What is a drug?

In the USA, the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act defines a drug as : (1) a substance recognized in an official pharmacopoeia or formulary (2) : a substance intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease (3) : a substance other than food intended to affect the structure or function of the body (4) : a substance intended for use as a component of a medicine but not a device or a component, part, or accessory of a device.

The FDA says: "The legal difference between a cosmetic and a drug is determined by a product's intended use."  


In Canada, the Food and Drug Act defines a drug as: 
“drug” includes any substance or mixture of substances manufactured, sold or represented for use in
(a) the diagnosis, treatment, mitigation or prevention of a disease, disorder or abnormal physical state, or its symptoms, in human beings or animals,
(b) restoring, correcting or modifying organic functions in human beings or animals


The European Union  DIRECTIVE 2001/83/E defines a 'medicinal product' as: 
(a) Any substance or combination of substances presented as having properties for treating or preventing disease in human beings; or
(b) Any substance or combination of substances which may be used in or administered to human beings either with a view to restoring, correcting or modifying physiological functions by exerting a pharmacological, immunological or metabolic action, or to making a medical diagnosis.

What's wrong with this picture? 

It seems to say that the difference between a drug, and a non-drug depends on the use.  But if you read more carefully, that's not what it says.  It really says, in simple English:

"The difference between a drug, and a non-drug is defined by the way the product is marketed." (intended for use, sold or represented for use in, presented as having properties for). 

If it looks like a drug, and walks like a drug and talks like a drug - it makes no difference at all. It's not a drug until the paperwork is done.

But if the marketing paperwork to the government says: 

in the USA: "a substance intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease"

in Canada: "substances manufactured, sold or represented for use in

(a) the diagnosis, treatment, mitigation or prevention of a disease, disorder or abnormal physical state, or its symptoms"

in the European Union: "presented as having properties for treating or preventing disease in human beings".


If the marketing department says it can be used to diagnose, cure, mitigate, treat or prevent disease, - it is a drug. That is the only requirement for a drug.  Thus, everything and anything can be a drug - if it is marketed as a drug.  Of course it must pass some significant paperwork hurdles - but these are easily managed by large corporations and their lawyers. 


Note: to create a drug in any of these countries, it is not necessary for the drug to be particularly effective, nor for the scientific or medical community to believe that the drug is effective.  Nor is it necessary for the drug to be safe in all situations.  It is only necessary to pass the paperwork tests. Government offices cannot and do not pass judgement on the efficacy of any drug application.  Governments pass judgement on the paperwork. Many new drugs cannot truly be tested for effectiveness, nor safety, on the general population until after they are in public use for many years, possibly even decades. 

It is easily seen that one of the problems with the USFDA, Health Canada, and European Unions definition of a drug is that there is little said about what is 'not a drug'. Almost everything can be defined as a drug.  

This has lead people to ask if water is a drug - because it can be marketed to prevent and cure dehydration (they failed due to the fact their the paperwork was not completed correctly). And it lead me to blog that the wind is my drug, because I claim it makes me feel better.


We need a different definition of a drug.  


Wikipedia says: "A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function. There is no single, precise definition, as there are different meanings in drug control law, government regulations, medicine, and colloquial usage."


Webster's Dictionary says: "a substance used as a medication or in the preparation of medication".  


We need a definition of DRUG, from a health viewpoint. 

Is there a simple way to delineate between drugs and non-drugs from a health viewpoint.  A definition not depending on a marketing department.  Rather a definition that depends on science and facts about our health and healthiness.

The first thing we should recognize about drugs is that they are almost all toxic by design. Drugs are designed to throw your health system off balance, to counter the imbalance of your illness, not to create health. You need a prescription for drugs because they are toxic.

If we want to define drugs, we need a way to separate the things we consume, through our mouth and other orifices, including our skin, into drugs - and not drugs. All three of the official government definitions make no such distinction.  Everything is a drug.  Everything should be regulated as a drug.  This is, frankly, a ridiculous situation.

Can we define drugs in a useful fashion?  Can we define non-drugs?

A healthicine is a substance that has a direct effect on the balances of healthiness. Healthicines are non-drugs. That effect might be positive, or if the healthicine is deficient or excessive - it will be a negative effect.


