Doctors today commonly assert that they practice "scientific medicine," and patients think that the medical treatments they receive are "scientifically proven." However, this ideal is a dream, not reality, and a clever and profitable marketing ruse, not fact.
The British Medical Journal's "Clinical Evidence" analyzed common medical treatments to evaluate which are supported by sufficient reliable evidence (BMJ, 2007). They reviewed approximately 2,500 treatments and found:
• 13 percent were found to be beneficial
• 23 percent were likely to be beneficial
• Eight percent were as likely to be harmful as beneficial
• Six percent were unlikely to be beneficial
• Four percent were likely to be harmful or ineffective.
• 46 percent were unknown whether they were efficacious or harmful
In the late 1970s, the US government conducted a similar evaluation and found a strikingly similar result. They found that only 10 percent to 20 percent of medical treatment had evidence of efficacy (Office of Technology Assessment, 1978).
Doctors like to point to the "impressive" efficacy of their treatments in real serious diseases, like cancer, and doctors (and drug companies) are emphatic about asserting that anyone or any company that says (or even suggests) that they have a treatment that might help people with cancer are "quacks." However, do they maintain this same standard when evaluating their own treatments? Even a recent issue of Newsweek highlighted the fact that "We Fought Cancer, and Cancer Won" (Begley, 2010). Despite the truly massive amounts of money that doctors, hospitals and drug companies are effectively extracting from patients, employers, insurance companies and governments, we are certainly not getting our money's worth.
Even when there is "proven efficacy of treatment" in studies, the bigger question is how common is this proven efficacy utilized in medical care today? Be prepared to be shocked.
"Quackery" is commonly defined as the use of unproven treatments by individuals or companies who claim fantastic results and who charge large sums of money. Although modern physicians may point their collective finger at various "alternative" or "natural" treatment modalities as examples of quackery, it is conventional medical treatments today that are out-of-this-world expensive, and despite real questionable efficacy of their treatments, doctors give patients the guise of "science."
I certainly realize that many of us have benefited greatly from modern medicine, but I also realize that many of us have been hurt greatly from it too. The challenge for all of us is to determine how can we make modern medicine more "scientific," more effective and more safe. I have previously made clear that my own point of view on this subject is that we must develop a more "integrative model" of medicine and healing and that we should utilize various naturopathic and homeopathic methods as a way to honor the Hippocratic tradition of "First, do no harm."
Sadly, however, it seems that too few doctors understand or respect this Hippocratic dictum.
Today in America, every man, woman, and child is prescribed around 13 prescription drugs per year (and this doesn't count the many over-the-counter drugs that doctors prescribe and that patients take on their own) (Kaiser, 2006). Just 12 years earlier, Americans were on average prescribed less than eight drugs per person, a 62 percent increase! The fact of the matter is that drugs are not tested for approval in conjunction with other drugs, and the safety and efficacy of the use of multiple drugs together remains totally unknown.
This practice of "polypharmacy" is increasing substantially, and Big Pharma is pushing it hard and benefiting from it in a big big way.
According to a 2008 nationwide survey, 29 percent of Americans used at least five prescription medications concurrently (Qato, Alexander, Conti, 2008), while just three years previously, 17 percent took three or more prescription drugs (Medscape, 2005). Even conservative publications such as Scientific American can no longer deny the increasing serious problems from pharmaceuticals. A recent article highlighted the fact that there has been a 65 percent increase in drug overdoses leading to hospitalization or death just in the past seven years (Harmon, 2010).
Are Our Children and Elders Safe? Not at all.
We all want drugs given to infants to be as safe as possible, but mothers and fathers will be surprised and perhaps shocked to know that very few drugs are ever tested on infants. A 2007 study of over 350,000 children found that a shocking 78.7 percent of children in hospitals are prescribed drugs that the FDA has not even approved for use in children (Shah, Hall, Goodman, et al, 2007). If this isn't shocking enough, a survey in England found that 90 percent of infants were prescribed drugs that were not tested for safety or efficacy in infants (Conroy, McIntyre, Choonara, 1999).
There is almost a 350 percent increase in adverse drug reactions in children prescribed an off-label drug than children who were prescribed a drug that had been tested for safety and efficacy (Horen, Montastruc, and Lapeyre-mestre, 2002). Doctors are committing "medical child abuse" on a regular basis (I wrote a more detailed article about this subject, here).
An even stronger case can be made for the epidemic of "elder medical abuse" due to the much larger number of drugs prescribed to and for our senior citizens. It is no wonder that so many of them have become mental zombies, while Big Pharma profits big time and insurance companies simply raise their rates.
