Introduction:
This post was born out of insights I learned from a banker friend who has Jewish heritage, and from an email I received from a politically active friend who professes to be Christian and “Republican”. His email contained a link to a YouTube video that portrays president Barack H. Obama as Muslim:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCAffMSWSzY. But it seems clear to many that the U.S. President espouses either Islam or Christianity based on financial-political expediency, and that we are all being duped. For example, is it just a coincidence that Lee Rosenberg, who is Jewish, and served on the Obama’s national campaign finance committee, has recently taken over as the new president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – “The Israel Lobby“? (link to video). Click here to read more about Mr. Rosenberg. The same article indicates that he “hails from Chicago, the home state of President Obama, and also is on first-name terms with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, President Obama’s senior adviser”. And: “It was not as if [Rosenberg] was plucked out of nowhere. He paid his dues.”

The related premises for this TGM post are that religion and politics may: 1) have their titular member impostors (for example, Obama and Bush), and that we are all somewhat deceived); 2) increasingly divide us and distract us from seeing the truth, regardless of one’s monotheistic image of God as Creator (or lack thereof); and 3) represent the dual “opiate of the masses” that blunt our perception from seeing “the root of evil” – the practice of usury-based commerce, fractional reserve banking, and the New Secular Order.

Look at Obama’s left hand. Who’s really in control? Follow The Money Trail to start finding out.

God as Creator vs. ‘Only Your Image of God is Right’:

All religious persons who believe in monotheism – including Christians, Jews and Muslims  – have probably gazed into “the heavens” at night and proclaimed that the “only true God” is the One who created the Universe. And during the day, under the canvass of the blue sky, they likely think or give voice to ideas that indicate that only their belief system consists of the full truth to live by.

Such monotheist “believers” would likely judge me as being blasphemous for stating that maybe they are all largely wrong in their dogmatic adherence to their beliefs, and that perhaps “the only true God” may not fully condone their insistence that the interpretation of religious doctrine they adhere to is the only possible “truth”. Some of my own monotheistic religious friends and acquaintances have clearly judged me this way, even to the extent of saying I am now “damned” by God (”May God have mercy on you, Dr. Douglass” was a proclamation from a doctor friend in response to my concerns about “Zionism” and “dispensationalism“). And at the time of posting this material I’m even wondering if the pastor of a “dispensationalist” evangelical friend, whom I have known for over 45 years, has recommended that I be avoided, as a “lost one” – not unlike the spirit of rejection Muslims are instructed to apply to Christians, Jews and people who leave Islam.

Deep survey image of spiral and elliptical galaxies: Purest view of the works of God the Creator?

Usury as World’s Evil, “Devil’s Influence”:

Regardless of religion, we nearly all adhere to the belief that we can “follow the money trail to find the root of corruption and evil”. But most of us hone in on, and take aim at, a nebulous “greed” factor, or what we perceive as our religious or political opponents, and focus on them as the “evil”. But I’m increasingly convinced that “following the usury trail” – especially that monetary practice within the system of fractional reserve banking – is a more useful focus while trying to learn how to identify and refrain from a core evil.

It is usury “the lending of money at an interest rate” – that is the controlling monetary system of the world, to which we are all indebted and enslaved to some degree (even if we are individually, personally not in debt to banks). And the three predominant world religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam strictly forbid usury:

Exodus 22:25: “If you lend money to my people…you shall not deal with them as a creditor; you shall not ask interest from them.”

Qur’an, Al-Baqarah, Sura 2:275: “Those who charge usury are in the same position as those controlled by the devil’s influence. This is because they claim that usury is the same as commerce. However, God permits commerce, and prohibits usury.”

A politically active friend (who would probably fit the description being ‘Independent’ politically, and I think religiously) reminded me that the original Lords Prayer – as evidenced in most versions of the Bible – contains the phrase, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors“; and that for centuries that has been the concept Christians have repeated over and over throughout their lives. But interestingly, the Catholic version of the Bible replaces the word and concept of “debt” with that of of “trespass”.  The same friend reminded me that the concept of Jubilee – to release people from their debts – has been expunged from western thought, and that a debt Jubillee was used too “keep certain groups and families from gaining intergenerational power at the expense of the nation and public good”.

If usury-based commerce truly is the key “devil’s influence”, then it becomes clear that a crucial way we can partially refrain from evil, individually and corporately, is to get out of debt. Ultimately to “come apart and be separate” from the usury system would require that we abstain from the use of any and all fiat (fake) currency and trade in real money – gold and silver, historically – or via the barter system. However, that very proposition leads to the realization that we are all enslaved to usury-based commerce by being forced to use of currency that is not backed by anything of limited supply and thus of standard, quantifiable value.

Jesus and the ‘Money Changers’ (Usurers)

New Secular Order (Novus Ordo Seclorum) – The Usury-based Global System:

Do usury-based financial and currency systems really control and enslave us? If yes, then is it really so difficult to accept the existence of a usury-based “New Secular Order“? It seems clear that the symbolism of that usury-based system of commerce even stares us in the face daily, from the very currency we are impelled to use.

Has the course of history already been set – and the future of human civilization largely decided – by the influence of commerce-based usury, the underlying force used by the most powerful men in the world? In fact, might we all be slaves already, to the “New Secular Order” without being aware of it?

New Secular Order is Based on Usury

One-World Currency = One-World Government:

This all bristles with even more questions when the introduction of a one-world currency is contemplated, especially if such a currency is based on commodities so as to resist inflation (see Terra, the “Trade Reference Currency, TRC). That would be a real currency (a “good thing”). But a key question remains: who would be in control of the new global currency? A one-world currency system would require a powerful one-world governmental system (for better or for worse).

One-World Currency = One-World Government

Blinded by Distraction:
Under a usury-based, fiat money-based system, is it possible for the predominant societal control of any country to really be based on Christian, Jewish or Muslim principles? Or might that religion-based ideal be a serious and dangerous distraction from understanding the “root evil” – usury-based commerce – and how that system is controlled?

Maybe we are so distracted and divided in the process of wrangling about religious beliefs and political partisan points of view, that we can hardly begin to see the “root” of the problem: usury. But if we do begin to perceive this “root”, then the mysteries of the likes of a New Secular Order quickly become too much for most brains to believe and consider. And the simple rationale becomes, “I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. It’s impossible”.

The Round Table: Do the members likely ‘conspire’?

Opiate of the Masses:

For a moment at least pretend the New Secular Order is real and that it is a system based on usury. And also at least pretend Karl Marx was partially correct (forgive my religio-political blasphemy?), that “religion is the opiate of the masses”. I say “partially” because given the global confusion and deception within the ranks of religion and politics, perhaps a more accurate adage is that, “religion and politics are the opiate of the masses”. And it is those two “opiates” that bind our ‘receptors’ from perceiving the root of the problem, usury; and from understanding that the power that financial system provides those in control of the New Secular Order is the power that allows them to control this Earth, and to attempt to move us toward a one-world currency and a one world government (for better or for worse).

Karl Marx. Are there actually two (2) “mass opiates”?

Post Script: Contemporary Potential Peek Into the New Secular Order:

Interestingly, as alluded to elsewhere on That’s Good Medicine, some believe that inside information (”Intel”) on The Israel Lobby, and the passage of Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed Bill (in it’s original form) would serve as important venues into the inner secrets of the New Secular Order, allowing us to “follow the usury trail”. But what’s the likelihood that bill will pass, really, given the current control of America’s politics, finance and media, and the mounting apathy, confusion, and dissension among people of all religions and political persuasions?

Many emails I’ve received about the Health Care Bill – H.R. 3963 – contain a confusing array of warnings that I’ve found impossible to verify from searches of the actual Bill in pdf format, but some warnings pan out to be legitimate. In the paragraphs below I have inserted supporting screen shots from the Bill itself, since ’seeing is believing.’ Click here to download the actual Bill.

If you agree with any or all of what is posted below, please contact your U.S. ‘representatives’ to express your concerns.

What I’ve verified from the Bill so far:
1. National Card: You will be required to be in possession of a national, digital-based ‘health card’ or ’similar mechanism’ (if you want health care).
2. Re-admissions ‘De-incentivized’: You’ll be less likely to be re-admitted to the hospital, if you return to the ‘ER’.
3. Salary Control: Employers will be unable to decrease salaries in attempt to be able to pay for health care coverage for employees.
4. Slap On Another Tax: You’ll be taxed on your income – at an additional 2.5% – if the U.S. ‘health czar’ deems that you don’t have “acceptable health care coverage.”

The above four (4) proposals included in the Bill are just some of costs ‘we the people’ will endure if this promise by the U.S. government to “provide affordable, quality health care for all Americans, reduce the growth in health care spending, and… other purposes” goes into effect. As I continue to gain insights from readers and further study of the 1,190 pages of the Bill, I will update this post.

In the following four (sections) I will expound upon the evidence.

1. Health Card? Hey, Why Not Just ‘Verichip’ Me Instead?

Section 1173A proposes the utilization of a “machine-readable health electronic plan beneficiary identification card” (’health card’) that would “enable the real-time…determination” of your “financial responsibility at the point of service….”

Clearly, proof of citizenship will need to be on your card. But what information about your “financial” status (indicating your level of “responsibility”) will also be included?

The proposed ‘health card’ will stipulate whether or not you are eligible “for a specific service with a specific physician at a specific facility, on a specific date or range of dates.” Wow! All this sounds impressively specific.

And this Section (1173A) indicates as an alternative to the ‘health card’: “a similar mechanism.” Question: What might our ‘trusted public servants‘ in Washington have in mind for such a “similar mechanism“?

Well, why not entice us with an even ‘more convenient mechanism’ than a card, and something that is unlikely to be misplaced, like the Verichip, using “Health Link” technology “to link you and your health record”?

This section of the ‘Health Care’ Bill – regarding the ‘Health Card‘ – is draconian legislation and smacks of the totalitarian future described so well (and as a warning) by author George Orwell in the novel 1984.

Screen shot from the Bill – Section 1173A:

National Health Care Card is Orwellian

Why Not Implant My Information Instead of Requiring a Card?

Health Card is Ready for Implementation. So is Verichip

2. Bill Provides Incentive Not to Re-Admit: Less Pay to Hospitals for Re-Admitted Patients.

Even non-health care workers understand that re-admissions to the hospital are extremely common, necessary and important for Americans’ health. It is not wise for me as a doctor – carrying the responsibility of patients’ health in the Emergency Department – to have a financial incentive to NOT readmit you, your spouse, your child or your parent!

But Section 1151 allows the new U.S. ‘health Secretary (’czar’) to tell hospitals and doctors: ‘Don’t re-admit that patient, or we’ll reduce your pay.’

Quote: “The Secretary shall reduce…payments…to such hospitals.”

Screen shot from the Bill – Section 1151:

If you need to be re-admitted, do you want your hospital to be disincentived to do so?

3. Salary Cuts to Pay for Employees’ Health Care? Government Says You Cannot.

Section 1174 basically says, ‘You will provide your employees with health care coverage, but you cannot take it from their salaries.’

Quote: “Any contribution on behalf of an employee, with respect to which there is a corresponding reduction in the compensation of the employee, shall not be treated as an amount paid by the employer.”

Salaries are the #1 expense for most companies. Yet the government is demanding that you do not adjust salary rates in order to pay for health insurance. If you did reduce salaries to pay for health insurance, you, as employer, would need to make records appear as if the draw from other account categories was made for other reasons, in such a manner that would not ultimately reveal your business decision.

Of course, taking such a measure as that would be considered by the government to be criminal, especially after the proposed “strengthening of audit authority,” which is also included in the Bill. Advice: Keep quiet or one of your employees or colleagues may report you to Big Brother. This sure seems just like the draconian dynamics in George Orwell’s 1984.

Screen shot from the Bill – Section 1174:

Government to employers: You will pay for healthcare, but not by adjusting salaries.

4. You Have No Health Care Insurance? Your Income Tax Just Increased 2.5% – Unless You’re Amish?

You will be taxed 2.5% if the U.S. ‘health czar’ deems that you don’t have “acceptable” health care coverage.”

Quote: ‘‘In the case of any individual who does not meet the requirements…there is hereby imposed a tax equal to 2.5 percent of…the taxpayer’s…gross income….”

