Herman's Paper // Interesting

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Dear Friends :

You will like the following article, especially what I have highlighted.

Dr. Leo Rebello

www.healthwisdom.org

 

 

 

Herman JD Jeggels

MD (Neth) MRCP (UK) FBIH (Hon) DHM (Hon)

Email: practice

 

Research Summary

 

 

NASA’s Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) Adjudicating Modern Medicine’s “Scientific Evidence” of Therapeutic Effectiveness; Modern Medicine’s Immature, High-Risk and Unverified Evidence

by Herman JD Jeggels MD, MRCP (UK), FBIH (Hon), DHM (Hon)

 

 

1. Abstract

 

1.1. Since the 1980s, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) have employed technology readiness levels (TRLs) to eliminate risks and determine the maturity and safety of their technologies. Since the 1990s the United States of America’s Department of Defence, as well as the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence, amongst others, have adopted NASA’s TRLs, while commercial companies have always marketed mature technologies. NASA, the aircraft and motor vehicle industries adhere to a policy of 0% risk before marketing their technologies. NASA and the aircraft industries never accept a risk that 3% of their satellites/aircraft are allowed to crash on residential areas, whether daily, weekly, or yearly.

1.2. The research would, firstly, confirm that scientific evidence is represented by the successful results of mature risk-free TRL 9 technologies. Secondly, that modern medicine’s “scientific evidence” of therapeutic effectiveness is represented by immature, high-risk, unverified experimental TRL 3 technologies. Thirdly, modern medicine denies patients, for instance, the effective and safe TRL 9 homoeopathic therapies to patients under their care. Fourthly, to strive for justice in health care, allowing amongst others, the employment of the real-life successful TRL 9 therapies across all therapeutic systems. This can be happily achieved after the evaluation of their maturity by employing NASA’s TRLs as the evaluating tool.

1.3. Modern medicine acts unethically compared to the natural sciences, due to it knowingly and wilfully marketing immature and high-risk drugs which have shown themselves capable of resulting in harm to or in the deaths of patients.

 

2. Scientific Evidence in the Natural Sciences vs. Modern Medicine

 

2.1. This research was triggered by the bewildering contradiction displayed by modern medical practitioners, who, on the one hand unquestioningly accept real-life successful technologies, such as mobile phones, passenger aircraft and motor vehicles, while on the other hand, contemptuously reject the real-life successful results of non-modern medical therapies as technologies, particularly those therapies which have not been verified as “therapeutically effective” by their experimental methodology called a randomised controlled trial. In order to resolve the above contradiction, which has immense scientific, ethical and legal implications, the research must answer, amongst others, questions such as:

 

a. What are, firstly, the merit, value and status of the various components of the continuum of scientific and technological activities, as described in the table below, taking the natural sciences as the benchmark?

b. What is, secondly, the true value or worth of the real-life successful results of any technology? Therefore, how worthy or not is the successful reversal of a patient’s paraplegia due to a spinal cord injury by means of the employment of a specific homoeopathic therapy, in comparison to the successful result depicted by an aircraft flying at 10000 meters?

 

2.2. I designed the following table which provides a brief summary of an example of the various components of the continuum of scientific and technological activities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aspects of scientific activities;

The development of a new turbofan jet engine.

 

 

1. Science

 

2. Experimentation

 

3. Testing/Verification

 

4. Demonstration

 

 

 

Science encompasses the development of the basic scientific theories for a new and powerful turbofan jet engine. New components are designed using engineering mathematical calculations. The new design is put on paper before the manufacture of an experimental model.

 

 

 

Experimentation on the new turbofan jet engine is set in motion to answer the question, “Will it work?” or “Does it work?” on the basis of the new scientific principles. There are still uncertainties and risks. The experiment allows us to answer the above question with either, “Yes it works”, or, “It does not work.” If the turbofan jet engine indeed works, the next question is …→

 

 

 

“How well does it work in real-life?” This question is answered by subjecting the turbofan jet engine to testing and verification under increasingly realistic environments, eliminating all unknowns, uncertainties and risks. Verification and testing (even to destruction) involves data collection via an array of measuring and data collecting instruments, and not via experimentation.

