I was shocked when Martin Walker met me in Bristol in 1992 to discuss the Germanium debacle with me. During the mid to late 1980s, I had been researching organic germanium’s immune-enhancing properties with the objective of funding a pilot clinical trial to test organic germanium’s potential therapeutic efficacy for HIV/AIDs. I had published a number of research papers in peer-reviewed journals, submitted grant proposals to funding bodies including The Welcome Trust and had written a book published by Thorsons in 1988 entitled Germanium the Health and Life Enhancer.[1]
In 1989 after several lurid tabloid scandals, an article by Duncan Campbell entitled Pretty Poison, organic germanium was [unjustifiably] banned from sale as a nutritional supplement. This sounded the death knell for research to discover whether this supplement might have been therapeutically useful against HIV/AIDS. Today, more than 15 years later, after most of the natural approach research treatment avenues for AIDs have been shut down, countless millions of people have died from AIDS, and the main treatment remains retroviral medication based on AZT, licensed by Burroughs Wellcome.

Martin Walker’s book Dirty Medicine[2] blew the lid off my previously innocent and naïve understanding of science, research, politics and money (pharmaceutical drug companies). This weighty tome told a sorry saga of dirty tricks, character and professional assassination of just about everyone who was anyone in the world of Holistic Medicine and particularly AIDs/HIV: Nutritional physicians including Stephen Davies, Dr Jean Munro, Nutritionists including Patrick Holford, Researchers including myself and individuals such as Monica Bryant who were marketing innovative therapeutic supplements such as Probiotics and Organic Germanium. The near demise of the Bristol Cancer Help Centre, caused by flawed research and tragic suicide of the senior researcher Professor Tim McElwain, as well as the persecution of Belinda Barnes and Foresight; these stories were just part of the 725 page weighty tome of Dirty Medicine.

Recently, you can’t have missed the recent spate of unprecedented attacks across the print, broadcast and online media: attacks seeking to discredit the reputation of prominent Nutritionists, disciplines particularly Homeopathy. We have all been regaled on BBC Radio 4’s Today and Start the Week programmes by senior scientists and other individuals blasting the credibility of Homeopathy, discrediting the research and clinical findings of Dr Andrew Wakefield in the MMR and Autism research story, as well as attacks against Patrick Holford and others in the print and online media.

I have referred to such media attacks in my PH Editorials; however, like the majority of over-worked, serious professionals, I have not been able to ‘connect the dots’ of these attacks, nor to even ascertain that there were dots to connect.

Well, now the dirty tricks truths behind the apparent organized lobby to discredit Homeopathy, Nutrition and Complementary Medicine can be revealed, thanks to Martin Walker, who has recently launched his latest book Cultural Dwarfs and Junk Journalism, available as a free e-book download.[3] This is a lengthy, serious tome, which tells the sinister stories behind the attacks upon ME, Homeopathy, Nutrition and MMR/Andrew Walkefield, as well as the stories of Patrick Holford and Ben Goldacre and Belinda Barnes of Foresight. As a group, Complementary Practitioners are isolated, under-funded and are easy targets to pick off individually by vested interests and well funded lobbies, whose aim it is to discredit its ideological adversaries by any means whatsoever, ignoring the scientific or medical veracity of their causes. Martin Walker is a serious dissident, with unique talents and the correct perspective to track down the affiliations and money trails of individuals and organizations. This book won’t disappoint – it is deeply subversive and compulsory reading for everyone interested in natural medicine. Download it for free and please make a donation at www.slingshotpublications.com

Speaking of research, please notice the Research Update and Comments regarding the Sunflower Therapy for Learning Difficulties (Pages 35-36). The comments provide but a flavour of a sordid tale of incomplete research and gives a unique insight to those of you not familiar with research, of how complicated, demanding and long-winded proper research is in the real world. The published summary is incomplete, yet still demonstrated improvements to the children tested. We eagerly await publication of the completed data in due course.

You may have noticed the Press Release regarding Voluntary Regulation of Complementary Medicine by the Natural Healthcare Council, and how practitioners will be able to be struck off the register from April.
I am concerned that Aromatherapists, Reflexologists and Reiki practitioners, who already have their Training Standards and are able to be listed on the National Register of the General Regulatory Council for Complementary Therapies (GRCCT), have been thrown off the Prince of Wales Foundation scheme, granted over £900,000 by the Department of Health to coordinate Voluntary Regulation of Complementary Medicine. Is there more to this than meets the eye? Please read the GRCCT’s response.[4]

References

1.    Goodman S. Organic Germanium – The Health and Life Enhancer. Thorsons. 1988. www.drsgoodman.com/preface.php
2.    Walker M. Dirty Medicine – Science, Big Business and the Assault on Natural Health Care. Slingshot Publications. 1993. www.slingshotpublications.com
3.    Walker M. Cultural Dwarfs and Junk Journalism. 2008. www.slingshotpublications.com
4.    www.grcct.org/media.htm