Universal Health Care Would Destroy Civil Rights of All Jews Everywhere

       When I wrote recently about my Jewish doctor, Richard Bernstein, M.D. (who cured me of the diabetes I have suffered from for over 60 years), I was remiss in not telling that Bernstein was permanently and seriously damaged and almost killed by the dietary practices advised by all the doctors in the country --- i.e. the entire medical establishment --- since he was diagnosed in 1945.

       How will I, or any other diabetic, survive if we all have to obey the medical establishment and not consult with “maverick” doctors?

       This Jewish man was only twelve when diagnosed. He entered medical school at the age of 45 at the prestigious Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City in order to defend himself from the medical profession which was literally killing thousands of other diabetics every year.

       Their mandatory diet was quickly killing Dr. Bernstein. (It would also kill me but a little more slowly in that Bernstein makes no insulin at all, while my body does produce some. I have suffered from fasting blood sugars over 300 mg in recent years but now have normal blood sugar as I follow the low-carbohydrate diet with high protein and high fat which Dr. Bernstein follows in his personal life.)

       The medical establishment is still telling diabetics that they must eat a diet that is high in carbohydrates and low in fat.

       Worse! Young Jewish Man Almost Dies of Crohn’s Disease!!

       This serious problem of the entire medical profession giving disastrous advice has been with us since the birth of the modern medical profession and Hippocrates thousands of years ago. After all, they are humans who make mistakes. And those mistakes are not limited to diabetes. Never before in the U.S. have we tried to convince everyone that our doctors are always right about everything.

       A young Jewish man, Jordan Rubin, who almost died from Crohn’s disease (he plunged from 180 pounds to 100 pounds), has written a book, “The Maker’s Diet,” which describes a diet that comes directly from the Bible and is contrary to what he would be forced to follow if Universal Health Care is enacted.

       The diet which he has discovered in the Bible is also very low in carbohydrate and very high in fat and protein. The medical profession is unanimous in saying that Rubin’s diet is also a disaster for the health of everyone. But that diet saved Rubin from death ten years ago. He had consulted seventy (70) medical experts who failed to help him in his desperate attempt to stay alive.

       His book has become a rage across the country, with many food stores, including Bread and Circus in Massachusetts, now part of the nationwide Whole Foods chain, selling his book and the foods that he recommends.

       (Although another distressing reality does not relate directly to Universal Health Care, Dr. Bernstein sadly points out that hundreds, perhaps thousands of diabetics, die every year in Emergency Rooms because doctors are unable to distinguish between patients who arrive there in coma because of very high blood sugar and those who arrive in shock because they have very low blood sugar. If the diagnosis is not correct, the patient will not leave the ER alive.)

           Rubin’s Religious Faith Will Be Against the Law

       This young Orthodox Jew describes his religious faith in this manner:

       “Nearly ten years ago I found myself suffering from an incurable illness, its effective treatment escaped nearly seventy doctors. Yes, I felt hopeless. Yes, I was afraid. And Yes, I felt deserted . . . but I wasn’t alone. From the depths of my despair I heard a still, small voice say to me, ‘Everything is going to be OK.’

       “After visiting what seemed like every doctor on the planet and trying every ‘miracle’ drug, ‘miracle’ diet, and ‘miracle’ supplement, I found myself tearing through the pages of the world’s oldest, most sacred, and best-selling book.

       “What I was looking for in the Bible was not purely spiritual. I was looking for answers to my many debilitating health problems.’ What I found was man’s first health plan --- and the only health program I will need for the rest of my life. This ancient health program literally transformed the life of a seemingly hopeless twenty-year-old, and since I first wrote about it, thousands of people have used these same principles to pull themselves out of the grip of disease and enter the promised land of health.

       “This book may dramatically change and improve your life if:

       “1. You want to avoid diseases and live as healthy as possible with abundant energy and improved physical appearance.

       “2. You are suffering from disease, feel hopeless, and doubt if you will ever get well, and all of the specialists you have seen offer no answers.”

       What must be emphasized is this: It is not relevant, in any way, whether this man is correct in any of his beliefs. (It’s obvious that I believe he is correct in most of them). What is completely relevant is whether he has the right to practice his religious beliefs as he believes them to be.

        

      The Government Will Decide Which Rabbi Must Be Obeyed!!!

       This young man is also one of a growing number of Orthodox Jews who believe that the rabbi who was known as Jesus 2000 years ago was exactly who he claimed to be.

       These Jews still consider themselves to be Jews and have gathered in groups across the country calling themselves Messianic Jews. This now means there are four groups of Jews in America, The Orthodox, the Reform (who were organized in the middle 1800s in America), the Conservatives (who are not “conservative” but another reform group begun in America near the end of the 1800s) and now the Messianic Jews, who are believed to be 100,000 in number in the U.S.             .

       What division will this cause among Jews? It is no secret that the Jews vote as a bloc in this country, with about 90% (the vast majority of them being Reform Jews, who are not enthusiastic about believing anything in the Bible) voting every year for the Democratic Party. Their leaders, such as the former Finance Chairman of the national Party, Paul Solomont, Weston, strive mightily to keep it that way. This year, Solomont organized a special group across the nation to ensure that would continue. It is also no secret that Universal Health Care is promoted mainly by the Democrats, whose leaders include Solomont and many other Jews.

       Will our ever intrusive government not only regulate who our doctor will be but which rabbi all Jews must follow?

       Will Jordan Rubin be allowed to follow his religion or will federal or state law forbid it?

       Who will be deciding?

       Will it be those nine lawyers who compose the U.S. Supreme Court? Or will it be the rejected John Kerry and his Reform friends, who will be scoffing at Jordan Rubin --- both at his religious beliefs and the food he eats?

       Will the efficacy of kosher food also be decided by the government?

       If any of Dr. Bernstein’s patients are ever in an auto accident or other traumatic injury and taken to an Emergency Room (including me), it will be very difficult now for a loved one to get the proper care that will allow him to live. If Universal Health Care is enacted, it will be against the law and impossible to obtain anything other than the care mandated by the establishment.

       Atty. John Edwards Became Fabulously Wealthy by Suing Doctors and Hospitals

       The problem has been made much more acute by us in the legal profession, particularly those such as John Edwards who became very wealthy by making a specialty of suing doctors and hospitals for “malpractice.” They are the leaders of ATLA, the American Trial Lawyers Association, who lobby heavily and control the courts in many states in the South, where they mandate who the judges will be.

       ATLA, to which I belonged as a General Practice lawyer in a small city, changed the law regarding medical malpractice in the 1960s. It is now universally true across the country that a doctor is guilty of malpractice unless he does exactly what other doctors in his community are doing. Therefore, any doctor who is trying to provide a better service to his patients, like Dr. Bernstein, is always in serious danger and easy prey to Atty. Edwards because he dares to think differently than the establishment.

       As a result, we see many excellent doctors either no longer practicing their specialties or else just leaving the profession while John Edwards becomes fabulously wealthy and runs for President of the United States as a demagogue.   

       If Jordan Rubin is ever thrown into an Emergency Room, his family will face the same dilemma as the patients of Dr. Bernstein.

       These present just a few of the serious problems we will face if we allow Universal Health Care to rob us of our basic civil rights. I have only scratched the surface of this horrific problem for America.

*    *    *      *    *

   The original story about Universal Health Care by Atty. Pawlick is printed here in its entirety.

Universal Health Care Will Damage Everyone in Mass. (and the Nation)
Poor, Rich, Patients and Doctors Will All Lose
By Attorney J. Edward Pawlick

       We heard a lot in the recent election about how John Kerry and the Democrats will save us all with Universal Health Care.

       First, I will demonstrate in a few short paragraphs that my diabetes doctor, Richard Bernstein, M.D., was severely damaged and almost killed by the medical establishment while in their care before he went to medical school at age 45 and began to fight back. Even though he and his books are now nationally recognized by Frank Vinicor, M.D.* and others, most of the establishment still has most diabetics eating large amounts of carbohydrates which are poisonous to us. This practice would have killed Dr. Bernstein a long time ago if he had continued it.

       Then I will explain that if I personally were forced into a hospital tomorrow because of some trauma like an automobile accident, I would undoubtedly leave feet-first because of the terrible things they would do to me to control my diabetes.

       These are truisms for almost every disease, not just diabetes. There is no one who is smart enough to know the answers to everything in life. This includes the practice of medicine. The establishment has been wrong, often tragically, many times, over the centuries.

       (*Dr. Vinicor is head of the diabetes unit at the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, and past president of the American Diabetes Association.)

 

       When Richard Bernstein was diagnosed with diabetes in 1946 at age 12, all of the doctors (all of them) said he must eat large amounts of high carbohydrate foods and avoid all fat.

       Back then no one was allowed to know his own blood sugar scores unless he first obtained a doctor’s permission to do so. All medical labs were required by law to deny everyone this information about their own body.

       The breakthrough came in 1969 when Bernstein saw an ad directed at hospitals for a small, new machine which would measure the amount of sugar in a drop of blood. As an engineer, he quickly realized this would allow him to begin testing his own blood for an entire day as many times as necessary in order to lower his blood sugars without the need for a doctor. So he quickly ordered the new $650 machine.

       But the company refused to sell to him, only to hospitals and doctors. It was 11 years later (1980) before they finally were allowed to sell to people to whom it mattered the most, those who were suffering from diabetes. Nevertheless, Bernstein got a machine right away --- because his wife was a medical doctor.

       He soon discovered that while on the diet mandated for all diabetics, his blood sugars (which would be normal at about 85-mg) vacillated twice a day from a terribly low 40-mg to a terribly high 400-mg. However, as a result of his new independence from the medical establishment, he was able within a year of experiments to normalize his blood sugars to the 85-mg range around the clock.

       This allowed him to remove himself from the acute stage where he was in danger of dying, but he will never be able to correct the severe damage to his limbs and other parts of the body imposed upon him by the unanimous recommendations of the medical establishment.

My Other Doctor Advises the Exact Opposite

       My other medical doctor, Michael Janson, a vegetarian from Cambridge who has advised me for over twenty years, lives on beans, rice and similar high carbohydrate foods, as does every vegetarian. Even though he told me when I first went to his office that it was up to me to manage my own body and he could only advise me, he obviously is very uncomfortable with my discovery that Dr. Bernstein’s findings have practically cured me after living with the disease for over fifty years.

       (However, the manifestations in my body are totally different from Bernstein’s and I do not believe we have the same disease. His body never produces any insulin while mine starts out fine and then produces too much insulin.)

       I was always in excellent health and a good athlete until my 16th birthday when I was counselor at a Boy Scout camp in 1943. That summer I had a high fever and they gave me the new wonder drug, sulfa. I have not been the same since. My parents took me to many of the best doctors in New York City because I felt so bad and looked so poor. Many suggested I had had polio but none mentioned diabetes which ran in the family, including my mother. They tested me only with urine tests, even though 10% of diabetics do not pass sugar in their urine. No one tested my blood.

       I passed a rigorous test for Annapolis, but I knew I was no longer in the physical shape necessary for the rigors of the Naval Academy, even though the doctors didn’t. I joined the Navy and went to boot camp at Great Lakes where I suffered immeasurably while trying to be a good sailor.

       In 1952, I was drafted into the Army at age 25 and shipped to Korea as a rifleman, still silently suffering from my affliction. I entered night law school at age 30 at George Washington University, living with a group of guys in Georgetown where I bought my own food and felt very good on that diet.

       I transferred to Yale Law School after a year and started on dormitory food. You can imagine what that did to my diabetes. I went downhill very fast (still staying in the top of the class). For example, I would try to go swimming at the gym a block away, but would go only one length and then walk back to the dorm, hoping I would make it without collapsing.

       Although the students at Yale were nice as individuals, the atmosphere was that of coercive liberalism and my money was running out, so I returned to G.W. after one semester. As soon as I returned to Washington, I went to see a doctor and told him we had to discover what my problem was. He finally discovered that what had troubled me for 15 years was diabetes.

       I was immediately admitted to Georgetown Hospital for two days to see what complications I had suffered over the years and was then put on the popular drug, Orinase. But it gave me such bad stomachaches that I thought I had an ulcer and they removed me from Orinase after about a year. About ten years ago they discovered it was very damaging. I have been told by doctors that if I had not asked to be taken off it, I would be dead now.

       Meanwhile, I read the seminal book, “Body, Mind and Sugar,” by a medical doctor with a PhD in chemistry, who explained about low blood sugar and why I should be eating high protein and low carbohydrates. Although that excellent book began the “low blood sugar” craze that engulfed many, it was too scholarly to be read by most and other superficial books became popular.

       And so I went on with my life as a successful lawyer, but still not in perfect physical condition.

 

Which Doctor Would Be Assigned to Me?

       Which doctor would the government assign to me under Universal Health Care? It would be a matter of life-and-death to me with their totally inconsistent views.

       Would it be Dr. Janson with mostly high carbohydrates or Dr. Bernstein with extremely low carbohydrates and a lot of protein and good fats?

        Obviously, I would not be able to choose if we have Universal Health Care. I would be told what to do. Under Hillary Clinton’s plan which was rejected in 1992, I would be forbidden by law from seeing any doctor other than the one assigned.

       It gets worse. I went to see a doctor at the excellent Marino Health Center in Cambridge/Wellesley to ask which regimen he thought I should follow. He arrogantly told me I should follow only his advice. When I indicated that I could not promise to do that until I knew what the advice was, he became very belligerent and we parted with my being $125 poorer from the experience.

       Which of the three doctors would I be assigned?

 There Is a Way to Help

       If we decide to help those few who clog up our hospitals and demand care to cure their latest addiction to drugs, alcohol, or whatever, we must not overload our doctors, nurses and others so that we destroy our health system, which is still the best in the world despite its human faults.

       Since there are very few people who do not have adequate health care, we should help only them and not begin a coercive system which helps only the politicians, who will get more and more power (which is really what they want).

       The number who do not have adequate care in the U.S. is acknowledged by all to be somewhere around 10%-15%.