 

 

Once uncertainties and risks have been eliminated and all outcomes have been met, a true demonstration can be attained. The new turbofan jet engine “Works in real-life, and is a demonstration.” The new turbofan jet engine would now only be marketed and sold to an aircraft company.

 

 

The Equivalent NASA TRLs

 

 

 

Science:

Least mature and high-risk technology

TRL 1 – 2

 

 

Experimentation:

High-risk experimental technology

TRL 2 – 3

 

Verification/Testing:

Maturing technology by eliminating risks

TRL 4 – 7

 

Demonstration:

Mature and risk-free technology

TRL 8 – 9

 

2.3. The table above answers the previous two questions unambiguously. Answer 2.1.a.: Experimental technologies are equivalent to a TRL 3, which have an immature, uncertain and high-risk status. Experimental technologies can only mature to TRL 8-9 risk-free status, after testing/verification. Answer 2.1.b.: Real-life successful results can be demonstrated only by TRL 8-9 mature, trustworthy and risk-free technologies. Thus, TRL 8-9 technologies must be defined as true scientific evidence, e.g., passenger aircraft flying at 10000 meters, motor cars, etc. The products of experimentation which failed in real-life, such as, for example, the Russian N1 rocket, does not represent scientific evidence; thus its science and experimental foundation are failures. The natural sciences hardly market technologies which have not attained a mature, trustworthy and risk-free TRL 8-9 status.

 

2.4. In stark contradiction, modern medicine’s “scientific evidence” of therapeutic effectiveness is represented by the results of experimental technologies, equal to a TRL 3. A randomised controlled trial is an experiment, producing experimental evidence only. Therefore, therapies marketed on the basis of randomised controlled trials represent unverified, untested, immature, high-risk therapies, resulting often either in the suffering or death of patients and certainly do not reverse most disorders. “Pragmatic” medical trials are modern medicine’s verification tools, however, they are seldom undertaken; if undertaken, their results are demoted, questioned and often rejected, since their results are not the results of an experimentation! Modern medicine is obsessed with experimentation ad infinitum, and has an unscientific abhorrence for verification, in clear contradiction to, for instance, the aircraft industry. Nevertheless, diabetic “pragmatic” trials, for example, have confirmed that diabetic therapies are failures; they cannot prevent, or reverse the inevitable complications of diabetes, yet are not withdrawn. Thus, a failed scientific and experimental foundation!

 

2.5. Modern medical practitioners display a prejudicial scientific ignorance when they firstly market TRL 3 therapies, secondly, reject the real-life successful TRL 9 therapies of homoeopathy, such as my documented successful treatment results of patients’ paraplegia after spinal cord injuries, hyperthyroidism, myxoedema, vesico-colic fistula, diabetic feet ulcers, angina pectoris, congestive cardiac failure, e.g., while thirdly, demand from last-mentioned TRL 9 homoeopathic therapies, experimental TRL 3 proof of their effectiveness via randomised controlled trials. A similitude would be: someone witnesses an aircraft flying successfully (TRL 8-9), yet demands, prior to accepting the aircraft, to conduct an experiment (TRL 3) on that aircraft to confirm whether that aircraft is truly capable of flying or not! The previous demands represent an embarrassing and dangerous ignorance of the continuum of science and technology, as well as the function of each component thereof, as described in the table above! Natural scientists never experiment on successful and mature technologies! To improve on an established successful TRL 9 technology, one starts at TRL 1-2 once more, proceeding through the continuum until an improved TRL 9 technology is achieved.

