A colleague and myself recently set up a website to accompany our complementary therapy courses.
The following posting relates to our experience as therapists and teachers.

www.routestohealing.com

When I first started in complementary health, the college I trained at pushed students towards being a member of the FHT, The Federation of Holistic Therapists.  We were told that being a member of the FHT, would ensure the public that you were a bona fide practitioner and that could help you get clients. One slight problem, the public had never heard of them.

They claim to be the largest professional body representing therapists, this is fine except so do many other professional bodies… and there are so many. Just what is a practitioner to do…and what does it mean for them anyway.

If you research (google) professional bodies for insert therapy name, a mass of different organisations with varying levels of requirements for membership, pop up. Each one making claims that they are this lead body or that lead body, each trying to outdo the level of training required but in varying ways.

If they are not ‘The’ lead body, they are ‘The’ largest body. The lead here, the lead in Europe – soon there will be one that spans the universe…..guess what, the public will still not have a clue what they do or who they are or what it might mean re the practitioner.

They seem like quangos after quango’s paid for by ever increasing fees from practitioners that feel they should join them but often question why.

What do you get by being a member? Some offer discounts, some offer cheaper conference places, various financial benefits on things you very often don’t need anyway and if you didn’t pay the fee in the first place, you could use that towards your own chosen CPD (continual professional development) Sometimes there is access to a magazine – very often a self-congratulating piece of propaganda, featuring the same faces every quarter.

These organisations are nothing more than a mass of letters and acronyms – all claiming that being a member will enhance your professional status. CThA, CMA, BacP, BCMA, GCMT, NAMMT, APNT, SMA, CNHC…the list goes on. Each one costs money and you could end up spending a fortune.

So it was a real eye opener for me when I attended the recent Balens conference.  Balens are a UK based insurance company that are very large and have an ever growing foothold in the field of complementary therapy. One of the speakers gave a talk on what he called the Alphabet Soup of organisations.  What an appropriate title.

There are really split into 2 forms.  The first are the professional bodies, and they offer support to practitioners, often set up by practitioners, you become a member and they ensure their members meet the standards they set up. They may provide training and or CPD events and can represent practitioners if ever complaints are made against them.

Then you have the regulatory bodies….now that sounds official and scary, but do they have any real clout…only if you are a member. Do you have to be a member? NO.  These are voluntary registers that might have government support and some funding; they say they are there to protect the public.

One such register is the CNHC, but if you google them, you find plenty of complaints from what were once members and plenty of members not renewing their membership.  You can set up any organisation you like, but if people don’t join it, then you have no organisation.  It seems numbers of the CNHC are falling…may be, like me, people are not keen to pay money to an organisation that are more about regulation than they are about the therapies they claim they represent.  It’s like paying for the stick for someone to beat you with and not support you fairly. They seem to set the scales against you. Any weak links in a commercial world will naturally fall by the wayside.

Therapists are not medical practitioners, no one prescribes drugs and do not have ultimate responsibility for patients health, as we do not diagnose or treat specific illnesses.  The public visit a therapist because they wish to take a different approach to their wellbeing in general, it is not free and therefore if that practitioner is not helping or not providing the service that matches client’s needs, they vote with their feet and don’t go back…in a way, the industry takes care of inadequate practitioners naturally.  If people don’t use a certain store because it fails them, that shop will close.

When we decided to set up our own courses and thought about getting them accredited, we met with the same problems that practitioners face, on who to belong to.Which professional body is best? 

It was a minefield, especially as one of our main courses does not fit into any of the existing models but strangely we had less problem getting this recognised than our more traditional courses.

I have to say the real low point was the organisation we have one of our courses with, the CHP, has aligned itself with the GCMT, the General Council for Massage Therapy….I was told they are ‘The’ leading body…but they seem one of many.

We wanted to put through our Indian Head Massage course, but were told that we need to insist on a body massage qualification first before therapists could do this course.  I had never heard of anything so ridiculous.

Indian Head was brought to this country by Narendha Mehta, in the 1960’s it is part of the oldest medical system in the world, The Ayurveda system, which is thousands of years old.  The massage techniques that were being required before anyone could study Indian head are just about 200 years old.

So unless those that developed what we know as Indian Head massage, had a time machine, nipped forward and then returned to develop Indian Head, this request was nonsense…and coming from ‘The’ lead body.

The school set up in London by Narendha Mehta himself, makes no pre-requisite.  So is this lead body declaring that his courses are not meeting the European standards, as he is not asking for body massage first….without him, we might not have the therapy here to start with.

This is a typical example of these organisations, becoming so obsessed with their criteria; they have forgotten to look at the origins of the therapy in the beginning.

So back to Balens….

What does a therapist actually have to do?

Well it turns out you do not have to register with any voluntary regulatory body. You do not have to join any professional body, and scarily, you do not have to have insurance.

You do however have to comply with trading standards.

You would be crazy to practise without insurance, because we live in an increasing litigious world. If you have a complaint against you, your insurance company will take it up, you don’t need a professional body to do that, the legal team of the insurance company will take that on.

If you are a dedicated therapist, you will naturally want to keep your knowledge up to date, keep training and learning and work within health and safety guidelines.

So we decided that we would get all our courses insured through Balens, so that anyone wanting to practise can get their insurance through Balens too.

We are offering courses that meet the occupational standards and in keeping with the ethos behind their origin.  We aim to help you become professional therapists and point you in the right direction to keep skills updated, and work within safe frameworks. We do not need to behave like medics; we just need to be safe practitioners.

I like what Balens are doing on the bigger stage and the last few conferences are better than any I’ve ever attended provided by ‘professional bodies’ over the years. The calibre of speakers has been fantastic. Balens are filling a void.

I’m not prepared to join organisations that take your money and offer nothing of significance in return. Nor am I paying voluntary regulators money to buy that stick to beat anyone with.

I’m not saying don’t join, but be aware that you have choice and ask what you would gain by joining. Don’t be mislead by claims that you can work within the NHS etc in reality our NHS struggles to provide its own approach to health care. There are not going to suddenly find money to pay for alternative methods just yet and an abundance of posts.

Where our ethos and philosophies merge, we will work with professional bodies, but my experience of the Indian Head has made me question the basis on which they work from.

If and when there is one body, one authority, be it lead, biggest, European etc, and it actually is compulsory and carries real weight, then we can work to that. Until then, how on earth are therapists expected to know who is best and just how many fees do you pay out each year.

