In 1993 Martin Walker wrote and published his ground-breaking book ‘Dirty Medicine: Science, big business and the assault on natural health care’, exposing British medical politics and its resistance to alternative medicine. He set up his own publishing house, Slingshot Publications so he could do this.
This week Martin Walker spoke to over eighty students at CNM London about Dirty Medicine, his research and ongoing involvement surrounding the issue of natural health care and those who oppose it.
What inspired you to champion natural medicine and take on those who assassinate alternative therapies?
Before I wrote Dirty Medicine I was working as a private inquiry agent for solicitors, investigating claims against the police for brutality, racism and other issues.
One day I was asked to get involved in a case in which a mother was trying to protect an environmental medicine doctor who had successfully treated her sons allergies. The doctor had been attacked by agents, related to an organization that had been formed which was against alternative medicine and they were trying to put the doctor out of business.
The mother was campaigning to defend the doctor but in doing so, was also threatened herselfwe never found out who was really behind it.
So it was this injustice that motivated you to write the book, Dirty Medicine? What was the reaction to it?
Yes, I started the research for the book at this point. It took me three years to research, and I was also attacked for my involvement. It was a real struggle as I had to publish it myself in 1993, no retailer would stock it for fear of libel action.
In what way were you attacked?
It was harassment really, lawyers sending me letters demanding that I make minor amends to the book or be sued for libel. But out of a book of 700 pages, they wanted me to make about 13 changes, more to do with the grammar than content.
It seemed that they were just desperate to attack in whatever way they could. It was a way of stopping dialogue between mainstream and alternative medicine in whatever way possible.
Who do you think is the greatest threat to natural medicine?
There are four threats to alternative medicine that I can point out as they each have their own agenda: the chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, processed food industry and the orthodox medical establishment.
Unfortunately alternative medicine practitioners are relatively disparate and not so aligned into power groups such as the others are, so the power is with them.
Not all orthodox medical practitioners in the so-called caring industry are against alternatives though. No, its a powerful structure, so its not the practitioners but the establishment that make that up that industry, the General Medical Council, British Medical Association, high-profile consultants and surgeons.
And the threat is the de-skilling of their profession and their professional identity. Its the politics behind medicine. Of course, orthodox medicine wants to stay at the top and have the control of medicine, pharmaceutical research, diagnosis and treatment. They dont want whole areas unlearned and non-professionals to enter healthcare. They are protecting their profession so its a very complex relationship.
What do you think is the future for alternative medicine and its relationship with mainstream medicine?
You cant understand future scenarios unless you understand politics and power and thats really what alternative practitioners need to think about.
Im afraid that Im a pessimist, there is never going to be a revolution, we are never going to live in a safe and democratic society the way we once did, or believed we did.
Alternative medicine is never going to transplant orthodox medicine. What I do see happening is that, while alternative practice will increase as people lose faith in orthodox medicine, there might not be an outright confrontation but this destruction of confidence will provoke orthodox medicine to find ways it can regulate and provoke punitive measures against the alternative.
It will end up as a reluctantly unstable settlement with natural medicine operating on the periphery, without the social power of orthodox. The government will never champion the cause of alternative medicine because of what it has to loose.
What is the biggest threat to alternative medicine?
The Codex campaign, its the most threatening thing to alternative medicine with global preventive powers and regulations (for more information on this visit Martin Walker’s website, http://www.slingshotpublications.com).
What can practitioners of alternative medicine do to defend their profession?
Practitioners need to get involved in politics as well as championing good remedies and practices. Unless we fight battles, its not going to change.
Otherwise we are still allowing a toxic society and pharmaceutical society which is bad for people and not facing up to the conflicts that need to be addressed.
Unless people are aware of the politics of it they think that they are living in an ideal world. My advice would be to:
- be aware of politics surrounding medicine
- look to the research and have some historical consciousness about what people have discovered to date and are continuing to discover and highlight
- learn from what others have researched and written about, as in my book, Dirty Medicine, and take it forward
- get engaged in the political situation.
To find out more about Martin Walkers work, his views on various issues and to find out how to get a copy of his book Dirty Medicine and other publications, visit http://www.slingshotpublications.com
To find out more about the campaigns and issues affecting alternative medicine you can visit the Alliance of Natural Health.
