Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D. on Alternative Medicine & Healthcare (Pt 2)

Gonzalez Interview Part Two (Read Part One)

Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D. on Alternative Medicine, Independent Thinking, and the Looming Universal Health Care Nightmare

© By Peter Barry Chowka

(September 16, 2009) It is, in my opinion, a day that will – or that should – live in infamy.

Today, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, released the text of the long awaited Senate version of Obamacare – and as I’ve predicted for months/years, this bill, whose provisions stand a good chance of becoming law, mandates (requires) that everyone in the United States, individuals and families, obtain – that is, pay for – government-approved allopathic health insurance.

Even with subsidies calculated by mammoth new bureaucracies, whose databases on the private health records, incomes, and finances of every American will link with the Internal Revenue Service, the financial cost to Americans including people of modest means will be staggering.

In terms of what this means for alternative medicine, which, of course, will not be covered under any government health plan, the new additional 13% tax proposed for government-approved care will wipe out many Americans’ ability to continue to be able to pay out of pocket for lifestyle modifications (primary prevention) and natural therapies.

Among the therapies that will soon be extinct if this Marxist-inspired madness becomes law are the ones being offered by Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D. of New York, N.Y. Not only will natural health clinical practices be threatened by peoples’ new inability to choose or pay for such care (in the face of their being forced to pay instead for expensive allopathic insurance that they don’t want or don’t intend to use), the therapies offered by physicians like Gonzalez will be outlawed by the bureaucratic allopathic-centered “best practices” panels that will soon go into effect, as well.

Bye-bye nutritional supplements and coffee enemas that are currently used as primary therapies, unless you can find an underground practitioner.

The aforementioned Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D. is interesting not only because of the nature of his work in natural therapeutics during the past two decades but because the arc of his career probably illustrates better than anything or anyone else’s the dilemma of alternative medicine and medical freedom in the United States. The Nick Gonzalez Story has become a metaphor for medicine in modern times.

Gonzalez graduated from Brown University, Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude with a degree in English Literature. After working as a journalist, he completed his premedical work as a postgraduate student at Columbia University, and received his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College in 1983. Following his internship, he completed fellowship training in immunology under Robert A. Good, Ph.D., M.D., D.Sc. (1922-2003), the “father of modern immunology.”  In 1981, Gonzalez came upon the groundbreaking work of William Donald Kelley, D.D.S., a controversial dentist who had designed a nutritional program for treating cancer and gained a wide following in unconventional cancer treatment circles. At the time (I know because I was there covering it), Kelley was one of many pioneering individuals working in the field of alternative cancer treatments, within the much larger emerging field of alternative medicine.

With the approval of his mentor Dr. Good, Gonzalez undertook a serious study and review of Kelley’s work and the outcomes of the patients Kelley had treated. Impressed by the results, Gonzalez attempted to publish them and then he opened a clinical practice himself, using the Kelley methods.

Gonzalez achieved clinical success, quiet acclaim, and increasing notoriety and – not surprisingly – became a magnet for controversy and criticism, the kind that eventually come around to any clinician or researcher who attempts something truly original or apart from the mainstream.

Ten years ago, it was announced that Gonzalez would participate in a prospective clinical trial of his nutritional cancer therapy, under the aegis of the U.S. government’s National Institutes of Health. The trial eventually collapsed and the story of how that happened will soon come out and may also be the subject of a Congressional hearing.

Concurrently, the other, once numerous, pioneers of truly alternative cancer and alternative medicine all pretty much died or left the scene. Meanwhile, new generations of potential alt med students and clinicians were co-opted and deflected by the sell-out to CAM – complementary alternative medicine – that was going on, in which alt med light adjuncts, like massage, mind body meditation, and calming herbs, were prescribed to complement aggressive orthodox treatments. Alternative medicine was largely supplanted by CAM.

Today, as far as I can tell, Gonzalez is it if you want primary alternative cancer treatment within the borders of the United States.

