No doctor dares to bill for a cure. Insurance won’t pay for a cure.
Try this:
Ask your doctor, any doctor – conventional (General Practitioner (GP), allergist, cardiologist, dermatologist, gynecologist, neurologist, oncologist, ophthalmologist, osteopath, pediatrician, psychiatrist, psychologist, surgeon, urologist or other specialist) – or alternative; Ayurvedic, chiropractor, herbalist, homeopath, naturopath, Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner) or any other of many variations and specialties:
“How many did you cure last week?”
Here are some of the answers you might hear:
I don’t cure anybody.
“Treatments don’t produce cures — cures don’t exist — but they do lead to improvement.” – Gordon Warme, The Cure of Folly A Psychiatrist’s Cautionary Tale, 2009
“Many years of medical practice have taught me that I have no cures for any disease, and neither does any form of medicine.” – Thomas S. Cowan; Sally Fallon; Jaimen McMillan, The Fourfold Path to Healing: Working with the Laws of Nutrition, Therapeutics, Movement and Meditation in the Art of Medicine, 2004
“The doctor explained that chemotherapy was not a cure, but just a mechanism to prolong life.” – Anushavan Manukyan, BIOENERGY HEALING, 2019
“Cure? Did he just say cure?! There had to be a catch. No one was offering a cure.” – Katie Coleman, Too Young for Cancer:, 2024
“Why would doctors get depressed? Despite expensive, extensive training, we rarely if ever cure anything except the occasional infection.” – Suzanne Humphries M.D., Rising From The Dead, 2016
“Looking back over 23 years of being a medical doctor, I can say with confidence that cures are the rarest WHITE zebras in conventional medicine.” – Suzanne Humphries M.D., Rising From The Dead, 2016
I don’t cure diseases (injuries, cancers) I treat them.
“There is really no such thing as curing any disease. We do not cure or heal ailments. It is a mis-statement, of which all well informed M. D.’s are aware.” – Palmer, B. J. (Bartlett Joshua), The Science of Chiropractic : Eleven Physiological Lectures, 1907
“A doctor cannot “cure” you of anything. If you have a broken arm, the physician may set it — but only you — your own body — may “cure” or heal the break.” – William Kelley DDS, One Answer to Cancer, 1998
“Medicine does not cure. Medicine can only provide the needed nourishment and tools. The patient heals.” – Harvey Bigelsen M. D. Aren Howell, Holographic Blood A New Dimension in Medicine, 2007
“Doctors never use this term (cure) about a condition or illness because, to say the least, it’s misleading. Instead, they speak of ‘treatment’. It’s far more accurate, modest, achievable, and useful.” – Mary Ellen Hecht, The Calcium Story –beware promissory pills, injections and any “cures”, 2015
“I am reminded, every time I see a doctor… there is no “cure” for cancer, only remission.” – Frank, Arthur W, At the Will of the Body :, 1991
“There is no cure for … asthma…, sickle cell disease…, hemophilia…, end stage COPD…, pancreatitis…, polycistic kidney disease…, rabies…, shingles…, ALS, Huntington’s…, Seborrheic Dermatitis…, AIDS, Kaposi’s…, Muscular Dystrophy…, osteogenesis imperfecta…, Cerebral Palsy…, Autism Spectrum Disorder…, Down syndrome…, Tay-Sachs Disease…” and what’s more, “Rheumatoid arthritis, like other autoimmune disorders, cannot be cured…, SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus) cannot be prevented or cured…, Some anemias can be cured, whereas others, such as sickle cell anemia, are not curable…, Hypertensive heart disease, like hypertension, is not cured, only controlled…, Diabetes cannot be cured…, Herpes disease cannot be cured…, it (human papillomavirus HPV) cannot be cured, but it can be treated…,Currently, there is no treatment or cure to stop the progression of scleroderma…, Treatment for idiopathic and alcohol-related pancreatitis is palliative because there is no cure…., no known cure for Alzheimer’s disease…, no known treatment or cure for color blindness…, No effective cure exists (for AIDS)…, There is no known cure (Rosacea)… There is no known prevention…, medication can help prevent development of serious RSV, but cannot cure or treat children with RSV…” Neighbors, Marianne; Tannehill-Jones, Ruth, Human Diseases, 2023
Many, perhaps most doctors deny curing.