If and when that body is formed, let’s hope it is by people who are interested in the practise of complementary therapy and not just regulators. Please can it be formed with common sense and not try and regulate therapies as if they are medical interventions.

Many think therapies are pointless and of no real benefit – yet think they need regulating….bit of a paradox.  The moment compulsory regulation comes in; it would be recognition that therapies actually have the ability to do something.

Does the Spiritual/Angelic Realm Really Need Rules or is it Man's Ego Again

I was recently at a talk where the speaker was describing a therapy that used symbols for healing. I'm aware of therapies that do that and have tried them myself. The dilemma I have with them is that everyone that I have come across using symbols, is convinced that they are guided to use certain symbols and that these specific symbols will pull in specific energies or clear certain problems.
I'm not doubting that they work but how they work is more of the issue.

It would seem to me that with matters spiritual and spiritual healing modalities, we human beings can't but help stick an ego on them or an identity.  So we declare that it must be this symbol or that symbol and we fix them into a healing framework. The next thing someone is charging you to gain access to these 'special' symbols -  Now its beginning to feel a whole lot less spiritual or from our nature surroundings

Perhaps all that is going on is the intention - what if 6 people all had the same intention, but it was represented by 6 individual symbols. It would surely be the intention to heal that was the overriding factor and not the symbols.

There is a tendency to represent angelic healing by specific symbols - calling in the help of certain angels by drawing symbols that we are told represent them.....again, i'm not doubting the belief of this, but does such high spiritual energy only come into force if you give the correct symbol?
Do we have angels refusing help if you don't address them properly?   Now that really smacks of a human ego.

Who deems it necessary to have a symbol at all yet alone declare them to be certain one or others,

I do not have a religious back ground at all and I'm extremely grateful to have been raised to respect religious beliefs but without the burden of them myself.  I do however have a belief in something that isn't just the physical.  That spark that makes us who we are are and a connection to something greater than us all, but that connects us all. A back drop to our material world but what that is perhaps needs no definition. Not everything has to be defined and logged in Wikipedia!

May be my lack of religious ceremony and symbolic acts prevents me from seeing why this assigning symbolic drawings or markings is important but I would like to think that when such higher energies are at work, they are there for us all and access is simply by asking or healing through intention.

The moment it gets defined, it becomes tainted by man and usually scuppered by  man made rules.

I was told that symbols are from the ancients and have been used for centuries, that to me isn't an argument for making them 'fact' Man has always felt the need to structure things and apply rules - rules that mean you have to follow or be excluded in some way....not at all spiritual then!

I'd like to think that these higher energy realms are bigger than ego and wouldn't care less if you used a symbol from the 'ancients' or a so called  'guided to be used' symbol at all.

May be they come in to help all those that try and help others with a true and open heart and may be they work to guide those that need it too, regardless of whether you call them or not - that would be true universal unconditional love there for all.

Lets hope our spiritual back drop out there isn't working from ego - there is enough of that on the planet already.

If you need a symbol - where in the 'rules' does it say you can't draw your own.

A symbol for good intentions and for all our highest good

Panorama - GM bias? softly softly catch the public!?

Panorama's programme on GM plants looks like it is part of someone's recipe to start to soften up the public to be favourably disposed towards GM food on our shelves.
Typical ingredients
First add 2 guys that have switched from being anti GM and show a clip of one of them publicly declaring he was sorry for his previous view and is now a reformed thinker on this and in favour of GM
Next mix in the once leading light of Sainsburys, Justin King with his view that GM will lower the cost of food and that will sway the many 'undecided' in the population - and how timely is that, when you see a weekly shop that increases week on week, of course it's a primed public ready to reduce costs somewhere....but at what expense.
Throw in the 'feeding the world' argument and how morally wrong it is for us here in the UK to deprive the rest of the world access to food.
And stir in a great gush of hospital scenes in Bangladesh whilst referring to farmers suffering from pesticide exposure, happy farmer growing his GM aubergines and show the reporter eating a dish of aubergine and rice declaring it something we couldn't eat here...not true...we could have the GM free version!
Then for the obligatory dose of protesters being portrayed as luddites, ripping up crops and how much in financial terms that cost the company.

A balanced recipe? possible not as that should include farms where GM has failed and talking to someone on the ground who truly knows about that - why not include an Interview with Dr Vandana Shiva, a physicist and global campaigner on GM?  Why not ask her about the lives of Indian farmers that have been destroyed through growing GM crops, what has happened to the land since BT cotton etc

The life of an Indian farmer is hard enough, so growing crops that are drought resistant and naturally pest resistant is crucial....they need seed banks not GM.

Much was made about the health risks of GM food, yes instinctively eating GM doesn't sit well with many, but neither side truly knows the long term health risk. There are pictures of tumours in rats fed GM and strangely nature avoids eating GM, but even so, I'm not keen on any results of studies on animals being supposed as the outcome in humans, be it GM or medicine.
But sovereignty over food is a concern, and we have seen where corporate giants like Monsanto have sued farmers for what is nothing more than an act of nature...cross pollination from wind and insects - so where was the mention of that, a small nod in the direction of a female Bangladeshi farmer, growing a wild form of aubergine which was naturally resistant to the fruit worm that was taking out the cultivated crops....surely the answer was right there....and if you wanted to make a programme based on anti GM, she would be your farmer of choice, no need for pesticide spray, wild form of a plant that was naturally resistant, as nature would have it.

The reporter asking her if it was fair that she could grow her crops but GM couldn't be grown??  well can she sue if she finds her wild crop contaminated by GM....that would be fair.  The problem is once a genie is out of a bottle, how do you get it back in.

Organisations like the Soil Association are not Luddites, the short interview with Helen Browning, the Soil Associations Chief Exec, is far from a farming novice, her comments that were shown, focused on the short and medium term solution, but this was left in the air by the programme.

When programmes cut to hospital scenes for anything, it is nothing more than emotive, the hospital waiting area was less full than our local A & E on a slow day and no one knew if the women, children and men there were farmers suffering from pesticide exposure - I do wish programmes would not do this, we all know what a hospital look like and it's purely emotive for their cause.