If we were living a lot longer and the quality of our lives was improved by medical care, one could make a case for why today's medical care is providing more benefits than problems, but this is simply not true.
Although we are commonly told that we are living longer than ever now, this is simply a clever, even tricky, use of statistics. The fact of the matter is that there has been a considerable reduction in deaths during the first five years of life ... and this reduction in deaths has resulted primarily from a medicinal agent called "soap," not from the use of any specific conventional pharmaceutical agent.
Ultimately, an American who was 40 years old in 1900 and an American who was 40 years old in 1960 has a similar chance of living to 80 years old today.
Big Pharma, Big Bucks, and the Guise of Science
Adherents of conventional medicine have consistently asserted that its methods are scientifically verified, and they have ridiculed other methods that are suggested to have therapeutic or curative effects. In fact, conventional physicians have consistently worked to disallow competitors, even viciously attacking those in their own profession who have questioned conventional treatments or provided alternative modalities. More recently, medical organizations simply work with insurance companies to help them determine what should and shouldn't get reimbursed, a clever way to kill competition bloodlessly.
And yet, strangely enough, whatever has been in vogue in conventional medicine in one decade has been declared ineffective, dangerous and sometimes barbaric in the ensuing decades. Surprisingly, despite this pattern in history, proponents and defenders of "scientific medicine" tend to have little or no humility, continually asserting that today's cure is truly effective ... and in any case, strongly asserting that any "alternatives" to this ever-changing treatment are quackery, sheer quackery, whether they know anything about these alternative treatment modalities or not.
The good news about conventional medicine and one of its remarkable features for which it should be honored is its history of consistently and repeatedly disproving its own treatments. The fact that only a handful of conventional drugs have survived 30 or more years is strong testament to the fact that conventional medicine is honorable enough to acknowledge its mistakes. But then again, because drug patents only last for a certain limited period of time, there are real substantial benefits when drugs have a relatively short lifespan. Big Pharma can charge big money during this time-frame, and then, let go of it when it goes off-patent, at which time a new, high-priced drug is conveniently developed to replace it. Like the fashion industry, medical fashion changes with rapidity, supporting a powerful economic arms race.
In 2002, the combined profits ($35.9 billion) of the 10 largest drug companies in the Fortune 500 were more than the combined profits ($33.7 billion) of the remaining 490 companies together (Angell, 2004, 11).
The only reason these drug companies did not maintain this shocking financial advantage is that the oil companies' profits have increased considerably with the Iraq War, thus raising the 490 non-drug companies' profits slightly higher. But then again, one would assume that the profits of 490 of the largest companies in the world would be substantially more than just 10 companies in one commercial field.
This economic information is important, even essential, because learning how to separate the "science" of medicine from the business of medicine has never been more difficult. The combined efforts of the drug companies and the medical profession, which together may be called the "medical-industrial complex," have been wonderfully effective in convincing consumers worldwide that modern medicine is the most scientific discipline that has ever existed.
Physicians today rarely run drug companies. Instead, businessmen run them. It is, therefore, not surprising that Marcia Angell, MD, a Harvard professor of medicine and former editor of the famed New England Journal of Medicine, wrote:
Over the past two decades the pharmaceutical industry has moved very far from its original high purpose of discovering and producing useful new drugs ... Now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit, this industry uses its wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, including the US Congress, the FDA, academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself. (Levi, 2006)
There is big big money to be made in drug sales, and brilliant marketing has led too many of us to ignore or excuse this bully side of medicine.
The New York Times recently uncovered the fact that Pfizer admitted to paying $20 million in the last six months of 2009 alone to 4,500 doctors to "consultation" and to speak on their behalf (and this doesn't include payments to doctors outside of the US) (Duff, 2010). It seems to be time to stop calling them "drug companies" and call them "drug pushers."
Yes, a gorilla is in the house, but anyone who refers to him as a gorilla is usually called a quack or a crank. This gorilla was not born yesterday; he has been growing for generations. A part of his self-defense propensities is to eliminate competing forces, whether the other side seeks cooperation or not. Any competitive force is frequently and soundly attacked.
The history of homeopathy shows this dark side of medicine. From 1860 to the early 20th century, the AMA had a consultation clause in its code of ethics that members were not allowed to consult with a medical doctor who practiced homeopathy and weren't even allowed to treat a homeopath's patients. At a time in medical history when doctors bloodlet their patients to death and regularly prescribed mercury and various caustic agents to sick people, the only action that the AMA considered reprehensible and actionable was the "crime" of consulting with a homeopath.
