I fully agree, Roger. However, I don't think just the politicians are to blame for this one. The AMA is a very strong lobby, as well as the pharmaceutical companies. Why does the FDA allow drugs on the market which are supposed to help people, only to discover later they cause worse problems than they cure? Why are AIDS drugs so expensive?!!? Why are many Chinese herbs, proven to work for several thousand years by Chinese herbalists, outlawed in this country?! It's madness!

John, unless you are the sole user of the phrase, I'd like to insert a "FLAME ON" right about now!!!! Here we go!!

Did you know that many medical schools call nutritional, homeopathic and preventive medicine the "gray area" of health care? They insist on long scientific studies of nutritionally-oriented cures before authorizing them. I have no problem with scientific studies, but who, exactly, is funding them? Could it be the same people who stand to lose money if these non-drug cures work? Since pharmaceutical companies and big corporate medical establishments (CIGNA comes to mind - more on those rats later!) would risk losing their megabuck profits if we were all healthy, why stop disease before it starts?! Teach people that for everything that ails 'em there's a pill they can pop and make it all better!

I worked for a nutritionally-oriented medical doctor who, instead of prescribing pills, looks for the source of the patient's discomfort. He has proven, with his patients, that we can be a lot more in control of what ails us than the medical establishment would have us believe. Many of his patients were "cured" of rheumatoid arthritis symptoms (among other ailments) just by taking them off key foods which can cause these symptoms in many people. And what does he get for his efforts? His license was put on probation for five years. He was always under observation and suspicion because he never gave out prescriptions for medications, only nutritional supplements (so the drug companies weren't making any money off of him).

Recently, the FDA raided the offices of Dr. Jonathan Wright, a world-reknown expert in nutrition research. Among other things, they seized his computers containing all his records, and won't allow him access to them. How can he treat his patients with all his records confiscated??!! Sounds like a good way to run him out of business! Why does the FDA continually harass these kinds of physicians? It starts to sound like a witch hunt (and many people believe the witch hunts were also an attack on herbalists and homeopaths who "magically" healed their patients).

And... what would insurance companies do if they couldn't collect our hard-earned money by instilling the fear of severe illness in us? If we were all taught preventive health practices and had socialized (or some form of that) medicine, we wouldn't need them.