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amongst physicians: those deemed conventional, self-proclaimed “evidence-

based,” and those who have adopted holistic, integrative, medical practice. This

is a sort of war unto itself and patients are unrightfully in the middle, often

chastised by physicians or family members for straying outside of convention.

Yet despite steady and intense opposition, integrative medicine has grown

significantly over the past two decades, reflecting the collective mistrust of a

medical system that kills over 120,000 patients annually due to medication

adverse effects, infections or hospital errors. Doctors too are adversely affected

by a system that is increasingly governmentally regulated, productivity-driven and

focused on symptom mitigation, without adequate time to delve deeper into the

underlying causes of disease. As a result, physicians are leaving medicine in

record numbers.12

Perhaps if we gather together in open-hearted song to our kin— the murdered

and the murderers, the black bears and the hunters, the toxic medicines and

those who administer them—then the poisons of our time—disconnection,

violence, oppression, disease—will diminish and maybe even begin to disappear.

With love at the heart of kinship, let this be the medicine first and last employed.

Let us make kinship the foundation of our medical, industrial, agricultural,

educational and political decisions. On behalf of the earth, the ancestors and all

beings, let us step into the river of love and gratitude that kinship engenders. In

doing so, we will each of us become both healer and healed.

Right now.

FOOTNOTES

1. Peta.org. Experiments on Animals: Overview

2. Daniel G. Hackam, M.D., and Donald A. Redelmeier, M.D., “Translation of Research

Evidence From Animals to Human,” The Journal of the American Medical Association

296 (2006): 1731-2.

3. Pandora Pound and Michael Bracken, “Is Animal Research Sufficiently Evidence

Based To Be A Cornerstone of Biomedical Research?”, BMJ (2014): 348.

4. Rich McManus, “Ex-Director Zerhouni Surveys Value of NIH Research,” NIH Record