An important story from Fox news reported that the Amish are to be except from the mandate because admirably, they “take care of their own” and don’t carry commercial or governmental “insurance.” In fact, they’ve avoided the Medicare and ‘Social Security’ scams since the 60s after fighting to not have to pay taxes toward those two ‘programs’ for the same reasons.

From the Fox story: “[I]f the Amish can opt out, then some civil libertarians say they want out, too — not for religious reasons but because they don’t think the underlying health insurance mandate is legal.”

Are there any “civil libertarians” out there who think this mandate from the ‘givement’ is coercive and illegal?

One thing for sure: If ‘civil liberty’ doesn’t beat this thing, and this Section of the Bill passes, the IRS/U.S. Treasury/’Federal’ ‘Reserve’ will be able to effectively sniff out Americans ‘under the radar’ who aren’t paying their ‘fair share’ of income taxes (’Ah! Let’s gain control of ‘em when their most vulnerable: in need of health care, and without a ‘health card’!).

Screen shot from the Bill – Section 59B:

You have no government-mandated healthcare? Then IRS will enslave you an additional 2.5%

Action to Take: If you agree that any of the above Sections (#59B, 1151, 1173A, 1174) of H.R. 3963 – the “Health Care” Bill – are not “Good Medicine” for America please contact your U.S. ‘representatives’ in Washington D&C and express your concerns to them immediately, assuming they still actually hear you. Also ask them why you are subject to the Bill, but they are not.

Disclaimer: None of us on TGM are ‘anti’ any religion or race. To point out what we think may be truth associated with a religion does not mean we are in any way ‘against or for‘ that religion.

Recommendation: Be sure to explore all the References (links below) before drawing any conclusions as to the verity of the information in this post.

A One-World Government/New World Order (NWO) – An Open Conspiracy: The NWO was once considered fodder for uneducated eccentrics, but the Internet – the ‘new media’ – has exposed and confirmed many of the plans and accomplishments for the NWO. I created this Triad to conceptualize and document NWO progress, and I think you will find the supporting references enlightening.

One World Triad:

Religion as the Third ‘Front’ to be ‘Mastered’: In the mythical sense, might Religion contain the most  challenging obstacles for the New World Order ‘elite’ to complete the Triad – the ‘unfinished pyramid’? Given the progress already made on the Governance and Finance ‘fronts’ (see references below) it seems likely that significant inroads would have been made in the attempt to create a one-world Religion too.

Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on your perspective – secretiveness is the the modus operandi of the Federal Reserve (Finance) and much of the U.S. Congress and Executive branch (Governance). Secretiveness characterizes some or all of the world’s religions too. Therefore, unless we are part of the NWO ‘elite’ there is no way to know all details of the NWO plans and accomplishments on the three ‘fronts.’ But as you will see from the references, significant progress has at least been made in global Governance and Finance. Progress on the Religion front remains largely a question.

Religion: Bane or Blessing to a NWO? Religion may be the ‘angle’ of the Triad that is the most likely to result in the death or success of the New World Order. What is of obvious concern is the fact that history and current geo-military-politics – some say especially in the Middle East due to the America-Israel alliance – demonstrate that the Religion ‘front’ has significant potential for annihilation of human civilization.

Action to Take. Regardless of your religious beliefs and geopolitical persuasion – and whether or not you believe that a NWO is in the world’s best interest (Caveat emptor) – consider this ‘Preventive Strategy’, since doing so might be ‘good medicine’ for mankind at this point in time: strictly adhere to the principles of the U.S. Constitution and the Campaign for Liberty. Links:
1. http://www.CampaignForLiberty.com
2. http://www.DailyPaul.com

References:

Governance:

Chronology of the NWO: http://www.constitution.org/col/cuddy_nwo.htm
Surveillance Technology in Place: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUSZHC1Gu7U
Political, Military, Media, Welfare in Place: http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/5785

Finance:

One-World Currency: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=75856

Congressional Hearing on One-World Monetary Plans and Corrupt Federal Reserve: http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/Federal_Reserve_McFadden.htm

Religion (hypothetical): http://www.cuttingedge.org/NEWS/n1094.cfm

[Critical update (since initial post on January 12th, 2009): The Consumer Price Index (CPI) decreased 1.0 percent in December, 2008. Read below to understand why this may signal the onset of deflation and ultimately a depression. It may be likely that the 'media masters' controlling our mainstream media will brush over or censor the bad financial news, as the U.K. is apparently starting to do. Regardless, President Obama's inauguration has certainly eclipsed it.

The content of this post based primarily on 14th Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's presentation in 2002: Deflation: Making Sure 'It' Doesn't Happen Here.

Introduction: We seem to hear a lot about 'inflation' on the mainstream media, but little about 'deflation': inflation's ugly opposite, and the potential player in America's economic collapse ('depression'). Please consider first reading 'Deflation 101' below, if you are not familiar with the concept of deflation (the vicious cycle by which the prices of our goods and services can drop to catastrophic levels, deflate). N.b.: All emphases ours.

Ben Bernanke's Insights from the 2002 Report [Important: these thoughts of his were communicated to us seven (7) years ago]:

1. “I believe that the chance of significant deflation in the United States in the foreseeable future is extremely small…[because of]…the resilience and structural stability of the U.S. economy itself.” “A particularly important protective factor in the current environment is the strength of our financial system: …our banking system remains healthy and well-regulated….”

2. “Of course, we must take care lest confidence become over-confidence…. I would be imprudent to rule out the possibility [of deflation] altogether.”

3. “The…bulwark against deflation in the United States…is the Federal Reserve System itself. I am confident that the Fed…has…sufficient policy instruments to ensure that any deflation that might occur would be both mild and brief.” Note: We Americans have been lead to believe that the secretive Federal Reserve ‘policy instruments‘ are sane and in our best interest, and yet less than two months ago Congress clearly indicated that our money is manipulated secretively by the Federal Reserve and that “Secrecy of the monetary policy process…promotes increased financial market uncertainty [and] unnecessary volatility….”

4. The Federal Reserve’s primary ’policy instrument‘ is the way it increases and decreases the interest rates on the money it lends to its banks. And this from Mr. Bernanke is extremely important: “Deflation may result if…the [interest rate for banks] declines to zero or very close to zero,” a rate (a lack thereof) which the Federal Reserve has now achieved.

5. Once the…interest rate is at zero, no further downward adjustment in the rate can occur…. At this point, the nominal interest rate is said to have hit the “zero bound.”

6. ‘Zero Bound’ is when the Federal Reserve can no longer manipulate the money supply by lowering interest rates to stimulate us to buy, as is their ‘policy‘. Said another way, per Fed chairman Bernanke: When the Federal Reserves “policy rate falls to zero -- its practical minimum -- monetary policy loses its ability to further stimulate aggregate demand and the economy.”

7. America is now ’zero bound,’ and 7 years ago Bernanke wrote, “Suppose that, despite all precautions, deflation were to take hold in the U.S. economy and, moreover, that we were to fall to zero. What then?”

8. “Some…have concluded that when that [interest] rate stands at or near zero [ is 'zero bound'] the [Federal Reserve] has ‘run out of ammunition’ -- that is, it no longer has the power to expand aggregate demand and hence economic activity.” “Hence…the situation is one to be avoided if possible.”

9. Now that ‘zero bound‘ has been reached -- where interest rates have been lowered to $0.0% -- the Federal Reserve “can no longer use its traditional means of stimulating…demand [by lowering interest rates] and thus will be operating in less familiar territory.” N.b.: Isn’t this an admission that the ‘traditional means’ -- the ‘policy instruments’ -- used by the Federal Reserve ’system’ are tenuous at their core?

10. The Federal Reserve’s “inability to use its ‘traditional methods’ may complicate the policy-making process and introduce uncertainty in the size and timing of the economy’s response to policy actions.”

11. [Being 'zero bound'] “creates…an even greater burden on households…that [have] accumulated substantial debt before the onset of the deflation…because, even if people are able to refinance their existing debts at near the low [0.0%] interest rates, with [housing] prices falling, they must still repay the principal….”

12. Bernanke continued: “I should emphasize that my comments on this topic are necessarily speculative, as the modern Federal Reserve has never faced this situation [of being zero-bound] nor has it pre-committed itself formally to any specific course of action should deflation arise.”

[This is the end of Bernanke's comments from his 2002 report]

Deflation 101: Prerequisite ‘lesson on deflation’ (largely from Wikipedia):

A. Deflation is associated with recession and more rarely, long term economic depression.

B. Deflation is caused by a general, widespread collapse in the public’s demand for goods and services -- across all or most industries.

C. Result of deflation: prices for goods and services drop (deflate) severely, as businesses cut prices on an ongoing basis to entice buyers to buy. If we consumers don’t buy, then the businesses must cut costs even more, with employees first to be cut (rising unemployment). BTW: Rising uninsured too. In the ER we’re noticing a definite increase in unemployed -- and thus uninsured -- patients who cannot afford to pay cash to see their doctors, but who know we in the ER must see them for free (seemingly for any disease condition). These patients are stressed. And as the volume of these uninsured ER patients increases, their own economic/financial stress is translating to the ER work environment. The stress is becoming palpable.

D. In deflation, because the price of goods is falling, even though we consumers may still have dollars to spend, we have an incentive to delay purchases and consumption until prices fall further (’waiting for the bottom’), which in turn reduces overall economic activity and contributes to to the ‘deflationary spiral’ (a collapse in total demand of all goods and services; e.g., a decreased demand for that real estate you may be trying to sell). N.b.: I’ve now come to understand why ‘waiting for the bottom‘ to buy and ‘waiting for the top‘ to sell each contribute to deflation and inflation respectively.

F. Now that the Federal Reserve -- and thus America -- is ‘zero bound‘ (as above), the ‘Fed’s’ primary tool (’policy instrument‘) -- the manipulation of the interest rates it requires of its banks -- has ‘circled the drain.’

G. Federal Reserve members may try to pull out a few remaining, less dazzling ‘policy instruments’ from their bag of tricks, but concern is growing that they may fail to provide real solutions to preventing what could be an upcoming deflation crisis (depression).

Gold 101: Things on Earth are precious and valuable only if they are limited in supply. Diamonds are valuable primarily because they hoarded. This artificially increases their value. Gold is valuable because its supply is truly limited on Earth. Interestingly (as I understand it) if/when we have a gold-based currency, periods of relative deflation tend to undulate normally/healthfully with periods of relative inflation (’yin-yang’ balanced scale phenomenon). For example, if the prices of goods and services drops (deflates), the purchasing power of each gold-based unit of currency increases and people can by more with their ‘dollars.’ This stimulates the economy. Conversely, when the prices of goods and services increases (inflates), the purchasing power of each gold-based unit of currency decreases; people can then buy less with their ‘dollars’ and this cools the economy.

Ironically, Ben Bernanke used gold as an example (in his 2002 address), of why something has value, indicating that if through alchemy we could synthesize gold, it’s value and thus its price would plummet. This begs the question: Since we cannot synthesize the precious metal, why are we not using it as the standard for our currency, instead of continuing with the Federal Reserve’s phony, secretive system, which is based on their ‘alchemy‘ of worthless bank notes (’dollars’)?

Dollarization 101: Economies based on unstable currency, like the one we have now in America, spawn the use of alternative currencies. This is called ‘dollarization’: the use of foreign or alternative domestic currencies. When our ‘official’ money becomes unreliable, dollarization allows commerce to continue to some degree, unless governments make it illegal to use the alternative currency, as America’s did during the Great Depression, or if government shuts down the alternative currency resources, as the FBI attempted to do recently with the gold-based Liberty Dollar.

Mining 101: Deflation also acts as a stimulus to increase mining and exploration, since one easy way to make real ‘money’ (something of limited supply, and thus with true value) is, according to the Wikipedia post, to ‘dig it out of the ground.’

Barter 101: As the value of the dollar tanks, citizens take it upon themselves to do what they can to control chaotic economics by resorting to barter (and alternate currencies, as above). In effect, barter acts as protective tariff in deflated economies, encouraging local consumption of local products and services.

Inflation 101: As Bernanke said, with deflation and the ‘zero bound‘ state, it becomes impossible for the Federal Reserve to manipulate interest rates any further to try to stimulate consumer and business spending. One of the only other ‘policy instruments’ ‘the Fed’ then has then is to simply print and circulate increasing numbers of fiat paper ‘dollars’ (and simply enter more ‘money’ into the Federal Reserve digital balance sheets). By doing this, the value  of the fiat-based currency approaches zero (in a sense becomes ‘bound for zero’ too). [See Zimbabwe dollar below].