Periodically since 1991, I have talked with Gonzalez on the phone or in person to compare notes on developments in the field and to get updates about his work. It is among the tragedies that, in recent years, we have had to concentrate mostly on the political threats emanating from Washington, D.C. to the freedom, autonomy, and choice that make his work possible, with little time left for a discussion of the successes he is having clinically.

Our most recent conversation took place on September 9, 2009. This is the transcript of the second part of the conversation.

Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D.: What you have [under the current system and reinforced under the coming Obamacare] is people who really take care of themselves subsidizing the people who don’t. That’s rewarding failure and punishing success. It should be exactly the other way around. In fact, if people had to pay for their failure, there would be less failure – they wouldn’t overeat, they wouldn’t live on junk food, they’d think about their health – they don’t have to now. This magical thinking that liberals always have, that somehow doctors can make it better – well, Ted Kennedy learned they can’t make it better all the time.

That’s the other myth in terms of all of the health care plans, Democratic or Republican – the idea that there’s this massive, wonderful science, and that if we just make it accessible to everybody, then everyone will be healthy. In fact, I’ve spent thirty years of my life learning that most conventional medicine doesn’t really work very well.

That’s the other mythology, that both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans believe in – that doctors really know what they’re doing. The Republicans have a different version of how we get this great medical care to everybody. But the fact is, it doesn’t work for most diseases, and that’s the problem.

Peter Barry Chowka: In my opinion, both political parties are really screwed up on this issue. The Republicans are just taking us to hell a little bit more slowly. I notice that Obama et al now have even adopted some of the language of the CAM movement when they talk about “wellness” and “prevention,” words that to them mean things like vaccinations, mammograms, etc.

One wonders why alternative medicine proponents, whose success depends on freedom, independence, autonomy, and self-reliance, would throw in their lot with the collectivist approach.

We’ve discussed this question before: Why are the people who are the remnants of the once-freedom loving alt med universe, who have now morphed into CAM acolytes, marching in lock step with the collectivists, the proponents of socialized medicine? And holding out the hope that Obama is going to somehow “green” medical care and grow it into a system more to their liking?

Gonzalez: Most of them are very mediocre. I think they think they could survive much better if they become part of the system. They have professorships in medical schools now, the CAM offices in some medical schools. This gives them honor and glory, positions of power and authority and they can be more successful. A lot of alternative doctors just aren’t very creative, that’s my experience.

I don’t care what people say about me; I couldn’t care less. In terms of the field in general – Recently, Obama had a meeting of alternative medicine leaders in Washington –

Chowka: People like Dean Ornish.

Gonzalez: They were in a frenzy. It’s not going to lead anywhere, it’s just catering –

Chowka: Hillary Clinton called the same kind of meeting in early 1994 and it was window dressing. Meanwhile, Hillarycare would have criminalized the practice of alternative medicine.

Gonzalez: Clinton had a commission on alternative medicine [The White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy, or WHCCAMP, 2000-2002], they spent two years and millions of dollars, traveling around the country. It led to absolutely nothing.

Chowka: I know. I testified at it – twice. [Laughs.] [Archived testimony transcripts are here and here.]

Gonzalez: What it did was it pacified the field. It was just a pacifier for a few million bucks. It leads nowhere.

I think [the co-optation] also appeals to ego. Alternative medicine doctors, particularly the [licensed] naturopaths, like the idea that they might become an assistant professor at a real medical school. A naturopathic friend of mine was telling me that the naturopathic medical schools are getting more and more conventional. They’re even teaching now that vaccines are a good thing, and how to use antibiotics. [My friend] said it’s horrific. Just like the Democrat and Republican parties are alike, naturopathic schools are orthodox medicine light – basically, conventional medicine with some herbs thrown in.

