Day 44: July 25, 2006
Today the Director Medical of Sir Ganga Ram Hosptial, Dr. Nalini Kaul, Bert and I made the journey to the foothills of the Himalayas to a town called Misoori (pronouneced “miz ZOO ri” which looks like the pictures I have seen of Tibet: steep, craggy mountains with exquisit and improbably buildings perched on their absolute edges, mists in the peaks, astonishingly dangerous roads on the edge of eternity. But we went there to meet a healer of extraordinary power who is also a scientist of exceptional talents. He has created frequency devices which do the things that we all hope they will do, starting with cancer. Bert and I wanted to meet him!
About 8 harrowing hours after starting out, we reached his astonishing house where we had lunch (very good food) and conversation (outstanding!) and then watched him treat patients with asthma, diabetes and other serious diseases and conditions with a simple touch of his fingers. The energy in the room, by the way, was palpable. The patients were significantly better after treatment by this brilliant, simple and saintly man.
I asked him if he would treat an olechronon busal cyst (fluid filled bump) on Bert’s left elbow and he agreed. As soon as the 2 minute treatment was over, the cyst was about 1/3 its previous size and hardness. He said it would take one or two more treatments to resolve the issue.
We drove down into town and in the pouring monsoon rains, found a restaruant where we had excellent vegetarian food and we agreed that this scientist would work with us to develop frequency devices to treat a variety of things. To do that, of course, we will have to find a way to set up a frequency laboratory. I don’t know quite how, but we will. His techniques, and others we know about, belong to the world. They are another type of natural health option which we should all have the possibility to use for health and healing if we wish.
Day 45: July 26, 2006
Breakfast with our new friend, two quick treatments for Bert and back to Delhi in the rains, down roads that scared us all witless, into towns and back into the country, past temples and mosques everywhere. When we got back, of course, my task was email since there was no connectivity in the hotel and we were far to busy to spend time that way in the house of the remarkable man we were visiting.
By the time we reached Delhi, however, Bert’s previously asymptomatic cyst was now hot, hard, painful and much, much larger than it had every been before. Clearly the treatment did something, but we did not have any idea what at that point.
Day 46: July 27, 2006
Our IT guy, Venkat, flew in from Channai (in the state of Tamil Nadu) so we could talk about the issues involved in servicing the complex Natural Solutions Foundation organization which is rapidly growing here in India and its IT needs.
For dinner, we met again with pulmonologist D. G. Jain, MD and asked him if he would honor us by serving as the Chairman of the Natural Solutions Foundation for Delhi. To our immense pleasure and gratitude he agreed and we discussed just what that means.
India is a ripe ground for productive public and professional support for health and health freedom. She has a large footprint on the world’s stage and is a ripening economy which is now in the process of making decisions which will change her future and the world scene. Our allies here are well organized, motivated and highly educated. We are very, very glad we came!
Day 47: July 28, 2007
While waiting to see one of our people in the morning we were asked if we would meet with the Sir Ganga Ram Hosptial Dietician staff. We did, of course, and met 3 well-informed, motivated and passionate ladies who understand the relationship between food and health. Their hosptial uses only fresh foods and cooks every meal at the time it will be served. We made a variety of suggestions (like, “Get rid of the styrofoam cups and bowls, use brown rice, use organic foods, incorporate more unrefined, organic coconut oil, use more selenium-rich vegetables”, etc.) and we discussed how to implement them. Clearly, that connection will expand and we were simply delighted.
When we were meeting with Dr. Kaul about how we will proceed with research in several areas. I asked her to take a look at Bert’s cyst (which was worse than it was on Wednesday by a good deal). She and I knew that it could not wait until we got home in a few days and while she was pondering whom to refer us to (in one of India’s finest hospitals, by the way) the door opened and in walked the head of the Plastic Surgery Department. “That’s your man!” said Dr. Kaul and Bert very shortly was having blood drawn, urine specimen received an MRI of his elbow and a CT scan, too.