CPI 101: Decreasing Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a helpful indicator of possible deflation, because it allows us to watch the ‘prices consumers pay’ drop (as consumers and business hold off making purchases until the nebulous ‘bottom’ is reached.

We need to remember that the Federal Reserve can and will intervene with another of their ‘policy instruments’ to artificially keep the CPI from decreasing: By simply increasing the supply of paper dollar bills in circulation, consumers ’spending behavior’ will increase. Unfortunately, however, with more worthless paper dollars in circulation, the cost of goods and services (the price -- the number of paper dollars -- citizens pay for the goods and services) will go up (’inflate’).  With a fiat monetary system like the Federal Reserve (instead of America having a gold standard and allowing free market events to take their course), we are guaranteed to eventually have periods of deflation (and possibly depressions) and inflation (and possibly hyperinflation).

CPI Deflation Watch (see Dr. Evan’s post at the top of this link): We had a decline of the core CPI of -0.1% in October 2008, and only a 0.02% increase in November, 2008. According to Professor Evans at Brigham Young University, two consecutive declines in the CPI may signal an increased likelihood that we’re faced with a destructive deflationary period (the precursor of a depression). It is noted on Dr. Evan’s CPI Deflation Watch post that 0.02% is practically zero, but “at least…we dodged the deflation bullet for the month of November.” When this installment of TGM was initially posted last month, we wrote:

“The data for the next CPI report, for December (from the Bureau of Labor Statistics) comes out on January 16th, 2009. Let’s hope the CPI turns out to be in the positive direction, not negative. Professor Evans certainly understands being ‘zero bound’ when he wrote: “The scary thing about the January release is that the Fed can’t lower the fed funds rate anymore to try and stimulate the economy. The next CPI report comes 4 days before Obama’s inauguration. It will be interesting to see if the events of the inauguration eclipse important CPI news, especially if it indicates a drop in the CPI.”

Unfortunately, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) did decrease by 1.0 percent in December, 2008. And it is likely that President Obama’s inauguration (and the latest ‘war’ between Israel and Palestine, and the downed U.S. Air flight, etc.) did eclipse this news about the declining CPI. Regardless, if Professor Evans is correct -- that two consecutive monthly declines in the CPI could signal an increased likelihood of deflation (which can be the precursor of a depression), then the the current CPI trend of…

-0.1% (October) → +0.02% (essentially zero percent in November) → -1.0% (December)…

Should probably be a big concern to us all (CPI →  ? percent for January…

Current Recession → Deflation → Depression? We are now officially in a recession.  And 7 years ago we were told by Ben Bernanke in his address, that it would be ‘unlikely’ that an ongoing fall in prices (like we are now seeing) would continue into an all-out deflation (a collapse, a ‘depression’). But I wonder what Mr. Bernanke is thinking now, what with the Federal Reserve, and thus America, being ‘zero bound.’ All of the preconditions for a collapse are here, especially the fact that the Federal Reserve has no more ‘manipulative wiggle room’ to lend our money at lower interest rates to try to stimulate the economy (since there’s nothing lower than a 0.0% rate).

According to Reed Construction Data, deflation -- and a stagnant economy -- has become a much larger risk in the last few months. And ”ominously, some of the leaks from the Obama transition team [many of whom are Bilderberg and Trilateral Commission folks], suggest an inclination to stop the recession at any cost, even if this means [using fiat dollars to eventually be 'substantiated' by our tax dollars] to prop up failed enterprises and households.”

Excuse me? “An inclination“? It’s called the ‘bailout,’ and it already started during the Bush administration. Regardless, the ultimate result is this: Those ‘economically-compromised crippled enterprises and houses’ will remain a significant drag on our economy for many years to come.

And what if this is the beginning of a deflationary period leading to ‘Great Depression #2′?  Well, believe it or not, there are liberal (’socialist’?) thinkers in Washington -- like Stephen Leeb -- who  appear to be ‘fine’ with the consideration  of a World War III as a solution to a next depression!

Federal Reserve to the ‘Rescue’?: Mr. Bernanke assured us 7 years ago in his address that the Federal Reserve system “ensures that the financial system will remain resilient if financial conditions change rapidly.” His promises and talk are cheap. America’s ‘Federal Reserve’ is now ‘zero bound.’ So now, what are ‘the Fed’s’ only recourses -- to 1) achieve prevent deflation and possible depression, 2) provide a $700 billion bailout and 3) a $500 billion tax cut -- when there is no tangible, real value to our dollars in the first place?

Incredible answer from Bernanke 7 years ago: “Government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost…. [Federal Reserve 'alchemy' to the rescue!]…. We conclude that, under a paper-money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive inflation.”

Notice he doesn’t say the ‘printing press’ is a cure to economic woes, only that it will ‘generate higher spending and create inflation‘! Oh, and a ‘determined government‘? The Federal Reserve operates autonomously and secretly from ‘we the people’ and the ‘government’ (which is supposed to mean by our representatives in the U.S. Congress.

Incredibly, Mr. Bernanke says that simply printing more money is the solution! Bernanke even goes so far to say, “we can take comfort that the logic of the printing press...must assert itself, and sufficient injections of money will ultimately always reverse a deflation.” Of course that ‘policy instrument’ will ‘ultimately always reverse a deflation,’ but is “the logic of the printing press” really logical? Isn’t it hard for you to believe what your reading? Bernanke and his minions are pulling the wool over the eyes of us Americans and they know it:

Notice from Bernanke’s 2002 address, that in his very same ‘breath’ (read it yourself) he says, “By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation…the U.S. government…reduce[s] the value of the dollar…, which is equivalent to raising the prices…of…goods and services.” I’m no economist, but how can reducing the value of America’s currency -- and raising the prices of all its goods and services -- be a sound, long-term solution? And yet then Bernanke cites “academic literature warning of the possibility of an uncontrolled deflationary spiral, in which deflation feeds on itself and becomes inevitably more severe.”

And what Mr. Bernanke didn’t describe, resulting from his ‘logical’ ‘printing press’ solution (the printing of more worthless, fiat dollars), is the opposite extreme: an ‘uncontrolled inflationary spiral’ (runaway inflation). Printing more and more paper money ‘dollars’ may be perceived as helping initially, but it won’t be the solution to bailing out America in the long run. Are Americans really too stupid and/or complacent to see what’s going on here? And who gets all those paper dollars before we do? The ‘trusted’ bankers (whoever they are).

Got milk? Let’s learn from the Zimbabweans who have allowed their corrupt, fiat monetary system to bring them to the point of now paying $24 billion of their own ‘dollars’ for a gallon of milk (see the link). Is this possible for the U.S. ‘dollar’?

Federal Reserve Hijack of America: Some analysts are saying the three most egregious Constitutional compromises we are allowing include: 1) America’s foreign interventionism/occupation/’nation building,’ 2) The massive financial bailouts of companies and banks (’nationalization’ of economies = ’socialization’), and 3) Especially the ‘Federal Reserve’ system for America’s ‘currency.‘

Is it possible that the powers of the U.S. Constitution are being hijacked by ‘our own’ Federal Reserve? For example, see this video where Congressman Ron Paul asks why Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cancels a Congressional hearing on the Federal Reserve to attend a secretive meeting in Switzerland:

My dad has told me for years that ‘we the people’ have been made slaves to the secretive Federal Reserve, the U.S. ‘Treasury’ and the ’strong arm’ of those two entities: the Internal Revenue ‘Service.’ Our representatives in Congress are allowing the deceptions and travesty to continue. And we need to be asking why. Remember that the Federal Reserve is a private organization which operates secretively, has no ‘reserve’ and prints money out thin air.

I would think Bernanke’s ’solution’ for us Americans (’the logic of the printing press’) should be leading to a revolt, even American Revolution #2 (links to book, The Revolution by Ron Paul). That is if there are enough patriotic, independently thinking Americans left in this country. Please consider joining the Campaign for Liberty (it’s free), and get their regular email updates about what is going on with America, and what you can do to try to save ‘her.’

Faith in ‘The Government’ Does Not Mean Faith in the Federal Reserve Because ‘The Fed’ is Unconstitutional: America’s ‘Federal Reserve’ is not officially ‘federal’. Nor does it have a ‘reserve.’ And now this corrupt monetary system is ‘zero bound.‘ Should we still sit back and believe Ben Bernanke’s conclusion seven years ago that “the chances of a serious deflation in the United States appear “remote’ because of our economy’s underlying strengths, and because of the determination of the Federal Reserve and other U.S. policymakers to act preemptively against deflationary pressures”?

Our only hope may have been to 1) avoid any and all of the ‘bailouts’ that were (and still are) rushed through congress, 2) let the economic ‘detritus’ fall where it may and 3) concentrate on putting an end to the Federal Reserve and get back to a gold-backed currency. Maybe it’s not too late.

For Your Entertainment and Education: Pertinent music from music from Michael Adams, ‘Health Ranger’:

Final Words: If the CPI declines again in January, we may be in for deflation. And ‘the Fed’ -- to try to prevent us from going into another great depression -- will rev up essentially the only ‘policy instrument’ it has left in its bag of tricks: ‘the printing press.’ That’s not good medicine for America. Instead of allowing for banks and companies to collapse (let free enterprise and competition operate), and getting America back to a gold standard (like other countries appear to be doing), we’ll sit back and watch as the counterfeit, fiat monetary system of the secretive Federal Reserve starts printing gobs and gobs of valueless ‘dollars.’ That sound’s logical? According to Ben Bernanke it is.

Action to consider: Receive email updates from http://www.campaignforliberty.com/index.php and carefully monitor the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Would Tom Daschle’s Fed Health Dash Our Hope for Health Freedom? TGM is About Integrative Medicine and freedom of choice in health care: having the freedom to integrate the best evidence-based therapies and diagnostics from all medical disciplines. Secrecy cannot be a part of that approach. However, according to a recent article in Medical News Today, submitted by the Citizens’ Council on Health Care, President-Elect Barack Obama’s choice of Senator Tom Daschle – to head up the department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – might entirely dash our hopes of real, lasting holistic reform of our health care system, since our health freedoms under Daschle may be severely compromised under his Fed Health plan.

The article says this: “If Mr. Daschle succeeds with Fed Health, Americans can expect that all private medical decisions-and their doctors-could soon be under federal control.” Mr. Obama’s choice for Secretary of HHS “signals a plan to eliminate free-markets and resurrect national health care….”

If the Federal Reserve and its banks are secretive about what’s going on with our tax dollars, how could we think anything different for our health care under a Federal Reserve model? And if this is true, why isn’t mainstream media warning us? Maybe there’s just too much other bad news to report.

Senator Tom Daschle: Our New Representative at HHS. Here’s what he apparently wants:

1. A national health board modeled after the Federal Reserve’s board! This Federal Health Board would oversee the entire health care system. Mr. Daschle calls it “Fed Health“. If this is true, it should be alarming to any American who has a functional brain. The ‘Criticisms’ section on Wikipedia’s Federal Reserve page reminds us that Milton Friedman outlined how the Federal Reserve caused the great depression. Is ‘The Fed’ repeating its history today? Regardless, do we want our national health care to be modeled after a corrupt, counterproductive organization like the Federal Reserve that operates as an organization largely autonomously, outside of Congressional oversight? We’re with Ron Paul who wisely recommends that the Federal Reserve be abolished. Here’s what else Daschle apparently wants:
2. Federal government to direct the practice of medicine and control all facets of health insurance.
3. Ongoing surveillance of your personal health for government research purposes.
4. Government officials to have access to your patient records online for monitoring of physician treatment decisions.

No Thanks, Obama and Senator Daschle. Integrative medicine doctors will be tempted to use various explicatives at the thought of what Daschle wants. Take for example #5 (above): monitoring your doctor’s treatment decisions? Integrative medicine doctors base treatment decisions on their experience with their patients and on published clinical research. Many treatments are often outside the realm of ’standard’ ‘allopathic’ medicine – drugs and surgery – and do not fall within what Daschle’s ‘Fed Health’ would dictate as being their ’standard of care.’

Fed Health’s Standard of Care = Fed Health’s Standard of Scare. What if, for example, you want the freedom to choose EDTA chelation as a treatment for your cardiovascular disease – angina or claudication – or simply for prevention? (TGM #15, 14, 13) Or if the anticipated flu epidemic arrives and you and your integrative medicine doctor decide to treat you with an intravenous infusion of dilute hydrogen peroxide to cure your flu?

