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Most people, including
physicians, are not aware of the medical politics, legal machinations
and economic sanctions that covertly control the practice of medicine
in the United States. A physician who introduces an innovative and
nontraditional type of therapy often becomes the target of those
forces. That is especially true if a new therapy, like
EDTA chelation:
1) involves a major shift in the scientific paradigm; 2) if acceptance
of the new therapy somehow implies that currently used medical
practices are inappropriate; or 3) if the new therapy threatens the
financial well being of a politically powerful and well established
branch of the medical profession. Quite the opposite occurred with the
immediate and widespread acceptance of bypass surgery and balloon
angioplasty, which quickly brought wealth and fame to surgeons,
cardiologists, large teams of health care professionals, and the
hospital industry.
When a radical new
therapy like chelation is first introduced, physicians who do not
utilize that therapy feel threatened, both professionally and
financially. Their professional integrity is threatened by
obsolescence of their scientific knowledge and they lose patients who
seek out the new therapy. They forget that if their established
treatments were really successful, and without major disadvantages,
patients would not look to another type of treatment.
As with EDTA chelation
therapy, major pressures are brought to bear on the "deviant"
physician to coerce him back into the accepted mold. He is ostracized
by his peers; he comes under professional attack for "lack of ethics;"
his medical and mental competence are questioned; he is accused of
"exploiting" his patients for personal gain; and epithets of "quack"
and "charlatan" are hurled his way. Ad hominum attacks are common, in
the absence of more cogent and scientific criticisms.
Well known historical
examples of that phenomenon occurred with the introduction of the germ
theory of disease. That simple concept took 50 years for complete
acceptance by the medical profession.
Lister was viciously
attacked when he proposed that wound infections were not inevitable
after surgery if aseptic techniques were used. Semmelweis was likewise
dealt with when he urged doctors to wash their hands before delivering
babies to prevent maternal deaths from puerperal sepsis. Lister's
recommendations were not accepted by mainstream medicine for many
decades, and Semmelwels was persecuted to his death by medical
colleagues, who were incensed by the notion that they themselves
transmitted disease from patient to patient on their unwashed hands.
Has human nature changed since that time?
The history of medicine is replete
with examples of medical "heretics" who were eventually credited with
major advances. They were often not recognized for their achievements
until after death. Paracelsus, for example, is exalted as one of the
great pioneers in medicine, but he was the original "quack" in his own
time. Paracelsus introduced the use of mercury to treat syphilis.
There was no other cure for syphilis at the time, although, as with
many treatments today, the lethal dose of mercury was close to the
therapeutic dose. Paracelsus was viciously attacked by his medical
peers and derisively called a "quack" (short for "quacksalber," the
old German word for mercury).
Inertia in science and medicine is a
powerful force and is reinforced by major economic and legal forces in
the United States. Many industries and special interest groups that
are politically and economically powerful would be hurt financially if
chelation therapy were to become more widely accepted. Those same
industries have a major influence in our society at all levels. Grants
for university and medical school research often stem from those same
sources. They spend heavily to lobby for laws, regulations and
government funded medical research to favor their own interests and to
suppress competition. It is difficult to obtain NIH research funds in
the face of opposition from powerful lobbies that occur when that
research goes against those special interests.
Those same special interests have a
major influence on lay and professional exposure through the news
media. Advertising revenues are essential to the survival of medical
journals, newspapers, magazines, television and radio. Even with
freedom of the press, the media cannot survive without advertising
revenues. There often exists an understandable reluctance to bite the
hand that feeds them. It is difficult to educate the public and the
medical profession about new developments without media cooperation.
Medical schools also cannot afford to offend their corporate sources
of research funds.
The welfare of the American public is
often pushed aside by the industrial quest for profits and pressures
to suppress competition. Every industry wants a monopoly, if that can
be achieved. Mainstream medicine has come very close to that goal.
Scientific arrogance is commonplace.
