Progress in Science in general – and for me it is about Medicine in particular – comes in two major ways: Revolution and Evolution. Indeed , many clearly revolutionary concepts have been denied, in some cases for unbelievably long times, because of the reactionary forces of those in control, and only after acceptance is the revolution recognized as ground breaking and spectacular. Some examples to help you reunderstand this concept:
Copernicus developed the heliocentric view of the solar system. That is to say that he was the first to realize and spread the word that the Earth is not the center of the Universe, but rather the Sun, and at the time of his concept of the Universe, he was correct. Now the Sun is just a small particle in the Universe as we "know" it today. Nevertheless, Copernicus' idea was revolutionary in its time, and still was not accepted as Truth. Indeed one of his greatest disciples – Gallileo – was condemned by the Pope – the Infallible Pope – who called it heresy,
Consider this: "All progress begins as Heresy."
In the Science of Medicine, there are many examples of the persecution of Pioneers. Semmelweis was the physician that recognized the transmission of infection from one maternity patient to another by the physicians who carried "something" from one delivery room to another. Despite his extraordinary success by simply cleaning his hands before going from one room to the next, he was met with such derision and ostracism that he died in an insane asylum, unable to handle the insanity of others.
British sailors survived long periods at sea, which decimated the crews of the ships of other countries, simply because a British Surgeon, James Lind, recognized that the daily ration of the juice of a single Lime prevented the characteristic Scurvy that ended in death. Despite publication of his findings, it took over 40 years before each English sailor was given his daily Lime juice earning them the derisive nickname "Limey." That tactic kept the Navy at peak performance, and Britain "ruled the waves" for another 30 years until the other navies caught on, with thousands of lives lost in the interim.
The first demonstration of the electrical waves produced by a Human Heart – now known as the electrocardiogram, and universally applied – met with derision and catcalls from the doctors in the amphitheatre and the discoverer was unceremoniously thrown out because of his "heresy." So too, the importance of the electrical and magnetic fields of the body is still in its infancy in this 21st century, because of the tremendous resistance to the notions implicit in such evaluation for diagnosis and treatment. Progress has been excruciatingly slow in this country, and many of the proponents of Energy Medicine are being persecuted and prosecuted as I write this on the 4th of July, 2007.
Duodenal Ulcers were "known" to be "psychosomatic" – revealing two kinds of people: "Them what gets ulcers, and them what gives them." Many radical surgeries were performed, with many complications. Yet when a physician from down under, Dr. Marshall, identified a bacteria in such ulcers he was sneered at and ignored, until, in the grand tradition of Medical history, he experimented on himself, by swallowing a large quantity of the bacteria that he had isolated, and almost died from the severe ulcerative disease that resulted. His recovery with antibiotics was previously unheard of, and that finally broke through the resistance so that good studies all over the world slowly came around to supporting this revolutionary concept. Today it is the "Standard of Care," by consensus.
Consider this: "Scientific Truth Is Not Decided by Majority vote."
My personal history and fight on behalf of alternative medicine.
I am called a Pioneer and the "Dean of Alternative/Complementary Medicine" on the East Coast. That came about because I had the audacity [and naïveté] to open the first Holistic Health Center in NYC, in 1974, and to talk about it on the radio! [I had Frank Sinatra's voice ringing in my ears: "If I can make it there I can make it anywhere – New York, New York?."] In truth, I was not the first NYC physician to practice in an Alternative way. That recognition belongs to Harold Rosenberg, an Osteopathic physician who lost his license because of his methods, but he did not call his office a Holistic Center, as I did, nor did he openly confront the authorities. I have been persecuted and prosecuted for over 30 years by the incestuous cartel of the Insurance Companies, the Pharmaceutical Industry, the Insurance Industry, the Medical "Establishment" embodied as the Offices of Professional Medical Conduct [OPMC] of the State Medical Boards, and the immoral if not illegal collusion between the States in the form of the Federation of State Medical Boards. Together they had then, and still have now, a specific agenda for stifling the nascent movement that continues to threaten their control of Medical Practice even today. (Since 1993, it has been known that more patients consult "Alternative" practitioners in this country, paying for it out of their own pockets, than Conventional Family Practitioners and Internists.) In all those years, the worst patient complaints that New York's OPMC could come up with in 1989, after surreptitiously "investigating" me beginning in 1976, were:
(1) The mother of a child who claimed I "double-billed" her for services on one occasion. [Perhaps my staff did, but "stuff happens," and there was no evidence of such a pattern of behavior that would make it a legitimate cause for a 14 year Crusade – and you can be sure they looked very hard to find it.] On cross-examination she testified that the child had been having seizure like activity for years, and by following my recommended diet changes and nutritional supplement program, she had never had anther episode in the ensuing years. That's a weird form of gratitude from my point of view.