William Donald Kelley, D.D.S. New York, Cancer Dialogue 1980 Photo © By Peter Barry Chowka

A lot of what alternative medicine doctors do – it doesn’t really work that well. [William Donald] Kelley was so unique in terms of the successes he had, the genius. That’s a one-in-a-generation kind of brilliance. That genius is such a rare thing; [Max] Gerson was a genius. Kelley was an absolute genius. That was the problem. He was so far ahead of his time. No one in his field, even the alternative people, could understand what he was talking about. There aren’t that many people like him. There are a lot of mediocre doctors who want fame, glory, and success. I’ve always said that behind every alternative doctor is an ego just waiting to burst out. What they really want to have is a successful book, be on the cover of People magazine, hobnob with celebrities at the Beverly Hills Hotel –

Chowka: Get on Oprah.

Gonzalez: Yes, get on Oprah. That’s the ultimate goal of every alternative practitioner: write a book, be perceived as a hero, not have to see patients – I can’t tell you how many alternative doctors I know who really don’t like seeing patients. They all want to be gurus. They want to be gurus. Being involved with the government and going to the White House is part of guru-dom – you know, like you’re a famous and important person, you get invited to the White House.

That’s not what it’s about. Taking care of patients is tough work. I’m in my office until 9 o’clock at night. And that’s what it is. Friday night I’m in my office until 9 or 10 o’clock, taking care of patients. That’s what it is, that’s where the battle is. It isn’t about ego and self-glorification, writing a successful book, being on Oprah. That’s not what it’s about! It’s about taking care of patients. A lot of these guys don’t really like that. I mean, they’ve told me this. Some of the leading M.D. alternative people have said, “I really don’t like seeing patients.” They really want their own TV show, they want a really successful book so they don’t have to see patients. I can’t tell you how often I hear that. That’s the dream among alternative doctors. It just shows you how mediocre most people are. They’re not driven by the right reasons. The right reason to be a doctor is to take care of patients. That’s all it’s about. And the next day you’re back in the office taking care of patients and trying to figure out if you can outsmart their disease. And that’s all it’s about. And if anything else comes up, that’s great – but if it doesn’t, so what?

A lot of alternative doctors love getting mainstreamed. They really think that’s great. Unfortunately, as you’ve said, the whole point of alternative medicine is creative independent thinking which contradicts the mainstream, that is at odds with the mainstream. And that can only happen outside the mainstream. And so, often, as you know because you’re a historian of medicine, so many of the great ideas in medicine came from completely outside of the mainstream. The mainstream often exists only to perpetuate false old ideas. New ideas often have to develop, as Kelley did, completely outside the mainstream.

The great example I always use is Gregor Mendel. His little theory of genetics is the whole underpinning of modern molecular biology. All contemporary molecular biology comes out of Gregor Mendel. He failed the test to become a secondary school teacher. He had minimal scientific training. He was a self-taught scientist, a monk in an Eastern European monastery going nowhere with no academic affiliation at all. And he figured out – genetics. Up to that point, before Mendel, they thought acquired characteristics could be inherited – that if you lost your finger in an accident, your son would have no finger. Gregor Mendel proved that’s nonsense – that there’s some kind of genetic inheritance that’s passed from generation to generation. As simple as it seems to us, that was a major revolutionary theory. And it came out of nowhere!

It had to come out of nowhere because the universities, Oxford, Cambridge, etc., were teaching that you could inherit acquired characteristics – that if you had an accident and lost height because you’d broken your leg, for example, your kid would be shorter. They actually believed that. And Mendel completely disproved that with his simple pea pod experiment. It’s the same thing with Renaissance anatomy. It was anatomy based on Galen who never did an autopsy on a human. It was illegal in Rome. He operated on baboons that have a completely different anatomy. Galen taught, based on baboon anatomy, that the human liver has five lobes when it only has four. But in all the textbooks, it had five. That’s what Galen said until Velsalius actually operated – dissected a human body and found that there were only four lobes. But no one believed him!

So, as you know, the orthodoxy exists to perpetuate false old ideas. And new ideas often, frequently, come out of the weirdest places.

Peter Barry Chowka is a writer and investigative journalist who writes about politics, health care, and the media.