This page is a response to
a statement "snake oil medicine" that was used to describe medical care
in China. I received medical training in China and observed much that was
nothing but "snake oil." I also witnessed many surprisingly high-tech medical
devices that are years ahead of the latest medical technology found in
Western Medicine - which is the subject of this web page.
An M.D. giving a lecture on "quack
medicine" stated the following about acupuncture. He said, "I've compared
two charts and the points are not even in the same place: so there can't
be anything to acupuncture."(1) In about that many words he dismissed acupuncture
as having no value in health care. By the same logic I could say, "I went
to two M.D.'s and they didn't agree; so no doctor should be considered for
medical care."
Lest any readers of the TLfDP dismiss
Chinese Medicine as summarily, as the above doctor, and envision it as
primitive barefoot folk doctors putting unsterile acupuncture needles into
ignorant peasants, may I share with you some of the high-tech medical technology
that I saw in China.
Beyond acupuncture, the Chinese also
have Western style medical schools with all of the specialists we have.
Their medical doctors read Western medical journals and have similar if
not equivalent training. Surprisingly, such doctors seemed to have mutual
respect for traditional Chinese caregivers such as acupuncturists, auricular
therapists, and chi-gong masters (2).). Medical specialists from both traditions
often work hand-in-hand.
I saw in such a medical school an instrument
the Chinese have developed to measure the sinus node function of the heart
non-invasively. To filter out all of the surface electrical potentials
and measure the electrical signals inside the heart from the surface of
the body is no small achievement. In the West, we can only do this by putting
a catheter into an artery in the leg and threading it up into the heart
- a very invasive and sometimes fatal procedure.
To show me the instrument would do
what they claimed, the Chinese surgeons put a catheter into a dog's heart
and then put their instrument on the surface. Both instruments recorded exactly
the same signal. Cardiologists in this country who make a living doing
cardiac catheterizations don't seem to be interested.
At another medical facility, the Chinese
demonstrated an electrogastrograph that would non invasively diagnose all
of the problems we find with upper and lower GI tests -- no radiation no
barium enemas etc. Again, gastroenterologists in this country were not interested.
I couldn't find one that would even talk to me.
By the way, would anyone show me a
double blind study that shows barium enemas, radioactive drinks, myelograms,
or angiograms are safe. "But we can't find out what we need to know without
doing these tests" is the answer I will get. That's exactly the point. Now
it is possible to do at least some of it non-invasively (if anyone is interested).
Whatever happened to the Hippocratic oath that says, "First I will do no
harm?"
I saw a computerized heart function
monitor that included a blood pressure meter and cuff which would automatically
print out 21 cardiovascular parameters with just the blood pressure measurement
and height and weight inputted.
I saw convincing photos of what appeared
to be advanced cancers on the surface of the body that were eliminated
by an instrument that focused light of a specific frequency upon them.
I learned and have repeated many times
a method for reprogramming gall bladders by using infrared (cold) lasers
on acupuncture points to constrict the gall bladder and expel sludge and/or
small stones. With ten treatments in a row, the gall bladder fills and empties
properly. Thereafter the patient has a healthy and fully functional gall
bladder.
If the patient has gallstones that
are too big for the above procedure, the Chinese have a portable lithotripper
that costs $6,000 compared to Western lithotrippers that cost around a
million dollars. After the stones are disintegrated with the lithotripper,
the gall bladder can then be emptied and programmed to function properly.
In this country, all we know how to do is cut out gall bladders, instead
of make them better.
Regarding the removal of gall bladders,
a pathologist in the U.S. confided in me that since we have started doing
laparoscopic cholecystectomies, he is getting all of these gall bladders
that have nothing wrong with them! Is it incompetence or dishonesty by the
doctors involved? Wouldn't it be better to make gall bladders functional
instead of routinely cut them out?
I learned a method of using laser light
to permanently stop shingles and shingles pain in 2-3 days if the pustules
are in the active stage. If there has been post herpetic neuralgia (shingles
pain) of long duration before the treatment begins, the treatment is still
helpful but may not be 100%.
If dairy cows do not conceive because
of non-ovulation, the Chinese can make them ovulate by focusing infrared
light on an acupuncture point. The cows then get pregnant. The research
done on many dairy herds in China where they have successfully repeated
this treatment fills a book.(2)
I believe it would also work on women
who are infertile if the reason for their infertility is non ovulation.
When I began to tell this to an OB GYN who claims to be an infertility expert,
he said, "Let them put it in the New England Journal of Medicine and then
I'll read it." With that, he stood and indicated the conversation was over.
I learned (based on animal studies
in China done first on rabbits, sheep, deer, and horses) a method of using
light on acupuncture points to increase natural killer cells and/or natural
killer cell activity invivo from 600 to over 1000% in ten days. It doesn't
work on all patients, but because of the cost of the tests, we haven't done
enough studies to know why.
My pathologist neighbor saw the before
and after blood tests and thought this would be of interest to local oncologists
because of what radiation and chemotherapy do to the immune system. They
said, "Natural killer cells are not important. It is the T cells that count";
so they were not interested. I have references for 146 studies on natural
killer cells giving evidence that they were wrong. Since then, we have done
a number of tests that have shown a significant increase in T cells as well
- using the same method.