Physicians consider themselves to be experts in their own field. If a
majority of physicians do not endorse a new therapy, they collectively
rely on public recognition of their own "expertise" to discount a new
concept that they themselves have not yet embraced. They forget that
all great advances in medicine began with a small minority. Their
thinking tends to follow along these lines: "If I'm the expert and I
don't use this new therapy and if my many colleagues and peers are
experts and they don't believe in the new therapy, then we must be
right and that small group of physicians who believe differently must
be wrong. We're the experts."
The most frequent criticism leveled by
critics of non-traditional and alternative medical therapies is that
new treatments are "unproven" because randomized, double-blind,
controlled studies have not yet been done to prove effectiveness.
Those criticisms ignore the fact that most medical procedures
routinely performed in the practice of medicine are also unproven
using those same criteria.
The Office of Technology Assessment, a
branch of the United States Congress, with the help of an advisory
board of eminent university faculty, has published a report with the
conclusion that, " . . . only 10 to 20 percent of all procedures
currently used in medical practice have been shown to be efficacious
by controlled trial." Therefore, 80% to 90% of medical procedures
routinely performed are unproven.1 That report further points out that
the research which purports to prove effectiveness of the remaining
10% to 20% of medical procedures is largely flawed, and " . . many of
the other procedures may not be efficacious." The most frequent reason
for not accepting the value of EDTA chelation therapy reflects a
flagrant double standard.
A complete program of chelation
therapy involves dietary changes, away from highly refined and
processed foods. The use of nonprescription nutritional supplements is
emphasized more than expensive and highly profitable drugs
manufactured by the pharmaceutical industry. Chelation therapy is
performed in doctors' offices, without the need for hospitals,
surgeons, cardiologists and the large team of health professionals who
profit greatly in dollars and reputation from the $6 billion per year
bypass surgery and balloon angioplasty industry.
For obvious reasons, double-blind
studies have never been done to prove or disprove clinical benefits
from bypass surgery or balloon angioplasty. The effectiveness of EDTA
chelation therapy has been clinically proven to the same extent as
bypass surgery and angioplasty, or more so, as established by the
clinical data published in the TEXTBOOK OF EDTA CHELATION THERAPY.
Recent reports conclude that from 44%
to 85% of coronary artery bypass surgery is routinely performed on
patients who do not meet the criteria for benefit, even using
standards derived from non-blinded studies.2-9 The media consistently
makes light of such flagrant abuses of surgery, while widely
publicizing any hint of "quackery" associated with chelation. The
American Medical Association, in its official journal (JAMA), admits
that 44% of all coronary artery bypass surgery is done for
inappropriate reasons.9
When a therapy is widely accepted by
the medical profession, no scientific proof of effectiveness is
required, and anecdotal evidence is accepted as valid. If an
alternative therapy is contested by those physicians, however, they
attack by demanding that the therapy in question be subjected to very
expensive and time-consuming double-blind, placebo controlled trials.
Medicare regulations also exclude the need for scientific proof for
treatments that are utilized by a majority of physicians. The federal
government thereby adds support to this double standard.
In the case of EDTA, those demands
ignore the fact that it would normally cost millions of dollars for
double-blind studies to prove effectiveness, and public funding for
medical research cannot be obtained without political support. Without
patent protection, pharmaceutical manufacturers will likewise not fund
that research. The cost and time required for research of that scope
is also beyond the resources of the clinicians in private practice who
utilize chelation therapy. EDTA chelation therapy has therefore been
an "orphan" without a source of financial support for research.
Despite those drawbacks, even in the
face of a severe and unjust double standard imposed by opponents,
research money has been successfully obtained from private foundations
and from patients and physicians who believe in this treatment.
Patients have been accepted into double-blind studies, beginning in
mid-1988 [not completed for political reasons].
Deprived of reimbursement by medical
insurance, patients have thus far paid for EDTA chelation therapy
entirely from their own pockets. If Medicare refuses to pay for a
therapy, most other insurance companies follow suit. It costs far more
to fight those unjust policies in court than to pay for the treatment.