“What an odd situation we have going on in the United States when doctors witness cures and are afraid they’ll go to jail if they tell anyone.” – Ed McCabe, Flood Your Body With Oxygen, 2019
“I meet a selected number of patients is in order to convince them that they can cure themselves” – Coue, Emile, Simple Self-Healing, 2017.
We might note that some deny curing people, some deny curing diseases, some deny curing mental disorders, and some deny curing specific cases. But no doctor claims to cure any illness.
Note: The question did not ask “how many patients did you cure,” nor did it ask “how many diseases did you cure,” nor “how many cases of disease did you cure.” Doctors, not trained in cure – simply, and unconsciously ignore these distinctions. When a doctor claims “I don’t cure people…” we might ask “how many diseases” or “how many cases,” but the responses will be similar.
And if they do, if any doctor claims to cure patients, or specific conditions, ask this:
“How many of your cures are officially recognized?”
The answer, clearly, is none. No medical system recognizes, much less counts cured cases, much less cases cured by specific hospitals, clinics, or doctors.
“This, I apprehend, is so well understood among well educated physicians, that the word cure, as applied to themselves, is proscribed as presumptuous, and rarely, I believe, escapes the lips of any practitioner, whose mind is duly tinctured with that ingenuous modesty which characterizes the liberal and correct members of the profession.” Sir Gilbert Blane. – Elisha Bartlett, MD, Elisha Bartlett’s Philosophy of Medicine, 1844, 2005
“I’m going to talk about type 2 diabetes ‘remission’ in this chapter and steer clear of the word ‘cure’. We tend to do so in the medical world;” – Joshua Wolrich, Food Isn’t Medicine, 2021
“Controversy reigned for years. A chronicler of that resistance explained that “perhaps the majority of doctors and patients remained skeptical of the cure until they had seen it happen with their own eyes.” – Francine Shapiro, EMDR: The Breakthrough Therapy for Overcoming Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma, 2019
“Linus Pauling. Linus Pauling claimed to have described a simple cure for one of the major killer diseases of the western world, but was greeted with disbelief.” – Dr Steve Hickey & Dr Hilary Roberts, Ascorbate The Science of Vitamin C, 2004
But, strangely enough:
Most Cases of Illness are Cured
“By failing to call a cure a cure we also sometimes blind ourselves to unique opportunities.” – Vincent T DeVita, Jr, The Concept of Cure, 2008
Most cases of illness are never seen by a doctor. We get a bump, a bruise, a burn, a cut, indigestion, a headache, we feel sad or depressed, we get a cold, influenza, even COVID, but we don’t go to the doctor. We don’t want to bother a doctor with a trivial illness. Most cases of illness are cured by natural healthy activities. When we are healthier, we cure them faster. When we are less healthy, we get more illnesses, and curing (we often use the word healing) takes more time.
Even most cases of illness seen by a doctor are cured. Most medical visits, by far, are to the emergency clinics or hospital emergency department. Most emergency cases are cured. We arrive with a deep cut, maybe a severe loss of blood. The emergency department treats us and either monitors us for a while, and sends us home to heal. We heal. Cured. Maybe there’s a scar – “a different problem,” or other lingering effects that persist or fade over time, or maybe not. But, emergency room doctors don’t get credit for curing.
We might argue – and they might apologize – that most of the cure was not medical. Most of the cure, like most cures, was due to healing, due to the present healthiness of the patient, the forces of life. But without the medical intervention, the patient might be dead or severely disabled. The doctor cured the injury. The doctor provided the KEY to the cure. Without that key, without that cure, the situation would be very different.
Cure Confusion
There is much confusion around the words disease, illness, treatment – as well as cure, cures, curing and cured.
