The Attitude of Orthodox Physicians

As part of the propaganda to sell their case, most, if not all, of the “alternative healing” disciples and promoters have nasty things to say about orthodox medicine. Those criticisms, whether well founded or not, are often heard by receptive ears. Many of us have, at one time or another, felt that a physician was not being quite frank with us, or was perhaps less authoritative than we would have liked. That, as they say, goes with the territory. Faith-healers play on those uncertainties and encourage them to their own advantage. Then, too, most doctors understandably tend not to extend much sympathy or attention to patients who have trivial ailments that the sufferers believe deserve more of their professional time. Physicians make an excellent living from their trade. I, for one, will never argue against their right to do so; they are highly trained and dedicated to an important and vital profession. But those who use the money argument to discredit the medical profession in favor of alternative forms of treatment, such as faith-healing, have failed to consider that those practitioners, too, make handsome sums from their labors. Self-appointed expert Hans Holzer, writing about acupuncture, mentions that the medical profession has viewed this ancient Chinese notion less than enthusiastically. Discussing the strenuous objections of orthodox medicine to this quackery, he says:Possibly, the complainants against the thriving acupuncture clinics were losing business in their regular hospitals or private practices.

He wrote that comment before those clinics began shutting their doors all over the United States, and before the British medical journal Lancet published in May 1984 the definitive article on the subject, which removed any enthusiasm that formerly supportive, responsible academics might have had for the practice.

The Experts Speak Up

Dr. David Tyrrell, a British physician and chairman of the British Medical Research Council, has expressed the opinion of that group in regard to faith-healing. Angered by claims of Tom Johanson of the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain, who insisted that AIDS patients treated by its healers “improve and do remarkably well,” Dr. Tyrrell condemned such procedures as “misleading magic”:Prayers are tried as a sort of magic which will suddenly make things melt away. They can give comfort, but to consider prayers as a genuinely successful treatment is totally misleading. Laying on of hands is for desperate people clutching at any hope. AIDS sufferers, unfortunately, will grasp at straws.

Another U.K. claimant to AIDS healing is Ray Branch, who runs a healing sanctuary in Surrey. He says about AIDS patients:We can give them hope and doctors can’t. There’s no known illness that hasn’t responded to our kind of healing.

As for offering proof of that statement, we hear no more from Branch. However, the Royal College of General Practitioners began in January 1986 to allow faith-healers from the Confederation of Healing Organizations to work alongside its members at Leeds General Infirmary, adding the ceremony of “laying on of hands” as the doctors tended to 60 victims of rheumatoid arthritis. Other planned projects involved terminal cancer patients, cataract cases, and those suffering chronic pain. The project, budgeted at £500,000, involved physicians from London, Ipswich, and Liverpool, and was backed by Prince Charles, a devout believer in homeopathic medicine as well. I have been unable to discover what the results of those tests showed, or if the tests were ever completed. It should be added that in Britain and Ireland, faith-healers—as well as practitioners of many other “alternative” medical methods—may practice freely so long as they do not claim to be “registered.” The subtleties of difference between “registered” and “nonregistered” are not known to me. “Spiritual healing” can be purchased for up to £18.50 ($30) an hour by AIDS patients at two London-area hospitals: St. Stephen’s in Fulham and St. Mary’s in Paddington. The service can be paid for through the National Health Service. Consultant psychiatrist Dr. Farrukh Hashmi gave a negative opinion of this practice:No healer has a cure for AIDS and anyone who claims to is bogus. I am concerned that spiritual healers who build up false hopes are doing serious damage.

The UK health minister, Tony Newton, promised in April 1987 that the government would look into the exploitation of AIDS victims.