What Doctors Don't Tell You Australia/NZ Decenber 2019 / January 2020

Some 20 million Americans—or one in every 16—and one in 20 British people suffer from some form of thyroid disease. That’s a medical tragedy, no doubt, but the bigger tragedy is that almost two-thirds have no idea they are affected—and in the majority of instances, neither do their doctors. Exactly this situation happened to Georgia Lennard (page 70), a nutritional therapist, for many years. Even after she suffered a thyroid‘storm,’ her doctor assured her there was nothing wrong with her thyroid because the tests showed otherwise. Doctors often miss an underactive thyroid because they are using the wrong tests to help them diagnose it. “High-tech lab results are no substitute for the lost art of traditional medicine” They still rely on a series of blood tests that don’t tell them about the full state…

Dr. Jean Monro, medical director of the Breakspear Hospital, is an internationally recognized specialist in environmental medicine, including such conditions as chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme disease and multiple chemical sensitivity. She is Fellow of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine and a Board Certified US examiner. Dr. Damien Downing, whose practice specializes in allergy, environment and nutrition, is current president of the British Society for Ecological Medicine and on the editorial board of Orthomolecular Medicine News Service. Chief Medical Advisor of cancer charity Yes to Life (www.yestolife.org.uk), he is also the author of numerous books, including The Vitamin Cure for Allergies. Dr. Harald Gaier, arguably the UK’s most knowledgeable practitioner of the major alternative medical disciplines, is registered in the UK as an osteopath, homeopath, acupuncturist, naturopath and medical herbalist. Former director…

Hygiene in hospitals I was very interested to read your article concerning “blunder deaths” in UK hospitals, the reason being that I am extremely concerned about the approach to the washing of staff clothing. An acquaintance whose daughter is a nurse at our local Royal United Hospital in Bath told me that her daughter is now being requested to wash her own uniforms, along with other staff members. In my long and checkered career, I was head of department in a commercial laundry in Germany, where I was responsible for washing and ironing. I was also the hygiene and safety officer for the company (employing over 180 persons). I was responsible for ensuring the hygienic processing of washing for five local hospitals and 15 retirement homes, amounting to 17–20 tons per week. The regulations…

Forest bathing–it really can make you feel better Forest bathing—where you spend time in nature—really does work. Two hours a week in a forest, glade or park will improve your sense of wellbeing, a new study has discovered. Those two hours don’t have to be from one visit; the time can be spread over the week, and you’ll still get similar health benefits, say researchers from the University of Exeter who looked at the health and lifestyles of around 20,000 people. Time in woodlands, town parks, beaches and other natural areas will all reap rewards, provided that you spend 120 minutes or more in them each week. That seems to be the threshold, and people who reported spending less time than that in nature each week also reported lower levels of psychological wellbeing. Most of…

“The number of medical deaths could be higher still, with other deaths hidden by a conspiracy of silence” Antidepressants deaden empathy for others Antidepressants don’t only deaden feelings of depression—they also reduce empathy for others who are in pain. The drugs—and mainly the SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) class of antidepressants—lower “the emotional impact of negative events,” say researchers from the University of Vienna. They tested the impact of the drugs on a group of people suffering from acute depression who hadn’t taken any antidepressants. The subjects were shown images of people suffering and in pain while being scanned by an MRI machine when they weren’t taking an SSRI and again later after they had taken the drugs for three months. There was a significant difference between the two sessions; during the drug-free test, their…

Are we finally in the end-days of chemotherapy? If we are, the toxic kill-or-cure agent will have been toppled by the common cold—and it could all happen within the next few years. By then, the cold virus may well have become the standard treatment to beat a range of cancers, many of which are currently considered untreatable. Virotherapy—which uses adapted viruses and bacteria to treat cancer and diseases of the central nervous system—has been on the medical radar for more than a century, but it’s suddenly taken center stage. Just in the past few months, researchers from the UK’s University of Surrey have reported using the common cold virus, coxsackievirus, to treat 15 cases of bladder cancer, and found it can eradicate the tumors in just one week. The patients were given an…