We met with the radiologist and reviewed the scans with him: there was not only a huge and not very postive something or other, it was impinging on the bone and had to come out — tomorrow.
Day 49: July 29, 2006
Bert and I went to the hospital early and sat around for a long time (that is trans cultural!) and then he was taken into the Operating Theater for the procuedure (under local anaesthetic, I am happy to say!). Due to their hospital policy, I could not come so I did what loved ones do: I sat and sat and sat and sat. Finally, he came out of the OT he went to Out Patient Recovery and I joined him. He was well, alert and really pretty cut up on the left arm. Apparently, what came out was partly necrotic (dead) and alll nasty. It was huge (8 centimeters by 4 cm of nastiness). But the really interesting thing is that there was nothing much there when the energy healer finished his treatments. So our hypothesis of the moment is that the energy stimulated the tissue and damaged it, too, but not enough to get rid of the problem. Bert’s body quite reasonably produced an inflammation to try to deal with the sudden change in the area and the net result was a problem which needed urgent care!
I am really sorry that Bert had to go through this, but it is really interesting and instructive about how energy can work when interacting with the physical body. There is a hint in there for further understanding.
At about 3:00PM I had to make a choice: Bert was well but still in the recovery room and I could stay with him or I could leave him (since he was fine) and let the hospital finish its routine with him while I went to the first of two important obligations that evening. We decided that I would leave him to get a cab 5 minutes to the Hotel Swadi Deluxe where we are staying.
My first meeting was at the India Habitat Center’ American Diner (serving American fast food!) with a former journalist who, for the past 15 years has been fighting hunger in India by opposing GM foods and other devastating policies. He was knowlegeable, passionate and purposeful. His organization has produced outstanding results here in India in public and politician awareness on the issues and we agreed that our mutual issues ( because they are identical) are completely winnable. The materials his organization has produced are outstanding and in the coming weeks and months, our organizations will be supporting and strengthening each other.
I explained the “Codex 2 Step” to him and he, an expert in the WTO and trade sanctions, was absolutly delighted since it makes perfect sense to take this tack. He received a copy of the Codex eBook which applies this template to the devastatingly restrictive and pro-illness “Vitamin and Mineral Guideline” ratified by Codex on July 4, 2005.
Next we headed off to a meeting hall in the Habitat Center to speak at the invitation of D. G. Kaarthikayen, former head of India’s Central Bureau of Intellegence (their equivalent of our FBI) about whom I have previously written and with the help of his son, Kailas. The crowd was a gathering of the intellegencia and power elite of Delhi, I had been told but I was not prepared for the astonishing array of people I met who occupy high and influential positions. All of them had come to hear a Pranic (energy) healer from the Philipines who had arrive just that day. They got me, too, rather unexpectedly!
The response was very heartening: although they did not come to hear about health and health freedom, they responded very vigorously and positively, coming to the front of the room in a throng to get our card, brochure, give us their cards, etc. and make contact for further development. It was a great finale for this trip and opened up more opportunities for positive movement.
Health and health freedom are global. Their support around the world globalizes their access and strength for us all. This trip, like our previous ones, have made it clear that allies gain form one another and give to one another.
Whether it’s South Africa, Tanzania, Mali, Afghanistan, India, Peru or the US, we feed each other and we need each other. And we all understand that clean, unadulterated food is the foundation of health! Natural health options are our birthright and our personal right. No one will take them from us. And nutrients will help to end world hunger and increase world health. The Natural Solutions Foundation is making that options clear to health allies around the world.
Thanks for being part of that mission.
Day 50: July 30, 2006.
Packing to go home and tending Bert’s wound occupied nearly the whole day.
He had his drain removed in the hospital today and we bought a new suitcase to hold all the books, pamphets, papers, etc. which we acquired along the way on this remarkable trip.