The Chinese have developed a portable,
self-contained CO2 medical laser that meets all FDA and Radiation Health
and Safety requirements for sale in the United States. The laser fits in
a brief case, costs about 1/10th as much, and will do essentially the same
thing our lasers will do that fill up an examination room.
The laser is near impossible to sell
to Western doctors because they will not be satisfied with a tool that
does a job efficiently and well without all the bells and whistles. An
analogy to this would be a doctor who is personally going to deliver a
small package across town. He will do it in a BMW, if not a Ferrari, or
in an "18 wheeler" - never in a Chevrolet Geo. We even offered to give
a new Laser Plymouth sport car with a laser compact disk player to any doctor
that bought our medical laser at the price of the competition. Three lasers
for the price of one. There were no takers.
The above developments are all surprisingly
high-tech coming from a country we consider primitive. A medical treatment
device that had a direct bearing on my life was disarmingly simple and
low-tech. There is a hospital in Nanjing China (city of 8 million people)
that treats nothing but hemorrhoids. Hundreds of people go to the hospital
each day, have their hemorrhoids taken care of and then immediately after
ride their bicycles back to work!
In contrast was my own surgical hemorrhoidectomy.
After the surgery I had an impacted colon - bled the toilet full of blood
nine times before I could have a bowel movement. I would just about as
soon die as go through that again; so I purchased one of the hemorrhoid
instruments.
It was provident that I bought the
instrument because I later developed another hemorrhoid just as bad as the
one that required the surgery. I procured the help of a doctor who had no
experience with the instrument, explained to him how to use it, and this
is what I felt -- It was cold for a few seconds, then I felt a tiny prick
and it was over. I then went back to work feeling better than before it was
done. The next day it was about as uncomfortable as before the procedure
and the day after it was completely better. That was it, and I haven't been
bothered for six years.
For me, "miracle" is not an overstatement.
And we think the Chinese are primitive. Hemorrhoid surgery in the United
States is barbaric compared to what the Chinese can do! I let a proctologist
take this instrument for three months to try it out and got it back unused.
One of the reasons such discoveries
are made in China is, they are free to try procedures that don't pose obvious
harm to the patient without first having to prove such methods are effective
or safe.(3) Medical doctors, acupuncturists, chi-gong masters etc. are
trusted to do their best. Malpractice lawsuits are unknown.
Because China is so eager to catch
up with the West, they reward innovation. Our system (medically speaking)
punishes it. Those who deviate, from the consensus medical establishment,
in search of better methods and treatments (for example - Phillip Semmelweis,
Thomas McPherson Brown, Jonathan Wright and John Gambee) are punished even
when they heal their patients - because they do not practice medicine like
everyone else. "It's a lot safer for doctors to kill their patients with
treatments that have been approved than to cure them with ones that challenge
tradition" (Jane Fagen, quoted in Arthritis Breakthrough)(4).
Most important, by combining
my training in Electromedicine in the United States with Chinese healing
technology, I have verified the Chinese definition of "pain" by stopping
the pain in more than 9,000 patients, even pain that nothing else will touch,
often with just one or two treatments. The results are usually immediate
and often permanent. It is done non-invasively without acupuncture needles,
drugs, herbs, surgery, exercise, massage, magnets, or manipulation.
Footnotes:
1. I have auricular acupuncture charts from China, Korea, Japan,
France, and the United States. They do not exactly agree on all point locations
but most points are remarkably close.
2. A wing of a hospital I went to had a sign over it that said
in Chinese "Music Therapy". Inside a "Chi-Gong" master demonstrated his
amazing craft. He literally made my hair stand on end and exhibited control
over the movements of a catatonic apoplectic patient who had his eyes closed.
He did it without touching him. I don't expect anyone to believe it. I saw
it with my own eyes and I'm still not sure if I believe it. The music therapy
was also a surprise. They were using Western classical music for treatment!
3. Chen Ja-pu, et. al., Curing Ovarian Disease in Dairy Cattle,
Peking Agricultural University, Beijing, China 1988 (Available only in Chinese).
4. Compared to Western medical research and treatment, there is
in the Chinese system more inherent danger to the patient, but the Chinese
are not totally without regard for medical safety or ethics. Animal studies
are also often done there, before doing anything potentially harmful to
the patient. My point is not that their system is superior but only that Chinese
health care is much more conducive to discovery.
5. Henry Schammell and Thomas McPherson Brown, M.D., Arthritis
Breakthrough, M. Evans and Company, N.Y., 1993 (A book about the work
of the late Thomas McPherson Brown, M.D. that will change forever the way
we treat arthritis.)
Darrell J. Stoddard, President Lasers International Inc.,
Founder - Pain Research Institute
266 East 3200 North, Provo, Utah 84604
Phone (801) 377-6900
Email: stoddard@healpain.net
Website: http://www.healpain.net
Note: The
Breakthrough major discoveries regarding the trreatmnent of pain by the
Pain Research
Institute are
all based on the "Ancient Chinese Inventions" of acupuncture and medical
theory.