As for the  'feed the world' well we have just had a series of programmes on food waste and supermarkets are the biggest offenders along with sell by dates and over buying for actual need. The western world has a food waste problem, so much so, we have a company turning it into fuel to run the supermarket!  We have always had a food distribution problem and we in the west should certainly ask ourselves why we are buying in food from countries that struggle to feed their own, but we are quite happy to have them use their precious water supplies to grow food for the western world.

If Sainsbury's et al think we need to feed the world, why then are they pushing the farmers prices here so low, it is now more profitable for farmers to have fields of solar panels as opposed to fields of potatoes etc.

Then there is food sovereignty...If you create a plant that carries a patent, that plant cannot be reproduced, if it is a sterile seed, you will need to buy it year in and year out and you are then in the hands of the seed companies for ever.

Thank goodness to those right now that have the foresight to be setting up seed banks!

So never mind the unknown health risk, that is an unknown in humans, but do we need our food chain to begin and end with a few Big Agg companies in the long run and once those seeds are out there and cross pollinate with GM resisting farmers....that genie won't fit back in the bottle and who gets to sue who for either ruining there GM free crop or so called stealing the GM technology, albeit wind assisted.

Monsanto 2015 - Did it make the BBC news?

People in 452 cities across the world today, marched and demonstrated against the giant corporation - Monsanto. The third year this global event has taken place and people around the world are encouraging us all to wake up and make sure we all say no to Monsanto and their GM crops.
In a small country such as Britain, a GM crop here would soon contaminate may crops around it and very soon we could see no GM free land here.

There is no credible argument for GM crops...we certainly do not need a GM wheat crop here or GM potatoes or any other GM for that matter.

This is going to solve food shortage apparently...why then if we have food shortage, is a supermarkert in the North of the UK using its waste food to turn into a biofuel to power the supermarket and a few thousand of the surrounding homes...we are wasting food and using it to make fuel...Does that indicate a food shortage?  We have a food distribution problem not a shortage. We waste in the region of 25% of food.

If food is in such short supply, why do we suddenly have crop growing fields turned into solar farms, with solar panels stretching across vast stretches of land in our high agriculture area where I live. Why are we seeing wind farms on arable land? And why are we producing fields of Rape seed?....man can not live by rape seed alone...or woman for that matter! And actually we managed to live without rapeseed almost hidden into every pre packed food. - Avoiding that is another story!
But if we are told the GMO is the answer to our food shortage, then I think that doesn't stack up.
If this is yet another greedy corporate giant that has found a way to patten 'nature' (in its twisted form) then be honest about it.  The tell the public that you want food control and at any cost and you don't care who you screw over in the process.

If food is in such short supply, should we really see so many fast food outlets on every high street in the land. We have food coming at us from every direction. During the war, food was in short supply and yet people were at there healthiest. There wasn't the abundance of beef and chicken to be turned into some quick snack/poor nutrition food..So what is the real reason we are heading for GM food?

Funny how nature never needed a lab to provide all she has provided and never needed a lab to design life giving

What can't be good is to let patented seeds, genetically modified, be swept across our lands.

What is really odd about today's events and of the past 2 years, is that this global event gets a media blackout....If I search the BBC news site - it takes me to an article from the first march in 2013...nothing since.

Thanks to the TV station, Russia Today - news of all the marches around the world got reported

http://rt.com/news/261457-monsanto-march-third-awareness/

Shame on the BBC - The Worlds BBC?

Well done to all that attended these events around the globe - and thank you!

London's March Against Monsanto May 2015

https://www.facebook.com/events/838309269537648/

This years Annual March Against Monsanto will take place on 23rd May 2015. 

The Event promises to be packed with entertainment and speakers.....updates coming soon.

March Against Monsanto is a call to action (static event).

TOGETHER PEOPLE, FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND FARMERS PEACEFULLY ASSEMBLE.

Join over 3.5 Million People in over 600 cities worldwide!

23 MAY 2015 12PM

Richmond Terrace. London SW1A 21L

Speakers:

Liz O'Neill, GM Freeze, www.gmfreeze.org/

Pete Dean, Biofuelwatch

Lawrence Woodward, Beyond GM

Elizabeth Bragg speaking about Small Farmers and Community Food

Mizan The Poet

Other speakers to be confirmed. Programme may be subject to change.

For all those who dont know about March Against Monsanto, please read below. Taken from their websitehttp://www.march-against-monsanto.com/home/

May Updates

Hi Everyone

Such a beautiful May morning and the neighbours cat is sitting under the table waiting for birds to feed from the food I've just put on it for them...now she either thinks they are all quite stupid or blind but i'm pretty sure breakfast isn't going to land in her paws quite so easily.

I should be walking the Daisy dog with a friend on a beach this morning but the north circular on Monday teatime is no friend to a persons L4, I think i will never complain about the traffic in our city again. When it takes 2hrs to travel a 20min journey and you still don't reach your destination, you can lose the will to live...how people do that everyday is beyond me....So grateful to work from home i think.

Balens

Maddy and I did get to the Balens CPD event and I think we would both highly recommend it for the future...The calibre of the speakers was the the best I've seen at any of these type of events.It was purely Complementary Medicine based and David Balen certainly is leading the way in this field on many levels..some exciting developments to come and his final speaker was Rob Verkerk from the Alliance of Natural Health, another champion of CAM.

Given the cost of the event was a mere £25, it was certainly worth it to hear the array of Dr's and academics discussing the effectiveness and the measure of that in Comp health along with where it needs to be heading.

I have put a link to Balens site where you can view the videos of past speakers at these events and very soon the speakers from this event will be up on there too.

http://www.balens.co.uk/cpd/cpd-videos-public.aspx

Tip of the Spear

One more event that is looming fast and again, if you have never been to hear this guy speak, it is quite a force.

Health journalist, Philip Day will be at Bury St Edmunds on Sunday June 7th or the day before in Norwich 

Details for this at...http://credence.org/home/

He calls it his Tip of the Spear tour this year and not only witty and entertaining in his delivery, extremely hard hitting, so hang on to your hats if you go. I shall get to the Bury one and hope you can make it.

And finally....it is the Psychic development evening at the Abington Barns tonight, starts at 7.30pm   Always a great space to be in.

As always if you have anything you would like to share with the like minded people that receive this email, let us know.

Have a great month and if anyone knows how to slow down time, please give it a go!

Good wishes to all

Sarah and on behalf of Maddy

Since when is a Blue Badge conceding defeat!

Have to get this off my chest-I just read on the BBC website a quote from Nigel Farage....

