Open Letter to President Obama

Mr. President:

As a fellow of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, I was overjoyed by your campaign promises for a change in the USA’s environmental stance.  I am even more delighted by the actual changes already under way.  Please, stay the course.  What gives me the temerity to address a letter to the president is my standing in the community of complementary alternative medicine [CAM].  I opened the first holistic health center in New York City in 1974, and successfully fought against the suppression of my specialty by the New York State Office of Professional Misconduct.  During that 14-year battle, I had great support from Berkley Bedell, Orin Hatch, Dan Burton, and others on the Hill.  I am on a first-name basis with most of the experts at your recent hearings on CAM, and I recently accepted the position of chairman of biomedical education for a newly formed Northern Virginia chapter of the National Autism Association, a 501C-3 Foundation.           

I am writing today because, in my 50th year of practice, I find myself at the center of three major “controversies” in American medicine, the federal government is right there with me, and it seems that neither of us has been able to effect the changes necessary.  I certainly don’t have the power, although my desire and intent are strong; while the government appears to lack the cohesiveness needed between different offices to exert their combined influence on: 

mercury and fluorides in dentistry

the alarming rise in autism

endemic Lyme disease

Furthermore, they are entwined with one another, causally and therapeutically, and  more importantly, they suffer from the same underlying obstruction to change in their respective paradigms for diagnosis and treatment.

That blockage is the true subject of my letter.  Truly, all progress in medical paradigms stems from heresy!

Like it or not, we are today a litigious society, and the threat of lawsuits against the standard-bearers of the status quo makes it almost impossible to expect a change to take place voluntarily; viz.:

1. The FDA has ignored rulings from the courts and instructions from the legislatures, with regard to publishing the scientific proof of the toxicity of mercury and fluoride.  If they were to appropriately protect the public, and announce the elimination of both of these substances from dental offices and public water supplies, the legal eagles who specialize in post facto actions would have a field day, because the science is compelling, it has been known for a long time, and the effects are actionable.

2. The status quo in autism holds that this problem is incurable, and can only be dealt with by “rehabilitating” the various external expressions of the problem:  speech, hearing, vision, and musculoskeletal issues.  What is totally ignored is the biochemistry of the brain, which must be diagnosed and individually addressed before full rehab can be accomplished.  I am enclosing two DVDs showing recoveries based on such an approach, yet the Centers for Pediatric Neurology continue to ignore them for over a decade. Parents of these kids have spent a fortune trying to create a home environment to help them cope with their limitations, whereas proper treatment allows the vast majority of them to rejoin the world.  Many will also attempt to exact retribution from the authorities, because the science is compelling, it has been known for a long time, and the effects are actionable.

3. With regard to Lyme disease, the Infectious Disease Society of America, creators of the “official” guidelines to diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease, as posted on the website www.guidelines.gov, have recently been sued for conflict of interest in the creation of that document by the attorney general of the state of Connecticut. The panel has been disbanded, a new panel appointed, and hearings are under way with the new panelists sworn to freedom from conflict of interest and to the obligation to scientifically review all evidence that has heretofore been arbitrarily rejected.  All of this is under the watchful eye of a professor of medical ethics.  Nevertheless, a serious question remains as to whether the new panel’s guidelines will leave the previous panel at risk for retaliation, because the science is compelling, it has been known for a long time, and the effects are actionable.  In the meantime, as examples of the impact of the errors on quality of life, I have had two cases of ALS and one MS, all of whom tested positive for Lyme by special testing, and all of whom made good to spectacular progress while on IV antibiotics, and all of them were denied continuation of therapy by their [different] insurance companies, because they “did not fit the guidelines,” and all of them regressed when treatment was discontinued.  The common denominator that impedes the progress of science in our society is the certainty that lawsuits will follow any meaningful change in medical practice that does not represent a new technology, but merely a change in opinion.  I believe that the federal government should pass a broad amnesty bill, covering practitioners from lawsuits over changes in guidelines for diagnosis and treatment.  Freed from that onerous burden, new committees will be free to create, and recreate, guidelines that can more truly represent current “evidence-based medicine.”

Sincerely,

Warren M. Levin, MD, FAAFP (ret), FAAEM, FACN