[Click image to download full Lancet report]

Or what if you become infected by MRSA or one of the other growing numbers of bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics, and you request that your doctor treats you with photoluminescence (UV light-energized blood)?

[Image links to the book Dr. Douglass' father's wrote.

None on TGM team receive proceeds from book sales]

Or what if you and your doctor decide to try high-intensity magnetic therapy to treat a stubborn, hard to treat condition you may have?

[Image links to A.M.R.I. of Washington]

These are just a few examples of evidence-based ‘integrative medicine’ therapies out of thousands. You probably want and need the freedom to choose. Good medicine is NOT about limiting our therapeutic armamentarium to only drugs and surgery. But what if Daschle and other ‘big brothers’ with HHS and ‘Fed Health‘ scare you and your doctor with: “That’s not the standard of care. You can only use anti-bacterial and anti-viral drugs for your condition. Cease your practices or be fined or go to jail” That’s what may be in store.

What Does Fed Health Have to Do With Unions and Corruption? ‘As a man thinketh, so is he.’ Or put another way: the character of a man = his thoughts + feelings combined. It is our opinion that to be even somewhat ‘okay’ with plans like Fed Health, politicians who devise or endorse plans like this – and U.S. citizens who support them – would have to think and feel like labor union bosses, mobsters and Federal Reserve members who are clearly sacrificing U.S. Constitutional principles for the sake of total power and control. Their thinking goes something like this: “We’re entitled to these powers, like locking in higher wages for workers, and dictating how medicine is practiced. Therefore, we’ll act irrespective of local, state or federal law. In fact, our wants/our entitlements supersede the U.S. Constitution. What if we want money? We’ll get it outside Congressional negotiations. We’ll get it from the Federal Reserve.” The perverted thinking may become most obvious from what we may be about to see happen with American health care: Daschle’s Fed Health, or some version of it.

How Quickly Fed Health Cometh? States are already having to cut Medicaid coverage during these economic hard times. More cuts are expected in 2009. Yet here’s the clincher: Some of our representatives in Congress are seeing a need to allow the millions of growing unemployed U.S. citizens who have lost health benefits to start receiving Medicaid benefits with our tax dollars paying the entire bill, of course. How quickly might a ‘Fed Health’ be implemented? As soon as enough emergency departments around the country start reporting increases in ‘crisis level’ volumes and casualties, as increasing numbers of U.S. citizens resort to the ‘ER’ as last resort for their acute health care needs.

Where does this type of unAmerican, ‘Fed Health’ thinking and planning come from? As noted on TGM #16 post, this article from American Free Press clearly indicates that Senator Tom Daschle is part of the ‘One World Government Bilderbergerite’ mentality. To find Daschle in the list of other Bilderberger meeting attendees, see this Wikipedia link. One World Health Care anyone? It appears that Senator Tom Daschle is not good for your health or good for good medicine either.

The only solution: We predict that health care – socialized medicine under a Fed Health-like plan – may be the final straw that breaks America’s back. If it’s not to late, the only solution is to restore honor and integrity in Washington, with the likes of Representatives like Congressman Ron Paul and do away with the secretive, unconstitutional Federal Reserve – if that’s still possible. Please see TGM #16 and 17.

Good Medicine Word of the Week. It’s disgusting in our opinion: ‘Fed Health‘ – the concept for Senator Tom Daschle’s health care plan for America, using the Federal Reserve as the model. All of your private medical decisions could soon be under federal control. Is this the kind of change America wants and needs?

Send TGM to a friend: click here.

Editor’s note: Audio for this show is forthcoming. At this time, other than the YouTube videos, no other audio is included with this installment of Political Health and Healing.

Coming Soon: Fed Health. Last week we spotlighted how Obama + unions + organized crime + the Federal Reserve could = a situation not good for America. On the next installment of Political Health and Healing we’ll focus more on Obama’s choice to represent us and our ‘health freedoms’ at HHS -- Senator Tom Daschle -- and his dubious plans for our brand new health care system, based on the Federal Reserve model: ‘Fed Health’ as it’s called. Brace yourself for an unpleasant shock. But Before that: the Solution….

Current U.S. Political Situation like a Cancer in Need of a True Surgeon. The unions, the mob, the current IRS, the FDA, the Federal Reserve -- and the politicians these entities influence -- are like the cells comprising an insidious cancer that has metastasized into the vital organs of our country. And it seems like the cancer is growing ‘hyperplastically.’ So what good medicine do we have to heal the pathology? Dr. Douglass thinks the only hope and solution to saving America and our health care system is a ‘Ron Paul revolution’ -- if it’s not too late. Unfortunately, mainstream media -- and thus -- mainstream America -- largely ignore Congressman Dr. Ron Paul.

Are we about to suffer the consequences? Link to 6 min video.

Ron Paul tells it like it is: The doctor-turned-Congressman appears to be our only representative in Washington willing to use his ’scalpel’ to excise the cancers in government that are killing us. There are many YouTube videos of Congressman Paul at work. In this recent one he proclaims how embarrassing the ‘nationalization’ of U.S. industries -- like the auto industry -- really is:

Ron Paul Answers the Question: Where’s the Bailout Money Going (4.5 min):

End the Federal Reserve? The Fed is unconstitutional, it’s secretive and it’s destroying America. With the exception of  Ron Paul, most of our other representatives in Congress don’t seem to care. Or might the Federal Reserve be secretly ’sharing the wealth’ of our tax dollars with many of our representatives in Washington? Ron Paul is surprised at how many young Americans understand the dire need to End the Fed.

Music Video: End the Fed:

Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve: 40-minute movie showing the sad truth.

Americans can do something: Start by getting free updates from Congressman Ron Paul and get involved in the Campaign or Liberty. On June 15, 2007, Ron Paul introduced HR 2755, Federal Reserve Abolition Act. Unfortunately -- and not entirely surprisingly -- there were no co-sponsors to the bill and no further action was taken. The legislation was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services and effectively ignored. Ignorance is bliss for only so long. Assuming HR 2755 is best for America, then who is to blame for this? Is it our representatives in the House of Representatives or is it U.S. citizens who are too uninformed and complacent to demand that their representatives take action on what they feel is best for their country? Please look into the Campaign for Liberty!

Next installment of Political Health and Healing: Daschle’s Federal Reserve-based ‘Fed Health’ is an insult to thinking Americans. We’ll address in more detail how upcoming HHS secretary Tom Daschle plans to use the Federal Reserve to model America’s ‘new and improved’ US health care system. Incredible. Watch out America. Your hopes for health freedom may soon be dashed by Daschles ‘Fed Health’.

Good Medicine Word of the Week: Congressman Ron Paul -- conservative, Constitutionalist, and libertarian -- for political health and healing.

Send TGM to a friend: click here.

Introduction: Given the recent alarming and disappointing news about Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, selling Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder – just before President-elect Barack H. Obama takes residence in Washington – we thought it important to spotlight on this and the next two installments of Political Health and Healing, what mainstream media might underplay: how in some ways similar thinking – amongst Barack Obama, Senator Dashle, labor unions, organized crime and the Federal Reserve – is required to accept what is apparently being planned for our health care, ‘Fed Health’, and ultimately how it may negatively affect our health freedoms.

“For youz Americans it’s Obama, Daschle and Fed Health.

That’s the deal for health care. Gotta problem with that?”

Image from www.gamespot.com

Will Unions, Mafia and Federal Reserve be Largely to Blame for the Collapse of U.S. Dollar? It is understandable how unions can protect workers from unfair corporate labor practices, yet it is not fair to America how labor unions fix wages. Fixing the price of labor is incompatible with free enterprise. And combining such price fixation with organized crime threatens our freedoms as protected by the U.S. Constitution. Recent case in point: A fundamental concern of the bailout of the ‘Big Three’ auto makers is “whether the legislation would force concessions from the unions.” The euphemistic way of saying this is to ask if the unions will be ‘competitive,‘ i.e. will they lower union workers wages? This is nothing new to Americans. We’ve become accustomed to unions exerting their negative influence and power on free markets by essentially fixing wages, but in reality, to even be asking unions to lower wages in the United States is incongruous with American principles.

On TV recently United Auto Workers (UAW) president Ron Gettelfinger said the UAW wont commit to lower wages for union workers, and stated erroneously that their wages are already the same as foreign auto companies. And then Mr. Gettelfinger announced that the UAW will ‘go to the Federal Reserve‘ if the bailout bill is not passed by the Senate, which is exactly what they are doing: trying to get their way through ‘auto czar Paulson’, since the ‘balance of powers route’ (Congress) didn’t work for them. So now, the finance arms of Chrysler and G.M. are to be morphed into government-regulated financial institutions so they become eligible for direct loans from the Federal Reserve. It’s called the nationalization of the auto industry. Maybe after this, the impact of the nationalization of health care – a ‘Fed Health’ – wont seem so bad.

The joke is on all Americans though because the ‘Federal Reserve’ is a quasi-private fiat monetary system without a ‘reserve’ of ‘funds,’ i.e., it has NO MONEY – unless ‘the fed’ prints more, for the money tree. After doing away with the gold standard, our monetary system is all ’smoke and mirrors.’

Regardless though, shouldn’t we be shocked as Americans? The UAW essentially said, “If we can’t get the money through Congressional legislation, we’ll get it from our friends at the Federal Reserve”! So now we have two systems of government in the U.S. to choose from, the legislative branch and the ‘Federal Reserve’ branch? Apparently yes. We’ll be addressing what all this seems to mean for the advancement of medicine during this and the next two installments of TGM. And as we’ll see on TGM #18 – as unbelievable as it is – the Federal Reserve is to be the model for our new health care system – Fed Health! Few people seem to be asking, ‘Who’s running the show here, anyway?’

Obama’s Relations With the Unions and the Mafia. It’s not news that organized crime largely controls the labor unions, but from the Wall Street Journal and CBS just six months ago: Obama favors closing down the official government oversight board created to try to rid the unions of organized crime. Interestingly it wasn’t until after Obama published his ‘pro-mob’ position, that the Teamsters union then endorsed him for U.S. president. As the WSJ piece says, “The Teamsters in Chicago have shown little enthusiasm for rooting out corruption in their ranks.” And Obama’s “warm words to the Teamsters [are] …disturbing.” Note: According to the WSJ Bush appears involved in this too.

The CBS article continues: Obama’s Federal Election Commission records show a “hefty contribution to his…presidential race from Richard Simon who has mob ties.” But “the taint of corruption and of ties to organized crime seemed not to ruffle Obama….” If Obama wants to be portrayed as promoting “good government and higher morality, the place to start may not be Washington, but his home town of Chicago.” We might do well to study this article to see the depth of this unhealthy political situation.

Obama’s Relations with Governor Blagojevich. We’ll probably hear little or nothing about the relationship, or flat denials that there was much of a relationship between ‘the Gov’ and Obama. Or we may hear, “Oh c’mon, you think Governor Rod Blagojevich has significant ties to the unions or that Obama really has any significant relationship with Blagojevich – just because ‘The Gov’ controls his Senate seat in Washington? Naaaah!” Bottom line: Obama is looking pretty weak before assuming office. He said he had no contact with ‘Blago’ about the Senate seat. But his campaign chief of staff, David Axelrod stated last month that Obama spoke with the governor about the vacancy! Obama should tell us all – on mainstream media – about his relationships with any and all thugs who run Chicago politics. To prove his innocence, he should allow himself and his political team to be fully investigated. Otherwise can we trust him and his administration with our health and health care? Hey, at least, ‘Bobo,’ ‘Geuseppi,’ ‘Hoffa’ and ‘Vinny’ and the rest of the “Chicago Outfit” will probably be merry this Christmas at their palaces in Chicago or Las Vegas. And if mafia politics repeats itself, ‘family member’ Gov. Rod Blagojevich will probably be merry too.

Pieces of the Mysterious Puzzle for Health Care: Obama, Dashle, the Mob, Unions and the Federal Reserve. Clearly Obama has relations with America’s labor unions, which are corrupt. And the unions look to a separate entity, the Federal Reserve, for money when they don’t get what they want from what is supposed to be a Constitutionally-based balance of powers in Congress. What you may find interesting, if you read the ‘Criticisms’ section on Wikipedia’s Federal Reserve page, is where Milton Friedman outlined how the Federal Reserve caused the great depression. If the UAW circumvents Congress – and free enterprise – by going directly to the Federal Reserve for their bailout, is the Federal Reserve repeating history today?

