The Roanoke Times on Sunday aired an interesting, albeit largely point-missing, debate and discussion on the ongoing prescription drug brouhaha ("Modernizing Medicare," July 22 Horizon).

Left-wingers tend to want to have the government provide prescription-drug benefits paid for by us taxpayers - the Band-Aid- over-the cancer solution. Right-wingers want drug companies and the free market to be left alone so that Adam Smith's unseen hand can provide the greatest benefits for all over time - the Ayn Rand, entrepreneurial, might-always-makes-right solution. Then there are combo solutions.

Most politicians probably don't care that much one way or the other, as long as they get re-elected - the get-me-back-in-office-at- all-costs imperative, and the best interests of the country take the hindmost.

While all these positions have various merits and demerits, they all miss the most important truth of the matter, which is this: Americans, on the whole, take at least four or five times more prescription drugs than they should if optimal health is the goal, and that includes seniors.

My perspective comes from ongoing readings in alternative health and medicine, various personal experiences and observations, and statistics about deaths and disabilities caused by excessive prescription-drug use.

A growing chorus from alternative-medicine doctors can be heard that informs this position. Most of them were traditional allopathic doctors at one time, but later saw a different light. Among them are Andrew Weil, David Williams, Bruce West, Glen Halverson and a host of others. While charlatans and scofflaws are in all fields, along with soft and controversial theories, the best that alternative / complementary medicine offers is too little known and utilized.

Among important points of agreement among many alternative medical practitioners: The American agribusiness diet offers largely harmful processed foods with certain additives used frequently that aid the processor in some way but harm the consumer long-term.

Two in this witches' brew are high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils of any kind. One or both of these, with a number of others, are in most processed foods and are linked to long-term degenerative diseases including obesity, diabetes, vascular / heart disease and cancer.

Eating a wholesome diet, which is extremely difficult without great care, will heal much and prevent much.

Then if one does get sick or suffer from a degenerative disease, an array of holistic remedies are available that are often more effective than pharmaceutical drugs and have many fewer risks and side-effects. These include but are not limited to eating properly, and specifically, drinking pure water and taking natural or seminatural supplements that address various specific deficiencies.

I go into the homes of many who are of senior age, and I see many taking hundreds of dollars per month worth of prescription drugs. Yet often their health is poor.

I am 58 and have experienced two cures and one substantial improvement with alternative treatments for conditions that traditional medicine couldn't handle properly or at all. (But beware the glib and intelligent con person in this or any field! One alternative practitioner recently claimed on public TV that only about 10 percent of what doctors do is actually based on science. I believe this comment is misdirecting and that this person should learn more true science.)

If these assertions are true, then why aren't we fully informed by our government, by the medical profession and by drug and agribusiness companies? Most alternative doctors agree on the answer. The short answer, not surprisingly, is money.

The drug and agribusiness companies want as much of it as possible, which, for some unfathomable reason, seems more important to them than augmenting our collective societal health. The Food and Drug Administration, which is supposed to protect us, is staffed by many who have been employed by or will later be employed by these same companies at high salaries.

Traditional medical doctors are little trained in nutrition, while they are wooed and wined and dined and given "incentives" from drug companies. Some of the money these unholy alliances generates naturally finds its way to support political campaigns. Thus, politicians and "the government" cannot be counted on to be particularly forthcoming or enlightening here.

Ayn Rand types love to extol the virtues of free and unfettered markets after they have brutally stacked the decks and co-opted as many of our media propaganda organs as possible.

If we would be truly free, if we would have as much health of mind, body and spirit as possible, then we must all be healers. As we seek the best and most truly moral and healthy things for ourselves, we should simultaneously endeavor to help our brothers and sisters, both those in the trenches with us and our leaders in influential places, to find and exercise these better solutions and truths both with us and for us.

　　From Healthy.net