Features
Destroying a good name

A trend that has always caused concern among far-thinking men is the trend toward encroachment upon the processes of justice, whereby various non-judicial agencies or officers accuse, try, convict, and impose penalties without what we have come to call “due process of law.” But there is another type of poaching upon the judicial process which is even more prevalent and persistent—and that is the judgment which malicious and irresponsible people sometimes presume to pronounce upon the character and qualifications of other people. Often in whispers, cowardly accusers try and condemn a man without any evidence except gossip or hearsay or their own prejudiced opinions, and often without the accused ever having known that he was on trial.

The word of the Scripture is positive in its injunction against unjust judgment: “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” This cannot mean, of course, that a man cannot be called to account for his conduct when fairly judged by those whose place it is to judge. But there are those who, because of some real or imagined slight, or jealousy, or envy, or prejudice, or because of the perverted pleasure of gossiping, are given to destroying the peace and effectiveness, the influence and reputation of others. The fact is that if we are looking for it, we can find offense against any man.
We can cut down the stature of any man in the estimation of others by minimising his virtues and magnifying his faults, or we can build up any man in the minds of others by magnifying his virtues and minimising his faults. But the scandalmongers and the gossips so often ignore the real and genuinely fine things about life and people and concentrate on the blemishes. And in the eyes of a jealous or prejudiced observer, anyone may be weighed and found wanting. People who are loose and malicious in their judgment of others are the instigators of more mischief and more misunderstanding than can be calculated. There isn’t any home or any heart that is proof against them. To sit in the judgment seat with malicious intent or with irresponsible thoughtlessness is a flagrant offence against humanity. “With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.”

In three lines of flawless poetry, Alexander Pope portrays how gossip is passed from person to person:
And all who told it added something new,
And all who heard it made enlargements too;
In ev’ry ear it spread, on ev’ry tongue it grew.”
If we haven’t considered the subject seriously, we may suppose that there is no harm in the idle telling of tales. At least it keeps up conversation. In fact, we may go so far as to ask as one person did: “If gossiping is such a besetting sin, why isn’t it covered by the commandments?” It is a good question, and there is a good answer: It is covered by the commandments.
As we recall, there is a commandment that reads, “Thou shalt not bear false witness”—and a very considerable part of all whispering and taletelling does bear false witness, if not by actual word, at least by innuendo; and if not at first, at least by the colour that is added in passing it from person to person. Often there can be more deadly malice in an unkind comment that passes behind hands or in the whispered venom that infectiously spreads from ear to ear than in an open accusation.
In Much Ado About Nothing Shakespeare tells of an innocent victim “done to death by slanderous tongues.” As far back as the memory of man goes, as far back as the record is written, reputations have been riddled by the loose lips of people who pass on what they hear, plus what they make up or what they imagine. And almost always they seek to establish their own innocence by saying that someone else said that it was so. “‘They say so’ is half a lie,” wrote Thomas Fuller. Perhaps all of us have asked ourselves: “Who is this ‘they’?” Whoever “they” are, “they” have much to answer for. “They” start most of the malicious rumours. If the truth is too tame, “they” add colour to suit themselves. And when “they”, are finally identified, and when justice is finally done, “they” will no doubt have to pay a price for every irresponsible word they ever uttered to the injury of others.
Email: samueleghan@gmail.com
By Samuel Enos Eghan
Features
Attempts to kill natural therapy?

Anyone who has the devil’s benediction of getting sick of diabetes and jaundice at the same time would surely blame an experienced witch for his or her palaver. Fact is, the combination is a dreaded one with the form and visage of an obituary.
The bio-chemical analysis of the unholy combination is, however, within arm’s reach. Diabetes doesn’t tolerate sugar and jaundice can’t get cured without glucose (sugar). The two diseases are therefore irreconcilable under any medical condition. They are just not of the same womb!
So the terrified patient has to choose between two styles of dying: either curing the diabetes or dying of jaundice or curing the jaundice and falling into a diabetic coma en route to a cold room transit. The next available plane is destined for the cemetery, meaning the world no longer has any business to do with you.
Now, forgetting about pathological combinations and narrowing the focus on diabetes, one can still crumble in fear. The reason is that diabetes as a disease is not a benevolent ailment. We can understand this because it has never been philanthropic in any sense of the word. It demands its pound of flesh, and that is often worth a human life.