In fact, the entire Medical Society of New York was kicked out of the AMA in 1881 simply because this state's medical organization admitted into its membership any medical doctors who utilized homeopathic medicines, no matter what their academic credentials were. They only rejoined the AMA 25 years later (Walsh, 1907, 207).
This King Kong, however, is not a monster to everyone. In fact, this big gorilla is wonderfully generous to executives, to large sales and marketing forces, to supportive politicians and to the media from whom he buys substantial amounts of advertising (and thus, an incredible amount of positive media coverage). And this gorilla is wonderfully generous to stockholders. While it may seem inappropriate to criticize profits, it is important and appropriate to do so when profits are unbelievably excessive, when long-term efficacy hasn't stood the test of time, and when common use of more than one drug at a time is rarely if ever scientifically tested for efficacy.
Although these observations just mentioned may seem harsh and offensive to some people, they are made with the concurrent acknowledgment that most of us know someone whose life was saved or at least whose health was significantly restored by conventional medical treatments. I myself am the son of a fabulous father who was a physician and insulin-dependent diabetic. In other words, I would not be alive today if it were not for some important conventional medical discoveries such as insulin.
We should not "throw the baby out with the bathwater," nor do we want to ignore the bathwater in which we place our babies. Most of us also know someone whose health has been seriously hurt, or whose life was cut short, by modern medical treatments.
Drug companies defend their large profits by asserting that they spend tremendous amounts of money on research and development, but they tend to hide the fact that they spend approximately three times more money on marketing and administration. And the obscenely high profits of the drug companies take into account all known expenses. Ultimately, drug companies are wonderfully creative in convincing us all that their drug treatments are "scientific," and too many of us actually believe them.
It is therefore important to understand what is truly meant when drug companies and the media assert that drugs are "scientifically proven."(to be discussed in PART II)
(NOTE: This article focuses on the issue of the amount of "science" in medical care today. I predict that many commenters below will choose to attack me or the subject of homeopathy, even though THIS is not the subject of this article. I sincerely hope that commenters will stick to the subject at hand. For those of you who wish to comment on homeopathic medicine research, I urge you to do so at articles on that subject.)
References
Angell, M. The Truth about Drug Companies. New York: Random House, 2004. This fact is extremely startling, but the source is reputable: Marcia Angell, MD, is former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Begley, Sharon. "We Fought Cancer, and Cancer Won," Newsweek, September 15, 2008. http://www.newsweek.com/id/157548
BMJ, 2007. http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/index.jsp; http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp
Conroy S, McIntyre J, Choonara I. Unlicensed and off label drug use in neonates. Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition 1999;80:F142-F145. doi:10.1136/fn.80.2.F142
Consumer Reports, "High Anxiety." January 1993, 19-24.
Darwin, F. (ed.). The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1903.
Dima M. Qato; G. Caleb Alexander; Rena M. Conti; Michael Johnson; Phil Schumm; Stacy Tessler Lindau. "Use of Prescription and Over-the-counter Medications and Dietary Supplements Among Older Adults in the United States." JAMA. 2008;300(24):2867-2878. http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/300/24/2867
Horen B, Montastruc JL, and Lapeyre-mestre M. "Adverse drug reactions and off-label drug use in paediatric outpatients." Br J Clin Pharmacol. 54(6); Dec 2002, 665-670. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2125.2002.t01-3-01689.x.
Harmon K. Prescription Drug Deaths Increase Dramatically, Scientific American. April 6, 2010. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=prescription-drug-deaths
Kaiser Family Foundation, Prescription Drug Trends, June 2006. http://www.kff.org/rxdrugs/upload/3057-05.pdf
InfoPlease.com. www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004393.html, 2007.
"Levi, R. Science Is for Sale," Skeptical Inquirer, July/August 2006, 30:4, 44-46.
Medscape, More Americans Take Prescription Medication. May 3, 2005.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/500164
Office of Technology Assessment, 1978. http://www.fas.org/ota/reports/7805.pdf
"Roberts, W. H. Orthodoxy vs. homeopathy: Ironic developments following the Flexner Report at the Ohio State University," Bulletin on the History of Medicine, Spring 1986, 60:1, 73-87.
Shah SS, Hall M, Goodman DM, et al. "Off-label Drug Use in Hospitalized Children." Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2007;161(3):282-290.
Walsh, J. J. History of the Medical Society of the State of New York. New York: Medical Society of the State of New York, 1907.
