Introduction
In addressing a meeting of the AIH in Washington DC on 21 June 2000 [1], George Vithoulkas said that in his view allopathic medicine was "destroying the American people" [2]. This comment stood out to me as very important, and I wanted to discuss it with him. The following day [22 June 2000] I meant to ask him some questions publicly after his second address [9am-10am], but he left the stage too quickly for me to act. I caught up with him right outside the hall and we spoke for about ten minutes. I later presented to him an account of our discussion by email. He did not like some of the content, but agreed to answer a set of questions on the same subject, as an interview, which would be suitable for publication.
Before getting to the interview, let's review some of Vithoulkas's published comments pertaining to his contention that allopathic medicine is adversely affecting western civilisation's overall health.
"Classical homeopathy is the most powerful healing technique existing in the world." [3]
"I see the health of people in general so degraded, with no hope of regeneration. And homeopathy holds the hope of regeneration." [4]
"...with the massive way antibiotics are being prescribed they are going to destroy the immune system. It is going to be open to new diseases, that are going to be incurable. AIDS is a disease which we have created." [5]
"It's grotesque, but it's a fact...what you would see in this society would be terrible shouting, fighting, aggression, moodiness, fits...panic...but then you would see the real picture of what the state of health is! Never mind the statistics that say we are living longer. Look at the heart diseases, cancer, the chronic diseases, and now AIDS. We are facing a problem here..." [6]
"I claim that diseases of the human race have never been tackled properly by conventional medicine; on the contrary, they have been treated wrongly - suppressively - and therefore while the symptoms were masked, the real disorder underneath progressed and finally was pushed to the interior of the organism, which is the central and peripheral nervous system.
"Let me give you just a few facts to judge for yourself: Multiple sclerosis, a disease that eventually leaves its victims totally paralyzed, is one which thousands of people are suffering from in the western world. Yet it is entirely unknown to Africans, Asians or South Americans, who have not had the 'benefit' of the excellence of western medicine. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a terrible disorder of the neuromuscular system, is also unknown to all these people. Myopathy and muscular dystrophy is the same, known only to westerners. Epilepsy, which is rampant in the western world, is seldom encountered in these countries.
"Anxiety neurosis, compulsive neurosis, and in general mental disorders of a severe nature from which millions of patients are suffering in the western world, are almost unknown in these groups that have not had the 'benefit' of modern medicine and vaccinations. Chorea and a host of other nervous system disorders are also unknown to them.
"The model suggests that all these chronic diseases, including hay fever, asthma, cancer and AIDS, are the result of wrong intervention upon the organisms by conventional medicine. It claims that the immune systems of the western population, through strong chemical drugs and repeated vaccinations, have broken down and finally admitted the diseases deeper and deeper into the human organism, to the central and peripheral nervous system.
"In short, this model claims that conventional medicine, instead of curing diseases, is actually the cause of the degeneration of the human race. It is also very simple for anyone to think that if conventional medicine were really curing chronic diseases, today we would have a population in the west that was healthy, mentally, emotionally and physically.
"Due to this model, I had already, in 1970, predicted the appearance of AIDS, saying to a group of medical doctors in Athens that if conventional medicine continued to use antibiotics the way it did, there would come a time when the immune system would break down and new incurable diseases would emerge. It was an unfortunate but precise and timely prediction of the appearance of AIDS.
"Today, I want to make another prediction. If conventional medicine does not take notice of what we say and drastically change its practices and its logic in treating with chemical drugs; if it does not also change the direction of its research, soon diseases will go to the very center of the organism, which is the nervous system, and most of the population on earth will be mentally ill individuals." [7]
The Questions
Here below are given the original questions I subsequently sent him and his complete answers:
1. Why did you say that the American people are being destroyed by allopathy? Not just why you believe this, but why you chose to say it?
2. Do you accept the responsibility that comes with the impact of what you say? This applies to any leader of any movement and the public remarks they make. Should you not be more cognizant of the possible misinterpretation of your public words? It seems to me that the social impact of the statements you make are perhaps more important than the claims you make. Unless you can supply good evidence for your statements and predictions, is there any point in bringing them to the public's attention?