Historical examples of similar
campaigns to control the practice of medicine, in favor of organized
medicine and other special interests, against the public interest, are
easy to find. As many innovative physicians have discovered, one of
the quickest ways to become the target of opposing forces is to
utilize nutritional or other nontoxic and noninvasive treatments for
cancer.
On August 3, 1953, Charles W. Tobey
Jr., son of the late Senator Charles Tobey, Chairman of the Senate
Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, entered into the
Congressional Record a report of an investigation by Benedict F.
Fitzgerald Jr., Special Counsel to the Committee on Interstate and
Foreign Commerce. Fitzgerald's investigation was directed at an
alleged conspiracy to suppress what, in the 1950s, would have been
considered alternative methods of treating cancer. His findings could
equally have been applied to other innovative and nontraditional
methods of treating any disease.
Fitzgerald criticized those who
supported the party line of the American Medical Association (AMA),
and who applied themselves to efforts to hinder, suppress, and
restrict the free use of new therapies. Those therapies included
medicines that were supported by evidence of success from clinical
records, case histories, pathological reports, and x-ray and other
photographic proof, together with living testimony of former cancer
victims. Fitzgerald concluded that a conspiracy existed, and that
public and private funds had been "thrown round like confetti at a
country fair" to shut down clinics, hospitals and research
laboratories which did not conform to the AMA's viewpoint.
Investigation tactics used against
emerging and nontraditional medical therapies show a consistent
pattern of: 1) arrogance; 2) a sense of mission and of knowing what is
best and right for other people; 3) depriving citizens of their
constitutionally protected rights to freedom of choice; and, 4)
acceptance of the concept that the end justifies the means. Opponents
of nontraditional therapies have viewed as legitimate activities:
disinformation, smear campaigns, harassment, instituting IRS tax
audits, encouraging patients to sue physicians, entrapment, illegal
wiretaps, and possibly even break-ins. These tactics have been used
against physicians for nothing more serious than administering
intravenous EDTA chelation therapy.
When evidence, real or fabricated, is
uncovered which is unfavorable to the targeted physician, a
representative of the opposition will contact the state board of
medical examiners, asking for an official investigation and
prosecution. Pressures are brought on the physician to cease and
desist his aberrant practices or lose his license to practice
medicine.
Investigations and proceedings of
licensing boards are often confidential and not available, even to the
physician under investigation. By definition, it is difficult for an
outsider to learn all of the specifics of such covert tactics,
although a good approximation of how these things work has gradually
emerged over the years.
The power structure of organized
medicine may be visualized as a pyramid, with the sides composed of
different physician specialty associations, each with its own special
interests to protect. The result may be collectively called "organized
medicine." The apex of the pyramid represents the governing boards and
officers of those groups, while the base represents the broad general
membership. Local and state chapters centralize the power and
influence from the base upward to the national level. This pyramidal
structure in medical politics forms the basis for a conspiracy that
operates in coalition with other groups to benefit the individuals who
compose the core of the pyramid. Although the composite organizations
draw authority to sanction their collective actions from individual
members, those members are often unaware of the larger structure
within which power brokers and medical politicians operate.
By representing almost every
practicing physician and specialty group in the country, this
coalition has enormous influence in the affairs of our nation. That is
especially true when an alliance is formed between organized medicine,
the pharmaceutical industry and food processing corporations. The food
industry profits greatly from sales of margarine, unsaturated fats,
fake eggs, and other refined and fractionated foods with the
endorsement of physicians.
The AMA and other segments of
organized medicine are second only to the National Rifle Association
in political campaign contributions to senators and congressmen at the
national level. They give more than any other special interest groups
in the country. Through political influence, bought and paid for, the
policies of public institutions and federal and state agencies can be
influenced by this group, including medical schools and universities,
HHS, PHS, FDA, FTC, NIH, state medical licensing boards, etc. When a
physician is selected for censure by organized medicine, the FDA, FBI,
IRS, postal inspectors, district attorneys, Antifraud Division of
Medicare and other agencies with quasi-police powers are quick to join
the fray. This has occurred to physicians who have had the courage to
offer EDTA chelation therapy to their patients.
