"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" goes the old saying, and who wouldn’t prefer to maintain good health than begin a desperate search for remedies once illness has taken hold? With hospital charges and medical insurance premiums skyrocketing, more people are relying on preventative and alternative health care than ever before.

You probably believe that the wide choice of natural health products available today is a reflection of an enlightened, liberal society where freedom of choice is an accepted right. You probably also believe that this situation won’t change, except perhaps to improve. That unfortunately, is not so, and I’ll detail this threat to personal freedom and initiative a little further on. First, let’s take an overview of preventative medicine.

The Three Essentials

Barring accident or injury, there are basically three requirements for optimum health and well-being, and in the western world at least, they are readily available. Good food, good water and good air. The first requires a little self-education and effort. It’s admittedly easier to throw a sausage in a frying pan than prepare fresh vegetables and other high-fibre foods. For those who can spare the time, growing organic vegetables and fruit is not only sensible, it’s now becoming downright fashionable. And dietary supplements such as vitamins, herbal preparations and enzymes are becoming increasingly accepted as a way to improve the body’s functioning and boost the immune system. 

Health authorities in Britain recently stated that meat should only be eaten as a garnish. Consuming large quantities of meat, they warn, can lead to a variety of serious diseases including bowel cancer. A shocking revelation? Hardly - people who value their health have known about this for decades and plan their diet accordingly.

Although urban authorities assure us our water supplies are among the cleanest in the world, many people choose to filter their drinking water just to be sure. If your local supply contains fluoride, you may decide you’re better off without it. It’s unlikely Australian tap water will make anyone ill, but no-one can argue that water containing chlorine tastes better than filtered water.

The Most Important Factor

The most important necessity for life is good air quality, a fact that’s too easy to overlook. Pollution is an obvious hazard, but what we can’t see can also pose a serious threat to well-being. Not many people are aware that the electrical charge of the air we breathe - positive or negative - has a crucial effect on health and well-being.

Explaining Negative Ions

Negative air ions are short-lived, electrically charged particles that are found in abundance in natural settings like the seaside, near waterfalls and in pine forests, but are seriously depleted in urban environments and inside the average home. The smallest of these oxygen particles can be breathed in and enter the bloodstream through the lungs, improving bodily efficiency and helping to stave off allergies and physical and emotional illness. Before you say "Rubbish!" consider this:

* As long ago as the 1930’s science had proven that small negative ions of oxygen were of benefit to all living organisms.

* In the 1950’s separate research programs in the USA, Israel and the former Soviet Union demonstrated that, in an atmosphere depleted of small negative ions, bacteria flourished, laboratory animals became lethargic and developed illnesses, and humans became irritable, argumentative and depressed.

* Further research demonstrated that an abundance of small neg-ions, mechanically generated and breathed in by subjects, reversed these effects and resulted in improved levels of performance and well-being. Asthma, allergies, blood pressure, insomnia, sex drive and wound healing are just a few of the conditions aided by ionisation.

I’m not referring to some obscure experiments carried out in a backyard lab. The beneficial effects of ionisation are well-known to the scientific community, but regarded by the public as ‘fringe medicine’ mainly due to a lack of publicity. Ionisation was once very popular but fell out of favour in the 1970’s because the original machines - using radioactive isotopes as their ion-generating source - were superseded by safer machines. However, these new-generation ‘non-nuclear’ ionisers could not produce the small negative ions of oxygen that can be absorbed by the body, and thus failed to provide any benefits to human health. 

The World’s Only Therapeutic Ioniser

Now however, after years of painstaking research, Australian Joshua Shaw has invented and patented the world’s only therapeutic ioniser, named the Elanra. It is safe to use, stunningly effective and registered by the Australian government as a therapeutic device. 

This machine has proven its worth to thousands of individuals in Australia and overseas. It has been examined, tested and highly praised by international experts in the field of electromedicine. The Elanra has also been used in the clinical treatment of depression, leading to the registering of a patent for this treatment by Colombia University (New York) in 1996.

