PLATFORM : Leave Options Open for Alternative Medicine
(Wilson) sent a strong and disturbing signal to California consumers: that health care outside the mainstream is a frivolous luxury that should only be available to those who can afford it.
Perhaps if Wilson were to read up on American medical history, he would not be so quick to discount alternative medical treatments. Americans have long sought alternatives when they did not get satisfaction from mainstream medicine.
Alternative practitioners did not always cure their patients, but at least they did not usually kill them. In contrast, many an unfortunate soul in the hands of mainstream medical doctors suffered horribly. The best-known example is George Washington, who was literally bled to death by his physicians during a bout of strep throat.
Americans from all walks of life seek alternatives to state-of-the-art treatments, such as radiation, surgery and chemotherapy. These treatments, while undeniably valuable in many cases, are invasive and frightening. They frequently have harmful side effects and their success is far from assured.
Today’s medical alternatives include many scams, from “healing” crystals to over-the-counter food supplements sold with inflated claims. But Medi-Cal authorities have wisely recognized that acupuncture and chiropractic are not scams but promising treatments of choice.
An estimated 31% of adults, according to a 1991 Time magazine/CNN poll, have tried chiropractic for neck and back pains, finding it more effective and less risky than surgery and pain-killing drugs. Moreover, acupuncture, a 2,000-year-old healing system, is proving very successful for treating drug addiction and pain from arthritis. That same poll also found that 30% of Americans had tried some sort of alternative medicine in the past year. Additionally, California is home to a growing number of Asian-Americans, many of whom would visit an acupuncturist before they even consider Western-style medicine. But while some forms of alternative medicine are increasingly popular and effective, even middle-class consumers are hard-pressed to pay for them, because unorthodox medicine is often not covered by private insurance or health maintenance organizations. For the poor, it is even worse. Wilson will, in effect, shrink their freedom of choice and intensify an already stark two-tier system of medical care. This course should be unacceptable in a caring, democratic society.
