Snail Stampede

By Bob Bennett
“You will observe with concern how long a useful truth may be known, and exist, before it is generally received and practiced on.” Benj. Franklin
Nowhere is this more true than in the field of medicine, excepting perhaps in governmental bureaucracies. But when a bureaucracy is charged with providing innovation, as is the case in mental health, snails seem to stampede while those in charge hide, looking longingly back to a time when failure was the accepted norm. It has been a long time since a government agency has been seen as being on the cutting edge.
Aspirin was introduced in 1853, but ignored for the next 46 years. Antioxidants were proven effective in the 1950’s, but weren’t accepted by main stream medicine until the early 1990’s. The Heimlich maneuver was invented in 1974, but the American Heart Association didn’t accept it until 1985. British scientists proved smoking caused lung cancer in 1952, but for decades the American Medical Association disputed it.
Some say the medical establishment is just being cautious, trying to avoid any mistakes. Others claim they are nothing but greedy blackhearts who care for nothing but increased power and personal wealth, and point to all the fast tracked drugs which made drug companies billions before it was discovered tests were falsified, or information withheld. Unless a product or service has the potential to make billions for a corporation, in which case marketing people will hype it beyond all reason, it will be ignored, then fought and disputed until enough people demand it, causing a tipping point to occur. Then people will scratch their heads, wondering why it hasn’t been used all along.
A survey found that while 60% of doctors took nutritional supplements, rarely did they recommend them to their patients. They also were taking supplements to lower cholesterol, to prevent strokes and Alzheimer’s, but would fail to suggest these to their patients.
The Turning Point, by Fritjof Capra, (1982) took the medical community to task for its failure to incorporate the advances made in Physics during the turn of the last century. While many individual physicians (Vibrational Medicine by Richard Gerber, M.D., 2001) have explored and utilized the benefits of these advances, the medical community as a whole has been hostile and antagonistic towards them. While some claim it is only because they have not yet found a way to extract large sums of money from them, others, notably Dr’s. Brinkman and Kirschner in How to Deal with Difficult People, 1982, suggest it is just a function of a certain personality type which seems to be common not only in the medical community, but in many leadership positions.
From some of the hostile responses I received from my last column, 2nd Chances, I seem to have struck a rather defensive cord from some people in a leadership position. I have benefited from a number of advances in the field of medicine which the mainstream has not yet acknowledged. While I don’t really see myself as on the leading edge (after all, I received these treatments from others who were more familiar with them), looking back the mainstream, not only do I sometimes view them as reactionary, but stone aged. Maybe the snails were bigger back then.
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More information about recovery from mental health problems can be found at my website http://www.approach2balance.org/ .
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To contact Bob Bennett, go to bob@approach2balance.org.