Accomplishment As Artwork

by Dr. Larry Smith D.C.

I confess that I am a big fan of the humorous and satirical TV series “The Simpson’s.”
In a recent episode, Homer, Marge and the kids hop on an airplane to visit their northern neighbors in Canada. The 1st thing Homer does in the city of Toronto is quite baffling. (Well, maybe not for Homer.) He runs out in the middle of the street in front of a speeding car and gets run over. Marge screams to Homer, “Why did you do that, Homer?” Homer responds quite flippantly, “Health care is free in Canada!”

Matt Groening’s writers have satirically portrayed Canadians as a nation with a wonderful and free health care system. However, is health care in Canada really free? Would Homer Simpson actually want to leave his well being to the care of our Canadian health care system?

In the newly released book “Squandering Billions,” Don Nixdorf and Gary Bannerman examine the mismanagement and inefficiency of the Canadian Health Care system. The Canadian definition of free universal health care only applies to those services provided by medical doctors and hospitals. If patients choose to get treatment from any other health care provider in Canada, they are asked to pay fully or partially out of their own pocket. ” Despite all of the obstacles placed by the system to divert patients from chiropractors, optometrists, naturopaths, podiatrists, acupuncturists, physiotherapists, for whom the patient or insurer must pay some or all of the feesas opposed to the “free” medical doctor competition -these professionals demonstrate every day that people will pay for value received. It is high time medical doctors earned the same respect for their “free” medical services to patients. Canada is the only universal access nation in the world that does not have a user fee to encourage responsible behavior by patients and service providers.

This book also demonstrates that the absolute power of medical doctors, pharmaceutical companies, health bureaucrats and hospital administrators enshrines mediocrity at the expense of patients. We have many dedicated and skilled doctors and nurses, but mistakes, inefficiency and malpractice in the Canadian health system may be causing 10 times more unnecessary death a year than the toll from traffic accidents and crime. Despite dramatic television footage and newspaper headlines reporting highway tragedies, driving is a much safer activity than hospitalization. A study by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canadian Institute of Health Information released in 2004 concluded that 185,000 patients out of 2.5 million admitted to acute care hospitals suffer death, disability, or extended hospitalization as a result of adverse effects of treatment. Between, 9,250 and 23,750 of these people die because of preventable errors.

Homer would find out in a hurry that our “free” health care system is nothing to write home about. And should we always be relying on the system to keep us healthy or rather should we as a nation and society start taking more responsibility ourselves?

Dr. Larry Smith Chiropractor and co-author of
“The Art and Science of Sports Medicine.”
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The American Medical Association’s own esteemed research journal, the Journal of the AMA or JAMA has revealed a frightening statistic: In the United States alone, the third leading cause of death by any means is medically caused death.

What this means is that heart disease is our number one killer, cancer is our number two killer, and the conscientious following of medical protocols is the number three killer of people in our culture; a frightening fact for those of us who blindly accept a doctor’s advice as bible truth.

Here is how these deaths played out statistically, according to Dr. Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health:

- 12,000 patients died due to unnecessary surgery

- 7,000 patients died due to medication errors in hospitals

- 20,000 patients died due to other errors in hospitals

- 80,000 patients died due to infections in hospitals

- 106,000 patients died due to non-error, negative effects of drugs

These total to 225,000 deaths per year from iatrogenic causes!

Iatrogenic is a word that means death caused by the care of a physician. Take a long look at the 106,000 people who died from non-error: these are people who died taking the right pill at the right time, exactly as their doctor had told them to. Take a moment to consider that before you swallow your next prescription.

Now, take a moment to think about this, because it is important you understand the thrust of this concept: blindly following your doctors orders can be the most deadly decision you ever make about your health.

Your health comes from inside of you. Your body is nature’s ultimate machine. Why on earth would you ever be backed into such a corner that you would rely on medications or on surgery for your health? How were we ever convinced that opening our bodies with knives or poisoning our bodies with deadly chemicals would ever resolve our health issues?

So, if medicine is the third leading cause of death, what can we do to avoid falling into its traps? How do we know if the pill we are taking today, the same pill we have taken for years, will or will not be the pill that causes a violent, deadly reaction inside of us? Unfortunately, the answer is: we don’t know.

All we know for absolute certain is that every medication is a toxic chemical. Every surgery is an invasion of toxic chemicals and a violation of our internal order.

Your best bet is to learn more about your body and your health: to think beyond what the medical world is feeding you. In order to escape the pitfalls of the medical system, you have to know more about yourself and about the natural doctors of healthcare.You were not designed to be reliant on a pill or needing a surgery. You body is literally nature’s ultimate machine, dwarfing all of the powers of a hospital.

