest and most powerful industry on earth. That industry knows how to protect and forward its interests. It has influenced all the regulatory mechanisms, the political system and judiciary. Globally the politicians advertise the products of pharma, and the judiciary delivers judgments that favor pharma leaving the general public in the lurch.

The medical industry is extremely corrupt. It manages to convert corruption into science using the services of scientists working under it to escape criticism and punishment. Medical research has become a sham. Science points out that 87.5% of medical research on which $ 244 billion is spent annually, is "waste".

The way to break the jinx is to indirectly educate the practitioners and the public. It is futile to believe that the ploy to introduce holistic subjects into medical curriculum will work as expected. Even if it happens it will be ignored. The students will be told they should resent quackery, and the medical association imposed bans on herbal and allied prescriptions will remain in force. Clearly it will not lead to health in a meaningful way. 

The practitioners can be motivated to change by pointing out the fact that medical science has long proceeded beyond the germ and virus theory and today it is pointing towards nutritional, cellular and microbial contributions to health. There is tremendous research on the benefits of nutrition. It has now been established beyond doubt that the anti microbial approach has led to serious disease and is a threat to health. Antimicrobial resistance is the term being used to hide and rationalize utter failure. The answer to antimicrobial resistance is not more powerful drugs but a complete overhaul of the faulty thinking process. The body has emphatically stated that it is in no position to tolerate any more of the torturous assault.

After confronting practitioners with this latest knowledge in a civil and non confronting manner by mainstream physicians who have researched and discovered the value of this approach, it will then depend on the doctors whether they will follow science or the commercial diktat of an industry that displays criminal traits.

The government’s duty would be to offer a safe space for those practitioners who convert and wish to convert. There should be a department of integrated medicine composed of like minded practitioners that looks after their interest. This department and its officials should not have conflict of interest and care should be taken that industry lobbyists do not infiltrate or threaten the system. The outcomes of integrated medicine must be evaluated from time to time and the results shared with mainstream practitioners to motivate them to take the plunge.

The public must be offered knowledge on the holistic principles and systems. The Department of Ayush (Holistic medicine in India - Ayurveda, Yoga and naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy) has already been assigned the duty. It should do its job without fear and be protected from the threats and lobbying efforts of pharma. The health budget must squeeze the budget allocated to the antiquated "only pharma medicine" approach and more should be provisioned for the integrated and holistic approaches.

Another important step would be to identify the lobbyists and hold them accountable for their misguided efforts in creating scares and recommending the products of the industry. The lobbyists must declare their sources of income. The annual reports of medical associations must be examined for their sources as well. Already the Income Tax officials are clamoring for GST for these associations as they are money making avenues dealing with land and property like businesses do.

Should doctors gain from prescriptions? Should medical representatives educate them about medicine? How much power and hold can the industry have over the practitioners? Should there be irrational drugs and over prescriptions? How much profit can the hospitals make?

Should there be an appellate body to look after the grievances of patients? Should the grievances of the insurance players that insurance provisions are being exploited by hospitals be taken seriously? Can hospitals hire business executives that order physicians to achieve targets? Can the patient rights be made legally enforceable? Can civil society leaders form voluntary associations set up to monitor the activities of the industry?

Can the health industry be allowed to operate if it cannot ensure health and wellbeing? Can the industry continue to ignore the basic determinants of health? What should be the parameters to judge a medical system? Today the indices point towards an extremely dismal state of health and climbing graphs of various disease conditions unseen in the past point towards the worst case scenario.

Consider these statistics;

• 95.4% of the world's population is sick (Lancet, 2015)
• 54.1% of children suffer chronic diseases and disorders (NIH, 2011)
• 1 in 6 people globally suffer from infertility (WHO, 2023)
• 1 in 3 people worldwide suffer from neurological problems (Lancet, 2024)
• 74% of deaths in society is due to chronic disease (WHO, 2022)
• Cancer is slated to rise by 77% with 2022 as base year (WHO, 2024)
• 32% of global deaths are due to cardiovascular disease (WHO,2021)
• Cardiovascular deaths increased 60% globally over past 30 years (World Heart Federation, 2023)
• Cancer cases in people below 50 up nearly 80% in last three decades (Lancet Oncology, 2023)
• Autism 1 in 36 children (CDC, 2022)
• 1 in 6 children suffer from neurological development disabilities (CDC, 2022)

These figures do not inspire confidence. The steps recommended in this note are important to curb the influence of pharma and goad the system towards integrated medicine. On the one hand education of stakeholders has to be ensured, beneficial outcomes set as benchmark, and on the other the nefarious practices and the ambience that encourages it must be curbed.

The government must catch the bull by its horns. Cosmetic changes are not going to work. My suggestion would be to declare the system illegal if it does not accede to the right measures. While the stakeholders are excited by income and profits, for the patient it is good health that is the sole criteria. People would not like to fall and remain sick to enable the industry to grow and profit. Pharma is holding the whole world to ransom, spinning its ponzi schemes. This cannot be legal by any means. If it is then we should reflect on the type of society we are forced to live in.

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Response by Dr Mark Brody, MD, USA

Jagannath, the problem of defining integrative medicine is in my view, as much political as it is therapeutic.  As you correctly point out in your fine article, healthcare has been completely captured by Big Pharma and corporate medicine. By virtue of the financial stranglehold they have on health care, they are defining the meaning of healthcare. 

Integrative Medicine is probably best referred to as Integrative Healthcare to emphasize that it is different from the practice of medicine in that it goes beyond the provision of medicine and upwards towards the engendering of good health in the population.  The word "integrative" is useful in capturing the idea that multiple systems are brought together to maximize benefits to people, increase the odds of recovery, prevent as much illness as possible, and maximize the health of the population. 

No healing discipline can be deemed irrelevant, but it is likely that in Integrative Healthcare, as I prefer to call it, pharmaceuticals will play a much smaller role in healthcare than they now do.  I would estimate less than 10%.  Nutrition, environmental healthcare, detoxification, functional medicine, energy medicine, mind-body medicine, and well-designed exercise programs will play leading roles. 

I use mostly homeopathy, botanical medicine, functional medicine and energy work (Bowenwork, a manual therapy) in my own practice.  Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda are also important disciplines that will surely play roles in many practitioners' practices.  It is likely that Integrative Healthcare would be best practiced in interdisciplinary teams, since no one practitioner can be a master of all. 

For this to happen there must be an understanding and a will for change coming from the people.  They must rise up and demand better healthcare.  They must recognize that healing is a different and superior therapeutic process from the mere symptom palliation that modern medicine provides, at such a high price.  There must be an appreciation for the need to get at root causes and prevent illnesses from developing in the first place.

Right now many people are a bit scared and apathetic.  They are blitzed with propaganda and not sure what to think.  We may be suffering from collective PTSD after the attack of the global predators. It may take more mRNA vaccines and/or poisonings from the corrupt forces that control the world to wake people up enough to the fact that the system they are supporting by their active participation is killing them.  I hope not, but I don't see any other way. 

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