The Swamp of Conventional Medicine

Why I believe conventional medicine and the medical establishment need to be overhauled

With the contentious confirmation hearings for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services, I decided to write about my long-standing skepticism of the United States medical establishment. My strong support for RFKJr and his war on Big Pharma and American allopathic¹ medicine comes from over 70 years of experience, including reading alternative medical information, not philosophy or academics. It is worth noting that I also have about eight years of experience working in administrative and editorial roles in the allopathic medicine industry at some of Massachusetts’ major teaching hospitals.

Personal experiences with allopathic and alternative medicine

Childhood distrust of doctors

I started distrusting doctors when I was very little. My earliest memory of my childhood physician was staring at the mounted marlin on his waiting room wall and hearing him tell my mother not to feel badly that I whined and complained constantly. There was nothing she could do about me. “I'm sorry you have a nasty child,” he told her. “Some children are just born with disagreeable personalities.” I remember thinking, “But my tummy always hurts, and you don’t listen.” I discovered as an adult that I was lactose-intolerant, and had been forced to drink three glasses of milk daily and eat cottage cheese for lunch several times a week. When I took those out of my diet, my tum stopped bothering me and my disposition improved dramatically.

Art by Copilot AI

When I was around 8 or 9 that doctor and I had another very unpleasant experience. This surrounded rubella, which at that time was called three-day or German measles. “German measles parties” were common: when one child was diagnosed, others would be invited over to eat ice cream and cake with one utensil and one large, communal serving so that everyone would be contaminated. In this way, families would have several children sick at the same time, which was easier than having them strung out over a couple of weeks with each one being infected by the child before them.

My siblings came down with the illness at the same time. They spent a couple of days home from school with a rash and other minor discomforts, putting together a couple of new puzzles and eating lots of ice cream and orange sherbet. I had not broken out into spots so the doctor gave me a painful shot of gamma globulin as a temporary preventive.² I have always been convinced that he gave me that shot as much because he disliked me as to prevent the disease. I never did come down with a noticeable case and later was tested and found to have full immunity.

In 1969 the rubella vaccine was introduced³, saving around 160 children a year from terrible disabilities that the virus, when contracted by a pregnant woman, caused.

Chicken pox vaccine--a scam?

In 1984, when the chickenpox vaccine was introduced, I paid attention to the news. Chickenpox, which is in the same family as herpes, is another itchy but minor childhood disease that is much more serious when contracted by adults, although rarely fatal. This vaccine was promoted primarily by saying that by keeping children healthier, working mothers--a phenomenon still new in the USA--would miss fewer days of work. I never thought that was a good reason to pump a vaccine into kids.

It was also announced that those who received the vaccine in childhood would also be protected from herpes in adulthood. I wondered then how they knew this since it was a new vaccine with no way of testing for this. Today, work is being done to develop a herpes vaccine for adults.⁴ This means that this reason for the chicken pox vaccine turned out not to be valid.

These and some other negative experiences with doctors predisposed me to skepticism. I have found many more very concrete, valid reasons to distrust modern medicine in the USA.

Alternative modalities made me a believer

Chiropractic

One October I pinched a nerve in my back. The pain was terrible so the orthopedist gave me Fiorinal, which relieved the pain but put me to sleep. I suffered a lot, then slept away the four-day Christmas and New Year’s holidays, painfree but unconscious. On January 3rd I put aside all my hesitations about “quackery” and went to a chiropractor for the first time. I was amazed that he was able to run his fingers down my back and press only on the sore places: how could he possibly find them? The pain in my hip and leg disappeared the moment he adjusted my lower back.

I took a course of treatments from him to retrain and strengthen my back muscles, but was pain-free. We made an appointment for a checkup one year after my initial treatment.

About a year after the back injury I hurt my elbow. X-rays showed no break, but nerve damage to my arm made my two last fingers numb. The orthopedist said they would take months to heal.

I had heard chiropractors treated backs; this was an arm, so I never thought about seeing the chiropractor for this problem. However, January rolled around, and I had that check-up visit. While on the table, the doctor asked if I had any other issues. I remember saying, “I hurt my elbow and now my fingers are numb, but I know you don’t treat elbows.”

He said he did, took my arm, ran his fingers over it for about two seconds, pushing a little here and there. Shazzam! The numbness in my fingers went away and never returned. I became a believer.

