Friday, August 14, 2009

Snake Oil Salesmen Had it Right?




I almost deleted an email this morning, writing it off as a silly forwarded message that would tell me to send it along to 14 other people in the next hour or I didn't really love Jesus (are they kidding me?). But I'm so glad I did read it (and that it didn't judge my email habits in connection with the King of the Universe).

Inside was a great little article shedding some light on the evolution of "healthcare" in the West. With all the talk about "healthcare" reform in the government (which I don't really keep up with since I don't watch the news....better things to do.....), this offers a fresh perspective on an alternative--a "third way," if you will, to borrow a phrase from a respected author, Shane Claiborne (changed my life.....I recommend his stuff).

ps-I'm not hating on people who became doctors or nurses because they wanted to help people. But I do believe there are far, far better ways to build health and help others. Ways with no harmful side effects and big corporations who stand to profit big time from people's illness and/or fear.


Condensed History of Herbal Pharmacy,"Snake Oils", and the Pharmaceutical Industry
Authored by Evelyn Grady

For hundreds of years the European Pharmacopoeias collected and categorized information from research and reported responses of natural herbal remedies as this was the medicines prescribed by the doctors. During this time extensive research was also categorized regarding Homeopathic medicines which were also widely prescribed by European doctors.


In America, as the missionaries moved west to establish their church missions, they collected information from the Indians who already had figured out which herbs did what as they had been utilizing the natural plants for thousands of years and passed on their knowledge through their Medicine Men. The pharmaceutical industry paid these missionaries to collect the plants and send these herbal remedies to them, and the missionaries used this money as an additional means of funding their religious work.

There were not many toxic manmade drugs during the 1800's, except for the highly addictive cocaine and heroin "medicines" such as "Laudanum" which were guaranteed to be "safe" and widely prescribed until finally Congress put a stop to this highly lucrative business in favor of preventing further widespread addiction to the American public.

Later Congress passed a law which then prevented the pharmaceutical industry from patent protection on natural herbal remedies which they confirmed as "God given in the natural domain" and therefore open to all in the "public domain". Subsequently the Pharmaceutical Industry began to develop more and more manufactured chemical concoctions for the purpose of patent protection and Big Bucks.

Consequently this chemical drug industry began an earnest campaign to discredit the very same herbal medicines that they had previously distributed themselves by falsely claiming them as "ineffective" and "dangerous". They converted a phrase that previously had a positive meaning, "Snake oils" into a negative concept in order to create the impression that these were a "waste of money based on Old Wives Tales". For the people living during the time of this transition, this was confusing because "Snake Oils" were indeed a legitimate and proven effective treatment for snake bites, primarily the Melaleuca (Tea Tree) essential oils which were imported here all the way from Australia for this purpose. "Snake Oil Salesmen" made a good living during the pioneer days because this was indeed an effective treatment and the people in the West relied upon these medicine salesmen for Snake Oil as well as many other natural remedies.
The legitimate Snake Oil salesmen had lots of repeat business because these medicines ACTUALLY WORKED.

Of course fraudulent medicine salesmen figured out that they could move from town to town selling colored sugar water "medicines" and they were hard to catch up with by the time the customers figured out that they had spent their hard earned money on fake remedies. These con artists unintentionally assisted the newly developing manmade drug business by further giving genuine snake oil salesmen a bad name.

Today we have a century of organized indoctrination and propaganda from the Pharmaceutical Industry resulting in medical doctors who are brainwashed from medical school onward. They do not receive the training that Naturopathic and Homeopathic doctors receive regarding nutritional and herbal therapies, and they are not aware of the extensive research and science which supports these proven therapies, many of which were used by our ancestors although their doctor's prescriptions were based primarily on "anecdotal" evidence. Example: When the doctors continually reported that Melaleuca oil recovered their patients from rattlesnake bites, this was considered to be Valid Scientific Evidence. [Basically this is what I call the "Proof in Pudding Test"]

In spite of the fact that today we have accumulated Scientific Evidence that confirms the Anecdotal Evidence of these natural therapies which were already being utilized in the world of natural medicine for hundreds to thousands of years, the only "evidence" that is recognized by the conventional medical system today is their own industry funded drug trials and studies. [I will refrain from further discussing the fraud and manipulated "results"]

Big Pharma has succeeded in their century long political efforts to obtain the cooperation of the AMA, FDA, and all medical and government organizations with the end result being a MONOPOLY, although technically this is illegal. However, since the American conventional medical system is entirely under the control of the Pharmaceutical Industry we can never expect the "expert opinions" of medical doctors who are only trained in drugs, to guide us towards true healing.....Instead
it is our own responsibility to educate ourselves in order to pursue essential oils and other natural therapies that ACTUALLY WORK.

Robert Frost said it best when he wrote this in 1920:
"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

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