A drug is a substance that has an effect on illness.  Drugs have an indirect, usually negative effect on the balances of healthiness. This negative effect is designed to throw the illness off balance and allow your body to heal.  Or sometimes the illness is designed to simply trick your body into 'feeling healthy', by minimizing symptoms. 

Water is not a drug. If you are dehydrated, water still cannot be a drug.  Water cures dehydration, or it restores the balance of hydration - but it is not a drug. Water is necessary for healthiness.  A deficiency or an excess results in an illness and possibly death.

Can we extend this distinction to other substances - it gets a bit more complicated. If you have a Vitamin C deficiency, taking Vitamin C to 'treat' the deficiency is not taking a drug - any more than eating oranges is taking a drug.

Vitamin C can also be used as an injection to treat a serious inflammation.  In that case the Vitamin C is not addressing a normal Vitamin C deficiency, it is being used to tackle a health problem that is best treated by an excess of Vitamin C. Vitamin C has a negative effect on the problem - the inflammation - note, inflammation is normally a healthy response to stress. Administering an excess of Vitamin C, or any substance, for a therapeutic effect separate from the Vitamin C health balance, is administering a drug.

Is this a clear dividing line?  Maybe, maybe not.  The government definition of drugs for sale needs to be a clear, black and white, legal definition.  But the definition of drugs for health, and for personal healthiness, has many shades of grey, ranging from black to white and every shade in-between, possibly even different colours.

A healthy definition of ''drug" needs to be open to dispute and discussion. The government definition is like a proclamation from God, there is not room for argument, not way to dispute the decision. This is not a healthy definition. It is not a democratic definition. It is not a 'freedom' definition.  I believe in Personal Health Freedom.  The freedom to differ.

All illness and disease are be caused by an imbalance, a deficiency or excess of genetics, nutrition, parasites, toxins, stress, growth (including healing and immune systems) - or a combination thereof.http://personalhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/2011/10/hierarchy-of-health-primary-and.html

A drug is always an excess. In most cases, if you are healthy, a drug is toxic to some aspect of your health. You need a prescription - a doctor must sign that you 'need the drug'. When you are ill, the drug may have a beneficial effect. By design. Drugs are not designed to fix health imbalances. Drugs are not nutrients. Drugs are not designed to cure - they are designed to create an 'opposing imbalance' so that your body can heal.

All drugs have 'side effects'.  Why is that?  Because all drugs are toxins - they have toxic effects.  If they didn't have toxic effects, they would have no effect at all.  In some cases, the toxic effects are intended.  That's the 'design' of drugs. But in many cases the toxic effects are unintended, or even unknown. Generally unknown until many people fall ill or die. Mercola tells us that drugs kill more people than car accidents in the USA. 

Are some drugs worthwhile?  Are some drugs the 'best treatment'?  Yes.  Of course. If you have a bacterial infection, the best treatment might be a toxin that kills the bacteria, but has minimal effect on your health and healthy cells.  An anti-biotic.  However,  most, possibly all antibiotics kill some healthy cells as well. 


We need to search for health, not illness. We need to search for 'heals', not 'cures'.  We need honesty and openness about treatments; to measure which treatments have the best effect on any illness, not which is the 'latest (untested on the public at large) drug'. 


New drugs have the most potential for danger. We need a health paradigm, not an illness paradigm. We need a healthicine paradigm, not a drug paradigm. 


Yours in health, tracy
www.personalhealthfreedom.com

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: 

A Picture of Health

Medicine is defined, by Wikipedia, as 'the science and art of healing'.  Wrong as usual.  The body heals.  Medicine is the science and art of preventing, diagnosing and treating illness.  If the illness is treated properly - the body heals.  Medicine turns to the next problem.

In many cases, when you visit a doctor, you are given a prescription and told "try this, and let me know how it works".  There is little art, no science with regards to healing. Take the drugs and hope your body heals.

Healthicine is the art and science of healthiness.  After you leave the doctor's office, after you take the prescription, after you are 'healthy' according to the doctor (eg. not sick), you can still benefit from the art and science of healthiness.

This diagram shows the relationship between medicine and healthicine.  Medicine is to the left of  the red line of diagnosis. Once an illness is diagnosed, medical techniques are used in an attempt to treat the 'illness'.  These technique is not always appropriate.

