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Is there a university brave enough to host the "First International Conference on Sustainable Medicine"?

January 2019

Authors:

Quality of Life Research Center

With the new Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) rapport (1) it has become clear that the end is near. Maybe not the end of life on the planet, but the end of good, sweet, human life, as we have enjoyed it for 10 millennia on this planet. Unless we change our ways, and collectively become sustainable, within the next few decades. That is very little time to make radical and total changes in our global culture. Is there a way forward at all? Yes there is. If we want to do something about it, we can. We can focus on the relatively few very important factors, and intervene on them for the common good. What destroys the planet, its life forms, and environment? The answer is simple: our big industries, primarily the multinational companies. Every industry and every big company must be made sustainable, if we are to survive. And we must start the change today.

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J Altern Med Res 2019;11(1):3-5 ISSN: 1939-5868

Is there a university brave enough to host

the “First International Conference

on Sustainable Medicine”?

Søren Ventegodt1-4,, MD, MMedSci,

EU-MSc-CAM, and Joav Merrick5-8, MD,

MMedSci, DMSc

1Quality of Life Research Center, Copenhagen, Denmark

2Research Clinic for Holistic Medicine,

Copenhagen, Denmark

3Nordic School of Holistic Medicine,

Copenhagen, Denmark

4Interuniversity College, Graz, Austria

5National Institute of Child Health and Human

Development, Jerusalem, Israel

6Department of Pediatrics, Mt Scopus Campus,

Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center,

Jerusalem, Israel

7Kentucky Children’s Hospital, University of Kentucky,

Lexington, Kentucky, USA

8Center for Healthy Development, School of Public

Health, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

 Correspondence: Søren Ventegodt, Quality-of-Life Research

Center, Copenhagen, Denmark.

E-mail: ventegodt@livskvalitet.org

Introduction

With the new Intergovernmental Science-Policy

Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

(IPBES) rapport (1) it has become clear that the end is

near. Maybe not the end of life on the planet, but the

end of good, sweet, human life, as we have enjoyed it

for 10 millennia on this planet. Unless we change our

ways, and collectively become sustainable, within the

next few decades. That is very little time to make

radical and total changes in our global culture. Is there

a way forward at all?

Yes there is. If we want to do something about it,

we can. We can focus on the relatively few very

important factors, and intervene on them for the

common good. What destroys the planet, its life

forms, and environment? The answer is simple: our

big industries, primarily the multinational companies.

Every industry and every big company must be made

sustainable, if we are to survive. And we must start

the change today.

Medical industry

Medicine has become one of the biggest industries in

the world and it continues to grow at a scary rate with

a doubling every eighth year (2). The pharmaceutical

industry is financially totally dominating the medicine

area (3), in spite of the fact that a majority of people

on the planet still today use consciousness-based

medicine like mind-body medicine of the talk-and-

touch type, or spiritual medicine like the classical

holistic medicines developed in parallel on many

continents.

Søren Ventegodt and Joav Merrick

The pharmaceutical industry is a huge chemical

industry that has a major destructive impact on the

global environment. Because we in the western indus-

trialized world have come to think that medicine is

indispensable, we have not yet collectively questioned

the justification of the use of drugs as medicine.

But our habitual thinking is challenged now by

the fact that we might destroy the planet by using the

pharmaceutical drugs in this massive way in the

future. So the question that naturally comes up is: Is

there an alternative to drugs? Is there a type of

medicine, which is effective for the clinical conditions

we see in our developed culture, like cancer, heart

disorders, chronic pains, allergies, depression, and all

kind of mental illnesses, psychosocial disturbances

and psychosexual problems?

Are there alternatives?

For over a decade we’ve made comparative analyses

of the 10 major medical systems in use today (4-11),

using the criteria of evidence-based medicine. We

have found that there are in fact medicine systems,

which are affordable, effective, safe and sustainable,

and witch works for all the major groups of clinical

conditions. This is good news indeed. The only

question now is how we can make people understand

and accept this, so the necessary change can happen.

We are certain that many patients and doctors

already know this. But what about the people in

general, who is under the spell of misinformation and

ruthless marketing strategies, and what about the

people in power, the journalists, the leading media

that often get money from the industry, the poli-

ticians, and the leading people in business? What

about the pharmaceutical companies themselves? Are

all these key players in the economic and political

game willing to change their ways, their personal

understanding, and their priorities, and let the future

of the planet be more important than their own or

their company’s wallet - or their own next election?

Bravery

Is there a university brave enough to host the “First

international conference on sustainable medicine”? Is

there a president of a country bold enough to risk his

next term on the revision of the health care system, to

change it from using pharmaceuticals to using con-

sciousness-based, holistic medicine, and make his

countries medicine sustainable? If there is, we are

happy to be at the service for such a project.

The concept of sustainability has come to

medicine (11), and in the future this concept will be

more and more important, so in the end all patients

and all doctors will have to consider it. Therefore, let

us start now.

References

[1] The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Yearly

rapport 2019: Nature’s dangerous decline ‘unpreced-

ented’. Species extinction rates ‘accelerating’. URL:

https://www.ipbes.net/

[2] IMS Health. URL: http://www.annualreports.com/Com

pany/ims-health/Annual rapport 2017.

[3] Ventegodt S. Why the corruption of the World Health

Organization (WHO) is the biggest threat to the world’s

public health of our time. J Integr Med Ther 2015;2(1):5

[4] Ventegodt S, Andersen NJ, Kandel I, Merrick J.

Comparative analysis of cost-effectiveness of non-drug

medicine (nonpharmaceutical holistic, complementary

and alternative medicine/CAM) and biomedicine

(pharmaceutical drugs) for all clinical conditions. Int J

Disabil Hum Dev 2009;8(3):243-58.

[5] Ventegodt S. A tour around the world’s medical

systems using evidence-based medicine: Holistic mind–

body medicine is safest and most effective for most

clinical conditions. In: George A, Oluwatobi OS, Joseph

B, eds. Holistic Hhealthcare: Possibilities and chall-

enges. Palm Bay, FL: Apple Academic Press, 2017

[6] Ventegodt S, Merrick J. Therapeutic value (TV) of

alternative medicine (non-drug CAM). Rough estimates

for all clinical conditions based on Cochrane reviews

and the ratio: Number needed to harm/number needed

to treat (TV=NNHtotal/NNT). BMJ 2000 Nov 15. URL:

http://www.bmj.com/content/341/bmj.c5715.full/reply#

bmj_el_244740.

[7] Ventegodt S, Merrick J. The therapeutic value (TV:

The ratio benefit to harm) of holistic medicine is

1,000,000,000 times larger than the therapeutic value

of pharmaceutical drugs for cancer, coronary heart

disorder, depression and schizophrenia. BMJ 2010 Dec

12. URL: http://www.bmj.com/content/341/bmj.c5715.