Section I

Changing Perspectives

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Looking Through A Telescope

In my newsletter, Health & Healing, I often challenge current paradigms, or beliefs in medicine. I want to facilitate true medical progress that will benefit everyone. That is difficult, not just because it requires a change of thinking, but also because when a paradigm is scrapped, so are the institutions that were built upon it.

For instance, the civilized world functioned adequately for hundreds of years with the belief that the earth was flat. Businesses, and even mapmakers flourished. But then Galileo and a handful of others looked through a telescope and saw round planets in orbit in the heavens. They knew instantly that the flat-earth paradigm was wrong—but it took close to 200 years and much suffering on their part for society to accept the reality of a round earth.

I want to report the rupture of the Down syndrome paradigm—the belief that children with Down syndrome are born retarded because of a genetic abnormality, and that there’s no treatment for it. Like the "flat-earth" paradigm, our current Down syndrome paradigm is wrong. You see, children with Down syndrome are not born retarded, they become retarded. In fact, many aspects of the syndrome, including the flattened forehead and narrow, slanted eyes, could be vastly improved with early treatment, preferably starting in the mother’s uterus.

And who ruptured this paradigm? Some university professor? Some expert on Down syndrome? No. It was Dixie Tafoya, a housewife trying to fight for her daughter’s future. And that, my friends, is a big part of this story. This energetic, no-nonsense woman ran an adoption agency for handicapped children and, fully knowing what she was doing, Dixie adopted an eight-week old girl with Down syndrome, whom she named Madison.

Dixie’s routine for changing diapers always ended with a playful rub of Madison’s stomach. One morning, when Madison was eight months old, a fatigued Dixie said to her, "Well, honey, I’m tired, you’re going to have to rub your stomach yourself." And Madison did just that.

It hit Dixie like a ton of bricks. She realized that her daughter was not retarded, and that if she wasn’t retarded, she would develop retardation. If this was the case, there had to be something that could slow it down or stop it! In a modest bedroom in rural Louisiana, Dixie Tafoya "looked through the telescope," and in spite of what everyone "knew," she saw perfectly round planets. With that insight, she jumped light years ahead of all the "experts."

Dixie had a mission. It was not that of a scientist seeking some universal truth with hopes of a Nobel Prize along the way. It was not fame, fortune, or notoriety. Dixie was simply a mother determined to save her baby daughter from a life of retardation and illness. She knew that if she didn’t do it, nobody else would—and that she didn’t have much time. Dixie read books, did research at the medical library, and bought a computer. Over the next two years, Dixie learned more about Down syndrome than most of the experts knew at that time. In her kitchen and for

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her daughter only, Dixie devised a specific nutritional support therapy. As she learned more through experience and research, she added to the program.

The results with Madison were remarkable. Within six months of starting therapy, Madison lost her "rag doll" feel when picked up. Today Madison is a thriving, healthy and happy nine-year-old, who not only is not lagging behind her peers, she is a leader of her peers. As Dixie says, "My child depends on me. She deserves everything I can do to give her a normal life, and just because it may be difficult, it’s certainly no reason not to do it."

Folks, the "flat-earth" paradigm of Down syndrome has been ruptured, and like Humpty Dumpty, can never be put back together again. The time has arrived for society, as well as the medical community, to take a look through that telescope.

Julian Whitaker, M.D., editor of Health & Healing, has practiced medicine for 20 years, after receiving degrees from Dartmouth College and Emory University. Dr. Whitaker has long been an adovcate of living a healthy life. Over the last 20 years, thousands of patients from all over the country have come to the Whitaker Wellness Institute in Newport Beach, California. Dr. Whitaker is the author of five major health books. These books and information about the Whitaker Wellness programs are available from Whitaker Wellness Institute at 714-851-1550.

Reprinted by permission.

Robert Tafoya (5) and Madison Lawrence (7)