“The pharmaceutical experiment, conducted on Americans and millions of others around the world, over the last sixty (60) years, proves one thing for certain. That is: You cannot establish good health by managing diseases and masking the symptoms caused by illnesses.”

That statement comes from the book “Gemmotherapy and Oligotherapy for Natural Health Practitioners” written by Dr. Anthony Speroni in 2009. Personally, I think the change in direction of our health care started back in 1910 with the Flexner Report which assessed the state of health care available at that time. That also happened to conveniently (?) coincide with the then recent discovery that carbon molecules could be extracted from coal tar and chemically bonded to other materials to make drugs. Fast forward to the 1940’s & 50’s and we found ourselves in a frenzy to make carbon based chemicals for absolutely everything. Dr. Feel-good’s favorite tool in the tool kit became his prescription pad. Herbicides and pesticides now became the farmers best friends, increasing their yields with less bug damage. Chemicals in the home gave us cleaner (?) surfaces, cleaner dishes, cleaner clothes and we could even make ourselves look better with shampoos and cosmetics that came from petroleum products. Amazing!  Now we could make a convenient chemical solution for all our problems.

Then in 1962 an environmentalist by the name of Rachel Carson came along and revealed the true impact of what our chemical reliance was having on our environment. Her ground-breaking book  titled Silent Spring exposed the not so pretty reality of what was happening to the world after being in this chemical soup for a couple of generations. There were signs of chemicals in the air, water, soil and animals. She noticed that birth rates were lower and birth defects were up in the animal kingdom; which seemed to parallel what was happening to mankind as well. Our waters were contaminated and dead fish would mysteriously wash up on shore. Birds were curiously changing their instinctive migratory patterns, there  were far fewer worms and bugs in the soil, which impacted the feed for birds and other animals that relied on them for food. The soil couldn’t hold as much water and top soil could now be displaced by winds or flooding. The air we breath and the water we use was becoming more and more toxic all the time. Basically her message was that mankind was upsetting the ecosystem that we relied on for our very existence. We were poisoning ourselves and everything around us on planet earth, and there would be consequences for our actions.

This was our wake up call; the shot across the bow; the alarm bell to imminent danger. Did we listen? Of course not, we were too blinded by greed and arrogance to stop and critically think about our actions; our dependence on technology and chemical manipulations were obscuring our view of rational thought. 

So, here we are, aimlessly following the same chemical practices that by certain measures are only making us feel more sick than our illness made us feel. Does that not parallel the insanity scenario? Doing the same thing but expecting a different result?! Consider the trillions of dollars that have been spent on pharmaceutical drugs and cancer specifically, but we still have not found a cure for cancer??   That alone is what makes me want to pause and ask the question, “Are we really headed in the right direction?”. Yet Big Pharma continues to make questionable products and test them on the unknowing public. Not only is that not ethical, but how is that even legal. Would you buy a new car without a warranty, or because the salesman tells you its safe and you won’t have any problems with it? Continuing down this path is definitely not sustainable by any stretch of the imagination. Having gone through this ‘pharmaceutical experiment’ as it has been called, it’s clear to see that any drug that has ever been made or any drug that ever will be made cannot build or restore a healthy cell in the human body. 

It is delusional thinking to believe that our current approach is capable of getting us to a healthy end goal even if it was a sustainable system. Both science and medicine have already recognized that the majority of disease conditions are caused by toxins, pollution, unhealthy lifestyles, poor nutrition and a few other nasty habits. Not a deficiency of drugs! It never has been a deficiency of drugs.  

If we continue down the pharmaceutical path it’s like trying to straighten that piece of string by pushing on it. And believe me, the pharmaceutical companies are pushing hard. Over the last two decades the FDA (U.S.) has approved roughly 20-25 new drugs per year at a development cost of 1 Billion to 2.8 Billion dollars each! Yes, that’s right, billions. Do the math on that. That’s the part that suggests to me that the current practice is not sustainable. How can people afford to buy these drugs unless they are subsidized by governments; then how can government afford to keep paying for these drugs if they don’t get compensated somehow. Relying on drugs is not sustainable.

We need to look at health from a different angle.