And what’s probably most ironic, and adds to the mystery of what will probably be a radically different health care system in the near future: Obama’s choice to head up the department of Health and Human Services (HHS) WAS Senator Tom Daschle who, as mentioned above, wanted to use the Federal Reserve model for America’s ‘new and improved’ US health care system – ‘Fed Health‘. Watch out America. We may be in for a shock. If Mr. Daschle succeeded, you could probably expect that soon, all private medical decisions made on your behalf, by you and your doctor, will be under federal control. “Fed Health“?

Where does this type of alien thinking and planning come from? A friend sent me this article from American Free Press showing that Daschle is part of the ‘One World Government Bilderbergerite’ mentality. To find Daschle in the list of other Bilderberger meeting attendees, see this Wikipedia link.

One World Health Care anyone? It appears that Senator Tom Daschle would not have been good medicine for America! Perhaps the exposure of his improprieties (not paying his ‘fair share’ of income taxes, etc) was a good thing, but don’t expect the end of this one politician to make much of a difference in Washington D&C.

Next installment of Political Health and Healing: The Only Good Medicine for America’s Current Political Situation: Honorable Representatives in Washington Like Congressman Dr. Ron Paul.

Good Medicine Word of the Week: The apparently not-so-good choice to head HHS – Senator Tom Daschle. See TGM #18.

Send TGM to a friend: click here.

Is the TACT Trial ‘Lost in Space’? The first NIH-sponsored research trial on intravenous EDTA chelation therapy for the treatment of cardiovascular disease – the Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT trial) – is under attack by the notorious, so-called ‘quackbusters’ and their unofficial, but official sounding National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF). And the attack is being used to threaten our access to EDTA chelation therapy once again. It’s not about science. It’s about politics and medical economics.

‘Quackbusters’ Use Medscape to Publish their Biased, Inaccurate Article Against EDTA Chelation and the TACT Trial. This most recent attack by the so-called quackbusters comes in the form of an article they published on Medscape, an online resource for physicians that is supposed to be unbiased and objective. Title of article: Why the NIH Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) Should Be Abandoned.  Link to the original and summary articles. The authors concluded, using their supposed ‘expertise’ that the TACT trial is unethical, dangerous, pointless, and wasteful and that it should be abandoned. This conclusion is unwarranted, unsubstantiated and offensive to many physicians – and undoubtedly to many scientists at the NIH – who have invested significant time and money to make this important research possible.

Is the Medscape Article Evidence that the TACT Trial is Very Important? Some integrative medicine doctors think it is evidence that the pharmaceutical industry and the medical-industrial complex see chelation as a major threat economically. If the safe, inexpensive intravenous EDTA chelation therapy really is effective for treating cardiovascular disease then it is a huge threat to conventional medicine.

Dubious Authors and Referenced ‘Authorities’ of the Medscape Article: The article’s conclusions, and the opinion that the TACT trial should be abandoned, are from what appear to be grossly biased NCAHF doctors who hold themselves out to be ‘experts.’ Some of them have been discredited in court, even branded as being unfit as medical experts. A few of the NCAHF cronies include Wallace Sampson, Robert Baratz, Kimball Atwood (authors); and Stephen Barrett, Victor Herbert (referenced in the article); other ‘quackbusters’ of the NCAHF: William Jarvis, John Renner.

What Do the Federal Reserve and the National Council Against Health Fraud Have in Common? Both are private organizations, but use ‘National’ and ‘Federal’ in their names so they sound like official government entities. The NCAHF is anything but a legitimate council, with governmental oversight. Yet because of misleading names, people are fooled into believing they are official, sanctioned.

Are the NCAHF ‘Experts’ the Real Frauds? Court Discredits NCAHF and Medscape Authors:
1. See the article on attorney Carlos Negrete’s website: ‘Barrett Put in His Place Again.’ In Dr. Barrett’s own hometown the court commented on his de-licensed status. The NCAHF ‘quackbusters’ tried to convince the court that “…existing law should be changed” to allow them to bring lawsuits against doctors and companies, even if they have “little or no evidence against the targeted entity.” Essentially the NCAHF  told the court that the companies they target should be forced to defend themselves on the basis of accusation alone. The court concluded that it “was not persuaded that such a change in law was appropriate or logical.”

2. In a California Superior Court case, Medscape article author Dr. Wallace Sampson and Dr. Stephen Barrett were the so-called ‘experts’ representing the NCAHF in a case in which the NCAHF was accusing a homeopathic company of wrong doing. Judge Haley Fromholz concluded:

A. Dr. Sampson has “thin credentials to opine on the proper standards for…clinical or scientific research…for obtaining valid evidence about…the efficacy of drugs.”
B. Both Dr. Sampson and Dr. Barrett are “biased.” And the weight of their testimony was “slight in any event.” The two doctors “can be described as zealous advocates of the [NCAHF's] position.” They “therefore [cannot be considered] neutral or dispassionate experts.”
C. “In light of their affiliations and their orientation, it can fairly be said [of] Dr. Barrett and Dr. Sampson [that] their testimony should be accorded little, if any, credibility….”

Yet these are some of the so-called experts on Medscape that the medical world is relying on to opine that an NIH drug trial on EDTA chelation is ‘unethical and pointless’ and that it should be abandoned.

ACAM Response: The American College for Advancement in Medicine (ACAM), has publicly reaffirmed its commitment to the TACT trial. ACAM President, Dr. Jeanne Drisko said, “Ultimately, the TACT trial results will assess chelation therapy’s place in health care.” The TACT trial’’s principal investigator, Dr. Tony Lamas, is a Cardiologist who teaches at the University of Miami School of Medicine. He said he believes the allegations made by the ‘quackbusters’ are “without merit” and that “we’ll sufficiently answer their unfounded allegations of impropriety,” and that federal officials “will find that the allegations are of a political nature.”

EDTA Chelation Therapy Would Rock the Medical World. If EDTA chelation therapy is effective, which it appears to be empirically and in many published clinical reports, then something this safe and inexpensive – implemented on a large scale to treat heart and peripheral vascular disease – would rock the medical world as we know it.

To learn more and get involved in protecting your health freedoms:
Visit www.acam.org and find an ACAM doctor in your area. Also visit the Health Freedom Foundation and the foundation Dr. Julian Whitaker started: the Whitaker Health Freedom Foundation.

Good Medicine Word Of The Week: The ‘not-so-good’ NCAHF – stands for the non-official ‘National Council Against Health Fraud’ – a private organization we on TGM think is fraudulent and comprised largely of physician zealots who are on a quixotic global crusade to stamp out what they judge to be medical quackery.

Next Week: Rapid-fire review of recent published research on various other promising integrative medicine approaches that may help you have a Heart of Health.

Heart of Health – installment #3

Is it time to quit viewing EDTA chelation therapy for heart disease as medical heresy, and start using on a more wide spread basis in this new age of medicine?

This is Part 2 of Effective Alternatives for Treating Cardiovascular Disease – EDTA Chelation as Front-Runner.

Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy, TACT trial: We discuss this placebo-controlled trial sponsored by the National Institute of Health. This research is worthwhile, but in our opinion we already have enough empirical and research-based evidence to be offering intravenous EDTA chelation therapy to cardiovascular disease patients now. Regardless, and unfortunately, it appears that the so-called ‘quack busters’ – the phony ‘experts’ from the ‘National Council Against Health Fraud’ – are trying to sabotage the TACT trial in attempt to expunge this safe, simple, effective and inexpensive alternative treatment for cardiovascular diseases. Next week we shine the TGM spotlight on the ‘quack busters.’

EDTA Monograph by Cardiologist Dr. Stephen Olmstead: “The preponderance of clinical reports in the medical literature support a claim of efficacy for symptomatic angina, intermittent claudication and critical leg ischemia.” Note: we are currently trying to get in touch with Dr. Olmstead to find a digital version of the Monograph and link to it from the TGM website.

EDTA Chelation Therapy as ‘Holistic’ Therapy: EDTA is not a ‘natural’ product. It is an artificial, synthetic drug. However, one could argue that it is a ‘holistic’ therapy since it is infused systemically, and reaches and potentially detoxifies heavy metals from most of our tissues and organs.

EDTA Package Insert Altered by Abbott Labs to Remove Cardiovascular Disease as an Indication for the Drug: Even by the 1960s existing evidence for EDTAs efficacy to treat cardiovascular disease was enough for Abbott Labs to include it as one of the ‘indications’ for the drug. Later the language was arbitrarily changed, stating that EDTA is ‘not’ indicated for this purpose. To the best of our knowledge, this mysterious manipulation of medical product information is unprecedented in medical history.

Off-Label Drug Legislation the Result of One Doctor’s Fight Against the FDA to Be Able to Offer EDTA Chelation to His Patients. In 1981, during a ‘David and Goliath’ type battle, Dr. Ray Evers from Alabama fought the US Food and Drug Administration for his right to use EDTA to treat his patients with cardiovascular disease. With EDTA in his ’sling’ he toppled the FDA. The federal court ruling in favor of Dr. Evers stated that the FDA’s arguments against Dr. Evers were “nonsensical.” This was a huge victory for patients and the advancement of good medicine not only because it lessened the FDA’s tyranny against our medical freedoms, but also because it resulted in today’s doctors’ ability to prescribe drugs ‘off-label.’ This means we  can now legally use any medication for any purpose, even though that purpose – that ‘indication’ – is not necessarily approved by the FDA. All this because of Dr. Ever’s fight for EDTA! Kevin asks the logical question: Why was the FDA trying to regulate an Alabama doctor’s medical practice? And Dr. Douglass asks: What political influences – what constituencies/vested interests – may have teamed up with the FDA to start that battle against EDTA and Dr. Evers in the first place? We’ll may never know.

Dr. Rogers vs. the Florida State Board of Medical Examiners: Dr. Robert Rogers, MD fought the Florida Medical Board all the way to the Florida Supreme Court over his right to provide EDTA to his patients with cardiovascular disease, and won. The Florida Supreme Court ruled that the action of the Florida medical board restraining Dr. Rogers from utilization of chelation therapy for his patients was “an arbitrary and unreasonable exercise of the state’s police power.”

Note: To download full report as a pdf file click on the document.

Negative Published Studies On EDTA Chelation Therapy For Treating Cardiovascular Disease: There have been six negative studies. We discuss them, and how they all either have major irregularities from a scientific standpoint, or have negative conclusions even though the results reported in the studies were positive. For an excellent online resource with commentary and analysis of each one of the studies, go to http://www.drcranton.com/chelation.htm And as we’ve mentioned on previous shows, a good resource for finding physicians who are likely to be offering intravenous EDTA is the organization American College for Advancement in Medicine at acam.org.

Good Medicine Word Of The Week: Off-label use – in commemoration of Dr. Ray Evers and his ‘David and Goliath’ fight against the FDA. Now American physicians can use EDTA, and any other drugs, for purposes other than what the FDA approves them for.

Next week: If intravenous EDTA chelation really is a safe, effective and inexpensive alternative to bypass surgery and angioplasty, do you think there might be attempts by conventional medicine to squelch it? We’ll shine the TGM spotlight on the phoney ‘quack busters‘ and the so-called National Councel Against Health Fraud (or is it the ‘National Councel of Health Frauds’?) in their obvious efforts to supress the TACT trial and our access to EDTA chelation therapy for treating heart disease.

Heart of Health – do you have one?

Part I of Effective Alternatives for Treating Cardiovascular Disease – EDTA Chelation as Front-Runner

Dr. Douglass Interview with Dr. Ronald Hoffman on Health Talk, WOR Radio 710, New York City, N.Y., discussing the relative worthlessness of bypass surgery and angioplasty for stable heart disease. Click here to listen.

EDTA chelation therapy could result in profound health care cost savings, which are sorely needed with the current financial crisis the world is in. And with the prospects of massive tax increases and socialized medicine under an Obama administration probably doesn’t make the outlook much better. An example of research showing the potential cost savings from EDTA chelation comes from a study done by Danish physician Dr. Clause Hancke: 90% of his patients who were on the waiting list for getting coronary artery bypass surgery or leg amputation due to poor circulation to their legs, were able to cancel their surgeries after a course of intravenous EDTA chelation treatments. Imagine the potential for financial savings and real health improvements.