“‘Cure’ does not appear in Barron’s Dictionary of Medical Terms, Sixth Edition, 2013, although “incurable” is defined as ‘being such that a cure is impossible within the realm of known medical practice’.” – Tracy Kolenchuk, quoted by Sydney J Bush, Cardio retinometry®, 2017
“As there is no absolute cure for diabetes at present.” – N.S. Parmar, Health Education Community Pharmacy for First Year Diploma, 2022 {Note: absolute cure is not defined in the text, nor in any other reference}
“This type of dementia is (substance use dementia) often cured because the cause of the dementia is curable.” – Neighbors, Marianne; Tannehill-Jones, Ruth, Human Diseases, 2023 {Theory of Cure: we cure illnesses and diseases, not causes.}
“Far from being dogmatic about his approach, Dr. Simonton says, “We use words such as ‘spontaneous remission’, But none of us fully understands what happens if there is a cure.” – Bricklin, Mark, The Practical Encyclopedia of Natural Healing, 1976
“When we talk about depression, we don’t use the word cure because we only have subjective measures for behavior and emotions.” – Eric Hagerman & Dr John J. Ratey, Spark!: How Exercise Will Improve the Performance of your Brain
“Cancer has become ubiquitous in our modern society. Despite billions of dollars poured into research, we still don’t know much about what causes it, and we still don’t know how to cure it.” – Sarah Taylor, Vegetarian to Vegan, 2013
“The chief chemist and his aide advised against use of the word “cure” on labels, except in cases beyond medical dispute. ‘The term ‘corn cure’ Wiley observed drolly in one instance, ‘is in itself a misnomer, because it is not the corn that is ill and needs to be cured.’” – Young, James Harvey;, Medical Messiahs
“However, a remission is not considered a cure. A remission may last days, months, or years, after which the disease can recur.” – Publisher: Julie Levin Alexander, Human Diseases A Systemic Approach, 2014
“The term “cure” is bandied about frequently when news reports of cancer treatments appear. A cure would mean a complete removal of the cancer. A “cure” is extremely unlikely” – K. John Morrow, Jr., Cancer, Autism and Their Epigenetic Roots {Theory of Cure – “the cancer” is not a “thing” is not defined scientifically nor medically, so it cannot be “removed.”)
“One such explanation which doctors confront every day is the unexpected cure, the unanticipated positive turn of events. This is attributed to what we euphemistically call the “natural course of the disease.” This concept has no explanatory meaning at all, and says only that “that which happens, happens.” It says less about the natural course of illness than about the natural state of our ignorance.” – Dora van Gelder Kunz, Spiritual Healing, 1995
“As a clinician and theoretician I have two consuming questions which I shall never completely answer and which I hope I will seek to answer all of my professional life. The two questions are: ‘What brings about change?’ and ‘What constitutes cure?’” – John R. McNeel, Rethinking the Nature of Cure Within a Redecision Perspective, TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS JOURNAL, 2021
No One Studies Cured Cases
We might think, or hope, that if someone cures their disease, or a disease in another person, the cured case is documented, and studied so that we can learn more about cures. This simply doesn’t happen. Cured cases are, at best, ignored individually and systemically. No one cares if you cure your cold, your influenza, measles or COVID. But it’s not just the easy cures that we fail to study.
“Lind had presented a strong hypothesis: that scurvy could be cured in a week…What followed Lind’s discover was rather typical of the history of medical science. His results, though interesting, were ignored.” – Dr Steve Hickey & Dr Hilary Roberts, Ascorbate The Science of Vitamin C, 2004
“Whenever they discovered an effective “cure” for something, research in that area ceased and attention was directed elsewhere. We can now prevent polio, but nobody knows much more about the systemic aspects of that fascinating disease. Research on it has ceased or is, at best, confined to improving the vaccines.” – Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 2000
“But the evolution of medicine and health care in the U.S. does not support finding cures.” – Harvey Bigelsen M. D. Aren Howell, Doctors Are More Harmful Than Germs, 2011
“Cancer is a fatal disease. It is uncommon for a patient with an untreated cancer to die of something else. Still, currently more than 50% of patients with cancer in the United States are cured.” – Alden H harken, Ernest E Moor, editors, Abernathy’s Surgical Secrets, 2009
“It seems inconceivable that the astounding medical cures reported in science journals over the past 75 years could have been ignored.” – William Campbell Douglass, MD, Hydrogen Peroxide Medical Miracle, 2008
Cure Denial
Most cases of cured are simply denied. There are many ways to deny a cure.
