Introduction
After completion of the Human Genome Project, the National Institutes of Health turned its attention toward the study of the entire library of microbiologic life in and on the human body. This study, called The Human Microbiome Project[1] (HMP), used genetic sequencing technology to determine that there are upwards of ten thousand different microbial species, and more than one hundred trillion different individual organisms, colonizing the average normal healthy human body. The actual quantity of individual “non-human” organisms outnumbers human cells by more than ten to one. [2] This mass of organisms, labeled the human microbiome, collectively weighs over 3 lbs., and forms a continuous living shield, or biofilm, of nonhuman tissue that covers every square inch of skin, colonizes every orifice and lines most of the respiratory, gastrointestinal and urogenital tracts.
This diverse amalgamation of organisms participates in every essential aspect of life including immunity, digestion, respiration, social interaction, and reproduction. The nervous system, the immune system, the digestive and respiratory systems, and the sexual and reproductive systems all develop based on complex interactions with the microbiome. Social and sexual attraction, bonding and reproductive functioning are all intimately connected to the microbiome. The human microbiome plays a crucial role in almost every aspect of life. Survival without it would be, as NASA scientists have determined, nearly impossible:
“Clearly, our normal microflora is not so much indigenous as a continual flow of new immigrants…germ-depleted animals became sick and died when reintroduced to a normal colony.”[3]
Not only is the human organism completely dependent on the microbiome for growth, development and survival, but also the microbiome is completely dependent on the human organism for its survival. This is a true symbiosis. One of the reasons why advanced genetic sequencing technology was essential in identifying the microbial components of the microbiome is that most of these organisms cannot be isolated, grown, or even survive outside of the human body.
The discovery of the human microbiome has challenged the medical community to reevaluate many assumptions of health and illness. Among the most important of these is the antibiotic-era premise that germs are bad, and that impeccable hygiene is the cornerstone of human health. The emerging reality emphasizes a different view embracing the importance of a balanced ecology and a shift away from the fear-based relationship between humans and the environment.
The discovery of the human microbiome shifts the paradigm of understanding health and redefines the importance of acute infection in establishing long-term health. More importantly, the human microbiome sheds light on the importance of environmentally sustainable approaches to health, particularly homeopathy, and provides a larger context in which to judge the long-term benefits versus risks of different treatment interventions.
The Human Microbiome
The presence of bacteria, viruses and parasites on the human body can no longer be considered a sign of poor hygiene or ill health. On the contrary, the more diverse the bacterial spectrums present in the human microbiome, the more stable and healthy the resulting super-organism.
Bacteria were once believed to only pose a risk to health, but the HMP has made it entirely clear that bacteria are fundamental to achieving and maintaining health. From the moment of birth humans are colonized by multitudes of bacteria and viruses. Throughout every activity for the rest of life, we are exposed to multitudes of bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites. The overwhelming majority of these organisms enter long-term complex relationships with the body, ultimately helping it survive in the environment, while facilitating essential functions of nutrition, growth, physical and social development and reproduction.
The human microbiome-human organism relationship is one of the most important and fundamental factors in human survival and the ongoing establishment and maintenance of health. Without the microbiome, nutrition, physical and social development would be impossible. Environmental factors and medical interventions that damage or disrupt the human microbiome, particularly at early stages of development, have lifelong ramifications on growth, development and the ability to maintain healthy functioning.
The human microbiome and the human organism are linked together in a complex and diverse series of relationships on every interface and on every square inch of the human body. A human body without these microorganisms will not survive. Curiously, it was the scientists working at NASA who first discovered the effects of depleting the microbiome while studying the results of long journeys into space in a bacteria poor environment.[4]
Since the human microbiome-human organism is essentially inseparable, and neither can exist without the other, these two components must be considered to be parts of one single super-organism, or on a more grand scale: a walking, talking ecosystem.