An average of approximately 60% of all
state medical licensing boards' time is spent confronting,
rehabilitating or defrocking physicians who are impaired or otherwise
incompetent. Most of those are chemically dependent on alcohol and
drugs. Increasingly, addicted physicians are being successfully
rehabilitated, with the help of medical societies and recovered
physicians. That function is truly in the best interests of both the
medical profession and the consumer.
The remaining 40% of state medical
licensing boards' time is, on the average, spent "witch-hunting," in
the manner described above, in an effort to control the practice of
medicine. The result is to force conformance with majority practices
and to protect the medical profession against financial competition
from "maverick" physicians who are bold enough to espouse innovative
practices ahead of their peers. Restraint of trade and government
support of a medical monopoly is the bottom line.
All too often, academic physicians on
medical school faculties and research scientists allow themselves to
be influenced by propaganda and disinformation, instead of obtaining
the true facts and relying on their own analytical abilities and
scientific methodology to determine the truth. The overwhelming
majority of physicians in clinical practice appear to be totally
unaware that a conspiracy exists and that covert activities are
routinely taking place to protect their monopoly and to prevent
competition.
The AMA Coordinating Conference on
Health Information (CCHI) was formed in 1964, as an offshoot of the
AMA's Committee on Quackery.10 All responsible citizens, by
definition, must be opposed to quackery. The main difference between
the AMA Committee on Quackery and the newly formed CCHI was that the
CCHI was a totally secret and covert organization which functioned in
coalition in a network with other, similar groups. The CCHI operates
in partnership with the National Council on Health Fraud with regional
chapters in many states. The director of each regional chapter must
swear to an oath of secrecy. National and regional chapters of the
Council on Health Fraud stay in communication with individual members
of each state's board of medical licensing examiners. The CCHI
operates through this secretive network, without access from public
scrutiny. There are no checks and balances.
Both the CCHI and the National Council
on Health Fraud purport to be scientific and authoritative sources of
information. A significant portion of their activities, however, have
nothing to do with real quackery, but are rather a means to coerce
practitioners of medicine to adhere to practices approved by medical
politicians. The end result is to preserve certain monopolistic and
economic advantages enjoyed by organized medicine.
An important reason that research into
the use of EDTA in the treatment of atherosclerosis and its
complications stopped after 1960, until the mid 1980s, was because of
an active and vicious campaign of misinformation and unjust harassment
of physicians who used EDTA in their practices. Scientific researchers
who showed an interest were also discouraged and harassed.
Practicing physicians who used EDTA
have been summoned to appear before state boards of medical examiners
to answer complaints. Charges were often contrived and rarely
documented by careful investigation. The Federation of State Boards of
Medical Examiners is associated with the CCHI network. State boards of
medical examiners are legally constituted bodies that have ultimate
authority to revoke a physician's license to practice medicine.
Medical licensing boards in at least six states have attempted to
mandate a blanket prohibition against chelation therapy within their
states. Fortunately, the courts have been quick to nullify most such
arbitrary rulings.
EDTA is already on the market as a
legitimate pharmaceutical agent to treat lead toxicity, digitalis
toxicity and acute hypercalcemia. EDTA is legally available for
physician use, and it is quite legal for any licensed physician to
utilize a drug for any purpose which, in that physician's judgment is
best for his patient. The only restriction is that pharmaceutical
companies that manufacture EDTA cannot make advertising and marketing
claims of effectiveness in the treatment of atherosclerosis, in the
absence of FDA approval for that indication.
