It's 32 years ago, since I started out researching medical history, obstetrics, drugs, vaccines and pretty much everything pertaining to keeping the family's health intact... in spite of the medical profession.
Back in 1984, when I started helping parents, whose children reacted seriously after vaccines, these are the words they said, every time, like a mindless monotone recording.
"But they never TOLD me this could happen!!! No-one gave me any information at all! I had no idea (tears) and if I had known, I wouldn't have let them give that vaccine".
And it's true. In 1982, you were NEVER given any information. There was no such thing as informed consent. The medical profession rarely kept any records of what you'd been told, or the vaccines your baby was given. Maybe that was listed in the plunket book as an entry, "Had vaccines". If you were lucky, it was ticked on the vaccine page, but never were batch numbers and lot numbers written down.
I used to say back then, that the brochures could be understood by even the illiterate, because .. they said nothing.
Against this background of brochures saying nothing about reactions - but everything about - for instance - how rubella could make babies blind.... the most horrendous vaccine reactions occurred. Vaccine reactions would hit people like a lightning bolt out of nowhere. Parents just never conceived such a thing could happen....
And even back then, doctors would look at parents with disbelief, saying, "But vaccines can't do this. There are no reactions." Then their eyes would narrow, and various words must have passed through the doctor's brains, like, "neurotic, hypochondriac... etc" and in later years, the words, "Munchausen by proxy" would be added to the list, because invariably, at some point, an appointment with a psychiatrist would be suggested if a mother persisted with such imaginative nonsense as "a vaccine reaction"!.
Let's not forget that that was still around the time when autism was very rare and the experts said it was "caused" by "refrigerator mothers", so cold and emotionless towards their babies, that these autistic children couldn't respond having known no love....
In 2013, we now have a situation where parents are told about sore arms, fever, grizzliness, and then comes the finger-waggling, "and don't go believe all the hippy anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists who say that vaccines cause autism, autoimmunity asthma, allergies etc, because we KNOW that's not true, and it's ALL... just coincidental." And if they ring the surgery with something more serious they weren't told about, the response is, "Oh that's normal. It's a sign that the vaccine is working well, and doing what it needs to in the immune system"!
Again, the manipulation, and power of words.
So parents believe, and continue and have all the vaccines, and with each reaction, the automaton replies are the same. Their kids fall apart with these same symptoms as in 1980, but the parents now remain avidly pro-vaccine - because they all know that the fact that their child has fallen apart, is "coincidence" and has nothing to do with vaccines.
How do they know that?
The power of words. The doctor said so, and the doctor would know, and doctors never lie. However, most of the parents DO wake up - but by then, the medical profession has achieved what it wanted. Their babies are "success" statistics in the bean-counter's lists, so who gives a rip what parents think then! Besides which, the coincidental vaccine reactions are now the core of paediatric business, and help pay the bills. Everything is fine with the medical profession - EXCEPT when these parents decide to consult quackery and ... hey presto ... many of these children suddenly get better! The numbers of these parents are now so large in USA, that the pro vaccine have taken to writing books about how evil alternative medicine is. It never occurs to the authors, that parents aren't going to listen, for the simple reason that this evil alternative, can correct medical conditions that Big Pharma just makes worse. The proof is right in front of the parent's eyes. (Or is it? As future blogs in this series will show, there is a new "answer" to that question, just waiting in the wings...)
What's been so interesting to me over these 32 years, is that what the medical literature SAYS, isn't the same things as what the mouths of doctors say.
Reading medical literature enabled us to see clearly through the "word smog" in 1980, that continues as the very core of medical business today.
BUT the point is that .....the words doctor's speak, have an almost hypnotic power on many young mothers today, who can literally be hypnotised by "words" - and conditioned like "Pavlov's dogs".
That doesn't just apply to mothers today. From 1930 through to 1980, most "patients" considered doctors to be "God", and just did as they were told.
Not that there was much to tell in those days. Big Pharma wasn't the force that it is today. If you wanted some cough medicine, you went to the apothecary, and they got out various bottles, and made up some mix that tasted a bit like road tar, and your children weren't likely to swallow more than one dose. In reality before 1950, there wasn't much a doctor could offer. Pamol didn't even exist when I was born!
It's interesting, reading a book like J.R. Paul's 1971 book, "A History of Poliomyelitis" which tells the truth, and states that the treatment for polio was a most cruel form of torture..... But even then, people believed that each new magic bullet that was invented would be the key to keeping their family's health intact. Right from about 1700, the "medical profession" had worked out the power of words, so that society was well conditioned by 1950, to believe that without the medical profession, their children would DIE.
By 1984, we had woken up to the fact that not only was it possible to keep our family's health intact in spite of the doctor, but that we were more likely to be healthier by staying away from the doctor.