The problem is that, if you have too much sugar in your blood (hyperglycemia), you risk falling into coma. If your sugar level is also too low, a terrible coma awaits you. You just can’t understand the malevolence associated with the disease so you have to keep a balance.
TREACHERY
I am writing this piece because of the sundry sinister attempts of treachery, overt and covert, being subtly perpetrated to kill Natural Therapy which claims a cure for diabetes. The claim is completely at variance with the assertion of orthodox practitioners who believe that diabetes can only be managed, but can never be cured.
Basically, diabetes occurs when the pancreas is not producing enough insulin to cope with blood sugar, or is not producing insulin at all. The result is a debilitating disease with several complications that can lead to death.
To combat the disease, one has to be put on diaonil or daily insulin injections supposedly to manage the disease, not to cure it because according to medical gurus, it cannot be cured.
Natural therapists have a different and more progresso-radical view. They say diabetes can be cured and they are proving it every day of the week. Happily, medical doctors who develop diabetes are now coming for natural therapy, albeit under the cover of darkness. Today, there are many living testimonies of a natural therapy cure for the deadly ailment.
I was really sad about a silly attempt to frustrate the efforts of a well-known Texas-trained naturopathic physician who has toned down the orthodox medical chorus that diabetes is not cur-able. Many of his patients who had been on insulin for years before seeing him are off it.
The medical crusade is a veritable one, and the good news is being propagated by those who have seen the light. Dr Kwesi Ofei-Agyemang’s success story is one that needs to be told from the roof-tops. But ask me, how is he being frustrated?
On October 28, 1996, a diabetic patient of Dr Ofei-Agyemang had her sugar level checked. It was 6.1 mmo1/1. After treatment using naturopathic methods, she became well and was asked to check her sugar level again at a laboratory (name withheld) on 6-11- 96. Surprisingly, the lab recorded 13.3 mmol/l; meaning that her situation had worsened by far.
When she brought the report, Dr Ofei-Agyemang was sceptical about it. The patient was supposed to have recovered, or at least was recovering. The level could, therefore, not be 13.3. He rushed to the laboratory to demand an explanation.
When Dr Ofei-Agymang queried the report, the technician said he was sorry and added that he’d investigate the error.
Meanwhile at another laboratory where he sent the patient for another test to cross-check the earlier result, the patient’s sugar level recorded a low 2.9 mmo1/1, a correct reflection of her improved state of health.
The doctor was furious for a very good reason. If he had taken the earlier lab report seriously and continued treatment to further reduce the patient’s sugar level, the patient would have sunk into coma and possibly died.
“This is not the first time this is happening,” Dr Ofei-Agyemang told me in an interview last week Friday. When I send my patients for tests, some lab technicians deliberately don’t return the correct results just because they know the patient is attending a natural therapy clinic.
“I see it as a subtle attempt to kill naturopathy in this country aside other hidden strategies that are being adopted to sabotage it. They are all out to create a wrong impression in the minds of patients that they are going to the wrong place for treatment when in fact they are at the right place.”
Other attempts include doctors warning their patients never to submit themselves to natural therapy whenever the patients suggest they want to try it, knowing well that orthodox medicine isn’t helping them.
Look at something else like this one. After Dr Ofei-Agyemang had cured one patient of a disease and placed him on a diet of fruits and vegetables, the patient’s brother (a doctor) advised him to quit the natural diet regimen and to eat plenty of meat and all that has to do with balanced diet.
So the patient quit the natural diet and ate meat to his fill. Before long boils broke out all over his body. Apparently, the body was rejecting the unnatural diet which had become toxic to the body following the spell of natural dieting.
FAILURE
I have been thinking about this diabetic cure controversy for some time now. I was compelled to ask the natural therapist to explain how naturopathy could possibly tread where orthodox medicine has woefully failed as far as a cure to diabetes was concerned.
He explained that a defective pancreas only needs to be revived through selective manipulation, diet and urine therapy to make it function again. If defects in other organs of the body can be corrected, there should be no medical reason why the pancreas should be an exception, he said.
“What other doctors must know is that once our methods are different, our results will naturally be different,” he said. “What they are supposed to be saying in fact is that ‘according to orthodox medicine, there is no cure for diabetes.’ They should stop saying there is no cure for diabetes because we are curing it. If they doubt it they should come here and see things for themselves.