Wilson, Duff. Pfizer Gets Details on Payments to Doctors, New York Times, March 31, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/business/01payments.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Dana Ullman, MPH, is America's leading spokesperson for homeopathy and is the founder of www.homeopathic.com. He is the author of 10 books, including his bestseller, Everybody's Guide to Homeopathic Medicines. His most recent book is, The Homeopathic Revolution: Why Famous People and Cultural Heroes Choose Homeopathy. Dana lives, practices, and writes from Berkeley, California.
Follow Dana Ullman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/HomeopathicDana
Homeopathy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Home | National Center for Homeopathy
Homeopathy: An Introduction [NCCAM Backgrounder]
Hpathy.com: No.1 Homeopathy Medicine Portal 4 Homeopathic Remedies ...
ScienceDirect - Homeopathy, Volume 99, Issue 1, Pages 1-88 ...
homeopathy - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com
Until doctors learn to be discerning and the powers of drug companies are curbed, the medical profession should be restricted to trauma surgery and acute emergency medication. Even then, especially then, antioxidants and good food should be a mandatory part of any traumatic or toxic trsatment.
George Henderson complains about the drug companies "forc[ing] their poison onto the helpless." So what does he propose? "Even then, especially then, antioxidants and good food should be a -----mandatory----- part of any traumatic or toxic treatment."
Mr. Henderson might want to change his script for future comments.
But the proponents of alternative medicine clearly show errorneous logical thinking when they then conclude that alternative medicine therefore must be working or is the replacement of working, scientific medicine (the one has errors, so the other must be right).
Before bringing up the number of deaths related to the healthcare system (nobody denies that being tragic and it needs to be addressed): it should also be considered, how many people would have died of illnesses if not treated at all or only with alternative medicine? Raising false hopes within people which then eventually reject working medical care in light of treatable illnesses is dangerous and has cost lives in the past as well.
Why haven't the alternative medicines been picked up by MD's like wildfire 60 years ago or earlier, when there was no global market like today and mega-corporations of today's dimension? To my mind the conspiracy-like argument of profit-mad pharma companies suppresing alternatives does not apply.
The major issue: if the premise of homeopathy, memory of water, is physically not possible for what it is supposed to do (nanoseconds), the whole claim is null and void and every following assertions blatant lies, thus needs to be absent of any medical treatment.
If one person dies because of bad advice from an alternative practitioner, the doctors are up in arms and everyone hears about it from the media. Thousands are killed or crippled by doctors every week and they have little or nothing to say. Which do you think is the real problem?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/2010427/ap_on_bi_ge/us_doj_astrazeneca
www.katu.com/news/business/92203094.html
http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/27/news/companies/astrazeneca_settlement_seroquel.index.htm?section=money_latest
As an aside, the UK political pressure/"skeptic" group (registered as a charity) known to actively attack homeopathy received 30,000 pounds from Astra Zeneca.
Care to provide a reference?
lff
But first let me note that this is the same bunch of good folks who wrote to five departments of WHO, excerpted sentences from the responses and crafted them into one letter which they then presented to the BBC as an official statement from WHO against homeopathy. And this is just a few years after WHO formally recognized homeopathy.
"The health fraud/skeptic movements are drug industry attempts to protect big business, to suppress competition and keep allopathic medicine on the road. ....National Council Against Health Fraud, Quackwatch, Campaign Against Health Fraud (UK) and CSICOP are AMA/allopathic shills used to cover up the fact that allopathics are the main source of quack medicine."
Take a look at what they say about SAS.
www.whale.to/p/quacks.html
Sources of income for SAS besides Astra Zeneca are GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer.
www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sense_about_science
Also just look at their web site for sources of income.
News about big pharma just keeps rolling in. On the heels of the $2.3B fine levied against Pfizer for illegal marketing of drugs like Zoloft, Lipitor and Viagra comes a $520 million fine against Astra Zeneca for illegal marketing of the drug Seroquel. (A quick google shows this is far from AZ's first fine. They've been been fined in the past for activities such as manipulation of patent laws to prevent competition.)
"The (US) federal government on Tuesday reached a $520 million settlement with pharmaceutical manufacturer Astra Zeneca, resolving allegations of illegal marketing of the company's anti-psychotic drug Seroquel. At a news conference, Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made the case a centerpiece of the federal government's crackdown on health care fraud. Astra Zeneca allegedly marketed Seroquel for off-label uses--those not approved by federal drug regulators--including insomnia and psychiatric conditions other than schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. US Attorney General Michael Levy of Philadelphia, where the suit was filed, said the company had 'turned patients into guinea pigs in an unsupervised drug test'. the government said Astra Zeneca paid kickbacks to doctors recruited to serve as authors of articles by Astra Zeneca and the company's agents about the unapproved uses of Seroquel. The company also made payments to doctors to travel to resort locations to advise Astra Zeneca about marketing messages for unapproved uses of the drug, the government stated."
i just wish the same rules applied to everything sold as medicene or improves health or a helps a condition.
