Words: Dr Ronald D WHITMONT
I have treated numerous cases of microbiome/immune system damage that have presented in the form of recurrent and chronic illness. These conditions can present as: chronic inflammatory illness [fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue], chronic infectious illness [chronic Lyme disease], recurrent acute illness [streptococcal pharyngitis, urinary tract infection, otitis media, sinusitis], allergic conditions [asthma, food and environmental allergies and sensitivities], and digestive disturbances [gastroesophageal reflux, chronic constipation, pseudomembranous colitis, irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease], among others. Most of these conditions can be traced back to an earlier period of antibiotic overuse, or abuse.
Heart Of The Matter
Chronic Lyme disease is a particularly poignant example of severe microbiome/immune system —microbiome, by definition, consists of bacteria, viruses and fungi, that have a greater complexity than the human genome itself — damage leading to chronic illness. These patients typically present with chronic Lyme disease after having tried [and, failed] to achieve cure using a plethora of oral and intravenous antibiotics, antifungals, antimalarials and other strong medications, usually in combination.
A thorough history usually reveals a strong history of antibiotic abuse many years prior to the Lyme infection. A typical adult suffering from chronic Lyme disease has a long history of treatment with multiple courses of antibiotics for a recurrent childhood infection [or, acne] over many years.
These patients were commonly antibiotic dependent as children. They were prescribed antibiotics for every infectious illness in childhood [including viral infections]. Their immune systems were completely naïve when it came to handling an infection without antibiotic support. As discussed above, this abuse of antibiotics not only damages the immune system and keeps it from maturing, but it damages the microbiome and destabilises the interface between the body and the environment.
In my experience, the frequent use of antibiotics in childhood is a strong predisposing factor in the development of chronic Lyme disease and other infections in adulthood. It is only a matter of time before these individuals encounter an infection that antibiotics are not able to resolve. A history of extensive antibiotic use, particularly in childhood — when the immune system is undergoing rapid development — makes it difficult, or impossible for the immune system to mature into a functional adult system. Their immune systems are still in infectious ‘preschool,’ while they are now being exposed to the advanced ‘high school calculus’ of infections.
Treatment with antibiotics, provided by so-called Lyme Literate physicians [LLMDs] only provides this group with temporary relief. Every time they receive another course of antibiotics, anti-inflammatory medicines, or herbs, they experience temporary improvement followed by worsening deterioration, since the immune system and the microbiome were further reduced and diminished. As one LLMD stated, “The majority of chronic Lyme patients relapse, once they are taken off antibiotics with symptoms of chronic fatigue, muscle and joint aches and neurocognitive problems.”
These patients experience a progressive spiralling of worsening symptoms that inevitably follows the use of each course of antibiotics too. Most people with chronic Lyme disease who are treated with antibiotics recount a similar tale of initial partial improvement followed by subsequent worsening to a degree that is even more extensive than when the antibiotics were started.
Effective treatment of these conditions involves re-engaging the immune system, augmenting the inflammatory response, and strengthening the microbiome. All of these tasks are difficult and there are few shortcuts. One priority in this population is helping them avoid any and all future antibiotic use.
Classical homeopathy is extremely effective as a modality that helps with both these conditions.
Chronic Inflammatory Illness
Nearly half of all Americans have been diagnosed with at least one chronic health condition and at the current rate of growth, this number is expected to increase by over 42 per cent in the next few years. The incidence of chronic illness in children has more than tripled since 1960. Since 1980 the risk of children developing a learning disability has increased five-fold, asthma rates have tripled, and the incidence of autism has increased ten-fold. The incidence of almost all chronic conditions has increased in the last few decades with a quintupling of diabetes and increases in nearly all other chronic health conditions. There is a virtual epidemic of chronic illness with nearly 70 per cent of all deaths attributable to one, or more, of these conditions. “There has been an unprecedented and unexplained increase in the numbers of children suffering with chronic disease and disability… The CDC states that chronic diseases are the most common and costly causes of death and disability in the US today.”
This rapid increase in chronic medical conditions has continued to accelerate in the last century and until now more than 50 per cent of children [worldwide] are sensitive to one or more allergens, more than sixty million Americans [at least one in five] have asthma, or another allergic disease, and another 50 million suffer from one of at least one hundred different types of autoimmune disease.
In the US, men have a nearly 50 per cent chance of developing cancer in their lifetime, while women’s risk is nearly 40 per cent. Conditions that are commonplace today were virtually non-existent only a hundred years ago. “Rates of non-communicable, or chronic disease continue to increase dramatically in all countries [industrialised, middle income, low income], surpassing infections as a disease burden among adults. Many countries do not have the financial, or human, resources to effectively identify, manage, or prevent these diseases.”