Homeopathy

Through a co-worker I discovered homeopathy and the miracles that that alternative form of medicine can provide. The MD-homeopath I found told me, at our first meeting, that if I stopped drinking milk and eating soft cheeses and yogurts he expected my stomach would feel better. He was correct. In the twenty years that he was my doctor, the only time I needed antibiotics was when I had an infection caused by a dog bite. Issues that had bothered me forever, which I had been told were figments of my imagination, as well as normal issues, were resolved using inexpensive, no-side-effects homeopathic remedies.

My mother, at age 75, shattered her wrist and was told by both the orthopedic hand specialist and the neurosurgeon who followed that she would never play cello again. Between the shattered wrist and severely damaged nerves, her left hand would never be right. I consulted with my doctor, who recommended two cheap, easily obtained remedies, one for bones and one for nerves. She took one every morning and the other every evening for several months, and returned to playing in the local orchestra. Her specialists were amazed at her recovery, and both told her that the remedies had played no part in her remarkable healing.

My homeopath/MD lost his medical license because of a false charge when he was president of the American Homeopathy Association. His persecution (prosecution?) was part of an ongoing war against homeopathy as a valid medical system. I was told by a colleague that the final nail in my doctor’s coffin was that he was also a dowser, able to find water with a y-shaped stick; this proved to the medical board that he was a charlatan. I knew that dowsing worked; my ex-husband dowsed. He demonstrated this ability to me more than once.⁵

Acupuncture

I tried acupuncture for a problems that a medical specialist had told me I would have to live with. As with the chiropractor many years earlier, I mentioned in passing a second problem that a different specialist had told me had no cure. After forty-five minutes on that practitioner’s table, stuck with a zillion pins, both problems were gone.

Years later another acupuncturist cured me of a brown recluse spider bite with one treatment that was followed up by two days of application of a Chinese herbal remedy.

The two acupuncturists who gave me the best results were trained in lengthy programs in Beijing. I am not convinced that the short American programs are worth much.

I believe that my reliance on alternative medical modalities, combined with a healthy diet and exercise, is why, as I approach 80 years old, my only chronic health condition is a mild case of hypothyroidism, which I suspect was brought on by fluoride in drinking water when I was a child.

Professional Experience

Freelance writing

Although I tried to have articles published about my experiences with alternative medicine, every attempt was rejected. Finally I realized that all the magazines were focused on profitability, and all depended on health-related advertising. There was no way a publication would publish an article with a viewpoint against a major income source. I stopped wasting ink and stamps.

Temp work

When I was in graduate school I worked as a technical typist and copyeditor for a temporary agency. One project that I worked on over several months was a report on the progress of a committee of leaders from several of Boston’s specialty hospitals. Health maintenance organizations such as Kaiser were just beginning to take hold. In an HMO, doctors work for the organization or network, and patients’ needs are cared for within the HMO. The question: would these specialty hospitals join HMOs, form their own, or remain independent.

Because I did a fast and accurate job, I was recalled to transcribe the dictaphone recording from every meeting. The leaders’ primary problem with HMOs was that they were designed to find health problems before they became major and treat them so that the diseases never progressed. The specialists were concerned that if people were healed at the first signs of trouble, the pool of potential patients would shrink and they would lose their livelihoods. While this was a valid issue, their callousness--which I heard in their words and tone of voice--was shocking.

Daniel Ellsberg⁶ had just broken the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret report of the US government on the war in Vietnam, a shocking example of whistleblowing.vi I remember thinking, “I wish I could do a Daniel Ellsberg about this.”

The concern over too many healthy people was deleted from the final report. Surprise surprise.

“There is no evidence that…”

This experience crosses between personal and professional. After being reassured by a neurologist that my terrible headaches were caused by my vision, I saw an ophthalmologist, who assured me that I had no eye diseases and my glasses were fine.

Then my best friend, a nurse, recommended I see her cousin’s husband, a behavioral optometrist. He discovered that my eyes did not track in tandem and I did not have binocular vision. This caused eye strain resulting in headaches and also explained my abysmal experience with sports. I never knew where a ball was in space as it appeared be in a different place whether I saw it out of my right or left eye, when in fact the ball was in-between. After a series of exercises, physical therapy for the eyes, I gained depth perception.