Basics of EDTA Chelation: EDTA – Ethylene-diamine-tetra-acetate – is one of many ‘chelating agents’. The ‘chel’ (pronounced keel) in chelation (”kee-LAY-shun”) comes from the Greek for ‘claw.’ Chelating agents, chelation drugs ‘claw’ strongly onto metals and minerals in our blood, cells, tissues and organs and are then ‘flushed’ out of the body, primarily through the kidneys. The attraction between EDTA, and say lead (or other positively charged atoms) is through electromagnetic forces, not ‘covalent’ chemical bonding. EDTA’s has varying attractions for different metals. For example, if an EDTA-calcium complex comes into the presence of lead, the EDTA will have a higher electromagnetic attraction for lead and thereby preferentially bind to the lead, and release the calcium in to the body, allowing for the efficient removal of lead through the kidneys (and a small amount of elimination through the bowels). It is a true ‘detoxification’ therapy.

EDTA chelation therapy is not ‘natural.’ It is a synthetic amino acid approved by the FDA for treating lead toxicity, not cardiovascular disease. Use of EDTA for treating cardiovascular disease is considered ‘off-label’ use of the drug. The controversy of EDTA chelation is primarily around the financial implications it has, as a replacement for bypass surgery and angioplasty. Listeners will recall from last week that entire ‘industries’ have been built around bypass surgery and angioplasty, and that these two procedures do not extend life or even decrease the rate of subsequent heart attacks in people with stable heart disease.

History of EDTA Chelation for Treating Cardiovascular Disease: The benefits were discovered serendipitously in the 1950s. Cardiologist Dr. Norman C. Clarke reported that while treating a patient for lead toxicity who happened to have angina symptoms at the time, that the patient told Dr. Clarke that his chest pains lessened. Dr. Clarke reported his earliest findings – his empirical, experience-based discoveries – in the American Journal of Medical Sciences and the American Journal of Cardiology. Since then, numerous studies and clinical reports have been published supporting EDTA’s efficacy for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. An excellent resource for finding published studies on EDTA chelation for cardiovascular disease: Saunder’s textbook, Cardiovascular Drug Therapy chapter titled “Magnesium EDTA Chelation.” Other resources: www.drcranton.com/chelation.htm and www.acam.org.

Scientific studies on EDTA Chelation for Cardiovascular Disease. We discuss a few of the published studies. It appears, in general, from the research and from clinical experience (when treating patients who are not diabetic and who do not smoke cigarettes), that 75%-90% of patients experience significant improvement in their symptoms, such as chest pain and exercise-induced leg pain, after a course of intravenous EDTA chelation treatments. Some research supports EDTA chelation as being of benefit to cerebrovascular disease too (improving arterial circulation to the brain). The ultimate question becomes, when is the evidence enough?

Good medicine word of the week: EDTA chelation – the intravenous administration of an FDA-approved drug, used ‘off-label,’ for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, including poor circulation to the heart, legs and brain; to the entire body, in fact.

Next Week: Part II Effective Alternatives for Treating Cardiovascular Disease – EDTA chelation as Front-Runner! Maverick doctors challenged legally by state and federal governments win their cases thereby foiling attempts to take away our freedoms to use EDTA chelation for treating cardiovascular disease.

Heart of Health – do you have one?

What is Cardiovascular Disease? ‘Cardio’ for heart. ‘Vascular’ for vessel. Cardiovascular disease generally means the obstruction of arteries – the vessels that deliver oxygen and other nutrients to all of our cells and tissues. This includes obstruction of the arteries to the heart: the coronary arteries; arteries to the brain: the carotid arteries; arteries to the legs: the peripheral arteries. In fact every single artery in the body can become obstructed as a result of atherosclerosis (‘hardening of the arteries’).

Medical Economics of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery Trumps Evidence-Based Medicine: According to current scientific evidence, surgical intervention with bypass surgery or angioplasty does not improve the health outcomes of patients with stable coronary artery disease.

A. Case Against CABG.
The scientific evidence generally does not support the use of ‘bypass surgery’ (coronary artery bypass grafting, CABG) for the treatment of patients with stable angina: a pattern of recurring chest discomfort, that is not worsening in frequency, duration, quality, location, severity, etc. This is in contrast to unstable angina.

Studies:
1. Eleven Year Survival in the Veterans Administration Randomized Trial of Coronary Bypass Surgery for Stable Angina, The Veterans Administration Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery Cooperative Study Group: Eleven (11) year study done at 13 different veterans hospitals showed that patients who undergo bypass surgery have the same survival rates as patients who have only medical management, without surgery. New England Journal of Medicine 1977; 311:1333-1339.

2. European Coronary Artery Surgery Study Group, Long-Term Results  of a Prospective Randomized Study of Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery in  Stable Angina Pectoris: This study found a slight, statistically insignificant increase in survival rate in bypass surgery patients. Lancet 1982; Nov.27, pp 1173-1180.

3. Ten-Year Follow-up of Survival and Myocardial Infarction in the Randomized Coronary Artery Surgery Study: Results were similar to those of the Veterans study (#1 above). Circulation 1990; 82:1629-1646.

B. Case Against Angioplasty: COURAGE Trial.
This study of 2,300 patients with stable coronary disease (stable angina) shows that angioplasty and stents do not prolong life, or even prevent heart attacks in most of these cases. This was discovered by comparing the outcomes of patients with stable angina who had angioplasty, with the outcomes of the patients who had only medical therapy (no surgical intervention). New England Journal of Medicine 2007, March 26.

Conclusion: despite the widespread belief that angioplasty and stenting cuts down on heart attacks and death, it’s never been shown to do that in patients with stable coronary disease.

Important note of caution: For patients having heart attacks – myocardial infarction – or unstable angina, the angioplasty procedure or bypass surgery may be life saving in those cases. It is thought that about 50% of all deaths from heart attacks occur within 1 hour of the start of symptoms, often before the patient gets to the hospital. If you experience chest pain that is new, worsening or not lessening in severity, call 911 immediately.

To Intervene or Not to Intervene: How do the world’s doctors treat stable angina (stable coronary artery disease)? In this 2007 New England Journal of Medicine survey of over 7600 doctors, essentially 60% (57%) of them recommended surgical intervention: angioplasty or bypass surgery. The other 40% (43%) recommended the more conservative approach: medical management alone, thus ‘bypassing bypass’ and ‘avoiding angioplasty.’ Australia and Oceania win as the most conservative areas globally, with essentially 55% of the surveyed doctors recommending the ‘medicine-only’ approach, compared to the rest of world at around 45% with the same recommendation. Click here to view the excellent Clinical Decisions Interactive by Drs. Susan Cheng and John Jarcho.

Belief System and Mantra Sometimes Necessary in Conventional, Allopathic Medicine: “The benefits outweigh the risks and costs; The benefits outweigh the risks and costs!” – even if the evidence may not support that belief.

Consequences of Ignoring or Regarding Evidence-based Medicine, Evidence-based Cardiology:

A. Ignoring: “…an ‘industry’ is being built around this operation – coronary bypass surgery: the creation of facilities for open heart operations in community hospitals…and proliferation of catheterization and angiography suites…the expansion and development of training opportunities in clinical cardiology, cardiovascular surgery and cardiovascular radiology. This rapidly growing enterprise is developing a momentum and constituency of its own, and as time passes, it will be progressively more difficult and costly to curtail it materially…. The financial implications of CABG are profound…. The enormous funds already being devoted to this procedure divert support available for other, perhaps more necessary, aspects of medical care.” Eugene Braunwald, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Cardiology at Harvard Medical School. New England Journal of Medicine 1977; 297(12):661-663.

B. Regarding: The COURAGE trial and the studies on bypass surgery cited above should lead us to improve the way we treat all patients with stable coronary artery disease. Now that would be good medicine. But will we regard and act upon the scientific evidence, or continue to largely ignore it?

Next Week: Intravenous EDTA chelation therapy for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. The conclusion in the New England Journal of Medicine survey above said many of the doctors surveyed from around the world expressed how important it is for doctors to discuss with their patients all treatment options and their possible outcomes. But are all the treatment options being discussed? If not, why not? Let’s look at and regard the scientific evidence for one option some doctors think is part of a good ‘Integrative Medicine’ approach to treating cardiovascular disease: EDTA chelation therapy.

Good Medicine Word Of The Week: Angioplasty – the process of mechanically opening a partially or completely obstructed artery by inflating a balloon to squash the obstructing material (the ‘atherosclerotic plaque’).

Brief recap from last week: The concepts of the duality of matter and light, as particles and waves. And the concept that we humans are ‘beings of light.’ And we touch upon the use of using light energy for health and healing, and the book Into the Light by William Campbell Douglass II, MD.

Electron Loss Results in Damaging Free Radical Formation: Free radicals result from the process of oxidation, loss of electrons. Free radicals are unbalanced atomic or molecular species that wreak havoc on our tissues, particularly our cell membranes. Kevin likens free radicals to tops spinning out of balance. The unpaired electrons of free radicals are highly unstable, highly reactive, and they’re likely to result in unwanted chemical reactions resulting in damage to our cell membranes – key to the mechanism of cell death.

Possible Anti-Aging Interventions: We discuss the antioxidant vitamins and other antioxidant substances, and the important balance and synergy between them all. We also mention interventions like lifestyle approaches. Also: caloric restriction, optimal balance of our hormones, stem cell therapy and chelation therapy to remove pro-oxidant heavy metals (lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury).

Genes, Antioxidant Enzymes, Telomeres and Stopping the ‘Age Clock’: The genes we inherited from our parents code for the four main antioxidant enzymes in our cells. The proper functioning of these antioxidant enzymes is critical for protecting us from the ravages of oxidation, free radical damage and aging. The four antioxidant enzymes require the minerals selenium, zinc and copper to function properly. The genetics of anti-aging also involves the concept of cellular senescence and the limited ability for our cells to continue to divide, regenerate and replace themselves.  We discuss the programmed shortening of our genes’ telomeres, ‘Hayflick’s clock,’ and how we may someday be able to prevent the shortening of our telomeres for anti-aging purposes.

Why not just live hard, enjoy life and die early, if necessary, for ‘living the good life’? It’s not just about length of life, but quality of life, lived as many years as possible, because quality and length of life are two sides of the same coin and directly proportional to each other.

Oxidative Stress: Mechanism of Cell Death Clarified – Breaking research from Germany. Read the article to learn how oxidation, free radical formation, decreased cellular concentrations of glutathione, and oxidation of the fatty acid arachidonic acid in our cell membranes, are involved in the cellular signaling for apoptosis, programmed cell death. Bottom line with this research: The molecular mechanism of cell death  has been ‘decrypted,’ and oxidative stress is the basis. And critically important to TGM listeners: The cell death could be completely prevented by vitamin E!

Good Medicine Word Of The Week: Oxidative Stress – the underlying process by which we age and die. The antioxidant strategies we’ll continue to discuss on TGM are key to health promotion and ‘anti-aging.’

Next week’s show: Our first installment of Heart of Health – do you have one?

Send TGM #11 to a friend: click here.

Questions for this post: What is aging? And how does the loss of electrons from your electromagnetic body contribute to your ‘bioenergetics’ of aging?

Anti-Aging Medicine is the Empiricism of Today: Contemporary empirically-minded doctors are largely willing to use experience-based evidence as the basis for offering so-called ‘anti-aging’ therapies to their patients. On the opposite extreme, the rationalist, allopathically minded doctors are prone to think and say, “Show me the controlled trials, and give me the FDA’s approval, and then and only then will I recommend the therapy to my patients!” This latter mindset essentially excludes the use of natural, bioenergetic therapeutic approaches and allows for Pharmaceutical-based ‘monopoly medicine’ to predominate – as evidenced by Wyeth Pharmaceutical’s recent attempt to restrict our access to the natural ‘bio-identical’ hormones (as covered on earlier shows).

Best Name for the New Medicine: Anti-Aging Medicine or Integrative Medicine? We think it’s Integrative Medicine – integrating the best evidence-based therapies from all medical disciplines, because that’s what’s probably going to provide us with the strongest ‘anti-aging’ benefits and outcomes.

