There is something so biologically implausible that your attitude is going to cure a disease. Theres a tremendous arrogance to imagine that your mind is all that powerful.

You see that the people who are drawn to alternative medicine are often fairly healthy and they go to alternative medicine for what I call the 'symptoms of life.' Fatigue, joint pains, inability to concentrate, perhaps, the kinds of things that anyone over twenty-five gets at some point.

Health care is a need; it's not a commodity, and it should be distributed according to need. If you're very sick, you should have a lot of it. If you're not sick, you shouldn't have a lot of it.

Alternative medicine plays into this exaggerated notion that you can prevent disease simply by doing the right thing.

In economic terms, health care is a highly successful industry - profitable, growing, and virtually recession-proof - but it's a massive burden on the rest of the economy.

Brand-name drugs have no competition, since the government grants them very long, exclusive marketing rights.

Illness and death are not optional. Patients have a right to determine how they approach them.