The stability of health of this super-organism is directly related to the diversity of the microbiome and the integration of these communities of microbiologic life in conjunction with the host: the human. Microbiome damage and lack of diversity have both been associated with the tendency to develop many physical and mental illnesses. More and more medical conditions have been linked to either the failed diversity or the damaged ecology of the microbiome. Most disturbances of the microbiome are iatrogenic: the result of well intentioned, but misguided medical interventions. [5]
Any factor that reduces the biological diversity of the microbiome beginning at birth, ultimately contributes to an increased risk of developing a wide range of health problems and ailments throughout an individuals entire lifetime.[6]
Reduced biological diversity of the microbiome is associated with immediate and long-term effects. The ecologic stability in the various ecological niches throughout the body is dependent upon diversity. The immediate effect of many medical interventions that reduce diversity is increased risk of developing infections. In a society that fundamentally fears infections, these minor events typically trigger an escalation of treatment with stronger, more broad-spectrum antibiotic agents that further reduce microbiome diversity and worsen the original problem. Our highly evolved society relies on these methods of treatment to quell acute infections, but this initiates a vicious cycle of dysbiosis that ultimately damages the immune system and sets off a cascade of downstream events ultimately culminating in chronic illness.
Studies confirmed the protective effect of large families but showed that respiratory infections during infancy actually boosted the chances that a child would develop allergic disorders. Closer analysis showed that the increased risk correlated less with infection per se than with the use of antibiotics.[7]
Damage from antibiotic drugs is one method of reducing the biological diversity of the human microbiome. Another method is subtler, but involves the failed exposure to organisms early in life. The most crucial time period appears to be from birth through the first 6 – 12 months of life. Cesarean section, formula feeding and overly hygienic conditions around these events dramatically reduce limit exposure and accumulation of normal bacterial flora from the mother. The earlier in life that bacterial exposure takes place the greater likelihood that immune system maturity and tolerance to these organisms will develop. Exposure to organisms within this crucial time frame increases the likelihood that organisms will be incorporated into the microbiome. After this crucial neonatal time period passes, newly introduced organisms are more likely to trigger an oppositional immune reaction, or an infection.
The Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) infection is a completely benign event in the human infant, but it leads to serious illness and chronic fatigue conditions when exposure is delayed until the teenage years. This is an example of how timing of exposure in the immune system is extremely important.
“EBV was spread in saliva, and, like poliovirus, if you contracted it early in life, you might not even notice. But if your first encounter came during adolescence or adulthood, you ere at greater risk for what Americans teens referred to as the “kissing disease,” and what physicians called “infectious mononucleosis.”[8]
The human infant is a sponge for new bacteria and viruses. Early exposure is crucial for microbiome diversity and delayed exposure can trigger a host of inflammatory and immune mediated responses. Reduced biological exposure and microbiome diversity, particularly during this crucial time period is associated with significantly increased risk of developing immune related allergic and inflammatory conditions in childhood, adolescence and adulthood.
Every known ecosystem on this planet depends upon different species of organisms working together for mutual benefit. The human organism is no different since it depends upon the beneficial effects of a diverse range of interacting microbiologic species within every single anatomical niche on the body.
“The gut microbiota influences both local and systemic inflammation. Inflammation contributes to development, progression, and treatment of cancer… disruption of the microbiota impairs the response of subcutaneous tumors to CpG-oligonucleotide immunotherapy and platinum chemotherapy… Thus, optimal responses to cancer therapy require an intact commensal microbiota that mediates its effects by modulating myeloid-derived cell functions in the tumor microenvironment. These findings underscore the importance of the microbiota in the outcome of disease treatment.”[9]
Physicians had never before considered the human body a part of an ecosystem, but it turns out to be inseparable from it. Human health is intimately linked with the environment on every level: chemical, biological and physical. The relative stability, resilience and health of the human body ultimately depends upon its chemical and biological relationship with the environment and the microbiome.[10],[11]
Reduced diversity of the microbiome either through failed exposure beginning at birth, or as a result of medical treatment, directly impairs human health on many levels.