“Though use of the term cure has been actively discouraged except in limited types of cases, perhaps true health care reform needs to reclaim this term and concept.” – Pizzorno, Joseph E., Can We Say Cure? 2016
“There is still no such thing as a scientific cure.” – Cocteau, Jean, Opium : The Diary of a Cure, 1930
“Nor have physicians said, “May we get together with you to examine scientifically these occurrences which should be of such interest to our profession?” Instead the attitude of the medical profession has been that miracle cures are nonexistent, that the disease of which a person was cured did not exist in the first place, either because it was an imaginary disorder, such as a hysterical conversion reaction, or else because it was a misdiagnosis.” – M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled, 2012
“Because of liability issues, in public interviews Clement repeatedly insists that his approach neither cures nor heals.” – Alan Levinovitz, Natural, 2021
“I have had the same experience with my own doctors, who merely throw up their – hands and say that anyone claiming to cure cancer is a fake …” – Howard Straus witli Barhara Marinacci, Dr Max Gerson Healing the Hopeless, 2002
“Some chiropractors will even tell you that they do not treat or cure disease; “All I do,” said one chiropractor recently, ‘is to normalize the body.’” – Bricklin, Mark, The Practical Encyclopedia of Natural Healing, 1976
“Thinking there’s a cure is denial! Alcoholism is incurable.” – Jack Trimpey, Rational Recovery: The New Cure for Substance Addiction, 2017
“Many people “diagnosed” as alcoholics seem to “cure” themselves without AA or any other treatment. When that happens, the experts can only say that they must not have been “true alcoholics” in the first place.” – Chafetz, Morris E, Big fat liars, 2005
“Just as there is no complete cure for mental illness, there are no truly happy endings to stories about the mentally ill.” – Walker, Evelyn, A Killing Cure,2017
“This criticism suggests that if the reported cases were “cured” they were not subjects of multiple sclerosis.” – Coca, Arthur F. (Arthur Fernandez), The Pulse Test : Easy Allergy Detection {Many cures can be dismissed by simply disqualifying the diagnosis.}
“I was born into a family of doctors. My father told me that after graduating from medical school, he was sure that he could cure any disease. He believed that if there were medicines for diseases, then these diseases could be cured. But after ten years of clinical work, he told me that he could not cure anything.” – Tamara Martynova , Mingtang Xu, A book Zhong Yuan Qigong: Second Stage, 2002
Medical Cure Denial
Many illnesses and diseases are easily cured. Too easily. So easily that modern medicine must proclaim, almost with pride, “there is no cure for…”
“There is no cure for the flu, of course.” – Lang, James M, Learning Sickness : A Year With Crohn’s Disease, 2004
“This very infectious disease (measles) is usually spread by droplet infection and can be fatal in children in developing countries with poor nutrition. There is no cure, but a vaccine is available.” – Susan Scott, Christopher Duncan, Return of the Black Death The World’s Greatest Serial Killer, 2004
and…
“There is no cure for measles, and it usually runs its course in 7–10 days.” – Publisher: Julie Levin Alexander, Human Diseases A Systemic Approach, 2014
“The current COVID-19 is an unprecedented and ongoing pandemic, since there is no known cure.” – Sadaf Nazneen & Akebe Luther King Abia & Sughosh Madhav, Emerging Pandemics:
There is no cure for cancer, but…
“Leukemia was once a uniformly fatal diagnosis, with less than a 5% to 10% cure rate until the mid to late 1960s Today, approximately 85% of children with ALL are cured.” – Rick Kellerman, David Rakel, Conn’s Current Therapy 2020
“There’s no cure for reactive arthritis. The symptoms can be treated, though, and it’s usually only temporary. Most people recover fully within six months.” – Ben Gilles & Chris Joannou, Love and Pain, 2023
“These diseases (H1N1 and SARS-CoV-2), far from being eradicated, show the powerlessness of modern medicine since no medication can cure these viral infections.” – I. Roussel, Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreaks, Vaccination, Politics and Society, 2022
Cure denial nonsense: “The medical sciences did not enable doctors to cure their patients or prevent disease until well into the nineteenth century, as we shall see.” – Keekok Lee, The Philosophical Foundations of Modern Medicine, 2012
