The article "Chronic Pain" by C. Hall of the San Francisco Examiner (Orange County Register, Health and Fitness Section, April 21) and similar facsimiles on degenerative ailments provide no solution to those suffering from chronic disorders except a familiar promise of possible cure from on-going pharmaceutical research. Such promise has been repeated so often and yet unfulfilled for the past seventy years. I wish to dispel this misguided notion of a drug-cure for diseases.

Drugs treat symptoms rather than the causes of a disease. Pain, hypertension, and the myriad of western syndromes are all symptoms. Suppressing them with drugs without correcting their causes is analogous to painting a wall stain without fixing the plumbing leak which causes it. This method will not cure the problem and requires treatment ad infinitum.

In addition, the untreated underlying disease continues to cause other symptoms, similar to the unfixed leak that continues to cause other damages. New symptoms are likewise masked with more drugs. Moreover, the failure of existing drugs leads to synthesis of more potent alternatives. Replacing NSAID’s with Cox-2 analgesics is akin to substituting water-based with oil-based paint in concealing wall stains.

In any case, the root problem is ignored. No amount of research will correct this fatal flaw. Current research are all invalid, because they focus on the improvement of a part and not the patient has a whole. This "palliative" approach is a standard practice in medicine, but is considered malpractice in all other professions!

More detrimental is that drugs have side effects. Symptom control is achieved at the expense of the whole being. Repairing a part while damaging the whole, such as a plumbing repair that ruins the electrical system, is unacceptable.

Furthermore, stronger drugs have greater toxicity, and the use of multiple drugs sharply increases risks. Therefore, the allopathic method is extremely harmful, since most patients have multiple symptoms and receive many drugs on a lifelong basis.

This fallacious approach is due to the neglect of innate healing, which is critical in sustaining health. The healing mechanism suppresses the overgrowth of microbes to prevent the development of clinical disease, i.e., the host is more important than the disease vectors as Pasteur admitted in his death bed. Thus, the breakdown of healing functions causes physical symptoms.

On the other hand, strong healing power can cure terminal cancers, whereas the loss of it at death renders all therapies useless. Hence, the primary goal of any therapy should be the restoration of health rather than eradication of diseases.

Lacking this knowledge, physicians use hormone analogs to disrupt functions of failing organs, or synthetic genes to replace defective ones. Such treatments, again, fail to rectify the causes of the organic or genetic malfunction, and cause further functional attrition similar to the use of a wheelchair causing atrophy of malfunctioning limbs.

Finally, Nature does not use synthetic materials for body repair, and regards them as foreign substances that must be eliminated. Hence, the use of drugs depletes healing energy and weakens the body.

Hall’s article claims that "treatments are being developed all the time, but though some work well, they’re not for everyone." The fact remains that drugs are harmful and ignore the root disease. Hence long-term use of any drug is not for anyone!

The harm of legal drug abuse has become too apparent. Properly prescribed drugs are now the fourth leading cause of deaths in the U.S.! The first three, heart disease, cancer, and stroke are exacerbated by palliative treatments. These dismal figures do not include the mortality and morbidity from surgery, invasive diagnostics, vaccines, inappropriate prescriptions, and unreported cases. The last factor alone would significantly alter current statistics, as most adverse reactions are not reported.

Furthermore, a century of intensive allopathic research and clinical practice have failed to produce a drug-cure for even one chronic malady. Instead, the United States leads the world in both preference of degenerative ailments and health expenditure. Nevertheless, because of the remarkable success of modern medicine in acute critical situations, the pharmaceutical industry has successfully used deceptive propaganda to mislead the public and health writers into believing that a miracle drug cure for chronic ailments is still possible.

The article reported the story of Skip Baker who bought a gun after a doctor said nothing could be done for his pain, and then he saw another doctor who would help. How could this second doctor help besides using poisons to cover up a rotting body?

Heart-wrenching photographs depict the suffering of Jane Husman, who has debilitating back pain, and Chris Ally, whose arm was amputated in a failed attempt to allay his pain. Ally has wisely refused to try stronger venom via a spinal catheter implant. The use of toxins via such device would only add to his misery.

The ultimate proof against a drug-cure of diseases comes from a personal discovery. Through research beyond the allopathic paradigm, I have discovered the truth regarding the healing mechanism and innovated a therapy, called Neuro-BioEnergetics (NBE), that enhances this mechanism to effectively cure chronic disorders. The avoidance of drugs is required in this therapy to maximize healing power.

The enhancement of healing renders seemingly hopeless diseases easy to control. Most of our patients have exhausted all forms of therapies, but 90% are able to obtain relief with the very first NBE treatment, which is documented via reports completed by patients after their initial visit.

For example, Judy Kintzel suffered constant pain for 30 years from two back surgeries. She had exhausted all orthodox treatments, including those from Johns Hopkins and the U.S.C. School of Medicine, and tried years of chiropractic, acupuncture, and other unorthodox therapies.

Her suffering and drugs therapies resulted in a variety of chronic infections. She was contemplating her third suicidal attempt when she learned of my technique. Her pain was dramatically relieved with the first NBE treatment. After periodic therapies for three years, she has been free of pain and regular infections for the past five years.

Another example is David S. who suffered from 20 years of back pain, which had become excruciating for four years. Extensive orthodox evaluation and therapies failed to provide relief. A UCLA professor diagnosed his condition as arachnoiditis and instructed an anesthesiologist to insert a spinal catheter. However, maximum therapeutic dosage of methadone and dilaudid (potent narcotics equivalent to morphine) still failed to mitigate the unrelenting pain.

In contrast, David experienced a drastic relief also from the first NBE treatment. He had the spinal catheter removed following the second one. He was cured after six months of therapies, and has been free of pain and medication for the past three years. These and similar examples are posted under Failed Back Surgery Syndrome, Musculoskeletal Pain, Phantom Limb Pain, and Paraplegia on www.drtong.com.

These findings were presented at a medical symposium. However, major orthodox journals have refused to publicize this information because of the conflict of interest. Readers may review my rebuttal to the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of American Medical Association, and Lancet also posted on the above Web site.

Yee-Wing Tong, M.D.

PS. 1. My synopsis "Chronic Disorders Are Curable with Neuro-BioEnergetics Treatment" was published in the proceedings of a symposium sponsored by the Maricopa Medical Center in 1996. The findings were supported by a study of 1000 patients with a variety of physical and mental ailments. The full synopsis is posted on my web site.

2. If the above article is accepted for publication, I shall send in a personal photograph.