As diversity in the microbiome increases, the ability of the individual human to respond appropriately to external environmental challenges and health crises improves. This phenomenon has been directly observed in many areas including the human gut:
“Rich and balanced bacterial communities seem to be perceived as “self” and induce a quick maturation of the immune system and gut responses (induction of regulatory T cells and IgA), while a poor and unbalanced bacterial community is apparently perceived as “non-self” and induces responses aimed at eliminating it (T cells with inflammatory properties and IgG or IgE responses).”[12]
The commensal bacteria in the microbiome are part of the human ecosystem and function in a complementary relationship with each other and with the immune system. The interplay between these microorganisms and the immune system helps regulate, stimulate and inhibit immune activity, through a system of checks and balances. The community of organisms (within the microbiome) involved in this regulatory process is integral to the immune system, and when disrupted, leads to a host of complications ranging from short-term nutritional deficiencies and behavioral problems to long-term allergic, inflammatory and autoimmune illnesses.
According to researchers at California’s Institute of Technology (Caltech):
“A healthy, mature immune system depends on the constant intervention of beneficial bacteria. ‘It goes against dogma to think that bacteria would make our immune systems function better, … But the picture is getting very clear: the driving force behind the features of the immune system are commensals.’”[13]
Disruption of these highly evolved and finely tuned bacterial relationships in the microbiome leads to failures of immune regulation, modulation, maturation, and tolerance. When these functions are interrupted the stage is set for the development of a host of chronic health problems. [14]
Antibiotics and the Immune System
Antibiotic treatments that battle infections by destroying bacteria do far more damage to the microbiome and the immune system.
Antibiotics, anti-infective agents and anti-inflammatory medicines are particularly destructive to the immune system. Antibiotics have long been known to directly suppress immune functioning, including:
“leukocyte chemotaxis, lymphocyte and monocyte transformation, antibody production, phagocytosis, and the microbicidal action of polymorphonuclear leukocytes.” [15]
But coincident with, and inseparable from these direct immune system effects are the changes in the microbiome that result from their use. Antibiotics directly damage the microbiome by reducing the biological diversity and reducing the number of bacterial species within it. Even though antibiotics are primarily designed to prevent and treat specific pathologic bacterial infections, they inevitably interfere with commensal species that they were not targets. Included in these “friendly fire” casualties are many “good” bacteria that are important because they directly benefit health.
Antibiotics inflict significant collateral damage on the normal commensal bacteria of the microbiome, unwittingly destroying a wide range of essential, indigenous bacterial species, and disrupting a very complex web of interactions between interdependent bacteria and the immune system. Unfortunately, antibiotics aren’t able to specifically target individual species of pathogenic bacteria while leaving commensal bacteria of the microbiome unaffected. Broad-spectrum agents are particularly hazardous in this regard since, by definition, they are designed to eliminate a broad spectrum of organisms, which always includes commensal bacteria of the microbiome, essential to the ongoing health of the immune system and the rest of the body.
By reducing the biological diversity of the microbiome, antibiotics work against the development of immune tolerance and defense. Changes in the microbiome resulting from antibiotics impair immune functioning and trigger a diverse range of health problems that can span a lifetime. Evidence from the HMP provides the first concrete scientific explanation why conventional antibiotic practices are associated with worsening health and increasing rates of chronic illness.[16]
The association of these antibiotic treatments and the disrupted biology and health of the human ecosystem is not surprising.
Not only do antibiotics eliminate sensitive commensal bacteria, but they also directly and indirectly suppress the immune system. The side effects lead to the development of secondary bacterial, fungal[17] and viral[18] overgrowth syndromes, or dysbioses. Many organisms that normally act as commensals, will become incidental opportunists capable of causing illness when the ecology of the microbiome is disrupted.
Antibiotic mediated alterations in the microbiome, or dysbioses, are ecological imbalances of the microbiological niches throughout the body. These microbiologic imbalances trigger inflammatory responses and inappropriate immune activation at distant sites.
