In March I attended a conference at the University of Washington updating the use of pharmaceuticals in contemporary medical practice. I am sorry to report that there was nary a vitamin, mineral, essential fatty acid, amino acid, herb, homeopathic, or food supplement that was given any approval by the faculty. I have been told that nutritional medicine is becoming more widely accepted by conventional medicine, but you wouldn’t know that sitting as a member of the audience with this medical faculty. In fact, nearly every vitamin and nutrient study reviewed disputed any effectiveness and suggested negative benefit. There was the occasional exception – a grudging acceptance that high-dose melatonin might impact insomnia. I would love to obligate these professors to sit down to a Wright/Gaby three-day conference on nutritional medicine.

One of the high points of the drug review came during a lecture by a rheumatologist who was discussing disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs). You would think that we had succeeded in developing new rocket technology to transport man to Jupiter. The rheumatology professor was positively giddy with excitement that these drug agents were not only effective in rheumatoid arthritis and lupus but also life-savers in horrible diseases such as the vasculitis Wegener’s granulomatosis. Experimental drugs previously used in cancer, like rituximab (Rituxan), capable of impairing B cell activity, were the new cure for vasculitis. The rheumatologist admitted that while Rituxan is currently primarily prescribed by specialists, the day would come when it would be prescribed by family doctors. Many other DMARDs are already available; for example, those that suppress TNF; and others are in the pipeline. The rheumatologist thought that, compared with the horrible disability that the artist Renoir suffered in his twilight years with rheumatoid arthritis, patients today would no longer suffer or develop infirmity.