Today is a particularly auspicious day since teachers are honored today all over India.
Whether they are spiritual teachers or technical ones today belongs to them. I was not only honored by being introduced by Dr. Hegde at the college of which he is the Emeritus Dean, but also honored by being asked to deliver the 2006 Keshava Pai Memorial Oration on the “Future of Medicine” which I did with great pleasure. This annual oration keeps the memory of the beloved founder of the institution alive. Dr. Hegde’s leadership of Natural Solutions Foundation – India was announced to his institution.
Then I told the audience of medical students, faculty and very senior faculty that the future of medicine was at a point of bifurcation: In one future, untold numbers of people, in rank according to their underlying nutritional vulnerability, would die with or without medications of the chronic degenerative diseases identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the “non communicable diseases of under nutrition”, cancers, diabetes, stroke, heart attack, etc. In the other future, safe, clean, natural and unadulterated food was available to the people of India and the world and dietary supplements and herbs were valuable tools with which to gain, regain and maintain optimal health.
I urged each of them to become a source of light and information, guidance and force for natural choices in spite of the fact that they had been taught that there was a pill for every ill and, increasingly, an ill for every pill.
The first future track, I believe, is the one we will face if Codex Alimentarius is not reigned in and corrected, error by error, country by country. It is a future in which countless people will suffer untold disease and death which is totally preventable and therefore unnecessary if their food and health options are not protected and if Optimum Health is not the goal of Codex and of their country. I explained the globalization of the food supply and the degradation of the environment and the nutrient load of food through common, but deadly agricultural practices. And I explained the magnitude of starvation and illness without nutrients at effective doses, herbs and other supplements at those same effective doses and the safety and quality of food assured.
The second future is the one that we will live in if every country takes stock of her people’s health needs (whatever the multinational corporate needs might be) and corrects the dangerous and disastrous food-related illness and deaths the negative standards and guidelines of Codex will foist upon nations if they let it.
I also explained that within the threat and danger posed by Codex Alimentarius lies the seed of the new medical paradigm (which contains within it the old one: that health and well being reside in clean, unadulterated food, healthy living and exercise and nutrients and herbs given to people based on their individual needs) all focused on preventing illness and, when it does occur, finding and curing the underlying cause of that illness. In other words, the second path is toward Whole Person Healing.
At the conclusion of the lecture, several things happened. First, the grandson of the Founder of the College, Dr. Pai, graciously presented me with a gold medal commemorating the oration. That was really cool!
The second thing that happened was a lively exchange with questions that were dynamic and forward moving. Professor Dr. S. Viswanathan, MB, BS, MD, DGO, PG Dip Yoga, Professor and Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Deputy Medical Superintendant, Rajah Muthiah Medical College Hospital and Director of the Center for Yoga Studies, Annamalai University, Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu asked what we must do to bring about the pro health changes in India. I answered that enacting what I call the “Codex two step” regarding the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (which is laid out in the Codex was the best place to start and he agreed that he would begin there. I was surprised, delighted and nearly breathless when Dr. Hegde, a man who lets no grass grow beneath his feed, announced to me that he had asked Dr. Viswanathan to accept the position of Chairman of Natural Solutions Foundation –Tamil Nadu.
I had to be reminded that Tamil Nadu is one of India’s Sates so Dr. Viswanathan is the first of the State level units for the Natural Solutions Foundation which Dr. Hegde is building for health and health freedom’s sake in India.
We are in the land of ancient medical wisdom here in India. The best known in the West is Ayurveda, a system in which food is specifically used as an individualized medicine every bit as important as herbs, prayer, and other influences. We were delighted to be driven to several really exciting places: Alva’s Ayurveda facilities: a magnificent herbarium containing a vast array of traditional healing plants, an Ayurveda pharmaceutical company (Alva) whose products are made in the traditional ways and are certified Organic, Alva’s treatment facilities and their Hospital. We were also able to meet their gifted and inspired chairman at their new Ayurvedic Medical School and were invited back to present to the school next January. We will be there!
Although herbs were “given” to the WTO, you will remember that our lawyers tell us that the active compounds and complexes in herbs actually still fall under the dominion of Codex where a nutrient related adverse event is “any change in a bio marker”. If India does not protect her natural system of health, Codex threatens it in a major way. Thus, the importance of enlisting this community of interest is obvious. And enlist it we are doing.
In the evening, after a much needed shower (hot, humid, sticky, gooey weather does not make for good party wear) we attended a gathering given by Dr. Hegde on the occasion of his physician-daughter’s visit from the US to her family home here in Mangalore. Dozens of men and women gathered to mix and mingle. They uniformly impressed me with their open mindedness, their intelligence and their interest in the Codex problem. We talked, ate and mingled with supportive, creative and positive professionals who all wanted to know what they could do to help. It’s hard not to love that kind of gathering! AND the food was spectacular in the buffet we all selected from: vegetarian on one long table and non-veg on another. I ate some of each. It was all fantastic.
One of the problems in this trip is that I will no longer be able to go to the Indian restaurants in the US and Europe which I used to enjoy now that I have eaten real Indian food!
Dr. Hegde sent an email notifying us that we had been on 5 Indian TV stations with the Natural Solutions Foundation message. Not only that, The Hindu ran an article 3 days before we arrived. Things are definitely heating up here. Now we will go to at least 2, possibly 3, more cities in India to lecture on the issues at hand.
Stay tuned!
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