Medical pharmaceutical therapies have been implicated as one of the leading environmental causes in the plethora of chronic health conditions affecting the developed world today. The rising use of pharmaceutical medicine is directly associated with the increasing incidence of allergic, inflammatory and autoimmune illnesses plaguing modern societies worldwide. Modern pharmaceutical medicine may have pushed the health of our nation [and, the world] into a long-term crisis towards greater chronic illness, uncontrolled cost, and ultimately, utter dependency on pharmaceutical solutions to manage the symptoms of these iatrogenic problems.
According to British Medical Journal [BMJ], only an estimated 11 per cent of conventional medical treatments used today, have scientific evidence of both safety and efficacy; over 50 per cent are of “unknown value” and the remaining 39 per cent are known to be either harmful, or ineffective. Even though only a handful of conventional medical treatments have ever been scientifically verified as effective, conventional pharmaceutical medicine continues to cloak itself behind a façade of scientific evidence.
If conventional medicine were truly effective and scientifically based, then most outcome measures of health within modern societies would demonstrate benefit. A trend towards improved health would be reflected by reduced use and dependence on all medications and medical interventions, not more. Healthier populations would suffer from fewer chronic diseases, and reduced need of medical intervention. But modern societies [utilising conventional pharmaceutical medicine] all demonstrate the reverse: modern pharmaceutical use and overuse is leading the world into a health crisis of epic proportions.
The US devotes nearly one-fifth of its Gross National Product [GNP] to healthcare, with no sign of slackening. If modern medicine were improving health, then the per capita cost of medical care would shrink over time, rather than increase. The fact that costs continue to rise and dependency on medical intervention continues to escalate is a clear indication that the current pharmaceutical system promotes a deterioration of health, and greater dependency on intervention.
“Modern medical care evolved as a drug-distribution arm of the pharmaceutical industry, not a profession concerned primarily with improving people’s health. A true health care system… would centre around removing impediments to better health… and protection against exposure to chemicals, toxins, and other known causes of disease. Instead, prescription drugs, which all have toxicities and dangers, have become the primary intervention for every health issue.”
The ever-escalating epidemic of chronic disease spreading throughout the developed world provides irrefutable evidence that the conventional pharmaceutical system of medicine is worsening health rather than improving it.
Modern pharmacologic medicine, while being almost entirely preoccupied with palliation of symptoms, is damaging health through reckless overtreatment. Most medical progress takes place in the field improving early diagnosis, but this leads to the treatment of many more than are necessary, skewing the statistical rate of improvement to cover those who were never sick. These methods falsely elevated the statistics of cure, while making many more suffer from unnecessary treatment and completely iatrogenic complications.
Modern medicine has been unmasked by the Human Microbiome Project [HMP], much the same way that Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz exposed the Wizard as a manipulator of public opinion. If one had the wherewithal to look at modern pharmacologic-based medicine, one would see that it cloaks itself in the sparkling robes of technology to obfuscate science, spin smokescreens and deceptions and to indoctrinate and manipulate the education of medical professionals in a well-orchestrated system of propaganda that has thoroughly deceived the public.
Pharmacological-based medical therapeutics, used according to the “standard of care,” are already recognised as the fifth leading cause of death in the US today, but this number would be significantly higher if the effects of treatment on the human microbiome and the immune system were factored in.
The current crisis in modern healthcare is not merely a problem of cost, but a complete miscarriage of medical practice masquerading as science. Modern medical care is one of the most expensive, least effective and most harmful methods of treatment currently available in the world today. It continues to be promulgated by a pharmacologic-insurance-academic industry for the vast profits it creates. It is part of a vast deception involving the collusion of the pharmaceutical industry, the medical insurance business, and the academic research institutions.
Time and again, truly impartial scientific research in medicine has been shown to be almost entirely absent. Medical product investigations typically do not focus on long-term outcome, or improved overall health. They focus on single outcome measures while filtering out all individual reactions and experiences from the investigations. This is a convenient way of diverting attention from more important endpoints, like quality of life and overall wellness that would not justify the treatments being studied.
Most expert advisory panels empowered to recommend standards of treatment are composed of individuals with significant conflicts-of-interest that prevent objective impartial judgment. According to the Institute of Medicine [IoM], “Financial conflicts of interest pose many challenges to healthcare professionals. They raise concerns about the objectivity and trustworthiness of research conduct and publications, the prudent management of scientific investigations and other activities in the public interest, and the commitment of healthcare professionals to the best interests of patients. In recent years the media has highlighted failures of individuals and institutions to disclose and appropriately manage financial ties with industry [including pharmaceutical, medical device, medical supply, and insurance companies]. These failures contribute to questions about whether industry has undue influence in research and other activities.”
The current epidemics of non-communicable disease [including allergy, asthma, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disease, chronic inflammatory disease, cancer, and others] appear to be fundamentally rooted in conventional pharmaceutical interventions that damage the microbiome and thwart the immune system. This damage, now exposed by the HMP, is the result of a misguided approach to acute infectious illness promulgated by the industries that stand to benefit most from it.
