Antibiotic development has been stagnant since 1987, and bacteria are constantly getting stronger, fighting back against these now antiquated medicines.
According to a March 20th article by the Washington Times, businesses resist making new antibiotics because the development is expensive, resulting in drug-resistant pathogens, known today as “superbugs”.
According to the CDC, these “superbugs” kill 99,000 Americans a year.
The fact that the pills on which people in many developed countries depend are becoming ineffective illuminates the possibility of alternative, or “complimentary” medicines, including homeopathy, a controversial method that has been practiced for over 200 years in India and the UK, far too long to be dismissed as “quackery.”
“Bacteria are almost always opportunistic,” Dr. Mark DeDubovay, a certified naturopath of Long Beach’s Advanced Wellness Center, said.” They are like the lion on the Sarangheti, they pick the weak.”
According to Heidi Burkey, Coordinator of the Health Resource Center at CSULB, antibiotics do not always kill bacteria, resulting in the “natural selection” of the stronger germs and perpetuating illness.
Sitting at a desk so clean that it mirrored her image, behind her, a sign read, “Heatlh educators prescribe wisdom”.
Homeopathy is based upon the use of substances that cause an illness in a healthy person, but are theorized to cure that same illness in a sick person, according to Dr. DeDuboway. These remedies are administered after being diluted repeatedly in alcohol or water.
Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, named the practice and believed that while taking large doses of a substance would only aggravate illness, if heavily diluted, it works somewhat like a vaccination.
Homeopathic remedies, although don’t work as quickly as antibiotics that sick westerners gobble like cough drops, are said to help strengthen the immune system because of their vaccine-like purpose, according to DeDubovay.
Homeopathy is commonly explained by the concept of “Water Memory” which was conceived by Jacques Benveniste, a French immunologist. In Benveniste’s theory, the configuration of molecules water is biologically active. In other words, even when a certain element in nature is drowned by dilution to its ends; it holds memory of the past solute.
Homeopaths also say that the higher the dilution, the higher the potency. This is what truly irks those western doctors and mainstream scientists.
However, not all homeopaths believe that high dilution is effective. Those doctors who favor lower dilutions gravitate towards the pathology argument and conventional practice, while homeopaths that use higher dilutions emphasize spiritual forces of a disease.
“It’s energetic medicine, so people who don’t understand it are purely in the physical medicine realm,” Dr. Mark DeDubovay, a Certified Traditional Naturopath at Long Beach’s Advanced Wellness center, said. “They [also] don’t understand acupuncture or mind-body healing.”
According to Jay Shelton in his book Homeopathy: How it Really Works, psychological and spiritual effects most commonly lead to the improved health of the homeopathic consumer. These include the Placebo effect, natural healing of the body and the therapeutic effect of the consultation itself.
While he says explaining homeopathy to a non-believer is difficult, Dr. DeDubovay does not insist that homeopathy is the solution, but rather says that avoiding unneeded antibiotics and leading a balanced lifestyle is the key to good health.
“The concern is the indiscriminant use of antibiotic therapy,” Dr. DeDubovay said.
Sick people in both the US and UK have upped the dose, according to a 2010 study by Medscape.
“ I think its necessary to still take [antibiotics] because obviously my body’s not taking care of itself at the moment,” Dina Bandziulis, a sophomore Graphic Design student, said.
Bandziulis said that she doesn’t trust the obscure realm that is natural medicine because she already knows that antibiotics work.
“Doctors and nurses are not willing to be specific,” Dr. DeDubovay said. [The medicines they prescribe are designed to] kill everything and this doesn’t help the interest of the patient.”
Because of the disequilibrium of bacteria, or probiotic that results from taking antibiotics, Dr. Dedubovay said that obesity, weakened immunity and long-term damages ensue.
“It’s a constant struggle to maintain bacteria balance,” he said.
According to DeDubovay, this balance can be regained by reverting back to a natural diet, allowing ourselves to consume natural bacteria such as fermented food, and forming a symbiotic relationship with the surrounding flora that protects us from allergies and autoimmune reactions.
Burkey says that antibiotics often kill off good bacteria that defend our bodies from illness. However, ethical practice can prevent from detriments to health.
Burkey said that as a clinic, CSULB Student Health Services follows natural standards of practice and practitioners hesitate to prescribe unless the patient shows evidence of serious bacterial infection, despite their demands for a quick fix.
Burkey said that the pharmaceutical companies spend more money on marketing than research and development, resulting in antibiotics that can’t keep up with impervious bacteria and sick people that just don’t get it.
Studies have shown that antibiotic prescriptions decrease if doctors educate patients about the risks of antibiotic overuse, according to an article by the National Post.
“People aren’t educated that there is a long-term solution but they are given the impression that problems are chronic and they’ll have it for the rest of their life,” Dr. DeDubovay said. “People are lead to believe that it is only an external factor outside of the self.”
While many Western doctors see homeopathy as “quackery” and fraud, Burkey says that clinicians certified in both conventional and what “complimentary”-or natural- medicine provide the best counsel.
“Traditional medicine is like the mass unit where soldiers are taken to have wounds stabilized,” DeDubovay said, “then they have to go to rehab facility, which would be the natural or complimentary.”
Burkey criticized those who blatantly reject holistic medicine, stating that the wellness model, which takes into consideration mental, physical and social factors, is much more successful than the Western medical model.
Burkey said that the office visit time is indicative of the quality of health care received. While many busy conventional doctors see patients for as little as 2 minutes each, holistic doctors see their patients for at least half an hour to bolster doctor-patient bonds.
DeDubovay referred to a famous proverb to explain complimentary medicine:
“Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime.”
Both Burkey and DeDubovay say that Western medicine should take a more holistic approach. Natural medicine may not use chemicals to slay symptoms widely and quickly, but it does bring energies back into balance and prolongs good health.
The Stoked Daily. 