Politics In Healing Haley Interviewed

[Guest guest]

Hello,

Below is part two of Barry Chowka's recent

interview with Haley, author of the excellent

book " Politics In Healing. " Part one of the interview

is available at the website but is mainly backstory,

part 2 has the meat. For an overview of Haley's book

see my nonprofit website.

http://www.cancerinform.freewebsites.com/bookshaley1.htmlofit

wesite.

See my published article, " The Cancer Racket " at the

link below.

http://www.cancerinform.freewebsites.com/cancerart.html

Thank you.

Gavin

Naturalhealthline

http://naturalhealthline.com/newsletter/1dec01/haley2.htm#jump

(December 1, 2001) Haley is a former New York

State

legislator - a mainstream reform

Democrat elected in the

early 1970s to three consecutive

terms from an

overwhelmingly conservative Upstate

Republican district.

During the past two decades, in

addition to his career as an

international businessman, Haley has

increasingly focused

his attention on investigating

alternative cancer therapies

and the political machinations that

prevent their being more

widely available.

Haley's efforts have recently culminated in a

481-page book, Politics in Healing

(2000, Potomac Valley Press). The work is an

overview of the politics of medicine

and includes individual chapters about a number of

leading alternative cancer

therapies and the struggles their proponents faced

and, in some rare instances, as

in the case of Stanislaw Burzynski, MD, PhD, managed

to overcome. In addition to

Burzynski's antineoplastons, Haley writes in detail

about Gaston Naessens and

714X, the Hoxsey therapy, DMSO, ph Gold and

hydrazine sulfate, and several

other popular therapies. The extensive history he

presents points to a pattern of

suppression of clinical innovation in which the

American citizen - typically unaware

that systematic suppression is even going on - is

the ultimate loser.

Haley's efforts to bring to light the politics of

cancer are in the tradition of other

people, accomplished in fields outside of medicine,

who have been able to place a

clear focus on the failings of medical orthodoxy.

Unlike many other critics, however,

Haley suggests specific strategies for reform,

including recommending that the

government get entirely out of the field of

regulating nontoxic therapies.

The following interview is the second part of my

conversation with Haley,

recorded on November 11, 2001. The first part can be

read here.

http://naturalhealthline.com/newsletter/15nov01/haley.htm

Chowka: Do you think the situation facing a

person with a serious illness

today, a person who is interested in accessing

primary alternative medical options,

is better or worse than a decade or two ago?

Haley: Worse! God knows it was bad enough

back then but it's getting

worse. Ten years ago, I was living in Houston and

all of a sudden it hit me, thinking

politically, which I do: There's a campaign going on

against alternative medicine.

You could see it. Somebody was being attacked in

California, somebody was being

attacked in Florida, and somebody was being attacked

in Georgia. It was a

campaign and you could see it. Maybe other people

don't think politically but I do

and I was right. And it's just getting worse and

worse.

In 1990, around the time I got acquainted with

Berkley Bedell, somebody told me

about a secret plan, " Project 2000, " where the FDA,

and the AMA, and the

pharmaceutical companies were going to try to

eliminate alternative medicine by

the year 2000. Well, of course they didn't succeed

but it wasn't for a lack of trying.

After Hillary Clinton's national health care bill

was dead and buried - it was dead on

arrival in the Congress and never even voted on – in

November '93 or so there was

an article in the Townsend Letter that showed a

clause from that bill. You

remember, the structure she was proposing for her

plan was modeled after the

British system where a medical board would decide

what the government would

pay for and if they approved something, then the

government would pay. And if you

as a private citizen wanted something not approved

by the board, then you'd pay for

it. In Hillary's plan there would have been a

medical board and what it approved, the

government would pay for. But she added a little

twist: If you as a doctor and I as a

patient were to take or to use something not

approved by the medical board, then

you would be guilty of a felony and face

imprisonment and fines up to $10,000 and,

even more unbelievably audacious, I as the patient

also would be guilty of a felony

for taking such an unapproved treatment. That was

the most unbelievably

nonsensical thing I ever heard in my life.

Chowka: The Clinton plan would have criminalized the

practice of alternative and

innovative medicine in the United States. I read the

1,300-plus page proposal that

Hillary Clinton's health care reform task force came

up with and I wrote about it at

the time. One of the challenges was that many people

in alternative medicine and

on the left were brainwashed by the Clintons into

thinking that we need

state-sponsored medicine to cover the uninsured and

that the Clintons' plan

represented some kind of progress - not realizing

that handing that kind of power

over to the government is at best a Faustian

bargain.

Haley: ly, I was one of the people who wanted

to see national health

insurance. Teddy Roosevelt was for it, Harry Truman

was for it. The devil is in the

details. If you don't look at the details, you may

end up with something pretty bad. I

thought at the time [1993] about how many times I

had voted for legislation with

really no idea of what was in it.

So, they almost slipped through Project 2000 - in

1993!

Chowka: In your book, you

suggest that people should still

do things like try to influence the

government or their

representatives - you

recommend that people write to

their members of Congress

about these issues, right?

Haley: Sure.

Chowka: Why do you still have

confidence that the system can

be changed in that way? I look at

things like the Office of

Alternative Medicine (which is

now the National Center for

Complementary and Alternative

Medicine) and the White House

Commission for

Complementary and Alternative

Medicine Policy (WHCCAMP).