In every heartbeat you create and distribute the right drug at the right time for the right condition, sending it to the right spot in your own body with no side effects and with no need for outside intervention. Your body, when running at its peak, requires no outside interference. All your body needs is for you to make sure it is running at its peak. Drugs and surgeries only cause complications and get in the way of your internal natural ability to heal.

Consult with a chiropractor, a doctor who will help you remove internal interferences and imbalances. Learn to balance and strengthen your own body. Leave drugs and surgeries as your absolute last resort when making any health care decision.

Finally, and I will repeat this because it is so vitally important: get to know exactly how your body actually functions. Discover the power of a balanced, toned, and flexible body. The advantages you will gain when you focus on yourself and seriously take advantage of the incredible body you were born with will go way beyond simple health. Your personal power and your mental focus demand that you maintain your body in the shape it was designed to run in.

Your health and your life depend on how well you know your body, how to restore it to its full balance and flexibility, and how to harness the incredible powers you were born with.

About the Author:

Dr. Bryan Brodeur has a Family Chiropractic Clinic in St. Albert, Alberta, Canada, is the owner of the health web site, VitalityHouse, and the author of the fitness e-book, Vitalism.

Obtaining health advice that is worthy is hard to come by. As a medical student, I am surrounded by mountains of resources, professionals and experiences from which you can benefit. I cannot diagnose, treat or prescribe but I can give health information which can help you with your situation. All information that you give in the email is purely confidential and will be deleted upon receipt. No information will be published anywhere.

Why do we do provide a free health information service? Simply put — because we care. I will have my doctorate in naturopathic medicine two years from now. I already have 3 years of intense medical training under my belt and that is after a B.Sc in Cell and Molecular Biology. I know that most people are completely bewildered with the health industry and are looking for ways to obtain health without spending a fortune and without the standard mechanistic medical protocol. Complementary and Alternative medicine is flourishing and it is due to results patients receive. Holistic medicine heals and restores health to numerous chronic health conditions that traditional medicine cannot touch.

Our medical philosophy: Remove the cause of illness, treat the underlying issue and support the individual’s mind and body. This is how medicine should be practiced. Treating the symptoms only encourages the illness to penetrate deeper and cause further harm.

Some example health topics:

* Asthma

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* Diabetes Type I and II

* Cardiovascular health

* Attention Deficit Disorder

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This list is no way complete. Please write with any health question you have. All questions and responses are held strictly confidential to protect your privacy. I will respond with relevant health information, useful books, thoughts, product options and links. All health information given will contain references. If we do not know the answer, we will either refer you to a website or another useful source. I am not a substitute for a qualified physician.

For a sampling of my writing, you may view a number of my articles published here.

Take charge of your health. Education and being informed is the best way.

Benjamin Lynch has a BS degree in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Washington. Currently, he is obtaining his doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine at Bastyr University. Visit Ben’s natural health product store, HealthE Goods where one can use our free health information service where one may ask specific health questions. We provide physician-grade non-prescription natural health products. Wholesale spa products are available to all that qualify. Do visit our Healthy Lifestyle and Wellness Blog. We are here to help serve the public with proper health information and effective products.

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I was walking back home with my dog (he still eats the newspapers by the way) this weekend and re-emerging from the woods on the hill that over looks the valley I live in, I stopped, and took the time to stand and stare.

Below me was the village, nestled deep in a cleft. The surrounding hills were lavishly adorned with sprawling woodlands, skirting and dividing the many farm fields in which the wheat was beginning to ripen, the hedgerows subdividing these further. The sky was a cloudless blue and a cooling breeze pleasantly tempered the sun’s heat.

It was a view I’d seen many times and I thought back to the very first time I’d gazed upon it; to how beautiful it had looked and how breathtaking. Only by now I had grown accustomed to the scene, seldom stopping to look at it. So I stood, and stared. And tried to see it in the same way that I had seen it before, that first time.

My eyes watered with the effort, but to no avail. So I stood and thought about how I might re-awaken my former appreciation of this vista and then set off in the opposite direction to my normal route home down into the village, walking along the top of a fallow field and down along a seldom trodden path by an overgrown hedge row.

I stopped at that point and looked back along the valley: still the same trees, the same fields of wheat, the same houses, but all different now, all now being viewed from a different viewpoint, from a different perspective. I’d changed the way that I was looking at things. The leafy green woods toppled down the emerald green hills and the golden wheat rippled in the breeze, the thick, luxurious hedgerows overflowed with bird song and the gossamer wings of the multitude of bees and multi-coloured butterflies delicately caressing the air.

I wandered home and reflected on how in life we can grow accustomed to things; to our surroundings, to our relationships, to our work and leisure time. Sometimes becoming trapped in a viewpoint that prevents us from being open to new ideas or unable to escape long held convictions about others and even about ourselves.

So today, I’d like to invite you to go looking for that different viewpoint, that new perspective, and see if you can see things differently.

About the author:

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