Mark Conrad

Covid Vaccine Paradoxes

Having had a lot of coversations and read a lot of pieces about Covid vaccines lately, it’s strange how rare it is to hear opinions that allow for some ambivalence. Usually the ‘jab’ is either our saviour, or something that will result in a kind of health-doom. The latter view is the one heard mainly from sections of the natural health community, while the former is generally from a hopeful public and those parts of the medical community observing reduced cases of serious disease. At the time of writing (early 2021, but updated late 2021), most from the scientific, medical

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A simple recognition that bridges the chasm from ‘scientific medicine’ to natural healthcare

If you have touched into the philosophical differences between natural healthcare and the more materialistic, evidence-focused healthcare that dominates health budgets, and been surprised by the lack of any common understanding, read on for some exploration of how to span this seemingly unbridgeable gulf. Natural healthcare has many schools, with different beliefs, techniques, rituals and tools. That said, practitioners of hugely different techniques tend to appreciate the possibility that each other’s methods can work, or are at least worth practising, with or without comparative measurement studies. In contrast, the school of thought and practice that terms itself ‘scientific medicine’ says

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Evidence-Based Medicine – Necessary but not Sufficient

The passionate proponents of the idea that the public should be “protected” from any kind of healthcare approach that has not been, or cannot practically be, evidenced by RCTs or similar statistical methods, i.e. does not fall into within the usual understanding of the term “evidence-based medicine”, seem to be rather short-sighted. It can be convincingly argued that in public policy, robust evidence of effectiveness for large groups needs to be at the heart of prescribing guidelines, especially if treatments are publicly-funded. However, that is a very different thing from justifying eradication or harassment of practices that do not, or

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Re-examining Homeopathy

The ‘new biology’, which became at least partially credible for most people with the defining of PNEI (psycho-neuro-endocrino-immunology) or, that thoughts and feelings affect hormones and physiology, leads us to the conclusion that intention, belief, conviction, faith, prayer etc. cannot be conveniently separated from real, physical medicine. There is of course still a major cultural challenge for the Western mind in the West for approaching ‘physical’ ailments with types of healthcare that are essentially psychotherapeutic (in its very boradest sense). It is not credible to true materialists, and must be less potent or real than interventions on ‘the body’. There

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Natural Health – A User’s Guide

If you have been observing the natural, complementary or alternative healthcare movement for some time, and particularly if you have been seeking for solutions to improve your own condition, you may well have reached a point where the messages from practitioners and promoters seem confusing, exaggerated or even counter-factual. Polarised against these messages, you probably also see the section of media and opinion to suggest that none of the methods promoted could possibly work, or are entirely without evidence. To add to the concern, some of the names signing off these opinions are people in positions of high reputation for

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Corona Conspiracy Themes

A major crisis always brings old and new conspiracy theories (‘conspiracy facts’ to their devotees) out for an airing. In the community of natural health advocates , this is highly prevalent, quite reasonably, as it goes with the territory of needing to be on the lookout for where orthodox health thinking is not serving some people very well. There is a certain popular format to the presentation of conspiracy material. Its most-often video-based, allowing for lots of use of dramatic or suspense-inducing music with voice-over, to help create a sense of fear. It usually jumps from topic to topic to

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