And I increasingly wonder if

they're truly doing good things or

are they in reality more like a

Trojan Horse. For example, the

WHCCAMP is drafting its final

report and there are indications

that it will advocate tougher

regulation or enforcement of alternative medicine,

with enhanced roles for agencies

like the Federal Trade Commission.

Haley: I went by chance to Dr. Jim Gordon's [WHCCAMP

Chairman] conference in

Washington a couple of weeks ago [Comprehensive

Cancer Care 2001], and

somebody asked me what I thought about it. What

amazed me is that the questions

they are talking about asking - these are things

we've known the answers to for

twenty years! Why are they still studying them? I

thought it was completely unreal.

Chowka: It seems to me that, whatever the

government's intentions at the outset,

turning to a bureaucracy for reform in areas like

alternative medicine has proven to

be largely problematic.

Haley: You are absolutely right, for one thing

because of all the money flying around

Washington. Huge campaign contributions from the

pharmaceutical companies.

And that distorts everything. When I first met

[former Iowa Rep.] Berkley Bedell, he

was talking about this " OAM " [Office of Alternative

Medicine] and I kind of agreed with

him that you had to try it. But this was after I had

already seen my beloved creation in

Albany, the New York State ERDA [Energy Research and

Development Authority],

completely torpedoed by the bureaucrats. So I kind

of knew what was going to

happen with the OAM and I wasn't a bit surprised

when it did. But I still think you

have to try. OK, it didn't work, but you tried.

So now, Berkley has set up his own privately funded

foundation [the National

Foundation for Alternative Medicine]

(http://www.nfam.org). He needs help in

getting funding for it because he can't do the whole

thing himself. It has the

capability of being the authoritative institution

that can pontificate with credibility and

authority that " this [particular therapy] works. "

Partially this revolves around the

integrity of Berkley Bedell himself. Everybody

consents to that man's sincerity and

honesty. That could be extremely, extremely

important. As for the governmental

institutions, forget 'em. They're a waste of time.

Chowka: I agree with you that it's important to try.

Over the years I've worked with a

variety of things at the federal level, including

the US Congress, the Office of

Technology Assessment, the Office of Alternative

Medicine, and the White House

CAM Commission. When the calls came, I always

responded, with a spirit of taking

people at their word that they were sincerely

interested in truth and clarity. Inevitably,

I have been disappointed at how things have turned

out.

Haley: I pose the question, for example during radio

interviews, " At what point are

people going to be so upset that they're really

going to do something? " In other

words, " Is it pitchfork time? " When I say that,

people's eyes light up. At some point,

there has to be a very, very tough citizens'

movement to just get in and start

elbowing people aside and saying to the bureaucrats,

" Look, Americans are

dropping dead, get out of the way! "

You and I have been talking for awhile tonight and

during that time, every 3-4

minutes, somebody has died from the effects of

FDA-approved drugs used as

directed. That's in addition to the fact that every

minute since we've been talking, an

American has died of cancer. One a minute, 1,500 a

day, 500,000 a year. The daily

rate is equal to three fully-loaded 747s crashing

every day and everybody aboard

dying - every day, every week, every month, all year

long. A lot of people might say,

Well, there's hope, if we give them a couple billion

dollars a year more they'll find a

cure. Actually, the only research they need to do at

the NCI [National Cancer

Institute] is to go into their files and look for

the things that they've buried for the

entire 20th century. They're there; they know them.

They know exactly where they are.

At the same time, let's look at the things that are

completely avoidable, like the

FDA-approved drugs. Rezulin is the most recent

example. Every other year there's a

scandal like Rezulin. The number I'm using is

200,000 deaths a year. There's a

Harvard study that came up with that number. JAMA

estimated 106,000 deaths per

year in hospitals. CDC says it's 140,000 in

hospitals and at home. Harvard came

out a year or two later and said it's 200,000 deaths

a year from this cause. I figure

that, I'm a Harvard man so I'll go with the Harvard

numbers. (Laughs.) So 200,000 a

year is 40 percent of the 500,000 figure that's

granted for cancer deaths. 1,500

deaths per day from cancer multiplied by 40 percent

is 600 people a day as the

average number of deaths from approved drugs. Six

hundred multiplied by nine

days is 5,400 deaths. On September 11th we lost

5,000 people in a dreadful,

dreadful attack on our country, and we're doing what

we should be doing and going

after the terrorists - I hope we find them. But

every nine days the same number of

people die from the other attack on the country, by

drugs and therapies approved by

people the pharmaceutical industry has bought and

paid for in the FDA. That is an

attack on our country that goes on, not just one day

a year, but every day of the year -

every week, every month, all year long.

Over ten years, the death toll is two million

people. That's a holocaust. A holocaust

that's been handed to us by the FDA and the drug

companies.

If we can get people to wake up to that, then we

will muster our forces and demand

change. I just think that - and I didn't used to

think this way, I used to be a standard

East coast Establishment liberal - but then I saw

the extent that people are dying

and I realized that our current system won't work. I

think competition is the answer.

Competition in a free market. Get the government the

hell out of the way. Where are

you, Reagan, now that we need you? (Laughs.)

So come on back and get

the government off our backs in this field.

So that's the message I'm going to be preaching to

the extent I possibly can. The

free market.

Chowka: I wish you the best in your efforts. You

have a message that, in my opinion,

is very important for our time. And thank you for

your time.

Haley: You're welcome.

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Exposing the Cancer Indu$try

http://www.cancerinform.freewebsites.com

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