Treating disease with drugs poses potentially serious problems. In addition to the questionable selling practices of pharmaceutical companies, there are the realities of adverse drug reactions, and the often horrendous cost of medications.

Recent reports from the Canadian Institute for Health Information show that the cost of drugs is rising faster than any other part of the healthcare sector's financial burden. Patients with HIV, for instance, require the grossly inflated retail price of regular drugs totaling between $600 and $3000 every month.

Pick a pocket
Someone with HIV in the province of British Columbia, however, pays nothing for his or her drugs. On the other hand, people with HIV who choose non-drug therapies-vitamins, herbs, homeopathy, massage, chiropractic, or even something as elementary as organically grown food-will pay every penny required out of his or her own pocket. This grossly imbalanced fiscal situation puts natural health products (NHPs) and other alternatives at a severe disadvantage.

More importantly, it puts a diabolical pressure on people to choose drugs (or surgery) over any other form of intervention. To make matters worse for the person who wants alternatives to drugs, there is the unfortunately negative attitude toward alternative therapies by many members of medical profession.

If drugs clearly offered superior therapeutic benefits when compared to alternatives, then this imbalanced situation would be tolerable. But, in fact, mounting evidence suggests that drug therapy tends to be more dangerous than most natural modalities. In addition, adverse reactions to drug therapy are widely under-reported, while many doctors, ironically, warn of the harmful effects of alternative therapies.

Don't get me wrong. Drugs have a place in therapy, but they shouldn't be the only game in town.

New rules required
I propose a new way of doing things. Let's put every therapy on an equal footing. Let's set up a panel of independent experts in a range of different therapies (along with a couple of ordinary citizens to keep them honest), and have them judge whether there is solid evidence that alternatives have worked in given cases. If an effective therapy costs the same or less than the standard drug therapy or surgical intervention, it should be paid for not by the citizen, but through a newly balanced system.

With a balanced and fair approach, the healthcare policy in Canada would stop being driven by business and be driven, instead, by facts and the freedom of choice.

Warren Bell, MD, is a physician practicing in the heart of the Okanagan Valley. A HANS member, he's also President of the Association of Complementary and Integrative Physicians of BC.

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