 

3. My Background

 

3.1. I was a political refugee from the Apartheid regime from 1976-1993, grateful to reside in the Netherlands. The opportunity to study modern medicine materialised in the Netherlands, since my desire to study it in South Africa was thwarted by many factors. I studied at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam, the Netherlands, graduating in April 1987. Homoeopathic medicine was a 4th year subject, which I ignored for various reasons. Following graduation, I pursued postgraduate training in internal medicine in the United Kingdom, passing the Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians [MRCP (UK)] examinations during 1992.

 

3.2. I started employing homoeopathic therapies on my return to South Africa, while functioning, during 1993-1994, as a consultant physician. Since December 1994, I preferred to work as a general practitioner. I have been a lecturer on behalf of the Allied Health Council of South Africa (AHPCSA), the statutory body for complementary medicine during 1997-1998; have conducted clinically orientated seminars during 2000 and 2002, and trained since 1997 many medically and non-medically trained homoeopathic practitioners sitting in on my consultations. Between the years 2000-2005, I was the only accredited provider of continuing professional development (CPD), accredited by the modern medical statutory council of South Africa, the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA), for general and homoeopathic medicine. During August/September 2007, I have been awarded by the British Institute of Homoeopathy, an Honorary Fellowship [FBIH (Hon)], as well as an Honorary Diploma in Homoeopathic Medicine [DHM (Hon)], in recognition of my knowledge, skills, teaching and therapeutic results.

 

3.3. The therapeutic results of only one disorder should suffice. That is the reversal of spinal cord injured patients, irreversible under modern medicine, and devastating for the individual and society. I treated 3 patients at Livingstone Hospital, Port Elizabeth; a colleague treated a 4th according to my instructions; all walked independently within or after 4 months. The first 2 patients’ records are lost; the 3rd was then a junior doctor at the hospital, now a specialist physician in Canada, while the 4th patient’s hospital notes are available. Why not more patients? I was in the fortuitous position to treat the first two patients as well as the junior doctor, while the 4th patient’s family requested my colleague’s intervention. All other spinal cord injured patients are “protected” from “unqualified persons” like me, thus staying paralysed forever. Such real-life successes leave colleagues cold and unmoved. I approached Professor Paul Glasziou of Oxford University, presenting him the above dramatic cases, due to a provocative article he co-authored, in which the authors stated, amongst others, that “some treatments have dramatic effects that are highly unlikely to reflect inadequately controlled biases.” They proposed a model, naturally one model, to assess dramatic results. Nevertheless, on the basis of this model, the authors stated that it “…may help to reduce controversy about evidence for treatments whose effects are so dramatic that randomised trials are unnecessary.” Nevertheless, he termed the results interesting, but was not interested in its further evaluation, as my cases do not fit their model! He wished 100 more similar patients’ results, as if one dramatic case, mostly stumbled upon serendipitously, never played a role in modern medicine at all! Unsurprisingly therefore, such successful results are dismissed contemptuously, on behalf of patients, as “anecdotes”. Ironically, and cruelly so, is the fact that Professor Glasziou et al’s dramatic cases represent unambiguous “anecdotes”! “Anecdotes” is thus the term used by modern medicine to dismiss the real-life successful results of, for instance, homoeopathy. Thus, a range of similar dramatic case studies have been sent to, and ignored by:

 

a. Other modern medical colleagues.

b. The South African Department of Health during June 2004.

c. The Chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health of the Parliament of South Africa during October 2004, for his intervention with the Department of Health. His intervention was ignored.

d. The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) during December 2005 and 2007.

 

3.4. As indicated earlier, the BMJ, PloS and the Medical Hypotheses journals during 2006-2007, refused to publish such cases as part of articles dealing with the immaturity of modern medicine’s scientific evidence. Lastly, my attempts to pursue a PhD on the basis of the above data are, as stated earlier, going slowly, nowhere.

 

4. Conclusions and Aims

 

4.1. The research has vindicated and justified my bewilderment of modern medical colleagues rejecting real-life therapeutic successes. Documenting the real-life successes of homoeopathic therapies has thus not been an unscientific and futile endeavour.