Cure Censorship
“In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries thousands were executed all over Europe; women were burned alive at the stake in Germany, France, Italy and England. The official argument was a simple one: a woman was not allowed to study medicine, and if she claimed to be able to cure the sick in any way, clearly she had to be a witch, working with the aid of the devil.” – Coleman, Vernon, The Story of Medicine Vernon Coleman, 1998
“You had cures for cancer nearly 100 years ago, but they were suppressed, and many of the doctors who found such cures operated in countries with subsidized health care. In many cases, their laboratories were raided and sometimes they were killed.” – Sal Rachele, Earth Awakens: Prophecy 2012 – 2030, 2017
“Klenner´s 25 papers been hidden from sight, and newspapers obviously paid to keep quiet about the sensational 1949 cure of Polio without a vaccine. How was a global blackout of this news achieved?” – Sydney J Bush, Cardio retinometry, 2017
“On April 17, 1952, the Dickinson County, Iowa chapter of the ACS (American Cancer Society) ran a full page ad in the local paper, ‘The Spirit Lake Beacon,’ asking the society to enter the new field of investigating cancer cure claims. They cited 4 such ‘cures.’ The chapter was expelled from the ACS.” – Lynes, Barry, The Healing of Cancer, 1989
“The word “Cure” has been banned, as described later, presumably by pharmacy, that prefers lifelong drug sales for “management.” The medical profession has proved itself in agreement and is unwilling to accept a real cancer cure.” – Sydney J Bush, Cardio retinometry, 2017
“Perhaps the single greatest cliché of AIDS is the idea that there is not enough money in it to find a cure. There may be too much money in it to find a cure.” Celia Farber, An Uncensored History of AIDS, 2006
“Consider this: when the world was desperate to find a treatment or cure for a deadly disease, and when we actually provided that information . . . it was censored.” – Brian Tyson & George Fareed & Mathew Crawford, Overcoming the COVID Darkness, 2022
Bureaucracies? Cureaucracies?
“Thus the attempt to cure illness by physical means could be looked upon not only as useless, but also as potentially sinful — a rebellion against the will of God.” – David C. Thomasma, David N. Weisstub, Thomasine Kimbrough Kushner, editors, The Hermeneutics of Medicine and the Phenomenology of Health, 2000
“Sixteenth century witch-hunters could point to the curers and soothsayers in the villages as real witches.” – Jean Sybil La Fontaine, Witches and Demons: A Comparative Perspective on Witchcraft and Satanism, 2016
“The insistence of the medical guild on its unique qualifications to cure medicine itself is based on an illusion.” – Illich, Ivan, Limits to Medicine : medical nemesis, the expropriation of health, 1995
“If ever a cancer cure were recognized in this country (USA) it would threaten the income and livelihood of AMA members. The bylaws of the AMA practically prohibit the promotion of a cure for cancer.” – Moritz, Andreas, Cancer is Not a Disease, 2009
“Legally we do not have to, nor should we say we are treating or trying to cure cancer.” – Mark Sircus, Sodium Bicarbonate – Full Medical Review, 2010
“Be aware that the APA rules say that you must not promise a cure.” – Robin Shapiro, EMDR Solutions: Pathways to Healing, 2005
“Because only drugs can make such claims, dietary supplements must bear on the label that ‘This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease.’” – Kleinman, Ronald E.;Greer, Frank R., Pediatric Nutrition, 2019
Medical books Deny, must deny Cures.
“The publisher and author of this material make no medical claims for its use. This material is not intended to treat, diagnose, advise about, or cure any illness. If you need medical attention, please consult with your medical practitioner._ “– Hale Dwoskin, The Sedona Method, 2003
“According to John Hoover, by 1890, all explicit references to cures and illness had been taken out of the resort’s brochure.” – Carolyn Thomas de la Pena, The Body Electric, 2003
The doctor, or the clinic, or the hospital provides a bill for treatments, for services rendered. The patient, or the insurance company pays the bill for treatments. The word cure is never used. No doctor bills for cures. No insurance company pays for cures.