But there was time for a wonderful phone call in between these tasks. Dr. C. V. Krishnaswami, widely regarded as one of India’s leading lights in diabetology, has agreed to head the Natural Solutions Foundation — India in the state of Tamil Nadu. Dr. CVK, as he is widely known, is a natural health advocate with a huge reputation and an even larger heart. He has published widely on the fact that women with gestational diabetis, for example, do not need to be placed on insulin but instead, given 250 mg of Vitamin B6 per day. Their babies and they do beautifully and both are spared the dangers of exogenous (outside) insulin administration.
Dr. Preema Krishnaswami, the equally celebrated obstetrician (and Dr. CVK’s wife) has delivered hundreds of healthy babies to celebreties and poor people alike. She has tended equally healthy babies and moms on this regimen for gestational diabetes and together Dr. CVK and Dr. Preema have published their results. But that is not all: in addition to very busy practices they run a free diabetes service for 500 Type 1 diabetic children: not only do they pay for their insulin (which their families could not afford), but they provide their school uniforms, pay for their school fees (not free in India), provide them with counseling, make sure that they find employement when they leave school, provide food for them and, in fact, make it possible for these children to have happy, productive childhoods and go on to happy, productive adult lives.
Dr. CVK and Dr. Preema are, I can tell you from personal experience, two of the most incredible people I have ever met. And now they have graced us by joining the battle with the Natural Solutions Foundation.
In fact, the exceptionally powerful meeting of people in their city of Chennai which we spoke at was arranged by them. So was our meeting with the wife of one of India’s leading film stars who is now interested in bringing her circle of influence to bear for our cause. These are people of heart, skill and influence and we are deeply honored by their participation in the health and health freedom cause.
Day 51: July 31, 2006
Our flight leaves Delhi at 4:15 AM. No news now, just transit.
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Then we headed off to
Day 40: July 21, 2006
This morning we were picked up by Dr. Vira from the Sir Ganaga Ram Hospital (about 5 minutes by car from our hotel, the Hotel Swadi Deluxe) where we met with the some of the senior staff, and other doctors as well, from that institution. A fully allopathic hospital with all the latest equipment and skills necessary to run a modern Western hospital, none the less, the doctors here understand (or at least some of them do) that the Ayurveda precept of food as medicine and medicine as food is the basis for health (or its violation, the basis for disease). So the twin dangers of adulterating the food supply and taking away nutrients and other natural health options, was very, very concerning to them.
The doctors listened intently and asked probing questions at the end of the presentation. The most senior doctor present appeared to be slumped in his chair and sleeping through most of my lecture. At the end of my talk, he waited for all the questions to finish and then said that he would make some comments and end the meeting. Bert and I looked at each other: a negative word from this revered and very senior doctor, and there would be nothing more that would happen here at this influential center. Imagine, then, our delight and surprise when he stated that he had heard much that he did not know but that what he heard made sense and seemed right. He went on to say that his hospital had to be mindful of the fact that drugs are poisons and that there is much that must be done without them. Further, he went on to detail a family member’s search for anything — anything — that would help his autistic child and, along with other doctors in the room, asked where they could learn how to use natural methods like the ones I had talked about and where they or relatives with conditions “incurable” to allopathic medicine could get meaningful help.
I had the pleasure of referring those seeking training to the excellent educational programs of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine and discussed individual referrals with them since I am not able to take on new patients because of our heavy travel schedule. Codex: oh, yes! These doctors, although they had never heard of it, got it, and got it big time. Although Dr. Faul, the “Director Medical” of the hospital noted before my lecture that “We have lost faith in food”, still, here in India, the tradition of medicine/food/medicine is alive, if not well, and these doctors knew what that meant. Also, many of them come from villages where health was assured by this technique, along with herbs if needed. They have seen and experienced first hand what the loss of “faith in food” (CLEAN food) has meant to their health and that of their families so they are uniquely enabled to lock onto this concept and see the threat.
