Basu: Stay open to the idea that there are many ways to heal
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- Rekha Basu
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Relatives of mine in India live by their belief in homeopathic medicine - little sugar pills laced with natural substances and credited with curing everything from arthritis to pneumonia.
Alan Koslow, a vascular surgeon in Des Moines, plans to die by homeopathic medicine this Sunday. Not literally. He's staging an event called "Mass Homeopathic Suicide," intended to prove homeopathy is a hoax. He's inviting people to "overdose" on their homeopathic pills, to show that three hours later, there's no effect.
Developed in 18th Century Germany, homeopathy is based on the principle that a disease can be cured by taking a substance that produces similar symptoms as the disease in healthy people. The object is to stimulate the body's ability to heal itself through very small doses of highly diluted substances. It's particularly big in India, where there's a traditional preference for holistic remedies over pharmaceuticals.
Koslow says there's risk in putting faith in unproven medicines. He is particularly alarmed by some homeopathic groups' recent claims to having created vaccines and protections against radioactivity, noting, "I have no problem with alternative medical treatment as long as they go through the appropriate testing and peer review process."
But Jack Hatch tried to institute such a system. The Democratic state senator from Des Moines sponsored a bill for licensing naturopathic practitioners in Iowa. Naturopathy includes homeopathy as well as other herbal medicines, acupuncture, botanicals, vitamins and minerals. He introduced it last year, and it was reintroduced this year by the Senate state government committee. It would have required the sort of peer review process Koslow says he wants, but the state medical society and other hospital groups stood in the way, Hatch says: "They're against anything and everything that looks like an invasion of their practice." Indeed, Koslow's opposition to that and to efforts to get Medicaid and Medicare coverage for alternative treatments, are also driving his suicide floor show.
Hatch agrees homeopathic vaccines have been discredited. But that's no reason to sink the field in general. "I don't look at naturopathic medicine as an alternative, just another choice," he said.
So what's really driving opposition? Turf protection? Too cozy a relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies, which pay doctors to promote drugs? Koslow conceded he has taken pay for that but, "Usually I already believe in the drug." He also said he supports generics over brand name drugs, likes vitamins supplements and sends patients for hypnosis and acupuncture.
Hatch also hit a wall trying to get a bill to license midwives in Iowa. He said he had the votes, but they suddenly dried up under pressure from industry groups.
Though homeopathy is well represented in Minnesota, in Iowa it was hard even finding a practitioner to speak, for fear of being mocked. Su Sandon has been practicing in Minnesota for six years and says she's seen significant improvements in patients with bladder infections, arthritis, hypertension, allergies, auto-immune disorders and more. Also a licensed pharmacist, she says it's much safer than conventional medicine and a fraction of the cost. One treatment, for example, costs $25 a month - compared to a conventional alternative advertised for $176.
When too many people go untreated for lack of money, while others are overmedicated - taking one pill to cure side effects of another - we should want to explore alternative approaches, by setting standards to judge them by. Hatch says it will take education: "10, 15 years ago, DO's were considered alternative," he said of osteopathy, widely practiced in Iowa. Two hundred years is a long time for something to endure. The world should be big enough for people like Koslow and my relatives to coexist.
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