(2) A young man who had come with long-standing chronic gastrointestinal complaints. He dumped a large number of vitamin supplement bottles on the table, and complained that they cost a lot of money and they didn't work. He had changed doctors, and had gone off dairy foods, and had complete relief. I demonstrated, from his medical record, that my tests had demonstrated a milk allergy and that I had recommended that he discontinue all dairy, and he confessed that he had not followed that advice.
It ultimately turned out that the complaints that started the investigation and filing of charges came from another source: Victor Herbert, MD, JD was the self-anointed, self-appointed first "Quackbuster" of the United States. He had testified against dozens of my colleagues all over the USA, and all of them were sanctioned in some way or other after his testimony. Many had lost their licenses to practice Medicine. In 1980, when I was the Vice President of the American Society of Bariatric Physicians [specializing in weight control], Dr. Herbert and I debated the value of testing and treating obese patients for nutritional deficiencies. From the podium, he pointed a finger at me and announced that he was "going to get me" for such quackery. Indeed, he succeeded in convincing the OPMC to investigate me, based on HIS IDEAS of what medical practice should be. That, in itself is contrary to the State Law, for no individual can determine the Standard of Practice in any jurisdiction. However, anyone may complain about anything – it was the State's error in accepting his judgment, and using it as the basis of an action against me. We fought in the State Courts, up to the highest level, the Court of Appeals. Their verdict was in my favor, in profound and beautiful language:
"before the engines of the State are started up against an individual, there must be some threshold showing of justification for such an intrusion."
My jubilation was short-lived, however. The OPMC filed the exact same Subpoena Duces Tecum again, only 6 months later, and I had to go through the whole judicial hierarchy again, only to lose at the Appeals level, because of a precedent-setting case that involved the Mafia, and the risk of revealing the identity of a complainant. There is no such thing as protection against "Double Jeopardy" under the Administrative Laws that govern licensing of Physicians! That ruling came down in 1986, 10 years after the State first began their investigation. I turned over the charts that were requested. It was not until 1989, a full 3 ½ years later, that I received notice that the State was officially bringing me up on charges of Professional Misconduct, for things that I had allegedly done over 13 years earlier!
Thus began what became the longest Hearing ever before the OPMC at that time – The State of New York vs. Warren M. Levin, MD. The final verdict was a resounding Victory for me, the "Respondent." A Blue-Ribbon Panel representing the NY State Board of Regents, which licenses professions, reviewed over 5,000 pages of Testimony and over 200 articles from the Medical Literature presented "in evidence." The panel members – a retired Chancellor of the Regents; a retired Appelate Judge and the then current legal counsel to the Regents – denounced the entire process as having deprived me of my Constitutional Rights. Then, from the top down, they castigated the Commissioner of Health, David Axelrod (now deceased) for not following legal procedure; the Attorney General's Office and the Prosecuting Attorney for abrogating my Rights; the Prosecutor, Terrance Sheehan, for ineptitude and for failing to control his star witness, Dr. Herbert, who had ranted and raved, lied in his testimony and attacked me and my attorney personally while under oath; [the State never used him again as an "expert"]; the "ALJ" – Larry Storch, the Adminsitrative Law Judge -- for failure to keep order in the Court; the 3-person Hearing Panel – consisting of 2 physicians and one "Hired Gun", Robert Briber, who refused to recuse himself from the panel despite the fact that he had heard extensive testimony from me in defense of one of my Upstate colleagues who ultimately lost his license. That demonstrated, as I had claimed, that he was prejudiced before I even started, since one of the charges against me was the same as the one that I had testified about, unsuccessfully. The other two panelists, together with Briber, were admonished for reaching a decision that was not justified by the record, since they had admitted that Herbert was not a reliable witness. They had, therefore, set themselves up as experts and reached a decision based on their own opinions, again depriving me of my legal rights.
This Victory was a Milestone in the cause of Alternative Medicine. It led to the passage of the NY State Alternative Medical Practice Act – signed by Governor Cuomo in 1994, shortly after my decision was finally handed down, over 18 years from the start of the investigation. Although the OPMC sent me a letter advising me that they were dropping the case, (because it was not an appropriate use of further funds from the State after all those years), they also gratuitously added that they had other complaints against me that they were looking into!
They did ask for some charts, which they reviewed and never acted upon, yet they never notified me that the investigation had been completed. Talk about torture! It was not until approximately a year ago, that my current attorney, Jacques Simon, was able to obtain a written statement that the OPMC had no other matters pending against me. I still have a license to practice Medicine in NY State, although by the time I received that notification I had long since left that practice.
It is of more than passing interest to me that although I "won" this landmark case, it has only recently become useful to others as precedent-setting because of a change in Administrative Laws
It is based upon this background that the 2005 Connecticut matter rose and fell with the defeat of the Health Department though their acceptance of the toothless consent order.