Following the lecture, we talked with the very senior doctor and learned that he is suffering from a serious and, for allopathic medicine, untreatable disorder which saps him of his strength more each day. I was able to make some suggestions which made sense to him and he immediately dictated a letter to Prof. Dr. B. M. Hegde, the Director of Natural Solutions Foundation — India, and a world-renowned physician to boot, to ask for assistance in securing the treatments I recommended.
Then we went on to vast briefly with Dr. Faul before we left for our next meeting. Imagine our pleasure when she invited us to speak at her January meeting on the importance of the Ayurveda integration of consciousness, mind and body in healing. Deepak Chopra will be there, too. Of course we accepted.
Along the way, we got to talking about what she calls “Cosmic Healing” and listened attentively when she said that a man she knows has created technology which does the same thing effectively. We asked if we could visit him and she said we could go (6 hours away by car each way) on Tuesday and come back Wednesday. We leaped at the opportunity, you can well imagine, since we are very interested in such technologies. We will let you know what we see!
Then back to the hotel for an afternoon meeting (which did not occur) with an exceptional pulmonologist who is very sympathetic to our work.
We waited until we had to leave for an encounter with an Indian agent for social change who is the brother of a highly respected Indian Scientist in the US who has been very helpful to us at the Indian International Center Annex. This senior gentleman arranged for us to meet at this venerable club with the Director of the Delhi Center of an Ayurveda Hospital and Treatment Center. We explained the Codex threat to both of them and, as we have always found, they listened attentively and asked profound questions.
Along the way, the Ayurveda doctor said that we could come the next day for a Panchakarma (hot oil) Ayurveda massage. I was thrilled because in the car on the way over I had said to Bert, “You know, tomorrow is Saturday and I would love to find an Ayurveda center and have a hot oil massage.” Honest!
Back to a restaurant for dinner and back to our hotel for a 10 PM appointment with the doctor who could not come earlier. We were together until 1:30AM while we talked Codex, energy medicine, nutritional medicine and public information techniques. By the end, we had a new ally and a new friend.
Day 41: July 22, 2006
I woke up today with a high blood pressure episode, the first I have ever had, at least as far as I know. My feet and ankles were swollen with “pitting edema” up my legs and, when I took it, my blood pressure was 165/135. I called the Ayurveda doctor and told him that I needed not only to have the Panchakarma treatment, but I needed a consultation with a doctor as well. He told me how to set it up and I did, indeed, have a consultation with a doctor at the facility. He prescribed herbal tablets and a special type of Panchakarma treatment. Following a very unique (to me) hot oil massage administered by two pleasant, but silent, trained Ayurveda masseuses my BP was 122/82 — totally within normal limits. Would it have come down by itself? Perhaps. But I will tell you that I believe that Ayurveda medicine belongs in our armamentarium for health care, not illness care. I was very appreciative of the opportunity.
Oh, by the way, Bert had a very sore point on his knee which has been getting steadily more painful ever since we began spending hours and hours in cramped cars where he cannot stretch his leg out and planes which are the same. He, too, had both a consultation and a Panchakarma treatment. His knee is vastly improved: there is no pain unless he presses really hard on the spot. My therapeutic intervention: “Don’t press the spot!”
We came home, showered and showered and showered (very oily oil!) and went out to dinner, then home and bed for Bert, computer for me.
Day42: July 23, 2006
We were invited today to lunch with a friend of the amazingly well-connected Dr. B. M. Hegde who is the former head of India’s equivalent of the FBI and currently a top advisor to the government on legal and human rights!
He and his grown son entertained us at their lovely, gracious home (guarded by a man with a rifle) and we talked about Codex, of course, but we also talked about the unity of goodness in all religions and sincere paths to God. We saw photos of this man with gurus, divines like the Dali Lama and other world spiritual leaders. He is a complexly simple (or simply complex) man of insight and great penetration of intellect who immediately saw the impact of Codex and invited us to present at a meeting on July 29th where the program is already set, of course, but where he will make about 20 minutes available to allow us to introduce the Codex issue to the audience. He, too, wants us to speak at a much larger meeting when we come back in January. We said we would.
