Men have 1.3 times more cancer incidents than women. The survival of the commonest cancers has not altered for many years. Five year survival of lung cancer is ten percent, bowel is thirty five percent, breast is sixty five percent, pancreas is two percent and stomach is ten percent. John Bailar who is a very reputable professor of Epidemiology in the USA has stated that the increase in cancer death rates by seven percent during 1975 and 1999 cannot be explained by aging. "A decade of wars against cancer has been a qualified failure."

We cannot solve the problems of society with minds and intellect alone. We have to use our hearts, and use the new wisdom of functional medicine, psycho-social-neuro-endocrine-immunology and the life sciences. Cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, suicide, road traffic accidents, AIDS, infectious diseases in the developing world, war, poverty and famine are killers of our society worldwide. Unless we can create a more equitable, sustainable, cooperative and caring society, how can we survive?

The Evolution of Medicine
In medicine, the phenomenon of healing as seen in holistic approaches, is lost. Hi is the most serious indictment on our conventional approaches. In its reduction of the body for analysis to smaller and smaller fragments, the patient as a human being is lost and health is reduced to a mechanical function.

The rise of modern scientific medicine began in the nineteenth century, but Descartes introduced the conception of the separation of mind and body. In looking at the relationship between medicine and health, we have to look at the health of the individual and the health of our society.

Although there has been an increase in life-expectancy, this does not given an indication of quality of health. It is the dramatic development in the history of public health that led to the sharp decline in infectious diseases in the nineteenth century.

Haggerty has done experiments which show that medical technology alone is unable to bring about significant changes in diseases. The conclusion from many studies is that conventional medical interventions although extremely helpful in individual emergencies have very little effect on the health of entire populations. This is despite the exorbitant cost of modern medicine.

The health of human beings is predominantly determined, not by medical intervention, but by their behaviour, their nutrition and the nature of their environment. 25% of our population are sufficiently troubled psychologically to need therapy. There is an alarming rise in alcoholism, violent crimes, accident and suicides ……. all symptoms of a social illness.

We are in the midst of a profound social crisis, and the only way to gain a more caring and integrated society is by changing our attitudes to ourselves and to one another. We have to look at ourselves as being basically positive and healthy, rather than innately destructive, suffering and fearful.