Even the rise of most behavioural conditions [including autism spectrum disorders, depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder] have been linked to the myriad of interventions hoisted upon modern civilisations in the form of excessive antibiotics and vaccines.
The economic impact of our current system of pharmaceutical medicine is beyond measurement, or comprehension. On a worldwide scale, the prevalence of allergic, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases generated by medical intervention may have caused incalculable harm to many.
Conventional pharmaceutical medicine may be the cause of the largest epidemic of iatrogenic illness ever known. Conventional antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, and antihistaminic medicines, prescribed according to the “standard of care,” coupled with overuse of OTC medicines, and vaccines, may be responsible for most of the chronic illness existing in the world today.
Conventional medical treatments interfering with the microbiome, the environment and the immune system, must be replaced with methodologies that are scientifically sound, environmentally sustainable, safe and effective. The ubiquitous use antibiotics, NSAIDs, steroids and other immune suppressing drugs for acute, self-limited conditions must be halted in favour of treatments that support health via the microbiome and the immune system.
The Future: Healing With Homeopathy
The future of medicine lies in the exploration of responsible methods of treatment that sustain the ecology of the microbiome and the integrity of the immune system rather than destroy them. The practice of medicine must move away from symptom palliation and placebo towards a more fundamental method of supporting and improving health and healing.
As long as the field of medicine remains dominated by industries that are primarily financially motivated, the world will continue to be deceived by unscrupulous interests.
It is time that methodologies like homeopathy, long at odds with conventional medicine, is taken seriously in the US. Already in use throughout most of the world, homeopathy is a sustainable system of medicine with over 200 years of proven efficacy. There are thousands of unbiased studies and hundreds of thousands of published case reports from thousands of independent homeopathic physicians documenting, not only the effectiveness, but also the environmental sustainability of homeopathy.
Homeopathy has been reviled by conventional medical authorities for many reasons: [1] homeopathy seems to rely on principles of healing that do not depend on the chemical constitution of pharmaceutical medicines, [2] homeopathy is much more complicated and far more difficult to practice than conventional ‘cookbook’ medicine, and [3] homeopathy is far less lucrative, both for the practitioner as well as for the industrial pharmaceutical manufacturer.
This combination of factors alone makes homeopathic medicine a field worth discrediting, ridiculing, and reviling, if one stands to make a profit by doing so. To this end, all manner of propaganda, lies and intimidation have been used to try to exterminate homeopaths, beginning with the founding of the American Medical Association [AMA] in 1847, three years after the establishment of the American Institute of Homeopathy.
The AMA, a trade organisation, fought homeopathy purely on ideological and monetary grounds, without ever providing a shred of scientific proof to justify its action.
Homeopathy is exceptionally important for several reasons: [1] homeopathic medicines are safe and effective in a wide range of acute and chronic illnesses, [2] homeopathic medicines are inexpensive and easy to produce, [3] homeopathic medicines are easily tested on healthy humans, [4] homeopathic medicinal production is safe and environmentally sustainable, [5] homeopathic treatment does not damage either the microbiome, or the immune system, and [6] homeopathy works within the parameters of human ecology and the microbiome, rather than against it, [7] homeopathic treatment is based on the individualisation of care and the fundamental truth that “one size does not fit all.”
Every shred of data and research delivered, so far, from the HMP suggests that homeopaths were correct in their opposition to the use of allopathic pharmaceutical medicine, but for reasons that not yet known or suspected. Homeopathy, when seen from a health ecology, microbiome, and environmental perspective makes fundamental biological sense. Homeopathic principles are universally applicable and have shown evidence of efficacy, across a wide range of conditions and fields that include physical and mental health, veterinary medicine, agriculture and animal husbandry.
Homeopaths have long opposed the use of conventional pharmacologic methods, because they witnessed its damaging effects on health, and its promotion of chronic disease. But, it was not until research on the human microbiome provided the reasons, that anyone knew why conventional pharmaceutical methods were so harmful. The HMP not only condemns much of the use of conventional pharmacologic medicine, but it validates the use of homeopathy.
One of the most important lessons of ecology, and now the HMP, is that humans must learn to live within the world of microbiology. If we remain on the course that has been set over the last two centuries, and try to defeat the natural world, it ultimately leads to precisely where we now stand: “We’ve just spent the better part of a century doing our unwitting best to wreck the human-associated microbiota with a multi-fronted war on bacteria and a diet notably detrimental to its well-being.”
Over the last two centuries, our medical and hygienic goals have largely focused on the deconstruction of the environmental and human microbiomes and the complex web between them.
Although the mechanism behind homeopathy is not at all understood, neither was the human microbiome until it was studied with the most advanced scientific machinery available. Homeopathy is a truly remarkable medical science that synchronises the actions of the body with the microbiome to promote natural healing and immune maturation.
To ignore the vast amount of medical and scientific information, now at hand, from homeopathy and the Human Microbiome Project, is to stubbornly trust belief rather than science, and to lie down before the interests of multinational corporations bent upon one single goal: profit.
