Sometimes More Funding is Not the Answer

It merely perpetuates the problem.  I remember being rebuked many years ago in suggesting to the Arthritis Foundation that glucosamine might be effective in treating arthritis -- and they were insistent that anybody claiming a cure for arthritis was a fraud, because there was no cure for arthritis, only to revisit their website decades later -- claiming they wrote the book on alternative cures for arthritis -- which was now their major moneymaker.  I remember very vividly in that contact of being told that they did not exist to cure arthritis -- but to raise money to cure arthritis -- and I should be clear in that distinction.

Later, when I met with the research director on Alzheimer's at the University of Washington, she insisted that the head could not and should not move -- as she demonstrated to me in resisting the ability of her head to move, and proudly boasted that any attempt to move and exercise the head (neck) would result in whiplash as the only possible outcome.  So I pretty much gave up on the academicians and researchers who were intent on not discovering any cures, but was very determined to obtain as much money for their "research" on costly explanations for why their disease was incurable.

Previously I mentioned I worked with the caregivers at the Fremont Public Association (Seattle), which required me first to obtain training and certification on First Aid and CPR -- at which I pointed out to the instructor, Fire Chief Claude Harris, that if one does perform chest compressions, mouth to mouth breathing is redundant and unnecessary -- to which his response was that I proposed it only to avoid giving mouth to mouth to people with AIDS and other possible unknown communicable diseases.  I said that was an additional benefit of doing only chest compressions -- rather than interrupting those efforts to give mouth to mouth breathing.  I pointed out that when one compresses the chest, the chest (lung) volume decreases forcing the air out of the lungs, but when that pressure is released, atmospheric pressure will inflate the lungs -- just as the self-inflating air mattress I brought with me to demonstrate in addition to the dummy they provided.

That eventually resulted in the protocol coming out of Seattle proffering the hands only CPR as the preferred, state of the art modality -- because it is the only thing that makes sense -- if the atmospheric pressure alone will refill the lungs.  In fact, many decades previously, the resuscitation technique consisted of applying pressure to the back and lifting the arm up to effect the breathing rhythm while lying face down -- until replaced by chest compressions receiving priority as the life saving measure.  So they threw in mouth to mouth breathing that could be done while the victim lay on their back -- as two things they needed to do, rather than the simplicity and effectiveness of only one.

The heart and lungs work similarly -- in pumping (moving) blood and air -- by the alternation of pressure differences.  That is the principle of hydraulics.  My previous concern was primarily to increase the circulation to the hands and feet -- in order to cure arthritis at those sites, regarding it as a circulation deficiency -- that I experienced as arthritis pain in the hands and feet.  As a young child, it was predicted that I would be crippled by arthritis as an adult -- a conclusion I found unacceptable even as much as the "experts" proclaimed that nothing else was possible -- because there was "no cure."

Then when my back pain was so unbearable I thought I'd never walk again, I coincidentally ran into the doctor's presentation of the cure for fibromyalgia that he claimed was the common, generic drug of guaifenesin -- by his convoluted explanation.  I just noticed that I became immediately well from all these autoimmune afflictions that had plagued me all my life, as well as all my relatives and friends, who I suggested it to because as the doctor pointed out, there are no negative side-effects even as much as the disclaimer warns against it as standard protocol, not to take it for extended periods.  Given the choice of excruciating back pain or relief, one is willing to risk the unknown side-effects, which the doctor was very adamant, there are none.  Yet there are dire warnings that there may be.  Meanwhile, the very real pain suffered by arthritics makes life unbearable for many.

This was not the first time medical science had failed me.  Apparently, I was one of the first persons ever encountered with lactose intolerance -- when I volunteered as a medical research subject as alternative service during the Vietnam war years -- and they had never heard of a person being allergic to dairy -- convinced as they were, that it was the perfect food.  About twenty years later, I read the first book claiming to be the first discussing the common frequence of lactose intolerance not only among most populations throughout the world, but even throughout history.

As a trained historian, I have a fascination for literature that was unpopular in their day -- that eventually prevailed.  That's how this country was founded.