Why I Became a Naturopathic Physician

I was raised in a family interested in natural ways of living, choosing whole, natural food over junk food, and looking to nature for medicine when it was needed. All of this seemed to me like a fine way to live, and never seemed to be lacking. We kids grew up strong, healthy with brief bouts of measles, mumps and chicken pox when they each made the rounds of our schools, all very benign and short-term illnesses to healthy kids. Like having a cold, no worse, and you stay home from school a few days, with the added benefit of having a stronger immune system. As we all know, these now rare illnesses have become the widely-feared bogeymen that sell vaccines. Selling by way of fear works, I suppose, if you can't sell by any more reasonable means. But generally, we played outdoors for long hours and grew an organic garden long before most people had heard of such a thing, and generally had really active days outside of school hours.

Against that idyllic and healthy background, Americans had gradually become aware of cancer becoming a relentless and seemingly incurable disease, taking more lives all the time. It seemed to hit as randomly as lightning, with no apparent cause. So my family was horrified to learn in the 1970's that a judge's order stopped researchers at New York's Sloan Kettering, when they announced a substance, laetrile or vitamin B-17, which could shrink or destroy tumors in mice. As soon as a natural substance was discovered to be effective against cancer, it was made illegal. And that's when the blinders came off. I was now much more interested in natural medicine, and for the first time deeply suspicious of corruption in the institutions most desperately seeking our trust.

America's medical system – no, it goes further – America's very lifestyle and culture has been hijacked by an industry that tells you that a doctor is the ultimate arbiter and decision-maker of the health of your whole family. As a result, you no longer feel, or feel confident of, your own autonomy over your own bodies and your own diet and your own decisions. How did our very selves get so thoroughly stolen from our own control?

128,000 deaths per year in the US are from properly prescribed pharmaceuticals according to FDA reports. This exceeds American casualties from World War I (116,516) or the Vietnam War (90,220). These figures also exclude chemotherapy deaths, frequently miscategorized as cancer-related fatalities.

There are 2.7 million serious, disabling or fatal injuries due to pharmaceuticals, with adverse events increasing over time.

In many cases, such as with "high cholesterol," a problem was manufactured to sell an unnecessary and harmful drug class. Unsurprisingly, statins are the best-selling drug class of all time with the highest revenues. Higher cholesterol actually correlates with better cancer outcomes, as Robert Waters, PhD and I showed in 2015.

Why do you never hear about this in the media? Fox's Roger Ailes once told Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. that major media "gets up to 70% of advertising revenues during non-election years from Pharma." This explains the absence of pharmaceutical industry criticism except from those with moral obligations to expose corruption. Fortunately, more voices are speaking out, and Americans increasingly question conventional medicine's limited options.

Despite relentless pharmaceutical advertising, Americans increasingly choose alternative medicine and natural lifestyles. 38% of American adults have used some complementary or alternative medicine, though only 43% mentioned this to medical doctors. I look forward to a time when people choose healthcare and lifestyles freely, without coercion, fear manipulation, or endless pharmaceutical commercials with absurd side effect warnings.

I became a naturopathic physician so people seeking alternatives to conventional medicine's damage could find a safe sanctuary for themselves and their children. I wanted to be the kind of doctor my own family needed — one who meets health needs without coercion into unwanted vaccines and drugs.