Some illnesses strike from external sources - bacteria, bullets, toxins and viruses.

But many illnesses are the result of declining healthiness. In these cases, a medicine is not the best solution, not an appropriate option.

Healthicine is the entire study of healthiness from perfect health to illness and death. Medicine is a small
subset of healthicine.

In most cases, medicine is not required. Most of the time, you are not sick.  But you can always be healthier. In many cases, medicine is not appropriate. Sometimes, when you are sick, it is because your health has deteriorated to the point where an illness is diagnosed. Medicines are constrained by diagnosis. Diagnosis is an artificial constraint designed to protect the interests of doctors, and marketed to protect the interests of patients.

It is clear that if your unhealthiness is to the right of the diagnostic threshold - you don't need medicines, you need healthicines.  In many cases, when your health is to the left of the diagnostic threshold - healthicines are still the most effective approach. But healthicines are seldom prescribed for illness, just medicines.

Many fields of medicine, and many drug manufacturers, are trying to move the 'diagnostic threshold' to the right, so that drugs can be prescribed earlier. Attempts to 'find cancer earlier' are a common example.  Moving the diagnostic threshold is presented as a 'preventative technique', but it often leads to an increase in 'false positive' diagnoses.  It also leads to the use of drugs, when healthicines are required.

We need to examine the diagnostic threshold more scientifically.  If an illness is really an unhealthiness - maybe the diagnostic threshold should move to the left for that illness. Or we need to examine treatment alternatives more scientifically.   No matter where the diagnostic threshold resides, we need to study all of the alternatives, and continually test the most effective ones - not just the 'latest new drug'.

We use drugs to treat diagnosed illness.

We use healthicines to improve our healthiness.   To reverse unhealthiness.

We need scientific studies of the differences between illness and unhealthiness.  We need to choose the best alternative for every illness and unhealthiness, and keep improving our choices.  We need the freedom to choose - and the ability to study and document choices and results.

http://www.personalhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/p/subject-index.html
You have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of healthiness,
tracy

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: 

What is Health Freedom?

Do you understand health freedom?  Does anyone understand health freedom?  Health Freedom has become a buzzword used by many websites.  Do any of them know what they are talking about?

No.

Most of them have no concept, much less a definition of health.  Most, possibly all of them are talking about Medical Freedoms, not Health Freedoms.  Many of them have their own agendas - which have little to do with health freedom. Sales of products or treatments.  Political agendas.  etc.

I've been cruising the web again, checking out sites and blogs claiming to represent "Health Freedom".  Pity none of them has a copy of the dictionary. Here's my review of Google's top list.

http://www.cchfreedom.org/ - Citizens Council for Health Freedom: Securing Health Freedom for All
Their website says:
About: CCHF is a free-market resource for designing the future of health care.
me - Health Care is not health.  Health care is 'sick care'.  
In October 2010, the organization changed its name from Citizens' Council on Health Care (CCHC) to Citizens' Council for Health Freedom (CCHF).
me - eg. Health Freedom sounds more jazzy than Health Care, so let's use that instead.
Their Mission: CCHF supports patient and doctor freedom, medical innovation, and the right of citizens to a confidential patient-doctor relationship.
me - clearly Citizens Council for Health Freedom sees themselves as carrying the banner for 'medical freedom'. But they are wrong.  Medicine is a subset of health - and CCHF knows nothing about health, only about politics and medicine.
What is the true mission of CCHF?  In their list of goals you will find tax issues and government mentioned in three of 10 goals.  Free markets, market competition, private insurance in three of ten goals. You will not find a single goal that directly respects your right to make health decisions.


http://www.forhealthfreedom.org/  The Institute for Health Freedom (IHF) Has Dissolved and Transferred its Health Freedom Watch Newsletter to CCHF .  
me. their goals are also more to do with politics than with health, or freedom. 


http://www.healthfreedomrights.com/ - Health Freedom Rights

Dr. Robin Falkov  - Doctor of Oriental Medicine appears to be a well meaning medical practitioner who publishes many important ideas about health freedom. However, it is clear that the site uses a few ideas related to health freedom to attract attention and sell medical services, as well as AquaSana water treatment, healing with light and Nature-Clean Ozone.  No health here, only illness. Freedom for those who have a few bucks to spend.

