Q: I am a dermatologist by training but I have begun an exciting exploration and discovery into using and prescribing natural remedies. I was buying a supply of lipoic acid from BioTech at a nutritional medicine conference and saw your book on D-Mannose. I have suffered with cystitis for 30 years and have recently used uva ursi tea to get relief. As I am producing less estrogen, the bouts have become more frequent and refractory.

Summer’s coming. All around America, children will be out of school, playing around the neighborhood, going to summer camps, vacationing with Mom and Dad, visiting Grandma and Grandpa…and not be crippled or dying from polio.

It’s an all-too-familiar dilemma for many people in the summer: You head outdoors into the sunshine with the expectation of a golden tan only to retreat indoors a few hours later looking like a boiled lobster. In several days’ time, your lobster shell peels away leaving you once again with a complexion that has come to be known “affectionately” as “pasty white.”

The endless pursuit to relieve pain has become a big business. So when the chemist working for Bayer developed aspirin out of salicylic acid derived from willow bark, he struck gold.

The days are getting longer, the weather is getting warmer, and the dermatologists and sunscreen salesmen are getting down to business with their annual chorus. Like the best of self-proclaimed “saviors,” they threaten us with Skin Cancer Hell if we “sin” by exposing our bodies to the Great Sun Satan.

IN THIS ISSUE: Toss your sunscreen and step out of the shadows!; From herbs to drugs and back to herbs: Willow bark for pain relief comes full circle; Never say never: You can get a tan-and still avoid sunburn-with a few simple nutrients; Polio is deadly-the vaccine shouldn’t be!; Cystitis relief in as little as 24 hours with D-mannose;