Amish girl forced into chemotherapy?

From David Michael, on the Journal of Natural Food and Health:

“Early in October 2013, the entire nation heard about how Sarah Hershberger, a 10-year old Ohio Amish girl with leukemia (now recovered), is being forced into a two-year unproven experimental chemotherapy study by Akron Children’s Hospital (ACH). It was just learned the parents, Andy and Anna Hershberger, took their significantly recovered daughter out of the United States before the court ruled that a hospital-affiliated, attorney-nurse, Maria Schimer, was made the medical guardian to make sure Sarah will get her treatments.

State interference in parenting choices?

A word to the wise from Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist:

Mother and baby, photo via The Healthy Home Economist

“Warning to all parents who make healthy homemade baby formula for their children instead of feeding them toxic, GMO laced commercial formula.

DON’T tell a conventionally minded doctor about it else your baby might end up in foster care!

This is the nightmare Alorah Gellerson of Brooklin, Maine is experiencing right now because she made the mistake of telling her doctor about the homemade goat milk formula she proudly and carefully makes for her healthy, happy, three-month old son Carson.

The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) quickly responded when the doctor reported Alorah and that’s when things got messy.

So, is raw milk really dangerous?

From Chris Kresser, on his blog “Medicine for the 21st Century”:

“Back in February, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) published a study targeting raw milk as dangerous and unsafe for human consumption. The media jumped on it in typical fashion. You may have seen headlines like this:

“Raw Milk Causes Most Illnesses From Dairy, Study Finds.”
– USA Today

“CDC: Raw Milk Much More Likely to Cause Illness.”
– Food Safety News

“Raw Milk is a Raw Deal, CDC Says.”
– LiveScience

While two of these headlines are technically accurate – raw milk is responsible for more illnesses than pasteurized milk when the number of people who consume each is taken into account – the concern they convey about the risk of drinking unpasteurized milk is dramatically overstated.

What new pathogens are we creating?

We’ve probably all heard how development of the dreaded E.coli O157 has been credited to confined cattle feeding operations of the 80s, and that MRSA has been linked to pig CAFOs  in the midwest.

What other new and virulent pathogens will we yet breed as a “side-effect” from continuing farther with these same divorced-from-nature farming practices?

It’s anyone’s guess what shit will hit the fan when the recently introduced GMO alfalfa, for instance, starts being fed to cattle on a large scale? To quote from Ernst Schumacher (author of the book “Small is Beautiful”), “Finally we must say no, this technology is too violent.”

David E. Gumpert quoting Brigitte Ruthman, on The Compete Patient:

“As an experienced herdsman I can tell you that we never gave calves immunizations at birth…and three calves have fared well under similar circumstances here. But it was apparent something Titanic nibbled on after being let out in his second day of life, e coli or salmonella, got into his gut.

We never saw scours like this in Vermont in the 70s. We had scours that created a loose manure, and the calf could be easily corrected.

I saw this scour as something stronger. His ears flopped and he became listless within the hour it took to treat him. I only gave antibiotics when he showed symptoms. By then, the powerful bug had overtaken him. I understand now, after watching Titania, his half sister, what likely occurred.

Doctors on raw milk — YMMV

That’s right, your mileage may vary. Meaning that contrary to some people’s belief, not all doctors are agreed when it comes to the dangers and or benefits of raw milk. Although most North American doctors, to be sure, toe the party line.

Two doctors, two opinions. Left: Dr. Daniel H. Gervich, MD (click image for source) Right: Dr. Lindy Woodard of Pediatric Alternatives (via The Complete Patient blog)

I’ve heard from some raw milk drinkers that their doctor has refused to have them as a patient if they were going to insist on continuing with raw milk for their family.

Such a choice seems to be viewed by your typical doctor as something of a medical heresy, which can also be said for parents exercising their option of not vaccinating their children with the standard regimen of an ever increasing number of injections.

The following excerpt from a letter from a midwest American doctor is perhaps typical of the how the medical establishment views raw milk:

Remarkable Swiss government report just released on homeopathic medicine

From Dana Ullman, in the Huffington Post:

“The Swiss government has a long and widely-respected history of neutrality, and therefore, reports from this government on controversial subjects need to be taken more seriously than other reports from countries that are more strongly influenced by present economic and political constituencies. When one considers that two of the top five largest drug companies in the world have their headquarters in Switzerland, one might assume that this country would have a heavy interest in and bias toward conventional medicine, but such assumptions would be wrong.

In late 2011, the Swiss government’s report on homeopathic medicine represents the most comprehensive evaluation of homeopathic medicine ever written by a government and was just published in book form in English (Bornhoft and Matthiessen, 2011). This breakthrough report affirmed that homeopathic treatment is both effective and cost-effective and that homeopathic treatment should be reimbursed by Switzerland’s national health insurance program. 

Get dirty and avoid vaccinations…

From Dr. Lawrence Solomon in the Financial Post:

“We can’t suggest we become dirtier and expose our children to more bacteria,” said Dr. Moshe Ben-Shoshan of the Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology at Montreal Children’s Hospital. Our determination to prevent disease may lead to more allergies, he believes, but if so, it would be worth it. “If the price of having fewer allergies is more infection, I don’t know any parent who would expose their child to more infection.”

Dr. Ben-Shoshan, lead author of a study just published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, is both wrong and wrong-headed. Wrong because parents in their thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, willingly expose their children to infection. Wrong-headed because he has no basis to assert that dirt and bacteria hurt children more than they help them. Evidence abounds to the contrary.

Doctors more likely to use natural remedies (but not prescribe them)

From Leah Zerbe, on Rodale.com

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Doctors don’t regularly prescribe natural remedies to patients, but a new study finds physicians and nurses are more likely than the general public to use alternative and complimentary medicine for their own health ailments. The new study looking at alternative and complimentary medicine use in Americans appears in the journal Health Services Research.

“Nurses and doctors are reflecting current societal trends being swept up in a grassroots movement that they have resisted for the last three decades,” says alternative and complimentary medicine expert Guy Riekeman, DC, president of Life University, a chiropractic school in Atlanta. (He was not involved in this study.)

Canadian Medical Association slams alternative medicine proposal — CBC

From Mark Gollom at CBC news:

“Some medical groups are concerned that proposed guidelines on how Ontario doctors should approach alternative medicine may require physicians to accept and incorporate the practice.

“We believe the draft policy should be revised to sharpen its focus, and should respect the conviction of many physicians and clinical researchers, that [alternative medicine] has minimal scientific validity and that recommending it to patients achieves no clinical purpose and may be unethical,” the Canadian Medical Association says in a written letter to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO).

New generation of antibiotic-resistant “super-bug” bacteria on the horizon

From Maggie Koerth-Baker at Boing Boing blog:

Photo via Boing Boing blog

“Maryn McKenna—my favorite “Scary Disease Girl” and author of Superbug—will be taking questions during a live chat today at Scientific American’s Facebook page. The chat starts at 2:00 Eastern and lasts for a half-hour.

The chat is connected to a new article that Maryn wrote for Scientific American, which centers around some disturbing new trends in antibiotic resistance. You may have heard about the recently announced discovery of a pneumonia-causing bacteria, called Klebsiella pneumoniae, that had developed a resistance to a class of antibiotics called carbapenems. This is more than just another bacteria resistant to another antibiotic.