''After the air accident Mr Farage was told that he could be signed off as partially disabled, but he said that having a blue badge would be "conceding defeat".''

Shameful to even suggest a blue badge is 'conceding defeat'  to many,a blue badge is the complete opposite to that.....It enables people who would otherwise be more restricted, to get to where they need to go and be able to park near enough to be able to go about their business, very often on their own and sometimes allowing others to help them get out and about.

Conceding defeat is an awful term to link in any small way to someone restricted by a disability.  

Clearly Mr Farage doesn't need one then,  but not everyone is that lucky and needs that little bit of help so they can have a near as poss, equal access as an able bodied person.

A 'grown up'society should not see illness and disability as a problem, more of an opportunity to put the right things in place to help everyone maintain their life to the full.  Even the able bodied need that in other ways. 

So people taking up the services they need to help them get on with their lives is far from conceding defeat - quite the opposite...Society should make the 'playing field' as level as it can and there is no stigma in using the services to help you get on with life.

But such comments could be very telling of the mindset of this Mr Farage.

Technology invasion - does it help your health and well being?

It seems that many today have a constant need to share every little detail of their lives, every mundane event that happens - where they are, who they are with, what they are doing, what they are about to do and even, if you are really lucky, they will update you on the outcome of it all.  It seems that if the technology is there to do something, then the process is a given...I wonder when we might stop and consider where that process might end up - which genie will we wish we had never let out of the bottle?

It is not so much the idea of sharing everything we choose to, but the fact that it 'softens up' any resistance to anyone else sharing data about us or wanting data about us..after all if we don't want our own privacy and happy to share all we do constantly, then we can become immune to others wanting to know and share our data.

If you put your life out there to be viewed then you can hardly complain when others want to view it.

We seem to just accept that we are the most observed nation on the planet through CCTV.  I don't feel any safer for it, it would still be foolish to walk down a dark alley in the early hours on your own, after all that is not where the camera is likely to be...it will more than likely be in the shopping arcades or commercial areas, protecting businesses not people...that's a 'by-chance'

Put the right rhetoric with it and many people feel that why worry about it.....as many say 'if you are not doing something you shouldn't, then you have no need to worry'   Well that's true and if we are all living with reasonable laws that are protective, yet not draconian or crushing to what the general view of freedom is, may be that view is safe. If the situation changes and you find what were once normal,harmless activities such as gathering with friends becomes seen as subversive, then the once 'helpful' technology may not be quite all that is seemed.

I read yesterday of the warning that voice controlled televisions could be listening into your conversations...well i guess they are or how would they know when you ask them to change channel etc....so who might be accessing that?  But why worry anyway?   If you are of the belief that if you are not doing anything wrong, then surely it doesn't matter who listens to your conversations - many constantly share with the world anyway via Facebook or twitter.

So if the tv comes with a little camera, that's ok too I guess - after all...'if you are not doing anything wrong.....' etc

Is it all good for our health?....governments and the media generating fear is certainly not, newspapers creating division. The adverts encouraging people to inform on others.....'Tell the inland revenue if you suspect someone of tax fraud' we are told...what else will we accept that we should 'inform on'  I'm all for paying taxes, (may be we should all keep informing on those big corporations that avoid it) Adverts constantly reminding you of the statistics of you getting cancer.....well worth remembering here that where the thoughts go your body might just follow.

So what data are we happy to share and how much privacy are we happy to give up, either imposed or voluntarily?  being mindful to where the steps are taking us, not fearful, not paranoid, after all that can be the effect of the methods employed now, but being the intelligent questioning beings we are.

The CEO of google defends the lack of privacy on the internet....sharing the right data with the right people.....he claims sharing your medical records with the right research doctors would save 100,000 lives this year....all anonymously of course... 100.000 lives...well who wouldn't want to be part of that?   That is quite a high number and how did he arrive at anything like that. Stating figures without explanation....Trying borrowing money on that basis.

Sharing the right data...absolutely...what might that be then and who might really be benefiting - Hopefully you but who else?

Someone once said if you want to be a millionaire, you ask a millionaire how he did it...in terms of health, there is also mileage in asking those who rarely go to the doctor...those whose medical records are a bit thin on the ground.  What did they do or are doing that keeps from the doctors surgery.

May be we will all grow tired of the constant sharing of artificial data and go back to meeting face to face and being in the moment with the people you are with and not constantly sharing info on ourselves, then we might just start to expect others to observe our privacy again. Living a life with ability to find some quiet space, away from technology could well benefit your health on many levels.  For hundreds of years people managed it. For many of us, we grew up without it and the world still functioned.....may be we perhaps could ask the question....just because we can...do we need to?

Technology is a great thing and sharing is of course fine, may be we could all just question a little more where it might be leading so we avoid heading off on a journey to a destination we can't return from.

CiCHealths Newsletter - Feb

Hi Everyone

We were very pleased to have hosted the event with Patrick Kingsley earlier last year and the turn out was fantastic. Last November, it was a pleasure to invite Patricia Peat from Cancer Options down for our joint event with Mary and Sue at the Cambridge Cancer Centre, David Raynor Building. She delivered 2 amazing talks to packed audiences for both sessions and I would urge any therapist to try and attend a talk from her - the generosity of the information shared is superb and helps in being a good resource of knowledge for any clients going through this illness.

As yet we have not decided exactly what we might offer this year.  There is a distinct lack of accredited therapy courses in our area now with CRC no longer offering them, and I am in the midst of writing one on reflexology and one on aromatherapy, so that is taking some of my time.  I have a CKT course starting at the end of March and if you are interested in taking this, then just let me know. I am also in the process of developing an addition to the Indian Head Massage course and when that's ready will let you know.

The health headlines today made grim reading with the predication that 1 in 2 of us will get cancer...after all that money in research we have an illness that has increased from 1:20 in the 70's to 1:3 currently and the prospect of 1;2 in the near future. If this was any other industry it would have folded by now! It is a subject very dear to my heart and I see too many people who are continually still offered the same 3 step options that have failed so many before....to be classed as a survivor, you only need to get to 5 years post treatment, if you go beyond that and die, you are technically a dead survivor, so when the adverts say more people survive cancer than ever before...i wonder what they class as a survivor....

Better still - prevention rather than cure....

Maddy and I zipped of to the first talks given by the recently formed BSIO (British Society for Integrated Oncology) on Monday.  Two great speakers, Xandria Williams and Marie Polley, both with extensive nutritional/naturapathic backgrounds.