Aging is the Process By Which We Get Older – And What Process is That? The loss of electrons, ‘oxidation’ and resultant damage from free radicals is fundamental. Add oxidative damage to a weak ‘longevity phenotype‘ and you have the genetic-plus-environmental recipe for early aging and disease. The idea is to take people at any age, in any degree of health, and minimize the oxidative damage going on at the cellular level, so as to promote their health. Better health likely means increased life span, and better quality of life in all realms.

We’re All Electromagnetic Beings Living on and Affected by Electromagnetic Earth. And the future of ‘Anti-Aging’ medicine is bioenergetic medicine, regardless of religion and politics. We know that all matter,  including our bodies, has a wave–particle duality similar to photons of light and light waves of energy. Under the appropriate conditions, electrons and other matter can act with ‘complementarity’ – as either particles or waves – just like light does. This is all part and parcel to the whole area of quantum mechanics, where matter, including your body, is comprised entirely of waves of energy or particles of matter, with both states being ‘merely’ local condensations of the quantum field. Matter is energy; energy is matter, based on the speed of light squared. It’s time to start focusing on, and emphasizing more, the bioenergetic therapies for anti-aging, health and healing.The sooner medicine catches up to the science, the better off we’ll be.

Good Medicine Word of the Week: Oxidation – the loss of electrons from our atoms and molecules.

Next week’s show: We continue to discuss oxidation, and why preventing this loss of electrons – these elementary particles, or waves – and preventing the formation of free radicals as a result, is so important to prevent or slow the ravages of aging. Also how some of the vitamins – and some other natural substances – are really important to quench the ravages of what ages us.

Send TGM #10 to a friend: click here.

New Media Expo:
Anyone interested in the new media – the recent portable, digital, networked information and communication technologies, like podcasting, videocasting, online streaming and blogging – should consider attending the New Media Expo next year.

New Media Means More Good Medicines:
Never before in the history of medicine have we been able to report on medical news and information without boundaries, restrictions or controls. With podcasting there are literally infinite numbers of potential ‘channels and stations’ through which medical truths can be promulgated inexpensively to a global audience. A product we discuss on this show is Cholestin produced by the company Pharmanex (we’d love to have them as a sponsor someday). Cholestin is a safe, inexpensive alternative to the statin drugs, like Lipitor, but it’s a natural ‘red yeast rice’ ferment product which is not patentable and therefore will never likely garner enough profit for Pharmanex, to compete with statin drug advertisements in the ‘old media’ – TV, terrestrial radio and print publications most widely read by doctors. What may be even worse for Cholestin is that the pharmaceutical industry’s front agency, the FDA, is actually trying to label red yeast rice products as drugs, so that the products can be FDA-controlled and more likely to be restricted from competing with the statin drugs. Despite those threats, here’s good news for good medicine: with this new media production, TGM, we are able to get the word out about Cholestin – and about a lot of other good medicines – to a global audience!

New Media Moves Maverick Therapies Into Mainstream – Including Cancer Cures:
If there were a simple, safe, evidence-based cure for cancer do you think it would make the mainstream (’old’) media news today? There is such a cure. No mainstream media outlets are talking about it, but we’re talking about it here on the TGM podcast/webcast. The therapy is an immune system-based approach that mirrors the clear biological model of pregnancy and the onset of labor: the cancer patient rejects, expels the cancer tumor using a biological process similar to the way the mother ultimately rejects, expels the fetus from the womb during delivery. It’s a really powerful and well-documented cancer therapy that’s been around for over 20 years: a simple blood filtration technique developed by oncologist Dr. Rigdon Lentz to remove serum blocking factors produced by the cancer. With this approach to treating cancer the patient is not receiving any systemically toxic drugs or being zapped with high-intensity nuclear radiation, or any radiation for that matter. Instead, the procedure simply filters out factors in the patient’s blood which are blocking, preventing, the immune system from doing its job of attacking and devouring the cancer. Our immune system knows when we have cancer. That’s why during pathology in medical school every single slide of cancer we studied was infiltrated with white blood cells (especially lymphocytes), and that’s why some people have so-called ‘spontaneous remissions’ of their cancer. But in so many cases of cancer, the immune system is blocked by the blocking factors produced by the cancer, so the immune system cells can’t  aggressively and thoroughly attack and kill the cancer. Remove the blocking factors from the blood and you remove the ‘force field’ blocking the immune system attack on the cancer. Dramatic tumor ‘necrolysis’ results. We’ll cover the ‘Lentz Therapy’ in  detail during our upcoming Answers to Cancers installments. The point with this for today’s show is that thanks to the new media we’re able to get the word out about this historically important news, this cure for cancer!

Next week: Our first installment of Amazing Aging. What is aging? Is there really such a thing as ‘anti-aging’ medicine? What can you do to fight the ravages of aging in order to live as healthfully as possible for as long as possible?

Good Medicine Word of the Week: New Media (for the advancement of good medicine). And we’re thankful to have the freedom to use the new media to share insights, knowlege and understanding about good medicine here on That’s Good Medicine!

Send TGM #9 to a friend: click here.

FDA Approval-Based Medicine: The Worst Model for Medicine. Only recently in medical history we’ve been  locked into this drug-pharmaceutical-based model for health care. And it’s probably medical history’s worst model. We should have an entirely separate agency for the evaluation and approval of natural, non-patentable products. The Germans have one: German Commission E.

Natural Products Grandfathered into Our FDA-Approval-Based Health Care Often Discovered Serendipitously. A few examples inclde include penicillin, aspirin, coumadin and EDTA. Another is nattokinase, a possibly safer alternative to coumadin.

Disease Control Does Not Mean Health Promotion. Drugs control various diseases, but they generally only do so by blocking chemical receptors on our cells or inhibit our enzymes.

Importance of Vitamins as Co-Factors in Enzymes. The function of the B-vitamins and many minerals is to serve as ‘co-factors’ inside the enzymes for their proper function for optimal health.

Importance of Adaptogens. These are well documented herbs that increase our resistance to stress, fatigue and anxiety. Examples: ginseng, ashwagandha, cordyceps and a number of mushrooms. We’ll cover them all here on That’s Good Medicine.

Next week: Humankind’s historic progress in finding the end of aging. And here’s history in the making: FDA being sued by a tenacious group of public health advocates because of the agency’s ongoing support of the American Dental Association and the use of mercury amalgams for dental fillings.

Good Medicine word of the week: Adaptogens – single natural botanical products that promote health.

Send TGM #8 to a friend: click here.

Bias and Error in MSNBC Story, Mainstream Doctors Join Anti-Aging Bandwagon. We discuss flaws in the story that are of importance to our listeners

Contemporary Doctors Moving Toward Empiricism on the E-to-R Spectrum: The current shift in thinking from rationalism to empiricism is exemplified by the growing numbers of ‘anti-aging’ doctors, and the growth of other integrative medicine professional organizations – such as the American College for the Advancement of Medicine (ACAM) – embracing many healing approaches (not just ‘anti-aging’).

The Growing Use of Bio-identical Hormones: They’re among the most potent and powerful therapies in the modern-day empiricist’s medicine bag. The natural, normal hormone-receptor electromagnetic interactions are specific and delicate. Why should we be predominately using the foreign, ‘space alien,’ ‘designer drug’ hormones provided by the pharmaceutical industry, instead of the natural, bio-identical hormones?

Anti-Aging Medicine = Modern-Day Empiricism, and Big Pharma Not Happy About It. Wyeth pharmaceuticals petitioned the FDA to regulate compounding pharmacies – our only source of the bioidentical hormones prescribed by integrative medicine doctors. Wyeth’s was successful: In January the FDA ordered a number of compounding pharmacies to stop using one of the three, normal, natural, bio-identical female hormones, estriol, in their compounded products. This is unprecedented in the history of medicine. It’s an obvious attack by a pharmaceutical giant colluding with the FDA. This latest assault on ‘natural medicine’ is part of the ongoing empiricist versus rationalist tensions throughout medical history.

Big Pharma Via FDA Violating our Constitutional Rights? The FDA also ordered the compounding pharmacies to stop using the term “bio-identical” in their hormone replacement formulas. Now, like never before in the history of medicine, we need the new media of podcasting – and probably the likes of Congressman Ron Paul – to protect our medical freedoms, significantly limit government corruption by the pharmaceutical industry and allow for the advancement of good medicine. We need to continually remind ourselves and our government officials: They work for us.

Take Action through the American Association for Health Freedom (AAHF): The FDA has banned the importation of the bio-identical, female hormone estriol into the United States, but a U.S. House resolution deemed FDA’s ban on estriol to be “not in the public interest.” CLICK HERE to: tell your members of Congress to protect your access to natural, bio-identical hormone replacement therapy and to sponsor H. Con. Res. 342.

Good Medicine Word of the Week: Bio-identical hormones. They’re chemical messengers that have the same exact, unique structure that our bodies make naturally, and for which we have perfectly matching receptors on each of our cells. This is in contrast with pharmaceutical hormones: designer drugs with molecular structures similar enough to result in a similar effects on our cell receptors, but still without the same ‘perfect fit’ that the natural hormones have with our receptors. From earlier show: ’space alien’ molecules have ’space alien effects.’

Next Week’s Show: Historical importance of medical serendipity, adaptogens (natural anti-stress medicines), and much more.

Send TGM #7 to a friend: click here.

This is TGM post #6 and installment #3 for the topic History of Healing-History of Killing.

Mainstream Doctors Join Anti-Aging Bandwagon (MSNBC.com): Highlights the “often bitter tension” between conventional medicine (rationalist minded doctors) and the empiricist minded doctors (’anti-aging’ physicians – the largest aggregate of empirically minded contemporary ‘integrative medicine’ doctors today).

Analogy: ‘Anti-aging medicine is to FDA-approval-based medicine now as homeopathy was to allopathic medicine in the 1800s. The same vested interests don’t want to see natural, integrative medicine flourish today.

Prime therapy of concern to modern day drug companies and rationalists : Bio-identical hormones.

Hierarchy of Scientific Study Types from ‘Empiricism to Rationalism’: Case studies, animal experiments, expert opinions, descriptive reports, epidimiology studies, expert concensus, cohort or case-control analyses, non-randomized and randomized controlled trials.

Greatest Obstacle to Mainstreaming Integrative Medicine: Financial Limitations. Big Pharma has more money for: 1) marketing on mainstream media, 2) FDA/AMA/medical board schmoozing, and 3) congressional lobbying. In 2007 the pharmaceutical industry was Washington’s largest lobbying force, according to report by Center for Public Integrity. What was Pharma’s ‘ROI’? They squashed recent Congressional efforts to restrict drug media advertising.

Is ‘Anti-Aging’ Medicine ‘Just About Physicians Trying to Boost Their Income’? That’s what one ‘ivory tower’ doctor said in the MSNBC.com story. Boosting income is part of it, but more important is the steadily growing public demand for therapeutic approaches that promote health.

Are the Rationalist Drug-Oriented Doctors More Mechanically Minded/The Empiricist Integrative Medicine Doctors More Bio-Energetically Minded? One thing the MSNBC story got right was that “most conventional doctors are mechanics. They fix things.” Those are the rationalist physicians of today. Most empirically-minded doctors tend to be healers of the psyche, the nervous system, the endocrine system and the all-important immunological system ( Psychoneuroimmunology, PNI as it’s called). And which therapeutic approaches probably hold greatest promise for the future of our health, healing, prevention and ‘anti-aging’? Bioenergetic approaches.

Good Medicine Word of the Week: Anti-Aging Medicine – the realm of modern-day empiricists. But a better name is Integrative Medicine.

Next Week’s Show: 4th installment of History of Healing – History of Killing. We’ll explore how Big Pharma is in cahoots with the FDA, violating our constitutional rights.

Send TGM #6 to a friend: click here.

Introduction: “The beautiful rests on the foundations of the necessary,” Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thanks for being part of the early TGM experience as we continue to lay the necessary foundation for what we think is beautiful, good medicine. Empirically minded doctors throughout history have had the mindset that evidence from experience – if the evidence has born the test of time – is just as valuable as evidence supported by rigorous scientific research. The practitioners who are more rationalist-minded tend to believe – rationalize – that we shouldn’t offer any therapy unless: A) it’s undergone the gamut of scientific studies to ‘prove’ that it’s safe and effective; and B) unless we’ve fully defined the therapy’s mechanism of action. This is neither practical nor realistic for the advancement of good medicine.