“Antibiotic alterations of the gut microbiota have also been linked to viral and fungal infections, and even have an impact on disease susceptibility in distal organs. Administering neomycin [antibiotic] increased the susceptibility of mice to influenza infection in the lungs, indicating that inflammasome activation by neomycin-sensitive bacteria in the gut [normally] prevents influenza infections in the lungs.” [19]
Damage from antibiotic administration can permanently change the microbiome, ultimately driving the development of a wide range of otherwise preventable conditions in susceptible individuals.[20]
Acute Infection and the Immune system
Acute infections can result from first-time encounters between bacteria (or viruses) that the immune system has never seen before, but they can also result from changes in the balance of organisms in the microbiome.
When the balance of organisms in the microbiome is altered (either from introduction of a new organism, or from the use of an antibiotic) some organisms that were previously held in check, may now overgrow and become invasive, triggering an immune compensatory response.
To reestablish balance, the immune system and the microbiome must adjust. Only the combined activity of both will result in a healthy response. These infections are inevitable events in immune system and microbiome development. Acute infections are minor lessons in the negotiating process between the immune system and the microbiome. Without these acute infections, neither of these systems could fully mature or develop.
Seen through the lens of environmental science, acute infections are part the normal negotiation process between the immune system and the microbiome. Acute infections mark the course toward establishing a fully mature immune system as it adapts to changes in the developing microbiome. The natural outcome of an acute infection is a strengthening of the connection between the immune system that accommodates a greater diversification of the microbiome. The process of acute infection challenges both the microbiome and the immune system and results in a stronger integration between the two.
Pharmacologic treatments (antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals) designed to address the acute infection ultimately weaken the connection between the immune system and the microbiome. These medications damage the microbiome and prevent the immune system from negotiating with the microbiome. Inevitably, these agents prevent both the immune system and the microbiome from maturing. Permanent or lasting immunity cannot result under these circumstances.
Sound ecological management of acute infections means that the microbiome diversifies and integrates new organisms while the immune system recognizes these new contacts. The natural process of an acute infection challenges both the microbiome and the immune system. The acute inflammatory response to an acute infection, complete with symptoms of illness, ultimately culminates in improved long lasting health.
Inflammation is just one of the tools used by the immune system to help it resolve acute infections more efficiently. Inflammation is a normal and appropriate physiologic response to acute infections. Pharmacologic treatments that reduce inflammation (antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, and steroidal medicines) directly impair the immune system, making it impossible to fully resolve infections. Utilizing these agents to manage acute infections fights the acute symptoms, but prevents the development of permanent immunity. The immune system is suppressed and impeded by these treatments enough to delay or prevent the process of developing permanent, lifelong immunity.
The symptoms of acute illness indicate that the immune system is functioning. The stepwise resolution of acute illness, without suppression of inflammation, allows the immune system to fully function. A healthy immune system, when challenged by infection, generates a robust response (including symptoms of inflammation) which indicates that it is working properly. These symptoms resolve when the infection is eradicated, demonstrating that immunity and long-term health are the result of a successful immune response.
Acute illnesses are transitional phases, or stages, vital to the maturation of the immune system. Long-term health, and immunity are impossible without these activities.
It is undeniable that the immune system develops and matures through direct experience and exposure to microbiological organisms in the microbiome. Infectious illness plays a vital role in the maturation and strengthening of the immune system. Childhood illnesses are extremely important in immune system development. Their absence impairs immune functioning and foreshadows problems in adult health. Failed exposure to childhood illnesses or overtreatment with immune suppressing pharmaceuticals during these times of illness can prevent the immune system from maturing and functioning properly.[21]
The systematic eradication of many childhood infectious illnesses through routine vaccination also prevents the immune system from experiencing the routine challenges of acute illness that helps it mature. Exposure to a wide range of infectious illness during childhood decreases the risk of developing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD). Removal of these illnesses from the repertoire of the immune system has serious ramifications on immune system maturity and directly contributes to the tendency to develop chronic inflammatory disease.[22]
Not only are acute infections critical opportunities for the immune system to develop and mature, but they are part of the crucial negotiation process that allows the immune system to adapt to the environment, to recognize and tolerate certain bacteria components of the microbiome and simultaneously react to others by developing permanent immunity. When this differentiation process is impaired, by the use medicines, the immune system is unable to permanently establish either tolerance or immunity.