Why is that? Perhaps I've not mentioned it before....
The power of words that doctor's speak. Words are very important - but only, if you believe them.
Have you ever heard of the Aboriginal term, "Bone pointing"?
Some who might use more florid language would call it a Satanic curse, where the tribal 'spiritual' elder, points the death bone at you, and says, "On X date, you will die"!
The power of those words is such that many Aborigines who have had the death bone pointed at them, died.
Why? Because they don't realise that there is POWER in words, if you BELIEVE them to be true. The Aborigines thought bone-pointing was an immutable fact. The only reason the words, "I'll split my sides laughing" doesn't split your sides is that you know it's twaddle.
Dr Archie Kalokerinos was talking to me one day, when the subject of bone pointing came up, and I laughed. I'd never heard of it before.
His reply was, "Hilary, it's deadly serious. They all believe it. There is only one way to keep an Aborigine alive who has been bone-pointed and that is to bring them into the surgery the day before, heavily sedate them for 48 or more hours, bring them out of it, and then convince them that they are still alive two days after the bone was pointed. After that, they never believe again"
I sat there gob-smacked. "You're kidding me."
"Nope," he said. "It's a bit like a successful fraudster, suddenly being found out. People don't get sucked in a second time. Negating "bone pointing" was a regular part of my practice back then....."
Not long after that, (about 20 years ago...) I was involved with a friend, who was in her first pregnancy. She was a bit of a worry wort, and to alleviate her 'worry-wartism' they did the worst possible thing, and employed the most prestigious, most expensive , most opinionated obstetrician in the land. That's a recipe for disaster. Right from the start, I narrowed my eyes at this man, because his "words" worried her, and she believed him.
Words like, "I need you to have two GTT tests, because there's a chance you could have gestational diabetes, and if you do, your baby will be huge, and then we might have to cut you open to get it out."
Bone-pointing. Kaching. And she was a skinny thing with no family history of diabetes.
"I need you to have serial ultrasounds, because your baby isn't thriving the way I'd like it to, and that could lead to an underweight baby, who could have serious....." Blah blah blah...
Bone-pointing. Kaching.
These words, and tests ..... (money money) went on, .... and on, ....and on.... I spent most of my time, trying to antidote the worry and fear being relentlessly planted in my friend's head. And guess what. It's still happening, right up to today. It's one of the reasons that the caesarean section rate is so high. Many mothers today, no longer believe that they CAN give birth naturally, because it's "too dangerous" and "too hard", "too painful". (Add your excuse of choice...) Much easier to use a scheduled zip... .
Then three weeks before her due date, there was a knock at the door, and in tumbled my friend with a fist full of ultrasounds, crying, saying, "He wants me induced right now. He says the baby is 4 pounds, getting smaller and could die!"
So I looked through the ultrasounds, and actually wondered how the doctor could figure out anything. The latest one, done that morning, had apparently been the last straw for this eminent obstetrician. He had said, "See your amniotic fluid in this quarter is way too low. I want you in hospital tomorrow, and I'm going to induce you." I pinched the back of her hand, and yes, the flesh stood up nicely. I looked at her, and said, "Might this ultrasound be a result of words spoken, you being frantic all morning, and not drinking enough?"
Shock horror, well... how could that be?
Then she laid on the floor and I palped her stomach. (No, I've never had midwife training, but neither am I stupid!!!) I got her hands under the baby and on top, and we felt carefully over her bump together. I said to her, "Think about this. If your baby was four pounds, how big do you think it might be?" We got out four pounds of butter and laid them out, and she got it... intellectually. I showed her what the size of a four pound baby was, and said, "Yours is twice that size"
"But" - came the reply - "The ultrasound guy is the top guy in the country!!!" was the reply of disbelief.
What could I say? She believed from a position of "the fallacy of authority".
The next day, this bone-pointed, fear drenched mother went into hospital and was induced. Just about everything that could have gone wrong with the labour, went wrong, with the exception of a caesarean, and the baby???? .....was just over 8 pounds.
The baby arrived home with a massive haematoma on the head from a ventouse extraction, the mother's insides were trashed and she couldn't sit for a month, and worse, her breastfeeding had been systematically undermined by both hospital and family. A bill for a few thousand dollars arrived, which wasn't paid. The obstetrician never tried to recoup it. Nor... did he ever apologise, visit her after the birth, or look her in the eye again.....
She learned a lesson that day, which is that words have a much greater power than people given them credit for.
Her next birth was very different.Moral of the incidence ..... if you believe the words which come from the mouths of the medical profession, the consequences can be very nasty.
To be continued.... Part Two: Who controls the rhetoric