A lot of our health concerns stem from monoculture farming practices that rely heavily on herbicides and pesticides to produce a higher volume of food, but that food is loaded with chemicals that harm us plus, it lacks the nutrition that it had even 25 or 30 years ago. You see, years ago farmers would rotate crops to various sections of land in order to give the soil a break. Once the crop had been harvested, they would even let the farm animals glean on the crop remnants in order to prepare the field for next season. The animal’s droppings would also provide a natural fertilizer for the soil and support the bugs, worms and other microorganisms found in the soil. Today, the soil has been so overworked by monoculture practices (planting a single plant variety on the same land, year after year) that it has been leached of all its nutrients and has nothing left to pass onto the plants. Monoculture does not really exist in nature. Biodiversity is what nature relies on to support its ecosystem and bring soil back to health. Don’t even get me started on the GMO practices!!  Eating foods laden with chemicals (both plants and animals) is only a destructive approach in trying to fuel our bodies. It does nothing but alter our physiology and send us on that path toward illness and disease. Then we think we can correct those health problems with more chemicals that do nothing but alter our physiology even further. That makes no sense whatsoever. We need to stop and have a serious look at how we can make the necessary changes to get us back on the road to health. That includes getting away from the destructive monoculture farming that occupies a lot of our farm land; plus also looking at healthier alternatives to pharmaceuticals.

Great strides have been made over the last 50 years or so, in regards to understanding the human physiology and from my perspective it seems that the more we know, we realize that there is far more to know. However, that’s very exciting territory to penetrate and it can actually provide us with greater benefits than building another questionable ‘drug’. Even research into our microbiome (the colony of viruses, bacteria, fungus and other microbes that live on us and in us to support our health) has shown us that we may be able to turn ‘off’ certain disease processes that we are predisposed to by simply feeding our microbiome certain nutrients that it requires to make these changes happen. I can’t imagine the money invested to arrive at this knowledge is anywhere near the 20 billion dollars it cost to make last year’s 20 new drugs, however, the benefits derived from this knowledge allows us to move toward that healthier end goal we need to achieve.

According to Enzymedica.com there are many benefits we can receive by building a healthier microbiome in our gut. It can provide us with better digestion, improved immunity, healthier weight management, improved bone health and better brain function. And that’s just the beginning. There is more to be discovered, but these identified findings alone impact many health challenges that face society today. The financial burden associated with these health challenges amounts to billions of dollars and continues to climb year after year. Just a small portion of the money spent on the health concerns associated within these 5 areas could likely go a long way in supporting further research and give us a better understanding of how we can help our immune systems function in a healthier way. 

Money focused on these efforts is like an investment for our future.

Here’s a novel thought.  Let’s say we calculate the cost to develop 20 new drugs for one year to be 20 billion dollars ($20,000,000,000.00). Then let’s imagine taking just one half of 1% of that money and focusing it toward real health related initiatives. That works out to be 100 million dollars ($100,000,000.00). Can you imagine the advancement in real health that could be developed? This is where the answers to our health problems lie; not in masking our symptoms with more chemicals. Boosting our natural immune system is a far better approach to our health than overriding our physiology with more chemicals; and in the long run it will be much cheaper.

Here, in Canada we have a pretty good medical system. I certainly wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the excellent care I received when I had my emergency surgery. However, it is still not a real health care system. It’s actually a sickness and trauma care system that is designed to manage disease and mask the symptoms caused by illness. The follow up protocol for my condition was chemo, radiation and then another round of increased chemo; in other words: cut, poison and burn. I believe future generations will look back at our methods and regard them as pretty barbaric considering our level of science, technology and understanding of the human physiology. Continuing to pour volumes of money and resources into these types of practices does not really make the most sense, nor does it get us any closer to that healthier end goal we need to achieve.

 Sadly, mankind has lost it’s way on planet earth. We are so disconnected from the ecosystem that we rely on for our existence, that we are actually on a path toward our own annihilation. Even though the statement sounds pretty sci-fi, that scenario is being played out as we look on with ignorance and apathy. I’m not sure where I heard this phrase but, I think it’s worth repeating. Pardon me for paraphrasing but I’m sure you’ll get the gist of it: If mankind continues to poison Mother Earth the way we have been, she will have no option but to reply in kind.

Some things need to change!