The talk was titled ' Detecting Cancer'  in brief it looked at cancer markers in the body that might be better at showing the changes from normal cells to cancerous cells at a stage way before a tumour appears...if you had access to that information, lifestyle changes would take care of the problem and the inevitable is so less likely. This is not new as we can credit the Scottish embryologist, John Beard with this. Over 100 years ago he noted that cancer cells behaved like placenta cells and produced HCG early on in their formation. Unless someone is pregnant, there should be no HCG in their serum or urine. In a pregnant woman they would get a reading of around 20 units but a lab in America has perfected the test to detect such small amounts as 1 unit.....that would indicate a cancerous cell change but so tiny you have the ideal chance to change that back.  So 100 years back this was out there and why was that squashed?

If all that pink ribbon money went to fund a lab like that here, i would contribute to that.   This is science, it is not fools gold....this is out there now.

Lung cancer is the one that still continues to rise and especially in women. I was recently looking at a study on Vitamin E and lung cancer...early last year the press reported that Vit E could cause lung cancer....if that gets dragged up again and you have clients worried about taking Vit E....then remind them the Vit E used in that study was synthetic and derived from the petrochemical industry....pretty sure that's not going to sit well in anyone's body....Vit E must be from a natural source and when it is, studies have shown that as little as 300iu's of natural vitamin E could reduce your risk of lung cancer by 61%

The cradle to grave mentality of leaving our health care in the hands of the NHS has perhaps gone too far, the prevention of illness as best we can, must surely sit with us.

As therapists we all know that the physical and emotional are inseparable - when a client is going through any trauma in their life, encourage the increase in Vitamin C, It is cheap, easy and being proactive in their health. There is nothing like a bit of trauma or stress to eat it up faster than your food can replenish it, and without it, your immune system is compromised. I'm not keen on going through life with that system compromised in anyway. 

It has been somewhat heartening in the last few weeks, just how many clients have been given Vit D tests by their Dr's and discovered they are deficient.....This is great and Dr's doing all the right things by recommending Vit D supplementation...sadly they don't seem to know at what level that might be at, but hey...it's a start.  It has always been known that you need Vit K2 to help the Vit D do it's job properly and to make sure calcium ends up in your bones and nowhere it can cause harm, but the ratio has never been mentioned....A really recent Mercola interview finally had an expert address this - suggesting anyone taking Vit D3 (that should be all of us)  should take it in a ratio of 100-200 micrograms of K2 to every 1000iu's of Vit D   (1;5)     good sources of it comes from Brie,Gouda, Liver and Eggs.

Pro active 'doctoring' thank goodness, with so many people just handed yet another prescription, it had occurred to me that we could save the NHS a fortune, cut out the middle guy and just forward your symptoms to various drug companies and see what they recommend. May be this is the future....i jest of course?

Some of you may remember that we invited Dr Damien Downing to Cambridge to speak on Environmental medicine a year back.  He will be the next speaker for the BSIO, the venue is very accessible - being in the Holiday Inn right opposite Russell Street Tube station.  His talk will be on the Ketogenic Diet. If you are interested in knowing more on this here is the link    http://www.bsio.org.uk/event_11-05-15.php

Xandria Williams, I mentioned earlier, has recently brought out a book on the subject of her talk  Detecting Cancer - Gaining time to recover or protect from cancer

With the stats at 1:3 going to 1:2 - as therapists - not a bad time to gain a bit of knowledge in this area.  

Have a great February and if you see anything that you feel you would like to share or have a view on, let us know.

Good wishes

Sarah and on behalf of Maddy. 

The Hidden Energy of Food - Seasoning With Love.

Why does a home made cake taste so much nicer than a shop bought one, no matter if that shop is the most top notch, high end patisserie going?
The meal that is home cooked from scratch rather than scrapped out of a carton after the 'ping' of a microwave will always have that little extra.
Going out to dinner to a restaurant is lovely and the food will probably be great, cooked well, presented well but still missing that little extra too.

What is that little extra then?

I have to confess I am a complete foody and enjoy the whole experience of shopping, cooking and eating. Even when time is very tight, which like most of us, is pretty well always, the time taken to shop,cook and eat, for me, is worth squeezing the time for.

Isn't it always great to eat what a friend has cooked for you, when that food was prepared with the guests in mind and the host wanting it to be good to eat and enjoyed, it has that special quality, love!

Can love make a difference to the taste of a meal? well there is an experiment to be had, but as we are increasingly more aware of the subtleties around us and the energy that goes into and stays within us, may be that kind and loving energy does indeed enhance the food we eat.

It is surely a given that by using the best ingredients we can afford will enhance the taste, ie butter in a cake over margarine is certainly going to make a better cake.  Organic eggs taste better than factory farmed eggs from caged birds.
But what if all that, the main ingredient is energy and i'm not talking about what fires your stove.
If the meal is prepared with kindness and care, love and compassion, then will it not taste better than something prepared in a factory? The remote human contact it has had, could be one of a factory worker, fed up that day, in a bad mood,disgruntled etc etc....even if the factory worker is the happiest he/she can be - there is no soul connection with the end recipient.

This goes all the way through the food process, the energy and intention planted with the seeds for the crops, the animal husbandry from rearing through to the butchers display.  If each step has been done by some one who cares about the outcome and is passionate about what they do and working in harmony with the environment and compassion for the animals they rear, has that not got to come through energetically in our food and ultimately effect us and our well being.

Ask any one that grows their own food.  I live near some allotments, and it is a pleasure to watch the allotment holders plant, nurture and harvest their well deserved crops. The thought of what to plant,the sharing of seeds with others.  They tend to them with a vested interest in their success and for the pleasure of eating something they have grown and nurtured themselves - look at the lovely energy that food has within it already.

The type of food and quality of it, is one thing, but food is energy or fuel for our bodies needs and if you think that we are energy beings on one level, we will resonate with other energies.

Many of us shop in a hurry,throwing the items into the trolley as we hurtle around the supermarket. We are less inclined to 'select' looking for the one we want, the supermarket homogenises that experience and we just take the next one on the shelf. Little thought and intention at this stage, but we can add that special ingredient when we cook. Supermarkets can be a soul less shopping experience, but for most of us, this is the way of shopping today, not always by choice but through necessity.