The patent on EDTA expired many years
ago. It is now a generic drug. Any drug company can manufacture and
sell EDTA. There is no longer any patent protection to allow recovery
of research, development and licensing costs. It customarily costs a
drug company millions of dollars for research and paperwork to satisfy
FDA requirements for the addition of a new therapeutic claim to the
package insert of an established drug such as EDTA. No company will
spend the money without the ability to recover those costs in the
marketplace. This lack of FDA approval for atherosclerosis is commonly
used against physicians by opponents of chelation, although it has
always been a fully accepted and common practice for doctors to use
medicines for diseases not yet approved by the FDA. This is another
blatant example of double standard.
A communication from Dr. John Parks
Trowbridge, a physician using chelation therapy in Texas, dated August
1986, illustrates very succinctly the difficulties physicians have
encountered when they offer chelation therapy to their patients. The
following illustrates how the system of repression often works:
In the last 90 days, at least 3
chelating physicians have been hauled before the board—1 lost license,
2 threatened. We've been put 'on notice,' through one who was
threatened, that they were going to 'get' each of us, one by one.
Such legal harassment can bankrupt a
doctor in order to pay the legal fees to defend himself against
ongoing attacks by legally constituted agencies. Due process is a
constitutional right but can be very expensive. The state pays its
attorneys and legal costs with public funds. An unjustly accused
physician must defend himself at his own expense. That is the basis
for a tactic used by state licensing boards to keep up the pressure
until a targeted doctor can no longer afford to pay for his defense.
At that point, more than one highly competent and ethical physician
has submitted to injustice and agreed to stop using EDTA chelation
therapy in his practice, accepting probation and censure, just to end
the mounting legal expenses and other stresses of harassment.
The original motivation to discredit
EDTA as a treatment for atherosclerosis may have stemmed from
ignorance of its benefit and arrogance in the belief that EDTA was
dangerous treatment and that it did not work. The motivation may have
once been to weed out fraud and quackery. With the development of
enormously profitable coronary artery bypass surgery and angioplasty,
however, not to mention peripheral and carotid artery surgery, it is
obvious that many influential groups in organized medicine and the
hospital industry would suffer greatly if EDTA chelation therapy,
administered in physicians' offices at approximately 10% of the cost,
became widely accepted. That now seems to be the most significant
reason for ongoing attempts to suppress the practice and clinical
investigation of EDTA chelation therapy. What other explanation could
there be in the face of the large body of clinical and scientific data
in support of EDTA chelation therapy?
In recent years, mainstream medical
journals have refused to publish the results of research of EDTA
chelation therapy for atherosclerosis, while at the same time
publishing many frivolous letters to the editor and editorial comments
criticizing chelation therapy. This ongoing editorial bias and
censorship have largely prevented ready access by interested
clinicians and, researchers to favorable clinical data. Most
literature searches begin and end with the Index Medicus or its
electronic counterpart, the MEDLINE computer database. Recent studies
of chelation therapy have been published in less widely circulated
journals, many of which are not included in the Index Medicus.
Most physicians and medical students
are not aware that only 10% of the world's total biomedical literature
can be found in those databases.11 If a physician becomes interested
enough to do a computer search of EDTA chelation therapy for treatment
of atherosclerosis, he will find a plethora of negative editorial
comment and propaganda, but no negative data to support that
criticism. Most clinical data to support the effectiveness of EDTA in
treatment of atherosclerosis has appeared in journals that are not
listed in easily accessible references. [The most pertinent of that
data is summarized on this website.]
The first randomized, double-blind,
controlled study of EDTA chelation therapy for treatment of
atherosclerosis was conducted by Professor Doctor Schettler, et al, in
the clinics of the University Hospital in Heidelberg, West Germany,
while Dr. Schettler was Chairman of the Department of Internal
Medicine and President of the International Atherosclerosis Research
Association. That study was funded by Thiemann Pharmaceutical Company,
manufacturers of the platelet inhibitor, bencyclan, marketed as
Fludilat®. Fludilat® is widely prescribed in Europe to treat
atherosclerosis. EDTA chelation therapy was compared with bencyclan.