You’d think such a success story would make front page news everywhere. But sad to say, wide-spread promotion of alternative drug-free treatments or devices is almost impossible to achieve. Rules, regulations, drug monopolies and conservative medical bodies prevent the good news being widely disseminated, and it’s only in scientific journals or in magazines like Golden Age that you can access such information. Even then, publishers and journalists, along with manufacturers and distributors of therapeutic goods have been threatened and ordered to retract certain statements. 

I should know, it happened to me when a previous article about Elanra was criticised by the TGA - the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration - who are fast earning a reputation for heavy-handed prohibition tactics. In a recent incident, carloads of police and TGA officials raided the rural property of a herbalist in northern NSW. Apparently, they objected to claims he made about certain herbal teas he was selling. And just last month, heroin addicts who had travelled overseas to undergo successful treatment in Israel were told the essential medicine which ensures the ongoing success of their treatment will not be permitted to be brought back into this country. 

What on earth is going on? Is bureaucracy really so obtuse, or is there more to this situation than meets the eye? 

Vital Information Suppressed

While our Federal Government claims to support alternative treatments and products as having "an integral role to play in providing the full range of health care options to Australians" at the same time they have granted the TGA sweeping new powers to control advertising (information) about such products. Keep in mind that ‘advertising’ covers more than a magazine or TV ad. Any published information - articles, brochures, reports of interviews etc. can be deemed advertising by those in authority. Advertisers who dare to claim their product is safe or who make any reference to an exhaustive list of physical and mental conditions can be dragged before a committee and even prevented from trading. And these are only minor aspects of the new regulations.

How then does the public gain access to information about products or services? Will providers of alternative health care be forced to form some type of underground information network to avoid prosecution? Will you soon have absolutely no recourse but to wait until you are ill, then visit a GP and take whatever drug he/she prescribes? If that sounds ridiculous, consider what has already happened overseas. 

In Canada for instance, herbs, botanicals and dietary supplements like amino acids are being reclassified as drugs, and to manufacture or supply such products requires compliance with a myriad of government regulations. These regulations include the payment of hefty fees for the registration of each product - fees that small companies cannot possibly afford. However, large international drug cartels can meet these fees and, not surprisingly, are the power behind the move to standardise (they call it ‘harmonise’) these regulations throughout the world.

Natural Products Banned

Already in Canada a wide range of natural products has been banned from sale, including Fish Oils, Glutamine, Lysine, Tryptophan, Comfrey, Boron and Carnitine. Natural progesterone cream was another casualty. Far from protecting the public from their own ignorance, the new regulations allow large pharmaceutical companies to either eliminate from the market natural products perceived to be in competition with drugs, or alternatively to synthesise, then patent them - thus owning the rights to substances provided by nature.

If you doubt that can happen here, consider whom our government has put in charge of regulating the revisions to TGA legislation. Co-regulation (with government) will be in the hands of the Proprietary Medicines Association of Australia - an organisation most unlikely to promote natural therapies!

No-one is suggesting these giant international companies are complete villains, or that their products are without merit, yet the fact is they exert tremendous influence over governments and the mainstream media. After all, they spend millions of dollars a year on advertising and also on promoting themselves to medical practitioners. The average GP or specialist is literally swamped with ‘corporate gifts’, ‘incentives’ and so on, generously provided by drug companies. When the public begins to turn to alternative care and self-medication, as they are now, companies peddling patent medicines will act to protect their territory. But do you approve of the methods?

Fighting Back

The time is coming when your options in regard to alternative health care and natural therapeutic products will be severely curtailed. Only the loud voice of public opinion has any hope of reversing this world-wide trend towards restriction of free choice. 

Every Elanra unit that is sold and brings benefit to its owner is another nail in the coffin of market monopoly by pharmaceutical interests. For every person who finds an alternative to drug therapy (with its inevitable side-effects and ongoing cost) drug companies and their bureaucratic flunkies lose another statistic that would bolster their grab for power.