"Concerns have surrounded the use of Gardasil in the US for years, with more than 18,000 adverse events and 72 Gardasil-related deaths having been reported in the US since the vaccine's release in 2006."
"India Stops Use of Gardasil Vaccine After 4 Deaths" (and 120 complications were reported)
http://elephantsandmice.wordpress.com
"The FDA adverse event reports on the HPV vaccine read like a catalog of horrors."
Serious "side effects" include:
Guillaine-Barre syndrome
Near death events
Total bilateral facial paralysis
Permanent disability (of young women!)
Central nervous system lesions
Paraesthesia
Spontaneous abortion
www.judicialwatch.org/gardasil
I was unable to locate anything pertaining to the supposed suspension of vaccination on the primary reference - cited but not linked - The Indian Council of Medical Research site. A search failed to turn up anything on Gardasil from this year.
Are you sure of your facts?
lff
The fact of the matter is that India does not consider the vaccine acceptable for use in its people.
Other links re India suspending the use of Gardasil are:
http://article.wn/com/view/2010/04/08/India_Gardasil_vaccine_programme_suspended_after_4_girls_die/
www.mothering.com/health/India-halts-gardasil-vaccine
-------------------------------------
The comments are worth reading as well.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/04/fear_the_homeopathic_bomb.php?
Seriously, well sort of, can a homeopathy supporter explain why this won't work? Is it that homeopathy only works on living thing? The problem then is how do chemicals, such as caffeine, know when they should develop homeopathic properties when diluted and when they shouldn't?
Inquiring Minds want to know.
Yes, yes, we all know the manufacturer of Rotarix (contaminated with pig virus and given to 1 million American children and 30 million worldwide) assures everyone that pig virus is perfectly safe, no problem with injecting it into children.
But do you think these kids' children will be born with adorable, curly, pink tails or broad, unattractive snouts? In either case, how much do think 31 million cases of cosmetic surgery will cost?
Inquiring Minds Want to Know
Humans are in close contact with pigs, we slaughter them (and sometimes will get pig blood through cuts or scratches into the body). Many, many, m any millions of humans eat pig. We even implant parts of pig into the human body. But no one has found any humans that have been infected by PCV-1.
So I have answered your inquiry. Could you please answer mine? Inquiring minds still want to know.
Sandalwood: "But not everyone was daft enough to believe that diet (lifestyle) wasn't important, before this new "research"."
cable1977: "To what timeframe are you speaking. 1900s...1950s...1980s? The big push in the pharmaceutical industry began in the 1970s-80s with the onset of a great deal of biomedical research. Are you speaking of prior to that time? Or during that time."
Are you aware of the Flexner Report… that was the beginning of how we got here today.
From Wiki: "The Flexner Report[1] is a book-length study of medical education in the United States and Canada, written by the professional educator Abraham Flexner and published in 1910 under the aegis of the Carnegie Foundation. Many aspects of the present-day American medical profession stem from the Flexner Report and its aftermath."
@ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report
"Admission to a medical school should require, at minimum, a high school diploma and at least two years of college or university study, primarily devoted to basic science."
Cause I want a doctor without a high school education.
And the consequences are noted :
"Average physician quality has increased significantly"
Again, a horrible result I'm sure.
And the key point coming towards the end:
""An education in medicine," wrote Flexner, "involves both learning and learning how; the student cannot effectively know, unless he knows how." Although the report is more than 90 years old, many of its recommendations are still relevant—particularly those concerning the physician as a "social instrument... whose function is fast becoming social and preventive, rather than individual and curative.""
That last sentence sounds quite like your description of Ayurveda, does it not?
Bottom line is, we keep going in circles, with me saying that one should provide evidence of claims and you countering that one just "knows" things and evidence is not always required (granted that's an oversimplification, but since I am reductionist, what else would you expect).
There were a lot of good ideas in that report, but it also swayed heavily towards the idea of "better living through chemistry". Drugless approaches to health, such a Naturopathy were all but wiped out... these have a place in the wider world of medicine. The only med schools for blacks and women were disbanded also. The number of doctors was regulated, rather than be driven by the marketplace... a shortage of doctors drove much higher the cost of accessing doctors, as well the the cost of studying medicine.
The Carnegie-Rockefeller cabal (mega corps) has since then assumed control of the food industry, chemical industry, food science industry (Monsanto)... med school education has very little info on food, diet, natural diet, chemical exposure as a cause of illness. These are things that persons have to go elsewhere to find.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1293684/pdf/jrsocmed00106-0012.pdf
The two faces of medical education: Flexner and Osler revisited
'Aside from advocating a strong background in basic science, he assumed the more extreme view that clinical medicine was but a branch of pathophysiology and that the vector of interest was from laboratory to bedside. The optimism of a severe reductionism originated from the research programme proclaimed in the 1840s by Hermann Helmholtz who sought to purge biology of vitalism. Helmholtz instead sought to strictly apply the same laws of inorganic chemistry and physics to organic processes'.
Its a good read... shows the battle which took place between different views, and how we are heirs of that battle, which still continues today and which might be turning away from the original extreme positions to a more balanced approach... at least I hope so.
For those interested in a little "background" reading about Flexner, his report, and the curious circumstances from which it came, are well advised to read the following article, "100 Years of US Medical Fascism" by Dale Steinreich.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/100-years-of-us-medical-fascism.html
And, believe me, a knowledge of the circumstances and context that gave rise to the "Flexner" report is REALLY eye opeining and required, next time some one of the anti-alternative medicine persuasion wishes to hold it up as something of any significance whatsoever.
"In fact, conventional physicians have consistently worked to disallow competitors, even viciously attacking those in their own profession who have questioned conventional treatments or provided alternative modalities."
There is a solution to this problem: Disband state medical licensing boards. Byron Richards explains:
http://www.wellnessresources.com/freedom/articles/its_time_for_a_21st_century_health_revolution/
Sandalwood: "Now, is the awry biochemistry correlated with lifestyle or does the awry biochemistry deserve to be seen as a cause? "
cable1977: "It certainly depends on the disease in question."
Yes, absolutely… but every person diagnosed with any disease whatsoever will benefit if their digestion, elimination, restfulness, breathing pattern, deepness of sleep, suitability of diet according to their digestive ability, constitutional tendency, seasonal and climactic factors is improved… doesn't matter what disease. Where in modern medicine is this type of knowledge and ability in illness prevention and health promotion? Not just "cure", but "care" is required. This is what Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine excel at… of course because of this "take care of the whole person" approach, there is naturally a better chance of the main symptoms being improved via the more pointed courses of remedial action towards the main symptoms themselves… Treat the person, not the disease.
Unless you have a serious health problem that is very unlikely to be ameliorated by anything other than intensive pharma drugs, there probably are safe, effective and natural solutions.
Investigate homeopathic remedies instead of drugs, or natural supplements. For instance, SAMe is recommended by several MDs (like Dr. Weil) for helping with mild depression. (It also helps joints and the liver!) So why use drugs? Particularly given that recent studies indicate they don't work for mild depression.
http://www.garmaonhealth.com/2010/01/depression-drugs/
And speaking of "natural"... why not eat real food? That seems natural to me. The stuff in the packages and fast food restaurants are not real food.
David Murdock is a 80+ year-old billionaire who can afford anything he wants, yet his medicine cabinet is stuffed with pharma drugs. He's spent millions on research to discover how to be healthy. It comes down to choosing the right food, as he indicates here:
http://www.garmaonhealth.com/2009/09/an-86-year-old-billionaires-recipe-for-longevity/
The solutions exist. Just don't expect someone to spoon feed you them. The only ones that can afford to do that are often peddling stuff that's not in your best interest.
My 2 cents.
jgarma
When it isn't, then turn to homoepathy, naturopaths and accupuncture.
I don't agree with this view. But it is a step in the right direction.
Millions take unapproved meds
You could be taking a perfectly ordinary and common prescription drug right now, something given to you by your own doctor and picked up at the local big-box pharmacy, without even realizing that the drug was never approved.
It seems someone's skipped a step or two. But hey, at least they got to cash in on your co-pay.
Nearly every brand of common nitroglycerin tablets -- drugs used by millions for chest pain, angina and to help prevent heart attacks -- never went through the FDA approval process.
No one knows if they're safe or effective... and if there were studies done on these things, the feds never signed off on them.
They know these meds are out there. The know who's making them. They know where they're being sold. Either these meds are unknown and potentially dangerous and need to be pulled NOW... or the entire system is a joke.
Rather than take swift action, they did what they always do -- they sent out warning letters to two of the companies making the unapproved drugs.
Even if these firms do nothing at all, they can keep selling these unapproved, unknown drugs for SIX MORE MONTHS! That's right -- the warning letter actually amounts to legal approval to sell an illegal med for 180 days, and who knows how much longer if these companies manage to use the standard bureaucratic delaying tactics.
"Pfizer Pleads Guilty and Agrees to Pay $430M" (Reuters, May 13, 2004)
"It didn't matter that legitimate research had proven that Neurontin was ineffective in the 10 conditions it was being promoted for including ADD, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, diabetic neuropathy, mood disorders, migranes and bi-polar."
"Medical Education Services, a ghost writing marketing firm was paid $60,000 to create dozens of fabricated studies on Neurontin. Doctors were paid $1,000 each to sign off on the article."
THIS DRUG WAS TARGETED AT CHILDREN
www.treatingandbeating.com/newsletters_letters/neurontinforevery.html
"Pfizer to pay record $2.3B penalty for drug promos"
"Federal prosecutors hit Pfizer, Inc., with a record-breaking $2.3 billion in fines Wednesday and called the world's largest drugmaker a repeat corporate cheat for illegal drug promotions that plied doctors with free golf, massages, and resort junkets. It is the company's fourth such settlement of government charges in the last decade. The allegations surround the marketing of 13 different drugs, including big sellers such as Viagra, Zoloft, and Lipitor.
"Acting US attorney for the Disttrict of Massachusetts Mike Loucks said: 'The size and seriousness of this resolution, including the huge criminal fine, reflect the seriousness and scope of Pfizer's crimes."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8234533.stm
And this is what is being held up as "scientific", evidence-based medicine!
This article is almost off HuffPost's board & needs to be addressed.
When I found it this morning it only had three comments.
"Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Piece", because you just know the FDA is watching. And so are important people with integrity & influence that will help "US".
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/20/report-fda-should-force-r_n_544297.html
"there are no treatments available for any kind of chronic disease?"
There are "treatments" on offer. But what constitutes a successful treatment? There are drugs/herbs (D/H) which downgrade the inflammation and pain. But if the causes of the pain and inflammation are not addressed, then I don't consider that a successful treatment. Now, what are the causes? One could say that the cause is some biochemical pathway gone awry and that a D/H which successfully targets that is a successful treatment… Insulin is a good example of this. One could also say that the cause is how a person breathes, sleeps, eats, manages their mind, how they dress inappropriately for the weather, how lonely or angry they feel, how they overwork, overthink etc. Now, is the awry biochemistry correlated with lifestyle or does the awry biochemistry deserve to be seen as a cause? Except for genetic diseases, most of the time the biochemistry is a reflection of lifestyle factors.
In Ayurveda, a proper diagnosis includes not just a description of the symptoms bound up in a name, but also must include the causes, as I have discussed above. Without this, we will confuse the issue of cause. So, a successful treatment requires that causes be addressed, without which neither D/H by themselves will prove sufficient to have the person feeling better long term. D/H can lessen symptoms short term, and even long term, but then side effects and other problems will arise.
Many diseases have a genetic predisposition regardless of lifestyle. That is why George Burns smoked constantly, but lived to his 90s, but my Dad died at 56 from lung cancer.
And as I have stated before, modern medicine certainly deals with lifestyle factors as well. Do you have some evidence that doctors treating their patient for diabetes don't also suggest nutritional advice to their patients? Same to those with cardiovascular disease. Or frequent kidney stones. To suggest otherwise without some sort of evidence to back up your statements is disingenuous at best and outright misinformation at worst.
"Now, is the awry biochemistry correlated with lifestyle or does the awry biochemistry deserve to be seen as a cause? "
It certainly depends on the disease in question. But as I have remarked over and over about your comments (and you have not yet addressed this matter), you are speaking in vague generalizations about disease treatment, "magic bullets", etc. Specifics count, especially when it comes to diagnosis, treatment, or cure of any kind of disease.
And again, we come back to the problem of your comments being unsupported by any evidence. I have yet to see you link to any clinical trial data of any kind that supports what you suggest.
We are now seeing the process of disease making and health making to be as important the diseases themselves which are various stations along the process of disease making.
The nutritional advice offered is MDs is a good idea of course. But the knowledge of the connection of diet, lifestyle and health/illness is much, much more developed in Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine. Look into it by reading a book or two.
I actually saw a study reported on BBC which showed that happiness is linked with heart health. Anyone who needed to see a study to show that link requires a refresher course in reality. Not every thing needs to be proven in this way... its a waste of resources. Take a mediation course, learn about the connection between body, breath and mind... its self-evident. Lots of people are seeing that, rather than waiting for some scientist to pronounce that being happy is good for health. Ayurveda is filled with lots of gem-like tips which are self-evident wisdoms, and lots of people can see that.
