To Heal or Not to Heal: Is that the question?
- Jagannath Chatterjee(HFA)
The National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) meeting on 16th
June'2008 has been one big letdown. With just a passing reference to mercury
("to explore the possibility of use of lower limit of Thiomersal"), using
single dose vials for the at birth dose of Hep-B "subject to availability of
resource", it moves on to more serious subjects like the introduction of the
recently denounced ineffective and asthma causing Hib into the Universal
Immunisation Program. It also considers the introduction of the dreaded
Rotavirus vaccine (to vaccinate against diarrhea!).
But most dangerous perhaps it talks openly about a Japanese Encephalitis
vaccine "that has not gained acceptance globally" being experimented on Indian
children because, "the world is looking forward to the Indian experience."
The mind revolts, the brain goes numb, the heart beats faster, and sweat glands
are overactivated at the implications of such a policy. The children of India
have well and truly become guinea pigs. Why should not that be? We have a
qualified physician as the Health Minister. Qualified in modern medicine, he is
as heartless, cruel, ambitious, intolerant, unamenable to reason
and irresponsible as any other medico today.
At a class I have been recently asked the question, "What is health?". I was
still wondering about it when this document came to my inbox. What is health
really? I am tempted to reply, "freedom from vaccines."
Health is perhaps not being worried about the body (and mind) and functioning
smoothly without being aware of its presence. When the society starts worrying
so much about disease that it does not think twice about injecting dozens of
highly toxic substances as "preventives" into its young infants, then that
society is sick beyond measure, beyond reason and perhaps beyond help.
Is it so difficult to prevent disease? It is not provided one understands what
disease is. Disease has very little to do with the ubiquitious bacteria and
viruses. Disease is an imbalance that starts when man goes against the laws of
nature. This imbalance lets loose a change in the physical sphere, taking the
shape of pain and unease, sending out the signal that things are wrong. The
physicians duty is to alert the patient and lead him back to the state of
balance. When the mind, emotions, and the body fall in line once again to the
basic laws, health is restored; true healing has taken place.
Except for modern medicine all the other methods of treatment recognise this
truth. Modern medicine blatantly ignores this and adds to the imbalance forcing
ailments that come to the surface to go deeper into the body and mind. Chronic
illness and organ changes result.
Do the modern medicos not realise this? They do. Modern research increasingly
points towards the deviant mind being the root of ills that plague mankind.
However modern medicine is not geared towards good health, it thrives on
sickness. The pharma industry has to grow at the rate of 25% or more annually.
This cannot be achieved unless there is a 40% rise in illness every year. To
the doctor thus appears the dillemma, to heal or not to heal? It is very
difficult to avoid the easy life that pharmaceutical incentives offer. It is
very tough to take the right decision.
I can already hear the question coming. What about epidemics? I will ask a
question in return, can you show me one epidemic that is not the result of some
disturbance on a mass scale? The epidemics that have reared their heads in
recent memory have come after wars, after large scale immigration that led to
squalid conditions, that led to malnourishment. Modern epidemics, including
polio, can be traced to poverty, unclean conditions, lack of nourishment, and
toxins that have become central to our lives.
Had these not been the prime cause, and bacteria and viruses been the sole
reason for disease, mankind would have been wiped out of the face of the earth.
The patients too should now start enquiring, "Do I wish to be healed or should
I go from bad to worse in the name of a false science?" The sooner this
question arises the better. Besides protecting the earth, we also need to
protect ourselves and regain our stature as the guardians of the earth, the
children of the earth. Let us stop playing with dangerous toys and go back to
mother nature. The mother knows what is best for us, as Sri Ramakrishna has
candidly confessed.
Amen.