If we prepare food as if we are spitting venom, chances are it's not as great as when we prepare it from the heart and because we want to nourish and please the recipient. A quick snack, a simple spread of salad and cold meats, a full dinner or a lovely home made cake, the intentions in our heart might just be received and enhance the well being, albeit subtly, of those that get to eat it. It is not about being a fantastic cook - we can't all be Nigella, Delia, or Ms Berry, but we can all add that little bit of love.

Radio 4 and the Flu

A couple of weeks ago whilst travelling in the car, I caught the tail end of Woman's Hour on Radio 4. I tuned in to the last 10 minutes to hear part four of what turned out to be their 5 apart mini drama serial of the week - My Life With Flu.   I heard a voiceover describe what is in the flu vaccine and how that would react in the body etc - slightly odd I thought, as it sounded more like a campaign to get people to have a flu jab. At first I thought it was a radio ad for the flu jab...not far from the fact!

So having looked up just what this story was about, I was compelled to listen to the back episodes and hear the final instalment.  Here was a story charting the history and development of the original Hong Kong flu of 1969,through the life and loves of Jill and David, up to present day. It charted the damage the flu can inflict on us and the disruption it can cause in our lives...much like any illness I guess, just that those we don't have a vaccine for as yet are never labelled as deadly or harmful or I'm sure they would be pushed too.

But we are in the middle of the flu jab campaign and this collaboration between the Welcome Trust Sanger Institute and Sarah Woods, the writer for this drama was snugly placed at the end of every Woman's Hour - a drip feed reminder of the flu, what it can do, and with a lot of references through out, to the consequences of getting flu and of people asking 'have you had the flu jab?'.  A blow by blow account of how seemingly easy it is to catch it and that it mutates, so getting the jab once is not enough. The same virus that Jill was infected with in '69 has mutated several times across the decades and to Jill's body it is new each time as her immune system doesn't recognise it.

The words are always key, 'attacking' the immune system etc and stressing the disruption it can cause, in this case never quite letting 2 people in love be together......

I see many people who have the flu jab and despite what doctors say,they seem to be the only ones that get a dose of flu on a regular basis...not sure that's the desired outcome.  Some are so proud to get their jabs every year and for those that don't end up with a dose of flu are convinced it was the flu jab that stopped it - but the chances of getting flu every year are rare,even every 5 years.  We have a tendency to call a heavy cold 'the flu' so the definition and understanding of it is a little vague but plays in to the hands of those that want to push the flu jab.

The conflict of interest is great, and with a GP's and Pharmacists paid for every jab, is it any wonder it can feel we are nothing more than a market for a commodity. 

If the key is to prevent you getting flu, then why not a big push on vitamin C and Vitamin D in the run up to winter, typical flu season.   It could cost a lot less than the vaccine, no side effects other than additional benefits to you health.

It is no surprise that winter is a prime time for such viruses. To ensure a healthy immune system, we need good doses of Vit D, most of us this far north of the equator are well under healthy Vit D levels and as the days grow shorter, what sun we have and the time we are actually exposed to it, is so short that we go into winter with already depleted immunity.

So never mind the not so subtle campaigns to get us to have flu jabs, how about a campaign for us all to get a Vit D test or just increase our levels to the optimum for strong immunity.

The best thing about this approach is that it is not a one trick pony...the flu jab 'might' protect you from certain flu viruses the WHO have figured we are susceptible to, some believe it doesn't even do that.  For the sake of argument, let us give it the credit for protecting you from the flu.....Increasing your Vit D and Vit C, will boost your immune system and help protect you against what ever other viruses and cell mutations might occur - Vitamins multi task in your body.

Between the two options, the vitamin approach has more going for it, cheaper and no hidden ingredients that we might like first to be informed about before taking the shot.  A win win!

May be we need a radio 4 serial that drip feeds us the benefits of vitamins,then we might take them and have healthier lives as a result.....not sure the Sanger Centre will collaborate on that one.

Festival of Well being

Yesterday I went to the Festival of Well being in London. This was the third annual event staged by the Resurgence and Ecologist - The Resurgence Trust.  If you have never come across them -check out www.resurgence.org.

With 15 superb speakers and artists, it was no wonder we came away with a lightness and sense of positivity.  Great to hear of all the positive projects that are going on up and down the country,especially right now in a world that looks so grim,cruel and intolerant.

It seems our sense of well being comes from a greater sense of fairness between us and where the rich/poor divide is the greatest, the sense of well being is low.  It seems we don't feel great by having lots of stuff, if those around us are not in the same situation.  So stuff doesn't make us happy - phew!   can someone please tell those that produce it by the tonne using up the resources future generations might like to have a taste of. I was so happy the other day, to see a small shop that repairs things - hoovers,irons, all manner of electrical goods. Not only is it great we still have people who have skills that can repairs things, we are not all in to the throw away culture and buy new.  The planned obsolescence of so many electrical goods can be beaten! Mark Golding from Oxfam highlighted this inequality aspect that blights all our sense of well being

Our connection with nature was also widely spoken about.  That wonderful activist, Vandana Shiva and Monty Don,both spoke eloquently on the importance of soil and seed and how it continually heals us and nourishes us as long as we don't use the chemicals of war on it.  Nature needs no assistance from Monsanto - she has managed just fine before they arrived on the scene. Nature knows how to adapt the seed to cope with the environment. She doesn't set out to exploit and copyright nor does she make us pay for the water that drops freely.   Monsanto on the other hand might just like to try and I'm sure others out there would consider it also.  If we face a water shortage, then fracking must be one of the biggest waste of water with other effects we can only anticipate.

Sense of community and conversing with each other also featured high as essential for well being. Here we had Leo Johnson,co founder of sustainable finance ltd, speak of the venture he embarked on getting to know his neighbours after being forced to slow his pace down due to in jury. Suddenly he found himself speaking to people in his street and the next thing, there they are helping in the grape supplies and wine making escapade that united the road he lived in.  How many of us know our neighbours. Apparently we have a better chance of this if we live on a quiet cul de sac as opposed to a major road.

Roman Krznaric author of the Empathy Revolution, a book that is designed to start a 'global explosion of empathic thinking and action'   Isn't that just what we need right now. Projects he mentioned included babies helping school children learn empathy. I'm sure we could ramp up the empathy.