It is unknown why a pharmaceutical
company would fund a study of a generic drug for which the patent had
expired. It is possible that Thiemann believed AMA propaganda stating
that EDTA was ineffective. Why else would Thiemann put EDTA up against
their own Fludilatl®?
Thiemann did take precautions,
however. When the grant was awarded, Thiemann reserved the right, in
its written contract with Schettler, to edit any published reports of
the study. Thiemann reserved the right to interpret the final data for
publication and to do the statistical analysis themselves. All
recorded data from the study were to be the property of Thiemann. It
was agreed that all data would be given to Thiemann at the end of the
study. Such a contract seems to eliminate the possibility of an
unbiased report, and it eliminates free access to the original data by
other investigators.
A total of approximately 48 patients
were treated, 24 in the Fludilat® group and 24 in the EDTA group.
Disodium EDTA was administered in a dose of 2.5 gms in 500 ml 1/2N
Saline. Treatments were given five days each week for a total of four
weeks. Each patient received 20 infusions. Only patients with
peripheral vascular disease who could not walk 200 meters without pain
of claudication were included in the study. Pain-free walking distance
was measured before, during and after therapy on a treadmill, at 3.5
km/hr with a 10% uphill gradient.
The measured results showed a 250%
increase in distance walked before onset of claudication pain in the
EDTA-treated group after four weeks of therapy. By comparison, there
was only a 60% increase in the bencyclan group. Bencyclan, however, is
a drug proven to be of benefit in this disease and is widely
prescribed in Europe for that indication.
There were four patients in the EDTA
group who experienced more than a 1,000-meter increase in their
pain-free walking distance at the end of only 30 days treatment.
Highly favorable data from those four patients mysteriously
disappeared when the final results were made public. Thiemann, of
course, had a legal right under terms of their contract to edit the
final results and to interpret the data in any way that suited them.
Their final report contained data that reduced observed benefit from
EDTA by 72%, from 250% increase to only 70%. The fact that data from
the best EDTA responders were altered would not have been known if
scientists from Heidelberg with intimate knowledge of the study had
not been shocked by what they considered unethical and dishonest
scientific conduct. Raw data from the study were personally delivered
to an official of ACAM for an independent interpretation.
The fact that a highly placed
representative of American organized medicine went to Heidelberg and
met with Dr. Schettler while the study was in progress may or may not
be significant.
The study was reported at the Seventh
Atherosclerosis Congress in Melbourne, Australia, 1985. An attachment
to the abstract of that presentation, available at the meeting,
contained a graphic plot of pain-free walking distance extending out
to three months after the end of therapy. By that time, even using the
modified data made public, the increase in pain-free walking distance
in the EDTA-treated patients had increased to 430% of the baseline,
while bencyclan-treated patients averaged less than half that much
with no significant improvement after therapy was stopped at 30 days.
Nothing in the text of the abstract described that graphically
depicted observation, despite its great clinical significance in
proving the effectiveness of EDTA chelation therapy. The report
analyzed data only to the end of 30 days, when the bencyclan and EDTA
groups had responded equally. It is well known that full benefit from
EDTA is often delayed for up to three months after therapy.
When deleted data from the EDTA
subjects with maximum relief of symptoms is considered, average
walking distance increased by more than 400% three months following
EDTA chelation therapy.
The data reported in Australia show
only a 70% average increase in pain-free walking distance in the
EDTA-treated group (instead of the 250% increase at 30 days indicated
by the raw data) and was compared with a 76% average increase in the
group treated with bencyclan. Even that amount of improvement is
significant. It is rare for placebo effect alone to exceed 33%.
The only patient death was in the
bencyclan group. No serious side effects were observed from EDTA. The
reportedly negative results of this study received widespread coverage
in the news media, but the data were never published in a
peer-reviewed journal. Furthermore, the press release stated that
"EDTA was no better than a lacebo," without mentioning that the
"placebo" in this case was Thiemann Pharmaceutical's very own Fludilat®,
a proven effective drug.