The home cooked South Indian food was delicious, eaten with the right hand and not at all spicy. But the subtle blending of taste was fantastic.
We said goodbye to this gentleman and his son, nodded goodbye to the man with the rifle and drove off. As we went, we saw a beautiful complex labeled “Indian Handicrafts Exposition” which looked exceptionally nice. We asked the taxi driver to stop thinking we would spend an hour there. Four hours later we left having seen handicrafts and treasures old and new of a quality rarely seen outside of a museum. We could not afford anything, but we did make a new friend: the Senior Manager with whom we had an almost identical discussion about the same things we talked about over lunch. He, like India’s former “Top Cop” looks at life from a deeply holistic and spiritual perspective. His religion guides him to devotion in every act and an understanding of the unity through which good comes into the world without demanding that any one religion be followed while being deeply devout in his own religion. These two men provided us with pretty profound discussions on the depth of man’s good in the face of the world’s evil. And they are, by the way, members of different religions. Is this a shared personal reality or a typically Indian view? We do not know enough Indians to say, but all of the people we have talked to here have said pretty much the same thing on the topic and, unlike the US, they bring the topic up early and often, but with gentle interest, not fanaticism.
Then a quick dinner, many phone conferences and preparation for tomorrow’s extraordinary event. Stay tuned!
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Today is a particularly auspicious day since teachers are honored today all over India.
Whether they are spiritual teachers or technical ones today belongs to them. I was not only honored by being introduced by Dr. Hegde at the college of which he is the Emeritus Dean, but also honored by being asked to deliver the 2006 Keshava Pai Memorial Oration on the “Future of Medicine” which I did with great pleasure. This annual oration keeps the memory of the beloved founder of the institution alive. Dr. Hegde’s leadership of Natural Solutions Foundation – India was announced to his institution.
Then I told the audience of medical students, faculty and very senior faculty that the future of medicine was at a point of bifurcation: In one future, untold numbers of people, in rank according to their underlying nutritional vulnerability, would die with or without medications of the chronic degenerative diseases identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the “non communicable diseases of under nutrition”, cancers, diabetes, stroke, heart attack, etc. In the other future, safe, clean, natural and unadulterated food was available to the people of India and the world and dietary supplements and herbs were valuable tools with which to gain, regain and maintain optimal health.
I urged each of them to become a source of light and information, guidance and force for natural choices in spite of the fact that they had been taught that there was a pill for every ill and, increasingly, an ill for every pill.
The first future track, I believe, is the one we will face if Codex Alimentarius is not reigned in and corrected, error by error, country by country. It is a future in which countless people will suffer untold disease and death which is totally preventable and therefore unnecessary if their food and health options are not protected and if Optimum Health is not the goal of Codex and of their country. I explained the globalization of the food supply and the degradation of the environment and the nutrient load of food through common, but deadly agricultural practices. And I explained the magnitude of starvation and illness without nutrients at effective doses, herbs and other supplements at those same effective doses and the safety and quality of food assured.
The second future is the one that we will live in if every country takes stock of her people’s health needs (whatever the multinational corporate needs might be) and corrects the dangerous and disastrous food-related illness and deaths the negative standards and guidelines of Codex will foist upon nations if they let it.
I also explained that within the threat and danger posed by Codex Alimentarius lies the seed of the new medical paradigm (which contains within it the old one: that health and well being reside in clean, unadulterated food, healthy living and exercise and nutrients and herbs given to people based on their individual needs) all focused on preventing illness and, when it does occur, finding and curing the underlying cause of that illness. In other words, the second path is toward Whole Person Healing.
At the conclusion of the lecture, several things happened. First, the grandson of the Founder of the College, Dr. Pai, graciously presented me with a gold medal commemorating the oration. That was really cool!
