I find it curious that the Courier Mail has chosen to highlight the relationships Universal Medicine enjoys with the many respected medical practitioners who refer their clients to Universal Medicine practitioners for complementary health services (‘New age ‘medicine’ of Serge Benhayon leaves trail of broken families’, Courier Mail, 8 Sept, 2012).

Elsewhere in the media – in the press, online and on TV ­– an array of journalists have strongly inferred, if not overtly stated, that the services the organisation and its practitioners deliver are nothing short of quackery; sound bites from well-known medical commentators have been used to bolster these claims.

Yet here, the fact that increasing numbers of mainstream medicos are actually choosing to refer clients to Universal Medicine is clearly stated: ‘Universal Medicine… is drawing a growing number of clients to its Brisbane clinic via referrals from eye and lung surgeons, rheumatologists and GPs’. ­And earlier: Universal Medicine is ‘…expanding its… enterprise with the help of Brisbane’s medical mainstream’.

We can infer from these statements that a growing number of doctors actually see merit in the modalities Universal Medicine offers: endorsements that are stunning counterpoints to the portrayals mentioned above.

So which is it to be? Universal Medicine practitioners as new-age quacks; or a Universal Medicine that offers something so significant that doctors and surgeons are now directing their clients to its services?

It seems the Courier Mail, in its haste to deliver a sensationalist piece of weekend news, has been clumsy in its attempt to malign the organisation. It has instead endorsed it.

For more on the medical mainstream that are in support of Universal Medicine see the blog ‘Medicine and Serge Benhayon’.

By Victoria Lister, MBus(Philanthropy & NpSt), Brisbane, Australia