With Dame Carol Black discussing the importance of your job. Those who are doing a job they love but also feel they have autonomy within that job have a greater sense of well being.  The job doesn't necessarily have to be a high flying career of a job,but the person doing it must feel valued and listened to.  So Dame Carol's job is to look at well being in the workplace.  Needless to say, those that work for themselves have greater job satisfaction even though they don't have the paid holidays, sick leave, etc etc, they have that all important sense of autonomy.

With Rupert Sheldrake adding his unique stance to the day and reminding us that science has a place but that we need science to be open and 'new science' not just the dogmas it has built itself around.

Topped off with Friends of the Earth reminding us that we can't keep taking from it at the rate we are for short term gain. As Craig Bennett said, Friends of the Earth are often accused of standing in the way of progress, but is it progress to see over half the worlds species disappear, terrains and habitats vanish. Minerals that have taken 1000's of years to form- gone! Polluted seas and rivers, retreating glaciers.  Does that sound like progress?

The heart warming 'Action for Happiness' speaker,Mark Williamson,  enlightened the audience on some of the initiative going on to promote goodness and happiness.  So badly needed in society today where a media feed on misery and worse case scenarios.  You could be forgiven for living in fear as that is what our current system generates and how much better it is if we can resist buying into fear.

With heart felt poetry from Pascale Petit and the beautiful voice of Brina,  It was a day that raised the soul.

If the names above are new to you, google them and see for yourselves the people out there trying hard to make a better, fairer,just and kinder world.  We can all start in a small way, just by speaking to a stranger at the bus stop and getting to know those nearest us. Looking at the job you do and see where you get your enjoyment from or how it can be made better.

The world we live in we have created - keep doing what we do and we keep the status quo - improve what we do and we could all be living a happier,contented life.

Satish Kumar, editor in chief of Resurgence and Ecologist magazine, is a true inspiration. Once a Janus monk that walked the world with nothing other than the human kindness he met on route, his gentle wisdom, humanity and sense of fun exude from him.  His address to the audience was serene.
Again,if you have never read his works or know of him, then change that.

It was lovely to see all ages, race, creed, socio-economic groups all coming together to share a day of well being.

MMR Vaccine problems. Dr Wakefield's response and Why is the reporting left to the alternative media?

In a world where the reporting of news is 24/7 it seems that nothing is left unreported or commented on.  But when the media chooses a black out or is 'asked' to have a black out, the news is what's not been reported and why......often far more relevant to us all.

Natural news is one of the few alternative media channels that have been reporting on the whistle blower from the CDC on the correlation between autism and the MMR vaccine.

The problem with organisations that partake in cover-ups to protect big business - organisations that are there to protect the public, the public should query what else they cover up.

If someone tells you a lie, you rarely trust what they say after...when that someone is an organisation that is there to protect its citizens health, well that's a problem....

Watch the story unfold via the Natural News Website.

http://www.naturalnews.com/046553_MMR_vaccines_scientific_fraud_criminal_corruption.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THGbJnpywyw&feature=youtu.be

http://www.naturalnews.com/046628_CDC_whistleblower_media_conspiracy_vaccine_makers.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/046661_Dr_Andrew_Wakefield_CDC_whistleblower_MMR_vaccines.html

The health of children are at stake here and that should be news worthy!

August's Newsletter from CiCHealth

Hi Everyone

Hope you are all enjoying the summer. The weather is certainly erratic and having checked it on the BBC weather site for last Wednesday - on the North Norfolk coast, It declared it to be a bright sunny day......oh if only....indeed it started as a clear blue sky as we left Cley and began our walk along the Blakeney Spit, but within 20mins we were walking into a gale and torrential rain,undeterred, we persisted through and within 10mins the sky had cleared and bright sunshine returned, only for it to do it all over again.

2 drenchings later we were back in beautiful sunshine, fully dried off and more than rewarded with the sight of seals on the beach and bopping along in the sea,following those of us that were mad enough to walk through the rain......us and 2 others.  

I though I would share with you a recent radio 4 programme - Inside Health. Ever wondered about the conflict of interest your doctor faces as he/she reaches for the prescription pad, then this programme and the following 2 might be of interest to you.

I'm always surprised that in this day and age how many people hand their health totally over to the doctor and do exactly as they are told,rather than take it as an opinion. When you sit in the consultancy room and watch a doctor google your symptoms it starts to get a bit worrying.   

worth a listen if you haven't heard it.

Here is the link......

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04d4n8q

Inside Health Radio 4   Dr Mark Porter    Conflicted Medicine: Pharmaceuticals

There is a very interesting event coming up in London hosted by Resurgence

Resurgence Festival of Wellbeing

The shift from economic growth to growth in wellbeing

Sat 11 Oct 2014 • 10:00-18:00

At the Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, London EC2M 4QH

Some great speakers including Satish Kumar, ecologist and editor of Resurgence magazine. Vandana Shiva, Environment and health activist and Dr Rupert Sheldrake, Biologist and Author, to name a few. For a full list here is the link......

http://www.resurgence.org/take-part/resurgence-events/wellbeing-festival-2014.html

The cost of the day is just £45 and given the quality of the speakers, that is a bargain!

My ticket is booked for this one and perhaps see you there.  All good CPD points.

.................

We are also looking ahead to workshops and events in the coming year.

We are very keen to invite back Patricia Peat from Cancer Options.   As those of you that attended her last talk know, her depth of knowledge on the subject of cancer and the current thinking and successful treatment methods is second to none.

We are hoping to fix a date during this coming Autumn so we'll keep you posted.

.....................

There is a new Arnica group that is developing in Cambridge.  Arnica helps support parents who are against the current stance on vaccination and often in need of support in their decision to go against the system and who need information on how to manage child hood illnesses.

We will let you know of meeting times and dates for this group and helping to spread the word on it would be good.   It is all about choice and knowledge.   Knowledge hopefully makes for informed choice and Arnica is there is help with that. 

Don't forget to keep an eye on the local FHT website, Abington Barns website and Inspire Online, Great talks and events coming along under those umbrellas also.

.......................

This just popped into my email

A link for an e-book on GMO free shopping in the UK.  It has taken the guys at the Therapy Team a while to compile this and could well be worth the small fee of £3.06 (if you have a kindle)  and are keen not to support the GM industry.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00MMAAOIE/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B00MMAAOIE&linkCode=as2&tag=thetheboo-21

Enjoy the rest of a good summer.

Sarah and on behalf of Maddy

Statins...another big push!