3. You have not said these things "just to homeopathic converts," as you previously claimed to me, but also to Swedish Parliament in 1996. Do you not think that such public remarks could be misinterpreted?
4. Does not your desire to say this about allopathy outweigh your social responsibility for saying it? In other words, does not your desire to say point 1 above [to get the message across dramatically] outweigh your awareness of points 2 and 3?
5. Do you really believe that the true significance of what you say can be grasped fully by allopaths and non-homeopaths? If not, then why keep saying it?
6. In many of the things you say - such as in the 2000 Links article - and your response to the reactions, you appear alone, isolated, dogmatic and arrogantly dismissive of all other homeopaths; you appear entirely dominated by insisting on the rightness of your own opinions and strongly dismissive of other people's. Are you aware of making this impression? In addition, does it not bother you? Does it not damage homeopathy?
7. I do personally agree with you on this matter of disease, but all beliefs and predictions are inevitably based upon a field of certain assumptions, experiences and probabilities. As allopaths do not have or share this field of assumptions, beliefs and experiences, so it is difficult to see how they can ever fully or clearly comprehend your predictions and statements; therefore, they seem likely to reject them out of hand. How do you think this can be remedied?
8. Do you not believe that a much more rigorous and scientific approach is required and might be undertaken, first by yourself and other homeopaths, to accumulate actual data in support of your opinions, as a good first step, before you make statements like this again?
Vithoulkas's Reply
George Vithoulkas faxed his reply on July 20, 2000.
"I will try to answer your questions as best as possible. I have reduced, as you will see, the questions to the essentials."
[Morrell's questions are italicized.]
1. Why did you say that American people are being destroyed by conventional medicine? Not why you believe, but why you chose to say it?
What I am saying is that the overuse of chemical prescription drugs is producing such devastating side effects that rapid changes in the overall health status of the western population will be apparent within the next few generations (two or three). We will witness outrageous consequences.
I am not saying this for the American people only, but for the entire civilized world that is overusing conventional therapeutics (prescription drugs and vaccinations). The American people are using such drugs excessively and therefore they will be the first to manifest lasting health consequences.
It is scary to see the explosion in the form of epidemics of chronic conditions, like Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, asthma, neuromuscular diseases such as multiple sclerosis, connective tissue diseases, allergic conditions, panic attacks, anxiety states, phobic states, insanity, etc., and all of these predominantly in the western world while undeveloped countries that do not possess the means to provide their populace such strong chemical drugs are free from such diseases. I believe that anyone who has come to this realization would want to warn those in danger. [2]
2. Do you accept the responsibility for what you are saying?
Absolutely. This is a warning I have been voicing for the last 25 years in all my public talks. It seems that certain nations, like Germany, Russia, the Scandinavian countries, and Italy, are taking this, and other similar, warnings seriously. In consequence, they are turning to alternative methods of treatment, especially to homeopathy, in big numbers. The authorities in these countries are also taking action.
I wonder what you would have done had you my experience and conviction of the truth of this assertion? Would you remain mute and let a race, whether African, Asian or Caucasian, be devastated? Or would you choose to voice the warning as loudly as possible, even if it is the last moment, so those who will listen could be spared?
The American people are a relatively new society, composed of many races, with much charisma, vitality, originality, and sincerity; it is a society that is just and fair, and of great importance to everyone in the world. It is important that the American people be as healthy as possible and remain so, mentally, emotionally and physically.
In many departments of life, scientists have warned us about the many dangers that are threatening the planet (e.g., ecological crises). Slowly they are managing to make the world aware of these dangers despite vested interests that resist change and seek to hamper their efforts. It is my opinion that the greatest threat ¯ the healthcare crisis ¯ to the survival of the peoples of the western world, especially Americans, is imminent. I do not say this because I am an advocate of homeopathy. All those who really know me, know that I would say the same even if it went against my personal interests.