The second thing that happened was a lively exchange with questions that were dynamic and forward moving. Professor Dr. S. Viswanathan, MB, BS, MD, DGO, PG Dip Yoga, Professor and Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Deputy Medical Superintendant, Rajah Muthiah Medical College Hospital and Director of the Center for Yoga Studies, Annamalai University, Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu asked what we must do to bring about the pro health changes in India. I answered that enacting what I call the “Codex two step” regarding the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline (which is laid out in the Codex was the best place to start and he agreed that he would begin there. I was surprised, delighted and nearly breathless when Dr. Hegde, a man who lets no grass grow beneath his feed, announced to me that he had asked Dr. Viswanathan to accept the position of Chairman of Natural Solutions Foundation –Tamil Nadu.
I had to be reminded that Tamil Nadu is one of India’s Sates so Dr. Viswanathan is the first of the State level units for the Natural Solutions Foundation which Dr. Hegde is building for health and health freedom’s sake in India.
We are in the land of ancient medical wisdom here in India. The best known in the West is Ayurveda, a system in which food is specifically used as an individualized medicine every bit as important as herbs, prayer, and other influences. We were delighted to be driven to several really exciting places: Alva’s Ayurveda facilities: a magnificent herbarium containing a vast array of traditional healing plants, an Ayurveda pharmaceutical company (Alva) whose products are made in the traditional ways and are certified Organic, Alva’s treatment facilities and their Hospital. We were also able to meet their gifted and inspired chairman at their new Ayurvedic Medical School and were invited back to present to the school next January. We will be there!
Although herbs were “given” to the WTO, you will remember that our lawyers tell us that the active compounds and complexes in herbs actually still fall under the dominion of Codex where a nutrient related adverse event is “any change in a bio marker”. If India does not protect her natural system of health, Codex threatens it in a major way. Thus, the importance of enlisting this community of interest is obvious. And enlist it we are doing.
In the evening, after a much needed shower (hot, humid, sticky, gooey weather does not make for good party wear) we attended a gathering given by Dr. Hegde on the occasion of his physician-daughter’s visit from the US to her family home here in Mangalore. Dozens of men and women gathered to mix and mingle. They uniformly impressed me with their open mindedness, their intelligence and their interest in the Codex problem. We talked, ate and mingled with supportive, creative and positive professionals who all wanted to know what they could do to help. It’s hard not to love that kind of gathering! AND the food was spectacular in the buffet we all selected from: vegetarian on one long table and non-veg on another. I ate some of each. It was all fantastic.
One of the problems in this trip is that I will no longer be able to go to the Indian restaurants in the US and Europe which I used to enjoy now that I have eaten real Indian food!
Dr. Hegde sent an email notifying us that we had been on 5 Indian TV stations with the Natural Solutions Foundation message. Not only that, The Hindu ran an article 3 days before we arrived. Things are definitely heating up here. Now we will go to at least 2, possibly 3, more cities in India to lecture on the issues at hand.
Stay tuned!
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
July 10, 2006
We were picked up and taken to the Mangalore Press Club where photographers, journalists and TV crews were waiting for us. Dr. Hegde gave an oration which held everyone in the room rapt except us: we did not understand the Indian language in which he delivered it. So we were introduced by an enthusiastic colleague who set the stage for us … but we could not see the stage setting since it was in a language we do not speak. General Stubblebine introduced our topic, health and health freedom, and our mission here in India and then I spoke. The first thing I told the press was that we deeply honored by Dr. Hegde’s decision to accept the Chairmanship of Natural Solutions Foundation – India and that by having such a distinguished health freedom fighter head our foundation in India we were strengthened and guided by a brilliant and wise man.
I then discussed both the problem (multinational anti-health decisions at Codex and country levels) and the solution (the International Strategy supported by legal opinion and our new Codex White Paper on what Codex really requires of nations (soon to be available on www.HealthFreedomUSA.org). The cameras were grinding and flashing and the reporters were writing madly. Afterwards we took questions for quite a while and departed. By the way, NOT air conditioned. The Hindu, a national paper, had already run a major article on the Natural Solutions Foundation mission in the context of the international food quality and choice problems and the International Strategy which we bring to interested countries. Following the press conference, footage appeared on at least 5 TV stations in support of our information and mission. We were thrilled.