Statins hit the news again on both sides of the pond.  Here in the UK we have the headline

'Statins: Millions more to get drugs in controversial plans'

Doctors have been told to offer millions more people the cholesterol lowering drug.  As many as 4 in 10 adults could be given statins...just in case!

want to read the whole story.....http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-28352290

I've written my view on statins many times, so rather than repeat myself take a look at the suggested clips and before you jump at the chance of taking a statin, be your own doctor and do your research. What's really in it for you if you take statins, What can you do yourself and what is really in it for big pharma - follow the money!  

If your body developed high cholesterol through lifestyle, then change it, if it developed high cholesterol because you lacked statins....well you have one unusual body there....We don't develop a headache through lack of paracetamol and would you take a couple of those a day just in case and run the risk of stomach ulcers,probably not, but you might avoid things you know give you headaches.  That principle can be applied to cholesterol.  Before you decide if cholesterol is your friend or foe,watch Statin Nation, you can sometimes get to view it free on line somewhere or the website is http://www.statinnation.net/

Over in US yesterday, NBC ran a story on the harmful effects of Niacin, a vitamin that is prescribed there to lower LDL and raise HDL.  Declaring that Niacin is causing heart problems......Well there is a story that made no sense.....and of course the minute you look behind the headlines, and look at the study, it shows that they didn't look at Niacin as just Niacin, it was an extending release niacin, not the over the counter version we can all buy, and in the trial it was being used alongside a drug. NBC just forgot to mention that bit.

Given the drug companies can advertise their pills on national TV in the US, again, it's a follow the money job. 

It is absolutely right that when you really want to know something, go to the source.  Look at the study, not the reporting of the study with the bias attached. Look at the studies on Niacin and it's excellent safety record and than look at the side effects of statins.

You wonder what the point of news is when it is an inaccurate medley of what exactly? because it is hardly facts.

Not sure what you should do?   At the end of day, it is your body that the medicine goes into, your body that has to deal with it....Statins verses lifestyle......Once you see how statins work, you get an idea that they just might cause you the very problem they are being used to treat, so get informed before you make your decision.

Doctors know what drug companies tell them, that can be based on 'cherry picked' studies and if you have put a drug through costly trials,you are going to want to claw that money back, then we come to ethics over profit and that is often a debate that ethics might not do so well in.

Want to know the truth about Niacin, real Niacin, go to the source. Here is the best retort to the NBC news report.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152394198159681

Many doctors are calling for all studies on drugs to be published so they too can be better informed on what they tell patients.  It is with big pharma and their big bucks that the problem lays.

So who really is behind these two transatlantic stories.

I think currently 2 trials have to show that the drug works better than a placebo,even if another 8 show it doesn't.  That is kind of worth remembering for any drug you have to take.  Risk V Benefit, Ethics V Profit.....you decide.

TTIP - Info from the World Development Movement

I  received this today and wanted to share it with as many as possible....please read.. Dear All A trade deal between the EU and US, known as TTIP, threatens to undermine our basic democratic rights and puts our public services at risk. But despite the severity of the threat, TTIP is facing a media blackout. Take action now to break the media silence on this dangerous trade deal. Last month 250 people, including MPs and trade union leaders, were arrested in Brussels while peacefully protesting against TTIP.  This was not covered by the UK's mainstream media. Please write to your local editor to make sure people in your area  hear about TTIP. The UK’s most read print news is our 1,100 local papers Local papers are read by more than 30 million people in the UK every day TTIP is being negotiated in secret – clearly, policy makers do not want people to know about it. If we want to beat this undemocratic deal, we need to make sure people know what's going on behind closed doors.  Take action and get TTIP into the papers. Best wishes, Miriam Ross, Media officer, WDM

Unfair Pressure on Parents that Choose not to Vaccinate

Given that the history of vaccines is debatable at best, it is not unreasonable for parents to opt out of having their children vaccinated.  This is a personal choice and one that shouldn't be questioned.
How then is it that those parents that have decided not to vaccinate are made to feel like bad parents?  The question of whether a child has been vaccinated or not is an invasion of privacy - your medical details, of which treatment and prevention are part of that, are private, so schools, nurseries,clubs etc have no right asking.
How, as adults, would we like to questioned by employers as to whether we have had our smear test or mammogram, both are held up as preventative procedures and quite rightly private matters.

May be we women too will find ourselves forced into taking these tests or we might not get a job, just as some places start excluding children for not being vaccinated.  Forced to subject the breasts to unnecessary radiation to conform...what kind of world would that be....well the kind of world that tries social pressure on parents to vaccinate their children...we are there already,and we need to stop it.

Choices on health and the non judgemental attitude towards parents is where we ought to be.  It is not a given that a vaccine will protect you.

Whether a child has had a vaccine or not is not indicative of not contracting the illness or that the vaccine was successful.  In fact to know if the vaccine was successful, a follow up test would be needed to see if the antibodies were there and even then, how long is that the case in artificial immunity....so the question of vaccinated or not is redundant.

It is a question that is used to pressure parents to conform...well if your child is vaccinated, you must be so sure that they are protected, so nothing to fear from the un-vaccinated then.  In fact the un-vaccinated should perhaps steer clear of the vaccinated as they now have the potential for the illness as we see outbreaks of the illness in the vaccinated.

So if a child ends up in the GP surgery or A & E and whether the ill health is related to an illness associated with a vaccine or not, it matters not a jot if the child has had the vaccine or not, the child needs help and that it the bottom line.  

What if a child has been vaccinated and they still contract measles etc, what would the then doctor or nurse have to say about that??  If the child presents with an illness that is nothing to do with vaccines, then the question is even more irrelevant, but it seems to get asked.

May be if you are the parent of an un-vaccinated child and you ever have to present your child to a doctor or A&E and are asked if your child has been vaccinated....turn the tables and ask them straight away 'why? do you think this is vaccine damage or reaction?'   

Make a different assumption to their questions..one of whether the illness in children is vaccine related!

Given most children are vaccinated, it seems odd that the focus is on those that are not and finding out if vaccines have been had.....

If you are the parent of an un-vaccinated child, then Arnica UK is there to help support you in your choice,but perhaps you need to think ahead of what you might say if asked.  It is in the face of medics that parents feel the most pressure and that is no way to be making any decision on health. To feel bullied into it or pressured into it,is coercion and that is wrong.