3. Do you think that such remarks could be misinterpreted? Would you accept the responsibility of such misinterpretation?
Sure, I am afraid that I might be misinterpreted, but would this fear prevent me, you or anybody from voicing a warning that might save a large number of people?
Here we are concerned with the health of the people, a life and death issue. Recently, it was published that 300,000 patients died from prescription drugs in a given time period. If such numbers are correct, then we have to assume that a very large number of patients experienced similar, though non-fatal, side-effects from these drugs.
Many of the cases we try to treat with homeopathy have their origin in such side-effects. I believe that the long-range side-effects of the massive drugging of the world affects millions of people every year and contributes to the degeneration of the health of the general population on a grand scale.
Since I have seen and realized the extent of the damage from the overuse of chemical drugs, I have a responsibility to voice such a warning. I am also willing to discuss this issue with any health/medical authorities who are interested in doing so. It is my hope that corrective measures can be adopted to reverse this disturbing trend.
4. You have not said these things just to homeopaths but also to the Swedish Parliament in 1996 in your speech of acceptance of the Alternative Nobel Prize. Do you not think that such remarks could be interpreted wrongly? Could they be considered as scare stories? Wouldn't one need more convincing evidence before making such sweeping statements?
I have been voicing this warning for thirty years, always in a different way each time according to the situation. The essence is the same, but I speak in a different way when I speak to homeopaths than when I speak in a public lecture. I voiced this warning in the Swedish Parliament when I was awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize. The essence of my message to the world was that there is danger for the planet in the way chemical drugs are used and, at the same time, there is a way out of this danger; there is a solution. I did not do a sterile criticism only; I also offered a solution, how to get out of the situation. I voiced the same warning and the same hope when recently I was awarded the Gold Medal of the Hungarian Democracy.
I am not alone in proffering this warning; many other authors before me have spoken openly and in no uncertain terms about this danger. To mention only a few classics that come to my mind ¯ Medical Nemesis by Ivan Illich, Pills, Profits and Politics, There's Gold in Them Thar Pills by Klass, Chronic Disease and Public Health by Lilienfeld and Gifford, etc. The medical literature is full of these warnings, and the fact that periodically the medical establishment recognizes these failings and abandons the previous "miraculous" medicines confirms my assertion. The reader can refer to my book A New Model for Health and Disease (North Atlantic Books, USA; ISBN: 1556430876. April 1992) for more information.
The difference between these authors and myself is that simultaneously with the warning I proposed a solution: the acceptance and implementation of Homeopathy on a massive scale. To prepare such a solution I have worked hard the last forty years. I have strived to implement this healing system to a level acceptable to the scientific world. I have educated doctors to produce respectable results. I have prepared a computer system that will help them with their diagnosis. I have written several books to explain and to educate, and I am in the process of writing a new materia medica of 16 volumes (nine volumes have been completed so far). I have held innumerable seminars in different countries. And lastly, I established a full school for re-educating the doctors: The International Academy of Classical Homeopathy. This program is now being taught in several countries.
5. Do you really believe that the significance of what you are saying can be fully grasped by conventional medical people? Can they fully comprehend your predictions and statements?
I do not only believe that conventional medicine has started listening; we have the facts that prove such a change. Already two medical universities in Europe, the Basque University in Bilbao, Spain and the Kiev Medical Academy in Ukraine, have given me the status of Professor, in their respective medical faculties. Several other universities are preparing to include homeopathy in their curriculum.
I have this year signed a protocol of collaboration with the Ministry of Health in Moscow, which is planning to assist in the re-education of Russian medical doctors in the science of Classical Homeopathy. They seem to be well informed and to care about the health of their own people more than any other European country. I can also say that the European Union, after my conversations with the President of the Parliamentary study group concerned with alternative therapies and with the Minister of Health, passed, by a substantial majority of the Parliament, a directive recommending that the various European governments assist in the promotion of homeopathy.
