Page 52 - Special Issue: Healthy Baby

Doctor’s Corner

TREATING FEVERS IN CHILDREN

By Tom Cowan, MD

There is a curious phenomenon that goes immune systems; and they should be prevented,
on in science: as we study the physical world, avoided, or gotten rid of as quickly and as aggres-
inevitably we uncover facts that contradict old sively as possible. In other words, our philosophy
assumptions. As scientists are seekers after the of illness pretends that these episodes of sickness
truth wherever it may be found, one would expect are more or less unrelated, chance episodes, and
that they would quickly revise or even discard there is no good outcome from being sick.
old, unproven theories when new facts and dis-
coveries emerge. In fact, in many cases just the THE PURPOSE OF FEVER
opposite occurs; “the scientific community” often The facts, however, tell a different story. For
circles the wagons and protects its pet theories. example, all the pediatric textbooks tell us that a
Consider, for example, the pyramids of child who has nephrotic syndrome, a disease in
Egypt. The current “scientific” theory holds that which the kidneys begin to leak out protein, will
modern civilization has reached the pinnacle of most likely be cured if he simultaneously con-
engineering achievement. However, recently tracts measles. In fact, measles is the only known
discovered facts about the Great Pyramid of cure for nephrotic syndrome, which is otherwise
Giza reveal that somehow, someone lifted preci- treated with the misery of long-term prednisone.
sion-cut granite “bricks” weighing over seventy Interestingly, giving a measles vaccine doesn’t
Some tons each over one hundred fifity feet in the air work—it doesn’t cure nephrotic syndrome.
and then precisely fitted them into a complex geo- Those who have read my book The Fourfold
pediatricians metrically engineered structure, an achievement Path to Healing know that the whole history
and which we can’t even begin to match today. cancer treatment is intimately related to the
oncologists Or how about the fact that modern scien- phenomenon of infectious disease. There are
tists maintain the theory that the DNA contains numerous recorded cases of cancers going into
have separate genes, each of which codes a distinct remission when the patient contracts an infectious
postulated protein. One DNA sequence, one protein; that disease, strep being the most likely candidate to
the modern is the central dogma of genetics. However, with cure the patient of cancer. Strep has been used
the completion of the human genome project in cancer vaccines, most particularly by the sur-
epidemic of we learned that humans have about 200,000 or geon John Coley, MD, who reported an almost
cancer in more proteins, and only about 30,000 genes. 40 percent remission rate in patients with cancer
children The central dogma is flawed. In fact the proteins who received his strep-containing cancer vaccine.
re-arrange the DNA sequences to “code” for what In modern oncology, the tuberculosis bacillus is
as the “they” want, a phenomenon that has been shown still used in bladder cancer as it is injected into
predictable in many studies. Unfortunately, we still teach the the bladders of those with this form of cancer.
outcome of old “truths,” ignoring the contradictory facts. In fact, some pediatricians and oncologists have
In discussing how to treat children who are postulated that the modern epidemic of cancer in
our mania for sick, we encounter a number of discoveries that children as the predictable outcome of our mania
preventing contradict our current view of infectious illness. for supressing fever in our children, by giving
fever in our Our current view of infectious illness in children them aspirin, tylenol and antibiotics.

is that these episodes are caused by unseen virus-
Clearly, there is more to the story of infec-
children. es and bacteria that invade us and overwhelm our tions than just bad luck, something to get rid
50 Wise Traditions