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Vaccines
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Summary:
Cincinnati Enquirer 4/1/1999
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To the Editor:
I thank Dr. Sheldon Polonsky for proving again, why patients are leaving "medical types" and searching for physicians who seek the cause of illnesses, instead of the suppression of symptoms with drugs. Unable to offer a cogent argument in favor of the Hepatitis B vaccine, Dr. Polonsky chooses to berate his competition.
His statement that "homeopathic types "who "make billions of dollars selling snake oil to unsuspecting consumers with anecdotal reports and false advertising" is arrogant and ignorant of the facts. Is he suggesting that the public in Canada, Mexico, South America and Europe, who have been able to enter any pharmacy and purchase homeopathic preparations for almost 100 years, are fools?
Are "medical types" more intelligent than the billions of people in China, who for the last 10,000 years have used herbal medicines and acupuncture? Or are they also being misled? Does he realize that there are volumes of clinical trials published in respected journals that support homeopathy, herbs and nutritional therapies? Could he be aware that 8 of the top 10 chronic illnesses in this country are diet related?
The public is turning to alternative medicine in unprecedented numbers. In 1998, a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that there were 629 million visits to alternative practitioners and 386 million visits to traditional physicians in 1997. This represents a 45% increase in alternative visits compared to the original study in 1990. Most of these visits were paid out-of-pocket. Let me point out that it was this 1990 study that caught the medical profession by surprise and prompted hospitals to start their own "pseudo-holistic" centers. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and this type of arrogance pushes his patients out of his office into mine. Stop belittling other proven and widely accepted therapies simply because you’ve never taken the time to study them.
Dr. David Dahlman, D.C.
Hyde Park Holistic Center
Published: 4/1/1999
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