The Health Ministry in Italy is proposing a new law to its parliament to insure that Homeopathic Medicine will be official. I suppose it is not necessary to continue enumerating the facts that prove this point.
If the medical authorities and the Department of Health in U.S.A. choose to ignore these matters, it is their problem and their responsibility. After my warning, perhaps they will not be able to invoke as their justification the myth that they did not know. But I believe that the American people are intelligent, progressive and aggressive enough to initiate their own grass-roots revolution. The fact that medical visits to alternative therapists in U.S. are almost double those to conventional medical practitioners proves that the American people are becoming more and more aware of this situation.
6. Do you believe that a much more rigorous scientific approach is required and might be undertaken by yourself and other homeopaths before you make a statement like this?
I agree that more research is required to find out the real damage done by chemical drugs and the real limits of homeopathy. That is why when I received the Alternative Nobel Prize, accompanied by a substantial amount of money, I distributed all of it to several research centers all over the world. But this money (US$85,000) is peanuts in comparison with the money that goes to conventional research, which amounts to billions. Yet everyone in positions of authority says, "Give us more research." The Commissioner of Health in the EU said the same thing and my position was: "Give us more money to produce more and better research." They promised to give us some money. So far, the amount is very meager in comparison with the money that is shoveled into conventional Institutions, but it is a beginning.
7. My feeling is that by saying what you say you not only isolate yourself, but also might be hurting homeopathy.
I do not agree with your assumption. Just to give you a few facts. When I spoke at the LIGA Medicorum Homeopatica Internationalis in Budapest this year in May, they opened two auditoriums of three hundred seats each for my speech. (In the one, the participants could listen through a closed circuit TV). Both were packed and in the auditorium in which I was speaking about fifty people were standing and did not move a bit during my one-and-a-half-hour of speaking. For all other speakers one auditorium was used and was never full. You call this isolation?
When in January I gave a seminar in India, 2,500 homeopaths were gathered from all over India in the largest auditorium of the country. Do you call this isolation? In Germany in 1997 when I spoke at the World Congress, the auditorium was full with 1,500 homeopaths on the day I spoke. This year in Germany about two thousand homeopaths attended my lectures. Do you call this isolation that may hurt homeopathy?
Nonetheless, it is true that many remain uninformed of the possibilities of homeopathy or are not convinced about the side effects of chemical drugs. The work of informing the public falls upon all of us in homeopathy, and I hope that everyone will do his duty. There is no question that we still have to do a lot of work to make the world aware of the weakness of conventional medicine and the possibilities that homeopathy can offer to ailing humanity. There is no question either that homeopathy soon will take the place it deserves in the therapeutic arena. I feel that it is my duty and the duty of my students to prepare practitioners who can absorb the impact of such a change in medicine."
George Vithoulkas
Footnotes [added by P Morrell]
[1] AIH Conference and Hahnemann Monument Re-Dedication 21-25 June 2000, Washington DC; Opening ceremony - 21 June 1900
[2] Vithoulkas has expressed a similar idea many times before: Homeopathic Links Interview April 1999; Jonathan Sale, "Greek Bearing Gifts Of Healing," The Times, 8 September 1984, p.6; Patrick Curry, George Vithoulkas Article, The Guardian, 1 July 1987; G Vithoulkas, 1985, "Homeopathy, Health And Humanity," The Homeopath, 5.1 [Summer 1985]; G Vithoulkas, 1983, "Homeopathy Today," World Health Forum 4, pp.99-101; G Vithoulkas, 1995, "Homeopathy Art Or Science?," Homeopathic Heritage 20, pp.301-4; see especially A New Model for Health and Disease, by George Vithoulkas, April 1992, North Atlantic Books, USA; ISBN: 1556430876
[3] Jonathan Sale, "Greek Bearing Gifts Of Healing," The Times, 8 September 1984, p.6
[4] Patrick Curry, "George Vithoulkas Article," The Guardian, 1 July 1987
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Extract from "Acceptance Speech to the Swedish Parliament at the Presentation of the Right Livelihood Awards" by George Vithoulkas, 1996
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