http://www.healthfreedomexpo.com/site/ - Health Freedom Expo
March 2-4 2012 at the Long Beach Convention Centre, the Health Freedom Expo.  Interesting. Very interesting. This Expo appears to bring together many people who are working for some aspects of health freedom. It is, of course, driven by marketing and products.  It is an Exposition.  eg. the people who present the Health Freedom Expo are not fighting for your health freedoms, they are charging people to present at and to attend their Expo.  Their goal is to make money from the concept of Health Freedom.
Of course most of the presenters are providing medical alternatives, not health alternatives. If you want to see a lot of new products and ideas - this may interest you.  If you want to participate in some serious discussions of health, and how health differs from illness, and health freedom - and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of healthiness, you may need to look elsewhere.

http://healthfreedoms.org/ - Health Freedom Alliance
The Health Freedom Alliance appears to be a well meaning site bringing our attention to many assaults on health freedom in the USA.  However, there is no concept of health - separate from illness. How can you truly support health freedom if you cannot define health? There is no central thread. Even their post The Medical Paradigm Is Fatally Flawed - starts out with a great title, but fails to identify the correct alternative.   We need a health paradigm, not a medical paradigm. 

http://www.nationalhealthfreedom.org/ - National Health Freedom Action
Promoting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  They messed up on the last word.  Of course it should read: Everyone as a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of healthiness. http://www.personalhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/p/subject-index.html
Their mission:  "To promote access to all health care information, services, treatments and products..."
Of course they mean 'medical care', thus they mean 'medical freedom'.  Health freedom sounds better, but is much more challenging.

.... and so it goes...

It seems many organizations have adopted a `Health Freedom` to their name because it`s good publicity for their cause.  But their cause is not Health Freedom. Virtually every so called "Heath Freedom" organization makes the same errors

1. Medical freedom is not health freedom.
2. Medicine and medical treatments are not health.
3. Hidden agendas (product sales, lower taxes, promoting specific treatments) are not health freedom.
4. Random examples of excesses against medical freedom, or freedom in general do not make a platform for health freedom.

If we are to fight for health freedom, we need to understand health.

If we are to fight for health freedom, we need to understand freedom.

It's not easy.

Personal Health Freedom is about trying to understand health.  Illness and treatment is a subset of health.  A very small subset.  Most of the time, we are healthy. Most of the time - we could be healthier. Some of us are healthier when we are sick - than some others are when they are healthy.  But health is not measured - so we don`t know. Understanding health is probably more complicated than understanding medicine. When a doctor is doing medical work - the goal is clear.  Prevent, diagnose, treat or cure a specific illness.  What is the goal when you are trying to understand as opposed to treating.  What is the goal when you are trying to 'improve overall healthiness' instead of trying to 'minimize a specific illness'?


If we don`t understand health - we cannot recognize the chains we are carrying, much less fight them.


Personal Health Freedom is also about trying to understand freedom in the context of health.  Freedom is not some simple concept that is easily understood or explained.  It needs to be explored.

That's what I'm trying to do with this blog. It you want to help us all understand healthiness, drop me a note.  I'd love to hear from you.

To your health, tracy
personalhealthfreedom.blogspot.com

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: 

The Arts of Healthiness

Some people think I am against conventional medicines and techniques, and in favour of alternative medicines and techniques.  Not.

I am student of science, and of the arts. I believe in a scientific and an artistic approach to the studies of healthiness.

This diagram on our planet represents the layers of our healthiness, from our genetics to the highest levels of our communities.  Each body is comprised of the layers of the hierarchy of health; genetics, nutrients, cells, etc to the entire body. Each person is more than their body, having a spirit and existing in many communities.  Each of the layers is hierarchical, built on the layers below.  Each layer is greater than the sum of the parts below. All health is connected. Each layer can have an effect, positive or negative, on the health of layers above or below.

Illness is represented by red spots. Illness is isolated by its causes, although can affect all health areas. Illness might exist in a single layer, or cross layers.

