he very word "patient" implies passivity and powerlessness. Me-teacher-you-dumbbell, or me-doctor-you-patient, or me-politician-you-voter, or any other paternalistic or maternalistic stay-in-your-place tradition will not pass muster with me.

If you are not highly educated, you will need to abandon your anxiety and fear of reading and doing research.

Much of the fear of doing something wrong vanishes when we are knowledgeable about what we are doing.

It is possible to learn more than your doctor knows, particularly in key areas that specifically apply to you. In fact, you may discover material that your doctor never saw, or did see and never investigated.

This is America, and you have the right to remain sick. If you choose to treat yourself and your family, that is within your rights, and is necessarily your sole decision based on what you know to be best.

A doctor's authority in America often exceeds his or her knowledge. Whole bodies of knowledge in healing are ignored because they are unorthodox and non-medical. A doctor's education seems exhaustive, yet MDs study so much about drugs and surgery - and so little about nutrition, fasting, herbal remedies, spinal manipulation, massage, vitamin and mineral therapy, homeopathy, and more - that we realize their qualifications are incomplete.

I believe that alternative healing methods are much more than just temporary or half measures.