There are many unfortunate results of this interference. Short-term effects include a greater likelihood of developing recurrent infections due to failed immunity. Long-term effects result when the immune system is unable to fully mature. Chronic inflammatory conditions develop because the immune system has been unable to self-regulate and resolve simple infections. Allergies develop when the microbiome is unable to incorporate a wide enough diversity of organisms at an early enough age to trigger immune tolerance. Autoimmune conditions develop when the immune system is prevented from reacting to foreign antigens and ends up attacking antigens within the body. Neoplastic conditions develop when the immune system is unable to adequately utilize surveillance and self-regulation to address uncontrolled growth of tissue.
Note:
I have treated innumerable cases of microbiome/immune system damage in the form of recurrent and chronic illness. The most recognizable and common of these present as: chronic inflammatory illness (Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue), chronic infectious illness (chronic Lyme disease), recurrent acute illness (streptococcal pharyngitis, urinary tract infection, otitis media, sinusitis), allergic conditions (asthma, food and environmental allergies and sensitivities), and digestive disturbances (gastroesophageal reflux, chronic constipation, pseudomembranous colitis, irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease), among others.
Most of these conditions can be traced back to an earlier period of antibiotic, overuse or abuse.
Chronic Lyme disease is a particularly poignant example of severe immune system/microbiome damage leading to chronic illness. These patients typically present with chronic Lyme disease after having tried (and failed) to achieve cure using a plethora of oral and intravenous antibiotics, antifungals, antimalarials and other strong medications, usually in combination.
A thorough history usually reveals a strong history of antibiotic abuse many years prior to the Lyme infection. A typical adult suffering from chronic Lyme disease has a long history treatment with multiple courses of antibiotics for a recurrent childhood infection (or acne) over many years.
These patients were commonly antibiotic dependent as children. They were prescribed antibiotics for every infectious illness in childhood (including viral infections). Their immune systems were completely naïve when it came to handling an infection without antibiotic support. As discussed above, this abuse of antibiotics not only damages the immune system and keeps it from maturing, but it damages the microbiome and destabilizes the interface between the body and the environment.
In my experience, the frequent use of antibiotics in childhood is a strong predisposing factor in the development of chronic Lyme disease and other infections in adulthood. It is only a matter of time before these individuals encounter an infection that antibiotics are not able to resolve. A history of extensive antibiotic use, particularly in childhood- when the immune system is undergoing rapid development- makes it difficult or impossible for the immune system to mature into a functional adult system. Their immune systems are still in infectious “preschool” while they are now being exposed to the advanced “high school calculus” of infections.
Treatment with antibiotics, provided by so-called, Lyme Literate physicians (LLMDs) only provides this group with temporary relief. Every time they receive another course of antibiotics, anti-inflammatory medicines or herbs they experience temporary improvement followed by worsening deterioration, since the immune system and the microbiome were further reduced and diminished. As one LLMD stated:
“The majority of Chronic Lyme patients relapse once they are taken off antibiotics with symptoms of chronic fatigue, muscle and joint aches and neurocognitive problems.”[23]
These patients experience a progressive spiraling of worsening symptoms that inevitably follows the use of each course of antibiotics. Most people with chronic Lyme disease who are treated with antibiotics recounts a similar tale of initial partial improvement followed by subsequent worsening to a degree that is even more extensive and than when the antibiotics were started.
Effective treatment of these conditions not only involves reengaging the immune system, augmenting the inflammatory response, and strengthening the microbiome. All of these tasks are difficult and there are few shortcuts. One priority in this population s helping them avoid any and all future antibiotic use.