By way of comparison, in the study
which resulted in U. S. FDA approval of pentoxifylline (Trental®), for
the treatment of claudication, walking distance before pain of
claudication increased by only an average 25% over baseline with
treatment. Nonetheless, that small amount of improvement was
considered statistically significant and Trental® was approved for
marketing by the FDA. EDTA was more than twice as effective, even
using the publicly announced results of the Heidelberg study.
The intensity of the attitudes and the
arrogance that has lead to a conspiracy of this enormity will
ultimately be responsible for its exposure and eventual downfall. It
might be argued by some that such a strategy was justified as a means
of eliminating widespread quackery. But who is to decide what is
quackery, and who is to give a self appointed group of physicians with
vested interests in competing therapies the right to assume that they
alone know what constitutes quackery and what is in the public's best
interest?
With 800,000 people per year dying in
the United States alone from atherosclerosis and its complications,
despite the best of high-technology hospital and surgical care that is
available, it is imperative that the public be given the option to
receive EDTA chelation therapy. It would be senseless and even
criminal for medical insurance companies to continue to deny payment
for a therapy which has the potential to greatly reduce long-term
medical expenditures by reducing the need for far more expensive
hospitalization, surgery or angioplasty. Savings to medical insurance
companies with resulting reduction in insurance premiums could be
great.
A physician signatory to the
Constitution of the United States of America, Dr. Benjamin Rush,
wrote:
The Constitution of the Republic
should make special provisions for medical freedom as well as
religious freedom. To restrict the art of healing to one class of men
and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of
medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic.
The chiropractic profession was the
first to feel the sting of the CCHI. On August 28, 1987, Federal
District Judge Susan Getzendanner ruled that the AMA led an effort to
destroy the chiropractic profession by engaging in "systematic,
long-term wrong-doing with the long-term intent to destroy a licensed
profession." That was also the ruling in an anti-trust lawsuit filed
in 1976.
The "conspiracy" described in this
chapter cannot be dismissed and called paranoid or a figment of
someone's imagination. Chiropractic physicians were not the only
target. With ample funding from membership dues, enormous real estate
holdings, and advertising revenues from their many publications,
supplemented by contributions to the Council(s) on Health Fraud by the
pharmaceutical industry, food processing companies, and others, the
AMA and organized medicine has led efforts to discredit EDTA chelation
therapy and nearly every other therapy that is less invasive, less
toxic, nutritionally oriented or more natural, when such treatments
have competed directly with mainstream physicians for patients and
health care dollars.
It is hoped that the information in
this book, together with results of research now underway, will
eventually cause the medical profession and victims of atherosclerosis
to become more open-minded and receptive to the benefits of EDTA
chelation therapy.
References:
Assessing the Efficacy and Safety of
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Office of Technology Assessment, Publication No. 052003-00593-0.
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Preston TA: Marketing an operation:
Coronary artery bypass surgery. J Holistic Med 1985;7(1):8-15.
Luchi RJ, Scott SM, Deupree RH, et al:
Comparison of medical and surgical treatment for unstable angina
pectoris. N Engl J Med 1987;316(16):977-984.
Cass Principal Investigators and Their
Associates: Coronary artery surgery study (CASS): A randomized trial
of coronary artery bypass surgery. Circulation 1983; 68(5):951-960.
Cass Principal Investigators and Their
Associates: Myocardial infarction and mortality in the coronary artery
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1984;310(12):750-758.
Glagov S, Weisenberg E, Zarins CK, et
al: Compensatory enlargement of human atherosclerotic coronary
arteries. N Engl J Med 1987;316(22):1371-1375.
Paulin S: Assessing the severity of
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Cashin LW, Sanmarco ME, Nessim SA,
Blankenhorn DH: Accelerated progression of atherosclerosis in coronary
vessels with minimal lesions that are bypassed. N Engl J Med
1984;311(13):824-828.
Winslow CM, Kosecoff JB, Chassin M, et
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