The need to fight Cure Denial
We occasionally encounter counter arguments to cure denial.
“Asserting the impossibility of a disorder’s cure is asserting the null hypothesis, a scientific blunder of iatrogenic consequence.” – Morgan,Robert F, Editor, Iatrogenics Handbook, 1983
“Time and again patients have come to me, saying that they were told there was no cause of or cure for their ailment. Ignorance is no longer an excuse in this area of medicine.” Michelle Honda, Reverse Gut Diseases Naturally, 2018
“There is nothing more frustrating for patient or doctor than to be told by a panel of experts that “there is nothing to cure this condition.” I, like many, have refused to accept this dismal prognosis.” – Becker, Richard L, Foundations for healing : holistic plans for your return to health and vitality, 2002
“‘Cure’ has become a dangerous word. So we have a situation where we are seeing cure but cannot legally call it cure. Yet not to do so is lying by omission. so that defines modern medicine.” – Sydney J Bush, Cardio Retinometry® reveals rarely absent, focal scurvy, pathognomonic of unrecognised ubiquitous fatal occult scurvy, unexpected heart attack, thrombosis, and stroke deaths, 2017
What about Fake Cures
Fake cures are not limited to “alternative medicine.”
“The dirty little secret of medical technology has been its focus on perverse and profitable blockbusters with little, if any, benefit in reducing disease and mortality. None of them qualify as cures and many of them are dangerous.” – Mark Blaxill & Dan Olmsted, Denial, 2017
Cures Exist
“By cure I mean the capacity to effect deep and lasting change.” – MARGARET S. WARNER, Empathy Reconsidered New Directions in Psychotherapy
“When you read or hear statements such as “doctors say” or “experts agree,” the implication is that all doctors say or all experts agree… Say to yourself, “Nobody you know knows,” or “There is no cure you know of,” or “There is no evidence you know about.” – Walene James, Immunization the Reality Behind the Myth, 1988
Most cases of Illnesses are Trivial, Easily Cured
But easily cured, is often “cured denied” – there was no “real” disease:
“The neighboring doctors and all the friends and acquaintances of the patient feel quite sure that he was not really ill, since if he had been such mild methods could not have cured him.” – Densmore, Emmet, How Nature Cures, 1892
“Cancer is said to be cured by fasting, but this is very, very doubtful…I have seen many tumors disappear under rational treatment, without resorting to the knife, but I have never seen an undoubted case of cancer do so, though some of the tumors in question had been diagnosed cancer.” – Rasmus Larssen Alsaker, Maintaining Health (Formerly Health and Efficiency), 1920
When we view illness on a scale from trivial to deadly. We know that most cuts and bruises are trivial, we don’t need severe action to cure them. It can be harder to recognize that most cases of influenza or COVID, for example, range from trivial to minor – never diagnosed, much less never seen by a doctor, even though a severe case of influenza, in a severely unhealthy person, can be deadly. This diagram illustrates the frequency vs severity of most illnesses.
This diagram applies to most illnesses and also to many specific named diseases. Most cases of the common cold are trivial – a few are severe and dangerous. We might find it hard to believe, but the same is true, for example, of cancers. Most cases of cancer ate minor, easily cured, a few are severe and dangerous.
This is true for a simple reason. Most illnesses begin slowly as a small disruption. There are two types of exceptions. First, gunshot wounds, car accidents, or other extreme stresses, create significant disruption and damage in a very short time. Secondly, sometimes one illness builds up a stress over time, which bursts, like hypertension leading to a stroke, or an infected appendix leading to a rupture. These are secondary illnesses, often with a primary illness cause that build over days, weeks, months, or years without being addressed.
When do we visit the doctor? When the illness is moderate or severe. If it’s not severe, why call a doctor. Doctors are expensive. Treatments are expensive.
But, because doctors most illnesses are cured without visiting a doctor, most doctors say they don’t cure.
to your health, tracy
Author: A New Theory of Cure
The quotations in this post are taken from the random cure quote generator, which you can visit any time to learn about cure, cures, curing and cured.