Classical homeopathy is extremely effective as a modality that helps with both of these conditions.
Chronic Inflammatory Illness
Nearly half of all Americans have been diagnosed with at least one chronic health condition[24] and at the current rate of growth, this number is expected to increase by another 42% over then next few years. The incidence of chronic illness in children has more than tripled since 1960. Since 1980 the risk of children developing a learning disability has increased five-fold, asthma rates have tripled, and the incidence of autism has increased ten-fold. The incidence of almost all chronic conditions has increased in the last few decades with a quintupling of diabetes and increases in nearly all other chronic health conditions. There is a virtual epidemic of chronic illness with nearly 70% of all deaths attributable to one or more of these conditions.[25]
“There has been an unprecedented and unexplained increase in the numbers of children suffering with chronic disease and disability… The CDC states that chronic diseases are the most common and costly causes of death and disability in the U.S. Today.”[26]
This rapid increase in chronic medical conditions has continued to accelerate in the last century until now more than 50% of children (worldwide) are sensitive to one or more allergens,[27] more than sixty million Americans (at least one in five) have asthma or another allergic disease,[28] and another 50 million suffer from one of at least one hundred different types of autoimmune disease.[29]
In the U.S., men have a nearly 50% chance of developing cancer in their lifetime, while women’s risk is nearly 40%.[30] Conditions that are commonplace today were virtually nonexistent only a hundred years ago.
“Rates of non-communicable or chronic disease continue to increase dramatically in all countries (industrialized, middle income, low income), surpassing infections as a disease burden among adults. Many countries do not have the financial or human resources to effectively identify, manage or prevent these diseases.”[31]
Medical pharmaceutical therapies have been implicated as one of the leading environmental causes in the plethora of chronic health conditions affecting the developed world today. The rising use of pharmaceutical medicine is directly associated with the increasing incidence of allergic, inflammatory and autoimmune illnesses plaguing modern societies worldwide. Modern pharmaceutical medicine may have pushed the health of our nation (and the world) into a long-term crisis toward greater chronic illness, uncontrolled cost, and ultimately, utter dependency on pharmaceutical solutions to manage the symptoms of these iatrogenic problems.[32]
According to researchers at the British Medical Journal (BMJ) only an estimated 11% of conventional medical treatments used today, have scientific evidence of both safety and efficacy; over 50% are of “unknown value” and the remaining 39% are known to be either harmful or ineffective.[33] Even though only a handful of conventional medical treatments have ever been scientifically verified as effective, conventional pharmaceutical medicine continues to cloak itself behind a façade of scientific evidence.[34]
If conventional medicine were truly effective and scientifically based, then most outcome measures of health within modern societies would demonstrate benefit. A trend toward improved health would be reflected by reduced use and dependence on all medications and medical interventions, not more. Healthier populations would suffer from fewer chronic diseases, and reduced need of medical intervention. But modern societies (utilizing conventional pharmaceutical medicine) all demonstrate the reverse: modern pharmaceutical use and overuse is leading the world into a health crisis of epic proportions.
The U.S. devotes nearly one fifth of its Gross National Product (GNP) to health care, with no sign of slackening.[35] If modern medicine were improving health, then the per-capita cost of medical care would shrink over time, rather than increase. The fact that costs continue to rise, and dependency on medical intervention continues to escalate is a clear indication that the current pharmaceutical system promotes a deterioration of health, and greater dependency on intervention.
“Modern medical care evolved as a drug-distribution arm of the pharmaceutical industry, not a profession concerned primarily with improving people’s health. A true health care system … would center around removing impediments to better health…and protection against exposure to chemicals, toxins, and other known causes of disease. Instead, prescription drugs, which all have toxicities and dangers, have become the primary intervention for every… health issue.”[36]
The ever-escalating epidemic of chronic disease spreading throughout the developed world provides irrefutable evidence that the conventional pharmaceutical system of medicine is worsening health rather than improving it.
Modern pharmacologic medicine, while being almost entirely preoccupied with palliation of symptoms, is damaging health through reckless overtreatment. Most medical progress takes place in the field improving early diagnosis, but this leads to the treatment of many more than are necessary, skewing the statistical rate of improvement to cover those who were never sick. These methods falsely elevated the statistics of cure, while making many more suffer from unnecessary treatment and completely iatrogenic complications.[37]
Modern medicine has been unmasked by the HMP, much the same way that Dorothy Gale from “The Wizard of Oz” exposed the Wizard as a manipulator of public opinion. If one had the wherewithal to look at modern pharmacologic-based medicine one would see that it cloaks itself in the sparkling robes of technology to obfuscate science, spin smokescreens and deceptions and to indoctrinate and manipulate the education of medical professionals in a well orchestrated system of propaganda that has thoroughly deceived the public.
Pharmacological based medical therapeutics, used according to the “standard of care”, are already recognized as the fifth leading cause of death in the U.S. today, [38] but this number would be significantly higher if the effects of treatment on the human microbiome and the immune system were factored in.
The current crisis in modern health care is not merely a problem of cost, but a complete miscarriage of medical practice masquerading as science. Modern medical care is one of the most expensive, least effective and most harmful methods of treatment currently available in the world today. It continues to be promulgated by a pharmacologic-insurance-academic industry for the vast profits it creates. It is part of a vast deception involving the collusion of the pharmaceutical industry, the medical insurance business, and the academic research institutions.
Time and again, truly impartial scientific research in medicine has been shown to be almost entirely absent.[39] Medical product investigations typically do not focus on long-term outcome, or improved overall health. They focus on single outcome measures while filtering out all individual reactions and experiences from the investigations. This is a convenient way of diverting attention from more important endpoints, like quality of life and overall wellness, that would not justified the treatments being studied.
Most expert advisory panels empowered to recommend standards of treatment are composed of individuals with significant conflicts-of-interest that prevent objective impartial judgment. According to the Institute of Medicine:
“Financial conflicts of interest pose many challenges to health care professionals. They raise concerns about the objectivity and trustworthiness of research conduct and publications, the prudent management of scientific investigations and other activities in the public interest, and the commitment of health care professionals to the best interests of patients. In recent years the media has highlighted failures of individuals and institutions to disclose and appropriately manage financial ties with industry (including pharmaceutical, medical device, medical supply, and insurance companies). These failures contribute to questions about whether industry has undue influence in research and other activities.”[40]
The current epidemics of non-communicable disease (including allergy, asthma, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disease, chronic inflammatory disease, cancer, and others) appear to be fundamentally rooted in conventional pharmaceutical interventions that damage the microbiome and thwart the immune system. This damage, now exposed by the HMP, is the result of a misguided approach to acute infectious illness promulgated by the industries that stand to benefit most from it.
Even the rise of most behavioral conditions (including autism spectrum disorders, depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder) have been linked to the myriad of interventions hoisted upon modern civilizations in the form of excessive antibiotics and vaccines.[41]
The economic impact of our current system of pharmaceutical medicine is beyond measurement or comprehension. On a worldwide scale, the prevalence of allergic, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases generated by medical intervention may have caused incalculable harm to many.[42]
Conventional pharmaceutical medicine may be the cause of the largest epidemic of iatrogenic illness ever known. Conventional antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, and antihistaminic medicines, prescribed according to the “standard of care”, coupled with overuse of OTC medicines, and vaccines, may be responsible for most of the chronic illness existing in the world today.
Conventional medical treatments interfering with the microbiome, the environment and the immune system must be replaced with methodologies that are scientifically sound, environmentally sustainable, safe and effective. The ubiquitous use antibiotics, NSAIDs, steroids and other immune suppressing drugs for acute, self-limited conditions must be halted in favor of treatments that support health via the microbiome and the immune system.
The Future
The future of medicine lies in the exploration of responsible methods of treatment that sustain the ecology of the microbiome and the integrity of the immune system rather than destroy them. The practice of medicine must move away from symptom palliation and placebo toward a more fundamental method of supporting and improving health and healing.
As long as the field of medicine remains dominated by industries that are primarily financially motivated the world will continue to be deceived by unscrupulous interests.
It is time that methodologies like homeopathy, long at odds with conventional medicine, is taken seriously in the U.S. Already in use throughout most of the world, homeopathy is a sustainable system of medicine with over 200 years of proven efficacy. There are thousands of unbiased studies and hundreds of thousands of published case reports from thousands of independent homeopathic physicians documenting, not only the effectiveness, but also the environmental sustainability of homeopathy.
Homeopathy has been reviled by conventional medical authorities for many reasons: (1) Homeopathy seems to rely on principles of healing that do not depend on the chemical constitution of pharmaceutical medicines, (2) Homeopathy is much more complicated and far more difficult to practice than conventional “cookbook” medicine, and (3) Homeopathy is far less lucrative, both for the practitioner as well as for the industrial pharmaceutical manufacturer.
This combination of factors alone, make homeopathic medicine a field worth discrediting, ridiculing, and reviling if one stands to make a profit by doing so. To this end, all manner of propaganda, lies and intimidation have been used to try to exterminate homeopaths, beginning with the founding of the American Medical Association (AMA) in 1847, three years after the establishment of the American Institute of Homeopathy.
The AMA, a trade organization, fought homeopathy purely on ideological and monetary grounds, without ever providing a shred of scientific proof to justify its action.
Homeopathy is exceptionally important for several reasons: (1) Homeopathic medicines are safe and effective in a wide range of acute and chronic illnesses, (2) Homeopathic medicines are inexpensive and easy to produce, (2) Homeopathic medicines are easily tested on healthy humans, (3) Homeopathic medicinal production is safe and environmentally sustainable, (4) Homeopathic treatment does not damage either the microbiome or the immune system, and (5) Homeopathy works within the parameters of human ecology and the microbiome, rather than against it, (6) Homeopathic treatment is based on the individualization of care and the fundamental truth that “one size does not fit all.”
Every shred of data and research delivered, so far, from the HMP suggests that homeopaths were correct in their opposition to the use of allopathic pharmaceutical medicine, but for reasons that not yet known or suspected. Homeopathy, when seen from a health ecology/microbiome/environmental perspective makes fundamental biological sense. Homeopathic principles are applicable, and have shown evidence of efficacy, across a wide range of conditions and fields that include physical and mental health, veterinary medicine and agriculture and animal husbandry.
Homeopaths have long opposed the use of conventional pharmacologic methods because they witnessed its damaging effects on health, and its promotion of chronic disease. But it was not until research on the human microbiome provided the reasons, that anyone knew why conventional pharmaceutical methods were so harmful. The HMP not condemns much of the use of conventional pharmacologic medicine, but it validates the use of homeopathy.
One of the most important lessons of ecology, and now the HMP is that humans must learn to live within the world of microbiology. If we remain on the course that has been set over the last two centuries, and try to defeat the natural world, it ultimately leads to precisely where we now stand:
“We’ve just spent the better part of a century doing our unwitting best to wreck the human-associated microbiota with a multifronted war on bacteria and a diet notably detrimental to its well-being.”[43]
Over the last two centuries, our medical and hygienic goals have largely focused on the deconstruction of the environmental and human microbiomes and the complex web between them.
Although the mechanism behind homeopathy is not at all understood, neither was the human microbiome until it was studied with the most advanced scientific machinery available. Homeopathy is a truly remarkable medical science that synchronizes the actions of the body with the microbiome to promote natural healing and immune maturation.
To ignore the vast amount of medical and scientific information now at hand, from homeopathy and the human microbiome project, is to stubbornly trust belief rather than science, and to lie down before the interests of multinational corporations bent upon one single goal: profit.
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