Healthiness is larger than illness and disease.  Health is about the whole being, and includes illnesses. We all have some illness. Illness can exist in a single layer, be caused by a single factor, or may exist in many layers and might be caused by many  interacting factors. 

Our medical systems are very sophisticated, with surgical precision, not just in surgery, and scientific rigor. They are designed to search for illness, to identify illnesses, and to search for causes of illness and for treatments.

But they don't search for health. Strange? or normal? Health is all around, but we don't see it.  We are so busy looking for illness - that we can't see health for disease. We don't search for causes of healthiness. The tools we use to measure illness are very sophisticated.  We can use MRI to peer into the body and spot tumors before the cause any problems.  We have standardized tests for blood and tissues to search for signs of illness. The tools we use to measure healthiness are very rudimentary. This is because our understanding of health is very rudimentary.  It is also because the search for illness facilitates and forces a focus of attention.  If we are searching for cancer, we can look for spots that look like cancer. We focus our attention on those spots.

In the diagram above, you can search for illness in the red spots.  Of course illness in your body is not hi-lighted in red, but it stands out from the norm.  Our scientific processes search for something that is 'not normal' when we search for illness.

If you are searching for health, in the diagram above - where will you look?  Health is everywhere.  Even in the places where there is illness.  It is everywhere, and nowhere to be found. Because we assume that 'normal' is healthy - we neglect to measure healthiness. Each state of healthiness has a range that can be measured and should be measured to facilitate healthy targets.

We need to develop powerful scientific tools to understand and measure health.  And when we do - we will gain a much better understanding of illness.

There is a potential danger in our search for health.  The fields of illness, diagnosis, treatment, etc. have been doctopolized (doctor monopolized) by our medical systems.  It is illegal for a non-doctor to diagnose illness, to design, implement, produce or sell treatments, or in any way to 'practice medicine'.  This monopoly is created and upheld on the theory that it minimizes risk to patients. But it has been extended so far that it increases risk for some patients.

In our studies of health - we must not make this same mistake.  We must make it better, not worse.  My blog is about health freedom.  I believe in medical freedom as well.  Illness is a subset of health. Medicine is a subset of healthicine.

We need an open investigation of health and healthiness to understand and improve individual health and health of our communities. We need to apply our science to learn about health.  But not just science.  One of the problems with our medical systems is 'over scientification'. A reliance on science's ability to separate right from wrong. To avoid the wide grey areas we don't understand.  Health exists in the areas we don't understand. Our reliance on 'clinical studies' of illness and treatment has been extended so far that it is no longer science.  Medical science has become dogma, not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from or challenged - even when it is clearly deficient or incorrect.

We need to develop a science of health and healthiness.  And we need to go beyond that.  Science gives us techniques and tools of measurement.  Science gives us frameworks to understand and to develop further understandings.  But the structure of science limits the boundaries of a search. Science focuses our attention, but limits our view. We don't want to limit the boundaries of our search for healthiness.

We need to study and explore the arts of health.   Individually and collectively.

Science might, someday, tell us what nutrients are essential to health, and what amounts of each are optimal.  But nutrients compliment and conflict with each other. We need people to create and develop foods, meals, diets and supplements that help us to consume healthy nutrients in a healthy fashion. Then we can use science to measure the results.

Artists are the people who create things. 

There are many arts of health.  Music creation, expression, collaboration, and enjoyment are arts of healthiness.  When we are ill, music helps us heal.  When we are well, music makes us better.  When we sing, we feel. Dance is the art of movement - the art of body health. When we create our own dance, we improve our own health. When we dance, we heal. All movement is dance, the dance of life. The creation of dance takes our health to a higher plane. Drawing, painting, designing, writing -- creating; creating is art. Creating is healthy. We need to move our communities from consumption to creation.  To move our focus from productivity to creativity. From commerce to arts. For the health of it.

When we create, we are creating health. We need to create the science and art of healthiness. And then, maybe, we can truly learn the arts of medicines. As long as medicine remains solely the field of technicians - it will continually fail to reach our highest expectations.

We want our children to create beauty.  We want them to be artists - to rise above the mundane creations of builders, factory workers and technicians. We want them to live a better, healthier life.  We are all children.

yours in health,
tracy

Tracy is the author of two book about healthicine: