Free Zone America Forum 2003 : Excerpts from The Assault on Medical Freedom

Excerpts from The Assault on Medical Freedom - Introduction

Author: Virginia McClaughry,
Posted: Sat 26 Jul 2003 2:54 am
Subject: Excerpts from The Assault on Medical Freedom - Introduction

The Assault On Medical Freedom - by P. Joseph Lisa c 1994

Excerpts:

Introduction

"My introduction to the seedy world of medical politics began in the fall of 1968, when I conducted an investigation into the American Medical Associations's sponsorship of a series of media attacks directed against what they called "mental health quackery" the previous summer. I began my investigation by visiting several groups in the New York and the Washington, D.C., area that had been involved with this media campaign. Each place I visited, I explained that I was working on a book on "mental health quackery" and asked the "experts" for help. In each place I was provided with files and records on the subject being investigated.

I repeated this successful action over and over again, for about six months. When I had enough background data under my belt, I proceeded to my main objective, the American Medical Association.

It was my policy then, as it is now, that when something good was under attack, I simply asked myself this question: "Who has the most to gain by this action?" In this way I compiled my investigative leads.

I then proceeded to schedule and plan my visit to the American Medical Association's headquarters in Chicago in April 1969. Spokesmen for the AMA and the American Psychiatric Association had come out in an article published in Life magazine attacking religion and faith healing as forms of "mental health quackery." The term quackery, I was to later find out, was a label that orthodox medicine attached to anything they wanted to discredit in the public's eye. I soon found out to what extent they were involved in a massive propaganda campaign, against every aspect of what has become known as "alternative medicine."

When I arrived at the AMA headquarters I entered into the world of medical politics. Not knowing what to expect, and armed only with the investigative ability that had gotten me far, I started on my fact-finding journey with some uncertainty as to where it would take me. Today I am still on that road searching for the truth."

"The elevator doors slid open a few minutes later and a tall lanky man dressed in a dark pin-striped suit stepped authoritatively toward me. With a stern expression on his face, he droned, "I'm Doyl Taylor." I introduced myself, we shook hands, and he turned around without saying a word. I followed him into the elevator, which took us up to the sixth floor.

As I walked behind Taylor through a maze of offices, hallways, and partitions, I noticed a huge room that contained hundreds of file cabinets. I was soon to find out that these filing cabinets contained the most comprehensive collection of misinformation, correspondence, memoranda, propaganda, and reports on "quackery" in the world, bar none. In fact, Taylor was so proud of his files that he quickly pointed out that the FBI, the FDA, the IRS, and even foreign countries came to him to extract data and collect information on "quacks." Taylor assigned me a large table in the conference room, where for three days I combed through hundreds of these files, hand-delivered to me by Taylor's personal secretary.

The conference room was adjacent to the massive file room which was the composite mind of the ruthless Department of Investigation. This was my first exposure to organized medicine's propaganda machine, headed by Taylor and his staff. They had gathered up misinformation, propaganda, and lies about organized medicine's economic competitors from all over the world, and had spread their fabrications on a global basis.

At first he was very leery of me, and checked out my background with phone calls to the officials I had previously interviewed. He made it a point to tell me that if it were not for my impeccable credentials he never would have allowed me access to his records. He said this with the same pompous air that a high priest would use with a commoner who was being allowed into the sacred cave for the first and only time in history."

"He said that he had to leave town on a trip to New Orleans and he wouldn't be back for three days, but that I would have carte blanche access to his files in his absence, and that his secretary would copy whatever I felt I needed for my book on quackery. Of course I took advantage of such an opportunity. My initial goal was more than accomplished, as I accumulated hundreds of documents from inside the AMA's files proving that there was an organized campaign to discredit religious groups and faith healing as forms of "mental health quackery."

I was also given access to other targets of the AMA's propaganda campaigns over the years. The files included psychic healing, faith healing, acupuncture, cancer and arthritis "cures", chiropractic, homeopathy, naturopathy, vitamins, herbs, and more. There was more in those files than I could ever copy and take with me. I picked the best documents related to my main objective and had them copied per Taylor's instructions. I left Chicago with a feeling of great accomplishment.

In viewing the files that were made available to me I not only found that there was a major campaign against every single aspect of alternative medicine, I also was able to analyze the data for a common denominator that would explain why organized medicine felt compelled to attack these entities. My common denominator, back in 1969, still holds true today. Each and every one of the targets that the AMA went after was in some way a form of drugless-healing arts. These methods did not use pharmaceuticals in their approach to healing diseases. I made a mental checklist as I looked through the files, and in almost every case my common denominator held true.

There were a few exceptions, such as a case where a licensed orthodox medical doctor broke away from established medicine after having developed or becoming aware of a drug produced in Europe or Asia that was effective in curing certain diseases. But even in such cases, the common denominator was that these were not pharmaceuticals produced in this country and therefore were in competition with American drug companies."

"In all instances of the information-gathering process involving the AMA and other groups or organizations I visited and copied files and collected information from, everything that I did was done in a legal fashion, so that the legal integrity of the evidence collected could be used in a court of law. The techniques employed included what is known in law enforcement as "pretense calls" or "pretense visits", using a cover story to shield one's true mission. Using references above suspicion, I was able to gain the trust of the opposition or target area so that they would openly and willingly turn over their files to me. Other techniques included using data from whistleblowers (people inside the "enemy camp") who courageously gave me information about targeted subjects of the investigation. At times, reams of documents have been sent to me anonymously in the mail from sources inside an area under investigation.

No illegal breaking and entering was ever employed. No rifling of desks or file cabinets ever took place. Originals were never taken. Copies were always made of the originals.

About two years after my initial visit to the AMA's Department of Investigation, I found myself confronting thousands of documents that were copied from their files on "quackery." Most notable were the files on chiropractic. By reviewing these files over a ten-month period and studying the United States antitrust laws and trade cases dealing with violations of these laws for several months, I was able to analyze what points of law the AMA had violated regarding chiropractic and others they campaigned to destroy."

"Along with the files on the "quacks" came files from inside the AMA's Committee on Quackery. This committee was entrusted with a chilling, unethical, and illegal mission. According to their own statements made by the Committee's lone layperson, H. Doyl Taylor (the Committee's secretary), in a memorandum dated January 4, 1971:

Since the AMA Board of Trustee's decision at its meeting
on November 2-3, 1963, to establish a Committee on Quack-
ery, your Committee has considered its prime mission to be
first the containment of chiropractic and, ultimately, the
elimination of chiropractic.

This document and hundreds of others that were selected from the thousands to choose from were then used by William Trever to write a expose' on the AMA's propaganda campaign against chiropractic. The book was self-published and titled In the Public Interest."

"More than a hundred pages of documents were assembled and given to key chiropractors around the country. This was done with the hope and expectation that they would do (italics) something with them. During 1972-73 the documents were in fact used to defeat legislation that was introduced by the medical establishment in over eleven different states. The legislation was designed to adversely impact the practice of chiropractic in these states. The documents served a good purpose in that regard.

The AMA's current campaign is driven by the same motivation as the campaign back then. The bottom line is that greed is the driving force perpetuating this illegal propaganda campaign against all the alternatives, not just chiropractic. This book shows why the free-enterprise system in health care is under attack, what the covert war being waged against alternative medicine is all about, who is funding this campaign, who the spokesmen are for the campaign, what their actual plans are, and how they are carrying out these plans."

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To be continued......

Virginia