The human body was made to be healthy; it wants to be
healthy. When it hurts or misbehaves, it
is telling its owner that it needs to be treated differently.
Confronted with a body showing sickness, conventional
medicine will generally default to some course or other of poisoning or cutting
or burning (antibiotics, surgery, or radiation). Quick and dirty.
Alternative/holistic medicine will try to figure out why the
body is out of order, and will adjust, nourish, or calm (chiropractic,
nutrition, various forms of emotional freedom techniques). Slow and healing.
Guess which costs more? Guess which works better? I
suppose the answer depends on who you talk to.
The pharmaceutical companies will give you one answer. Their profits depend on people getting more
prescriptions for more ailments.
But people who are raising kids on a single income and frequently without health insurance are likely to give you a different answer. They’re the ones who nurse their babies for many months, use herbs and homeopathic remedies, treat their kids with carefully-monitored diets, and use midwives instead of OB-GYNs. They resort to conventional medicine for the major problems, but the routine ones they handle with little conventional medical intervention. They just want to be left alone to solve their own health problems. That's why they're called the Health Freedom Movement.
If more people lived like that, the nation might not have the health crisis it has right now. It seems that this kind of behavior (taking personal responsibility for one's health) ought to be encouraged, not discouraged.
But Ted Kennedy wants to discourage it. He is sponsoring S. 1082, which would expand the FDA's authority to ban nutritional supplements.
Homeschoolers have rejected the benevolent dictatorship of
the public education establishment. They
have won the right to control what goes into their children’s heads. Perhaps more super-Trads than super-Libs are
doing it, but they’re following a sound libertarian principle.
Parents who have learned how to keep their kids healthy
without seeing a doctor every week have, in essence, rejected the benevolent
dictatorship of the conventional medicine establishment. They are thinking for themselves, researching
for themselves, and acting for themselves. Can’t get more libertarian than that, can you?
Where are the conservative champions of health freedom?