But that wasn't all. As I researched magnetic technology, I found that there were literally hundreds of articles in medical journals around the world talking about the benefits of magnetic therapy. While most had been published overseas, some were also in U.S. medical journals. Although the researchers did not all agree on how magnets worked, they all agreed on the potential benefits magnetic therapy offered.

After all those years of pain and desperation, I finally found something that actually seemed to work. But with all the evidence, why hadn't my doctors suggested I look into such an alternative long ago? Why had I been allowed to suffer? Why did my own physician dismiss Neal's relatives out of hand as quacks, without taking the time to learn anything about what they had recommended? The simple answer is that there was too much at stake.

The medical establishment had to dismiss alternative therapies. If an inexpensive, self-administered, natural treatment or therapy existed for a condition, what need was there for regular doctor visits? What need was there for expensive medicines and costly surgery? My eyes were opened in a way I could never imagine. I became a woman with a mission: to help others as I had been helped. Helping people who thought they were beyond help became the source of my greatest satisfaction. But what I did not expect, could not expect, is that it would also ultimately be the cause of my husband's current problem.

Convinced of the value that magnetic technology had as a therapeutic modality, I wanted to share what I had learned through personal experience and research with others. And so, I established a business to help market the products I had found so effective.

It was sheer joy to see others gain the same benefits that had given me a new lease on life. As the business grew, however, my travel schedule became more and more hectic. So much so that my husband decided to close down his own company after 25 years of service to the microwave industry and begin to support me in my new enterprise. It was an exciting time for us, as we came to know and understand the seemingly unlimited new vistas of human health and well being that innovative, alternative therapies could open.

The world seemed perfect, building a business I loved with my husband Neal, the man I loved, by my side. I guess my enthusiasm was infectious, because Neal, too, developed an interest in innovative medicine. Always a scholar, he held degrees in physics and law, Neal became an avid reader on the subject. For the first time in more years than I could count, I was at peace. In this idyllic moment, I could hardly have imagined that dark clouds were gathering on the horizon. But as 1996 opened, a storm was brewing, a storm that continues to this moment.

It all began innocently enough. Neal and I were at a meeting concerning innovative medical technologies when we were introduced to Allen Hoffman. Several years earlier, while visiting a medical clinic in Pennsylvania, Hoffman explained, he had run across a number of old medical journals. Several of them included articles discussing experiments where highly concentrated aloe vera had been administered to patients with HIV infections. According to these journal articles, the results were remarkable. All of the patients had shown marked improvement. Yet Big Medicine continues to use every effort even today to keep this information from the general public.