A particular point is made over and over by detractors of alt med; that is, homeopathy, and other alt med modalities too, have no "scientific basis" and so should be ignored out of hand.
By this logic, we must also ignore the existence of the universe since there is no scientific basis for its existence that we can discern. If there is, could someone spell it out for me? We know that it is, but not how. Isn't that correct?
We have two options:
1. Experience first, theory second.
2. Theory first, experience second.
One must choose sides here. But remember, science is about the exploration of the unknown and not a bludgeon to beat back aspects of reality which do not conform to our preconceived notions. One must keep an open mind, being led by experience, while trying one's best to understand the basis of what is apparent through experience, rather than ignoring experience because it does not fit into how we understand the world thus far. So the question becomes, "Are there in fact valid clinical experiences that need explaining, but which perhaps cannot be explained just yet?" Let's stick to this question, rather than putting the cart before the horse.
Experience
Theory
Testing of theoretical predictions
Analysis of data
Determination of conclusion supported by data.
Your two options discount the possibility that experience can be wrong. Ever look at an optical illusion or seen a magician perform? If experience is all that counts, then there should be no such thing as an optical illusion as what you see or experience is always the truth. Furthermore, if only experience counts, why can different eyewitnesses to events offer up completely different accounts of the event itself?
Experience is important to give a direction to pursue study, but experience is not equivalent to the truth, precisely because humans are often wrong. A good scientist recognizes that his own perceptions are quite often wrong. If you don't believe that your perceptions are ever wrong, I again ask you to look at an optical illusion.
Now if we look again at the way Mr. Ullman would like to look at the progression
Experience
Theory
Conclusion
Careful selection of only evidence that supports the conclusion and ignore that which does not.
Besides once big (BIG) money enters the equation, we are not really talking science, are we?
For instance homeopathy was evaluated in the late 18th and early 19th century as an alternative to the primitive allopathic practice of the time. Some allopathic methods at the time (bleeding, hygienic ignorance, etc.) were actually harmful and considerably worse than no treatment at all. Alternative treatments - like homeopathy - performed as well as no treatment in many cases and became accepted as effective.
Experience has shown that alternative treatments are more effective than bleeding or surgery in an unhygienic environment. However, contemporary experience clearly shows that in all but a very few cases alternative treatments are not as effective as modern medical care. Society cannot waste time and treasure forever chasing every anecdotal rumor simply because they have some traditional acceptance.
I recommend reading Edzard Ernst - bio here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edzard_Ernst - an expert and one-time supporter of alternative medicine. Here is a review of his latest book: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=375
lff
The table at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html would seem to clearly show this statement to be false. Can you explain how you construe the nearly 10 year improvement in life expectancy for 40 year olds in 2000 over those in 1900 shown in the table as "a similar chance of living to 80 years old".
There is really little point in paying any attention to someone who cannot get the most basic of facts correct.
lff
Let's apply this logic across the board... pay no attention, ever, about anything, to the FDA, Medical Journals, Drug Companies... the latter regularly lie to the point of criminality, never mind getting their facts right.
Or, one can keep level headed, take what one deems useful and skip what one does not deem acceptable... and we continue a dialogue focused on substantive issues so that we might find a common ground.
I choose the latter option.
Oh, and no more avoidance from you. I am discussing what he said not what he says the FDA or any other government or commercial interest had to say. Lets get what he said straight first then we can move on to what he says other people say.
lff
Point taken about good dialogue, but many readers are tired of this particular authors sloppy reasoning, bad facts, and frequent ad hominem's.
Of course, any journal can get "facts" wrong, but the point of the post you are commenting on is that the authors main premise revolves around a "basic" fact.
How does it work? Consider this:
A hopeful feeling in the mind causes a smile at the mouth and the eyes, which goes along with tension relief at the upper palate, sinus, jaws and scalp… this is concurrent with a deepening of the breath so the area below the zyphoid process moves outward and downward with the inhalation… also, ribcage expands with this more unconstrained breathing pattern… in fact, if breath becomes unconstrained enough, then one can feel an expansion caused by the downward movement of the diaphragm throughout the belly, low back and perineum… at maximum, one can even feel a tiny opening up at the body's various joints. All of this will certainly be related to shifting away from the sympathetic axis of the ANS… the mucous membranes become more moist, the intestines become less tense…. etc. etc. etc. Obviously, this is very good for one's health. Now imagine being this self-aware and also being able to call forward this cascade of events at anytime, and even keeping it so, much of the time. The pressure felt at the chest and head is less, leading to a lesser likelihood of a coronary artery spasm… etc. etc. etc. This is internal Yoga in action as part of self-care… worth learning.