Lunch was at a lovely restaurant which has a delightful and varied buffet. While enjoying a lovely salad, I looked down and saw that an uninvited guest, and a pretty large one at that, had come to join us on, not at, our table: a shiny sub-continent sized cockroach!
After we changed tables (did that really help or was it primarily psychological?) the Buffet Chef came out to meet us. He is a graduate of a technical college with a BA in Catering Technology and Hotel Management. We told him about Codex and pointed out that every chef in India should care about the loss of nutrients in food, contamination of the food supply and the degradation of health which it will lead to. He immediately “grocked” it and said that he would share the information on our website with his class, with his schoolmates, etc.
This committed young man pointed out, as everyone does here in India whom we have spoken to, that healthy food is a foundation stone of the Ayurveda way of health and life. Food IS medicine and medicine includes food. Contaminated food will degrade Ayurveda’s power to treat and cure all maladies and diseases and therefore it is a matter of Indian national pride and patriotism to maintain her food supply, and traditional medicines, for her posterity. When we pointed out that according to our reading of Codex, although herbs were “given” to WHO at the suggestion of Dr. Beth Yettley, the US Codex Delegate when too many countries were objecting to treating all herbs as untested drugs, the active molecules and complexes still fall under Codex and, because of that, they are subject to the WHO-supplied definition of a nutrient-related adverse event: “any change in a bio marker” he was appropriately horrified. Herbs are the birth right of his countrymen and the great Indian traditions must be protected, he said.
Then we did a little [very wet] wandering and went back to the club for dinner and hours and hours of email. By the time I got my computer plugged in I was falling asleep there in that hot, cramped mosquito “breedery”!
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
July 8, 2006 We left early in the day for the Geneva airport so that we could catch a Lufthansa flight to Frankfort and change planes to Bombay, now called Mumbai, India, overnight and then catch a morning plane for Mangalore where we would meet Dr. B. M. Hegde, a great friend of Natural Medicine and, we were told, someone who would vigorously champion the cause.
The day before, I had prudently checked in by phone for the reservation and been told that the reservation had been cancelled and there was no such number in the computer, anyway. Well, since the tickets had already been paid for and we really wanted to get to Mangalore to be met by Dr. Hegde’s person, this was not happy news. I called the US, spoke with our travel agent and was told that the reservation (and flight) had a United number, not a Lufthansa one although the flight was operated by the German airline. Huh? Anyway, after a transatlantic call, we got a new reservation number and set off to the airport with trepidation. As it turned out, the new number did the trick and off we flew.
While we were waiting for our flight to Bombay, a lady from the Nigerian delegation approached us and said that our presentation and information had intrigued her greatly and that, since she is close to retirement from government service, she would like to work with us full time when she makes that changes! Sounds like a winner to us and we will work on it as the time approaches.
Then on to the plane and off for India. But, about 4 hours into the flight, lo and behold, the very same thing that happened the week before on the Lufthansa flight out of Lagos, Nigeria happened again: I was (this time for the second time in my life) violently ill. I have no clue. It passed (literally) and I was a bit wobbly but fine.
When we got to Bombay at 1:10 AM we had to collect our bags (1:50 AM) and drag them to customs (2:15 AM) where they were cleared (2:25 AM) and then we got to drag them to JetAir, the connecting airline, stand in line and finally speak to an agent (2:45 AM) who took them. We found the driver from the hotel we were spending a few hours in (2:55 AM) and reached the hotel which we were to leave at 7:30 AM to get back on a plane (3:10 AM). No reservation was waiting for us. So we finally (3:45 AM) said that we would leave a credit card impression for the charge (already paid by the airline since the room was included in our ticket, we were told) and get to bed (4:15 AM). I guess it was a nice hotel: who can remember?
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director