Later, this doctor asked me to write a newsletter for him. He suggested I look into the subject of research funding for behavioral optometry. I found that optometry (eyeglasses and contacts) received a very, very small percentage of funding for research, if I recall about 8% compared with 92% for ophthalmology (the drug and surgery branch of eye medicine). Of that 8%, the amount allocated for vision therapy was immeasurably small.

Among the interesting information I learned from the head of the Grants Department at the National Eye Institute (nei.nih.gov), was this:

Graphic by the author on Canva

Since I did the research, vision therapy has been accepted as a treatment for ADHD in some children. However, it is still not accepted for dyslexia, although dramatic results had been seen by the parents and behavioral optometrists with whom I spoke. Here’s a bit from a recent article (italics mine):⁷

Some people talk about vision therapy as a way to treat dyslexia. But there’s no scientific evidence that it helps. In fact, leading groups in the fields of vision and learning have stated that there’s not sufficient evidence to support vision therapy as a treatment for dyslexia. These groups include the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

Dyslexia is not treated by medication, but it is not free. In the USA, testing for dyslexia averages between $500-$2000, depending on one’s location and the qualifications of the tester. Like other alternative therapies, vision therapy does not rely on drugs, surgery, or expensive testing. Each therapy session is generally little more than the cost of an office visit, and according to my doctor, often not many sessions are needed.

Vision training is low-cost and effective when used by trained practitioners, but it is not researched. No one pays for research when they do not get payback, especially when there is a vast network of practitioners who get paid by families seeking relief.

Other health information is skewed

Here is a clip from a typical news article⁸ about seed oils, on the question of whether hexane, a chemical used to produce them, is toxic to humans:

Studies done on rodents show prolonged exposure causes nerve damage, but research has yet to show any long term human health risks.

To the unwary, this sounds as though research into this specific question has not shown a link. However, what it means is that research has not been done on the issue. If research showed no links, the report would state, “but research has found no long-term human health risks.”

It is perhaps interesting to note that as of 2019, “the oil seeds market is estimated to account for a value of USD 250.0 billion and is projected to grow...to reach a value of USD 335.0 billion by 2025.”⁹ With a market share of billions, some of which is used to fund genetic modification research, it is doubtful that any high-quality research is being done on the issue of long-term human health risks of hexane in the amounts found in seed oils.

Rejected as a research subject

Research projects are carefully designed to give the desired results. This is not difficult. I found this out when I applied to be a research subject.

At 4’11” and with slow metabolism, I have had to monitor my diet carefully since reaching adulthood. If I eat a normal Weight Watchers reducing diet, I gain weight. I have to reduce my calorie intake by about 15% of Weight Watchers’ reducing diet in order to begin losing weight. After ballooning up during college, I lost that excess and then maintained my weight between 111 and 114 pounds for over 20 years. To do this, I kept a snack- and dessert-free home, never bought candy except to give away at Halloween, never ordered dessert at a restaurant, stayed away from fast food and sugary drinks, and virtually never entered a bakery.

When I was working at a hospital’s medical research lab, a research study was advertised for people who had lost at least 15 pounds and kept it off for more than a year. I volunteered. I was told I was not eligible: since I had kept my weight stable for over three years I did not have a weight problem. The unsaid message: “Changing lifestyle is not what we are looking for.”

I was not surprised that within three or four years Olestra/Olean, a fat substitute touted as a new diet mainstay, was approved by the FDA for the market.

Working in peer review

For three years I was research assistant for a world-renown physician at a major teaching hospital in Boston. During that time he was president of his professional organization. His term of office as president ended in June, at which time he became Editor-in-Chief of the organization’s international journal. I became Editorial Assistant.

In those pre-internet days, my job as EA consisted of two major tasks. First was sorting through the massive number of article submissions and deciding which (1) met the submission standards--manuscripts that were messy, had the wrong margins, bibliographies with the wrong format, etc. were immediately rejected; (2) looked interesting; and (3) were written by people whose names I had heard or who came from prestigious institutions. Second was sending articles out for peer review and then making sure the reviewers sent them back in a timely fashion.

I left this job in the early autumn because I was sickened by the corruption I saw.

What is peer review? It is fact-checking of a sort. Articles are supposed to be read and evaluated by several other experts in the field to determine if the research appears to have been properly constructed and carried out, and then if it is of sufficient interest to others in the field to warrant publication. Articles are not to be shared until after publication. Publication over the researcher’s name gives the researcher the protections that copyright does to a writer: it shows whose work it is. Sharing articles before publication gives other researchers the ability to reject the article, copy the research, and then get credit for it.