Empiricism at Work Historically: The Homeopaths Introduced Nitroglycerin to Medicine.
Nitroglycerin is a perfect case in point for our discussion today, because back in the 1800s, before the FDA even existed, it was introduced into medicine empirically, not based on controlled scientific studies. And we need to credit and thank the Homeopaths – the chief empiricists of that time – for the fact that the good medicine has been grandfathered into our modern-day ‘standard of care.’

If the Homeopaths Introduced Nitroglycerin into Medicine Today:
The current ‘FDA-Approval-Based’ health care model (the approval of drugs, ‘space alien molecules’) largely controls our health care and it fosters and epitomizes the rationalist mindset. It’s possible that if nitroglycerin were discovered today that we’d never get the medication through the FDA approval process and included in our therapeutic armamentarium.

EDTA Chelation: Contemporary Example of Empirically-Based Therapy.
The NIH Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) for the treatment of cardiovascular did not come about as a result of a pharmaceutical company wanting to get approval for a promising cardiovascular drug, since Abbot lab’s patent on EDTA expired a long time ago. Instead, the NIH trial was initiated largely as a result of public pressure on the NIH – pressure by innovative, contemporary, empirically-minded doctors and their satisfied patients – to get approval for a non-patentable, and thus non-prevailing therapy that empirically really works (based on the historical experiences of doctors and their patients).

Modern-Day Medical Mavericks and Chelation Therapy:
Even to get to the point of now having the NIH trial, a lot of good doctors, empirically-minded practitioners – history’s recent medical heretics – have fought really hard to be able to offer EDTA chelation to their patients.

Insights From Informal Polling of Contemporary Empiricists at ACAM Meetings:
If the vast majority of doctors offering intravenous EDTA chelation to their cardiovascular disease patients (with chest pain and claudication) indicate during a ’straw pole’ that they see – experience – dramatic improvements in their patients, does this really mean anything? To the empirically minded doctor, probably: yes. To the rationalist minded doctor: probably not. The different frames of reference and perceptions regarding the value of empirical evidence illustrate the tension between the empiricists and the rationalists throughout medical history.

Echoes From the Wilds of Good Medicine: Thank you Steve from Arizona for feedback and insights.

Good Medicine Word of the Week: Empiricism – the frame of thought, the mindset for medicine, that experience-based evidence throughout medical history – not necessarily just controlled clinical trials – are really important and valid aspects of good, evidence-based medicine.

Next week’s show: The 3rd installment of History of Healing–History of Killing, with more necessary insights to lay the foundation for TGM.

Good medicine is a beautiful thing. Thanks for being part of it with us!

Send TGM #5 to a friend: click here.

To continue to lay the foundation for That’s Good Medicine, lets talk about:

Why we baby boomers should know and understand medical history: The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see…the age in which they are living. [G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)]. We need to know the past to understand what’s really good medicine! The history of allopathic medicine (conventional, orthodox medicine) has been largely one of suppression both in its therapeutic approaches and politics. And some very important historical milestones are simply left out from most medical history timelines.

Empiricism’ versus ‘Rationalism’: critical foundational concepts for our listeners:

Empiricists – past and present – recognize that medicine is largely based on experience, not rigorous science. Most of our current therapies and therapeutic approaches are not based on scientific studies, nor do we know exactly how a lot of what we do even works, but we use it anyway. The empiricist says, “That’s okay, as long as it works, and it’s safe.”

Rationalist-minded practitioners on the other hand ‘rationalize’ that under all (or most) circumstances – even independent of experience – we should and must define the rationale for every therapeutic approach before we can offer it to our patients. This is neither practical nor possible.

The ongoing tension between empirically-minded practitioners and the rationalists is epitomized historically by the homeopaths versus the druggists, the druggers -  the conventional doctors of the day who have the AMA/rationalist mentality.

Bottom line: 1) Our system of health care, and all systems of health care, have evolved primarily from doctors’ experiences with their patients – real life experimentation figuratively speaking – not from scientific research studies on humans or other animals; 2) TGM listeners’ high point of vantage should allow them to see that the empiricist versus rationalist concept is really a spectrum (not black or white), with each healthcare practitioner poised, in his thinking, at some point between the two poles; 3) The history of medicine is characterized by a perpetual tension between the two ways of thinking, providing a yin-yang balance; 4) Key for the advancement of good medicine is for doctors to find the right spot on the spectrum between empiricism and rationalism, because too much of either is not good medicine.

Echoes from the Wilds of Good Medicine (listener feedback). Lisa from Louisiana wrote:

“I have listened to your first few episodes and I am very excited that you are doing this for us who are out there looking for ways to take our health into our own hands by searching for information. I must comment on one thing though: Your target audience. I understand that the majority of your listeners may be baby boomers but don’t forget about those of us out there who do not fit into that category. I, for instance, am 37 yrs old and have lived with Ulcerative Colitis [UC] for 13 years. Keep up the good work. I’m looking forward to you next show.”

Thanks Lisa. Please always know that we Baby Boomers (from the love generation) welcome you and all other X-Geners to TGM!

Integrative Medicine Approaches for Ulcerative Colitis: At Kevin’s insistence, in response to Lisa’s feedback, we mention a few integrative medicine approaches for UC, which we’ll cover in depth on future shows, and the new discovery that UC is caused from an immune deficiency – more specifically and importantly, it occurs from autoimmunity. It’s an auto-immune condition due to dysbiosis in the gut when white blood cells capture antigens of foreign microbes and activate the immune defenses. This emphasizes the critical importance of gastrointestinal health and the potential for probiotics for health and healing!

Good Medicine Word of the Week: Rationalism: the belief that under all or most circumstances we must use scientific studies to fully define the rationale for every therapeutic approach, before we can offer it to our patients. This is not rational for the advancement of good medicine!

Next week’s show: 2nd installment of History of Healing-History of Killing. Nitroglycerine is a really good medicine. Is our current use of it based on scientific studies? Which empiricists of the 1800s are responsible for our current use nitroglycerine? The homeopaths! We’ll also discuss: why contemporary doctors are positioning themselves more and more toward the pole of empiricism; the concept of health promotion versus disease control; and why the new model of health care that we’re currently dominated by – the FDA Approval-Based Health Care’ Model – is not good medicine.

Send TGM #4 to a friend: click here.

Drugs – pharmaceuticals – are ’space alien molecules’: As Dr. Jonathan Wright described them on last week’s show, drugs are foreign to earth and foreign to our bodies. Drugs aren’t ‘just another consumer product’ advertised on TV. They affect our metabolism – our ‘bio-chemistry’ – powerfully and profoundly.

Will the Real Alternative Medicine Please Stand Up? Drugs – as recent inventions – are the real ‘alternative medicines’ (alternatives to natural therapeutics).

Alien Molecules Have Alien Effects: Dr. Wright asked: “Any time we take a molecule that has never been found naturally on the planet (and thus never found in the human body) and give it to humans, what should we expect?” Answer: Expect ‘alien effects’ on our chemistries (our biochemistries). We can’t and shouldn’t throw out all drugs, but it’s time to put more emphasis on science-based natural therapies.

If It Isn’t ‘Bio-Logical, It Isn’t Logical: We think our baby boomer listeners need to remember that we’re all animals living in nature, and we need to start integrating into our own health care plans a lot more of the molecules and modalities which nature has to offer, including lifestyle medicine approaches (we’ll cover lifestyle on upcoming Start-a-New installments).

Control Means Power, Power Means Control: Listen and learn why patent medicines – pharmaceuticals, drugs – give the FDA extensive power, and why the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry have so much control over our health care choices. Why are drugs so entrenched into US health care, while many effective, inexpensive natural products continue to struggle for a place in the market? And why do patent medicines set the FDA up for corruption by pharmaceutical companies? We discuss why.

Approval Power Means Control: We highlight the natural omega-3 fatty acid, DHA (docosahenoic acid) as an example of a natural product (for prevention of Alzheimer’s dementia) which – due to FDA politics – is unlikely to ever get FDA approval, and thus to ever become ’standard of care,’ and covered by our health insurance policies.

We Become Silent (the movie): click here. Government intrusions into our freedoms and privacy aren’t just from of the effects of 21st century religious terrorism, but also from issues around natural therapies. See why our federal government and global forces – the W.T.O. and U.N. – want to take control of the supply of natural products with Codex Alimentarius. What’s the simplest way to acquire that control? Simply reclassify natural products as drugs. Now there’s a twist.

Good Medicine Word of the Week: Patent Medicines – human-altered or human-synthesized chemicals, designer drugs, which can be patented. Nature holds the ‘creative rights’ to natural molecules, which therefore cannot be patented.

Next week’s show: 1st installment of History of Killing/History of Healing – the real history of medicine – to continue laying the foundation for That’s Good Medicine.

Send TGM #3 to a friend: click here.

Critiques and Criticisms of the Dis-ease Management System

Hear this:

Tahoma Clinic FDA Raid: We discuss the historic Tahoma Clinic raid of 1992 when armed FDA agents stormed Dr. Wright’s medical practice during clinic hours. What onerous things was Dr. Wright doing to his patients to incite the wrath of a federal agency to terrorize him and his patients? He was administering intravenous (IV) vitamins and recommending the amino acid tryptophan to some of his patients. The FDA agents confiscated Dr. Wright’s patient records, his computers and medical supplies and didn’t return them for 3 years. The FDA doesn’t have the authority to regulate patient care. What’s amazing is that Dr. Wright was never charged of wrongdoing. The raid on Dr. Wright’s clinic was one of the first forays in a campaign of terror by the FDA to send messages to integrative medicine doctors and natural product companies that they could be raided and shut down too. How would you feel if the FDA confiscated your medical records from your doctor? Why did this really happen? Is this sort of despotism by our federal government a thing of the past? Maybe not. Dr. Douglass thinks Congressman Ron Paul for President was (is?) one of our only hopes for protecting health freedoms.

Interview with Dr.Jonathan Wright: What’s the real ‘alternative medicine’? Hint: It’s about ’space alien molecules.’

Good Medicine Word of the Week: Patent Medicines. What we know as pharmaceuticals, or ‘drugs,’ are really patent medicines (‘space alien molecules’ – as Dr. Wright described them). The FDA essentially approves only pharmaceuticals (’designer drugs’), not natural products. And this approval process gives the FDA tremendous power.

Next week’s show: Part3 of this 3-part Dropping the Bomb series. We’ll reflect on what Dr. Wright taught us during today’s interview, and why patent medicines (’drugs’) give the FDA so much power. And why this is important for you to understand, as we explore – on future installments – the global power play between conventional (’allopathic’) medicine and integrative medicine.

Send TGM #2 to a friend: click here.

Learn the whos, whats, whens and whys of That’s Good Medicine:

Why: To teach science-based health and healing modalities – especially natural approaches – not just drugs and surgery. And to help listeners sort through the plethora of health information. Imparting health wisdom for making wiser choices.

Who: Dr. Douglass and host, Kevin Kilpatrick are introduced, as are medical social worker Kathy Jo King and audio engineer Chester Cruise. And who are in our target audience? Intelligent, open-minded baby boomers around the world (folks born between 1946 and 1964, currently between 44 and 62 years old).

What: Content will consist of ‘integrative medicine’ topics (previously called ‘alternative’ or ‘complementary-alternative’ medicine). Employing topic-specific installments (such as this ‘Dropping the Bomb’ series) we’ll look at the science behind subjects like nutrition, herbal medicine, energy medicine, stem cell therapy, body work, detoxification strategies, and lots more.

When and How Much: Weekly 15-20 minute shows.

Good Medicine Word of the Week: Integrative Medicine – integrating the best evidence-based therapies from all medical disciplines.

Next week’s show: On the second part of this 2-part Dropping the Bomb series, we’ll interview medical maverick and integrative medicine pioneer Dr. Jonathan Wright. Focus: the concept of how ‘modern man’ uses – almost exclusively – only synthetic, artificial medications in our system of disease care – drugs which are not only foreign to the body, but foreign to nature too. We’ll discuss why this has come about. Prior to the interview we’ll discuss the famous Tahoma Clinic FDA Raid of 1992 when Armed FDA agents smashed through the door of Dr. Wright’s clinic during clinic hours and confiscated patients’ records, the clinic’s computers and Dr. Wright’s medical/nutritional supplies. And what was Dr. Wright’s ‘crime’? He was administering intravenous vitamins to his patients.

Send TGM #1 to a friend: click here.