“Our methods are natural and include colon irrigation, deep tissue massage which is more effective than physiotherapy, diet, some fast and manipulation, and urine therapy. There is no way any disease can survive a combination of these methods.
Cancerous sores and all kinds of chronic ailments have been cured, diabetes inclusive.
“We just rejuvenate the dormant pancreas and it starts producing insulin. Unless the pancreas is cut out through surgery as a result of cancer, we have ways of making it work.”
I spoke to one of his patients, Jamison Ocansey. He was sick of diabetes and has been on herbs of all kinds, insulin and dioanil for more than a year. His sugar level fluctuated between 9 to 17 mmo1/c. After treatment, his sugar level is between 5.0 and 5.9 mmol/c.
“People don’t like this method because of the urine that is included in the method of cure,” he said.”I used to feel the same way but as I’m now cured, I’ve an entirely different opinion. Let me also thank your paper Weekly Spectator. It was an article in it that made me come here, so keep spreading the message.
“I used to be very weak and couldn’t walk. Look, now I am as strong as a bull. I eat well and I’m happy.”
The doctor has cured various types of diseases at his clinic which is 100 metres north of Holy Gardens or Lido, Circle, Accra. What I believe would help us all is that the medical authorities should investigate these cures and come out openly to claim or disclaim them.
Those who are off insulin would also give testimony. That way, natural therapy can become more acceptable and there would be no point in anybody trying to frustrate efforts at entrenching it as the better substitute that has no side effects. It should in fact be the ideal complement to orthodox medicine and not an adversary as people want to portray it.
This article was first publish on Saturday, November 16, 1996
Merari Alomele’s
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The problem is that, if you have too much sugar in your blood (hyperglycemia), you risk falling into coma. If your sugar level is also too low, a terrible coma awaits you. You just can’t understand the malevolence associated with the disease so you have to keep a balance.
Features
It is great to be young
If I had the power, I believe I may be tempted to remain a child forever. We used to hear statements it is great to be young when growing up.
I did not really comprehend one anybody would wish to be like me, a small boy and not wish to be an adult like my Dad. Those were the days that the family did not sit around a dining table and your Dad’s meal was set up on a small table at a particular spot in the hall.
When I observed the amount of meat that were given to my Dad and what was given to me, l definitely wanted to grow up quickly to also become an adult. Therefore to hear some adults occasionally declare that it is great to be young, was something I could not understand.
My reasoning was that, adults were enjoying a lot of benefits and so for any adult to even consider the possibility
When I grew up however, I have come to appreciate that saying that indeed, it is great to be young. Growing up as a child, all l looked up to was the next day to come as I go to bed. When I woke up, l had no worries about what I would eat before going to school.
Where the next meal was going to come from was not my concern. All l had to do was to make sure that I go to school, study hard and pass my exams and ensure that I am within the first three, in my class. There was no worrying about school fees, changing of school uniforms or clothes in general, something I cannot run from now as an adult.
I now have to provide for some people now and I can now fully understand my Dad’s comment that it is great to be young.
Christmas time was a very interesting and exciting time as a child because new clothes were provided for me and my siblings. I recall one Christmas period when I was provided with a suit. It was a memorable occasion in my life as it was the first time I wore a suit.
I felt very proud wearing the suit and with my new shoes to match, I felt great walking with my friends as we moved from place to place. When a new academic term begins I always looked forward to having a new school uniform. How much it was going to cost or how it was going to be provided was not my concern at all. It was taken for granted that I will get a new uniform at all cost.
I always had a good night’s sleep with the exception of those days that I was suffering from malaria and I had quite a number of such malaria attacks.
Recently my last born jokingly said “Daddy, do not think that I am not going to take money from you when I grow up oh. Even when I get married and have children, do not think you will be free. I will still collect money from you because you are my father”.
I burst into laughter and said “It is great to be young”. At the moment, her needs are provided by me and until she completes school and starts working, I will continue to provide for her needs. There have been moments that I wish I were a child once again.
I recall an incident involving my little girlie as I affectionately call my last born, when she pushed a piece of chalk into her nostril and we had to take her to the hospital, and wondering how it was going to come out. While her mother and I were worried at the hospital, she did not seem bothered and in that moment I wished I was a child. When the nurses finally got it out, I was so relieved and she was just smiling, obviously not worried as I was. Indeed, it is great to be young.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
By Laud Kissi-Mensah