One woman submitted research on an interesting subject. My boss rejected it for review because she worked at a university not known for its research, and she had not spoken at any international conferences.

Research on subjects studied by my boss’s closest colleagues was rarely sent out for review because those articles pointed out possible problems with the buddies’ results, suggested alternative conclusions, or hinted at new understandings that would upend the common wisdom.

The most egregious example and the one that was the absolute last straw was an article by a researcher from an Asian university. This piece was a startling new way of looking at a serious disease. After first checking that the institution the researcher worked at was not well known, my boss insisted I send the article to the world’s leading expert on the disease immediately, before publication. This gave the buddy the opportunity to test the results, and if effective to get credit for the work. If, on the other hand, it was published and then found to be correct, the buddy’s body of work would be consigned to the scrap heap as being outdated.

My boss was open with me about these decisions, telling me forthrightly numerous times, “If this is published, it will end Dr. XXX’s career.”

Covid-19

With eight years of working in research and administrative offices of hospitals, I did a lot of digging during the Covid-19 pandemic. During other years working in a college library I had taken some classes in research, both of the book and internet varieties. When I read research and reports with the jaundiced eye I had developed over a lifetime of skepticism, I knew several things:

(1) Although over 70 and having had pneumonia twice, I did not fit the “high risk” profile because I was still very active and had no comorbidities.

(2) There was no reason to mask or vaccinate young children since they were at the lowest risk of the disease.

(3) There was no reason to vaccinate teens because they also were at low risk of the disease.

(4) There actually wasn’t a good reason to cancel school, church or other functions. According to the research, only the lives of the elderly ill and those with serious chronic conditions were endangered.

I was not vaccinated and to the best of my knowledge have never had Covid-19.

Conclusion

My life experience, both personal and professional, point to major issues with western medicine and American healthcare. I applaud President Trump for nominating someone as articulate (in spite of his voice problems) and knowledgeable about the swampy state of medicine as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and I encourage those of you on the fence about his nomination to take my documentation of problems seriously.

We will all benefit if alternative modalities of health care are accepted. The outrageous costs of healthcare in the USA and the world should decline, and the health and well-being of Americans and others should also improve. If we keep on the way we have been going, we will continue to get the results we have been getting. The United States and the world cannot afford this. We deserve better.

Photo by pina messina on unsplash

1. Allopathic is a term used for conventional or modern Western medicine. See Martin, L., What to know about allopathic medicine, Medical News Today, Oct. 14, 2021, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/allopathic-medicine , accessed Feb. 12, 2025.

2. Young, MK, Cripps, AW, Nimmo, GR, vanDriel, M, Passive immunisation (giving antibodies) for preventing rubella (German measles) after contact with it. Cochrane, Sept. 9, 2015, https://www.cochrane.org/CD010586/ARI_passive-immunisation-giving-antibodies-preventing-rubella-german-measles-after-contact-it , accessed Feb. 12, 2025.

3. Rubella: Timeline, 1969, Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/history-disease-outbreaks-vaccine-timeline/rubella , accessed Feb. 11, 2025.

4. Krishnan, R., and Stuart, PM, Developments in Vaccination for Herpes Simplex Virus. Frontiers in Microbiology, Dec. 7, 2021, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8691362/ , accessed Feb. 12, 2025.

5. Dowsing is how my ex found minor breaks in the underground irrigation lines of the apartment complex he managed, which was set on several acres of lovely lawn. When he suspected a leak, he would dowse in the area, and would dig in exactly the spot where the stick dropped. The leak was always right there. He did not have a special stick, he used one that he would find lying around in the woodsy part of the property.

6. Ray, M., Daniel Ellsberg: American military analyst and researcher. Britannica, updated Jan. 28, 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Daniel-Ellsberg , accessed Feb. 12, 2025.

7. Morin, A., FAQs about vision and dyslexia. Understood.com, https://www.understood.org/en/articles/faqs-about-vision-and-dyslexia , accessed Feb. 12, 2025.

8. Mulvaney, K., Are seed oils actually bad for you? Experts say we’re missing the big picture. NationalGeographic.com, Jan. 13, 2025, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/seed-olive-oil-health-effects, accessed Feb. 11, 2025.

9. Report Code: FB7175Jun,2919, by marketsandmarkets.com, https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/oilseeds-market-153443159.html , accessed Feb. 11, 2025.