 

4.2. The aims of the research are:

 

a. Firstly, to confirm that scientific evidence is represented by the successful results of verified and tested mature risk-free TRL 9 technologies.

b. Secondly, that modern medicine’s “scientific evidence” of therapeutic effectiveness is represented by immature, high-risk experimental TRL 3 technologies. Modern medicine is unethical compared to the natural sciences, due to it knowingly and wilfully marketing immature and high-risk drugs. In essence, if one of modern medicine’s drugs was a technological component intended for use on a rocket/space shuttle that immature technology would never be employed on an Ariane rocket or on a space shuttle.

c. Thirdly, modern medicine is acting unethically when denying, for instance, the effective and safe TRL 9 homoeopathic therapies to patients under their care, sanctioned by its misrepresented immature high-risk experimental TRL 3 technologies. World-wide, all and sundry have till now accepted unquestioningly modern medicine’s “scientific evidence” since it is deemed more, or the only source of “scientific evidence” of therapeutic effectiveness. This research would demolish this universal misrepresentation.

d. Fourthly, to strive for justice in health care, allowing amongst others, the employment of the real-life successful therapies across all therapeutic systems. This can be happily achieved after the evaluation of their maturity by employing NASA’s TRLs as the evaluating tool.

 

5. Postscript

 

5.1. The above scientific rebut of modern medicine’s “scientific evidence” would yet be countered by the dogmatism of the “finality of theories/laws”, by invoking the “Law of Implausibility”, as well as the contention that “It’s just water and there is nothing in the water”. I dismiss such objections as follows:

 

a. Ideas, theories and hypotheses are never final, closed and irreversible. This was discovered, amongst others, by Alfred North Whitehead about the 1900s, when Newton’s laws were surpassed by Einstein’s theories. Newton’s laws were deemed to be the last word on the structure of the physical world until modern physics overturned it. Alfred Whitehead, acknowledging his own dogmatism, says therefore that “Nothing is more curious than the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of its existing beliefs. Skeptics and believers are all alike.” And, “At this moment scientists and skeptics are the leading dogmatists. Such dogmatism,” he says, “is the death of philosophic adventure. The argument on any basic issue is never closed.” Therefore, modern medicine, in particular, has attempted to close many arguments, to bring closure to ideas when no closure must ever be warranted, as the case of Newton’s laws confirmed. On top of that, Newton’s laws may be “defeated”, yet his laws are still, in our day and age, employed in modern aircraft. Thus, the modern turbofan jet engine is functioning happily on the basis of many contradictory laws! Einstein’s theories and Newton’s laws happily and safely keep an aircraft in the air. Modern medicine is not capable of a happy marriage between contradictory systems of medicine, when I have been able to materialise such a marriage very successfully.

b. Modern medicine perpetually invokes the “Law of Implausibility”. Such a law does not exist in the natural sciences! The above discussion concerning Newton and Einstein verifies last-mentioned statement. Nothing is implausible in science. Einstein’s theories would have been “implausible” for a few centuries after Newton, yet was successful in “overturning” Newton’s laws. The eminent physicist, Niels Bohr made the following amazing remark after Wolfgang Pauli presented a new theory of elementary particles before a professional audience. He said the following to Pauli: “We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.” In my opinion, Einstein’s theories were crazy; however, they were crazy enough to be correct! Therefore, no idea or theory is too crazy not to be taken into consideration.

c. The question of Avogadro’s number and “just water” has recently been dismissed by the eminent material scientist, Professor Rustum Roy, who accused modern medicine of adhering to “contaminated high school science” when using such arguments. He described Avogadro’s number as an “old classical bugaboo”, since modern medicine, in particular, is ignorant of the structure of water. Modern chemistry invariably studies the composition of water and chemicals, and not its structure. The structure of water has been studied for the first time in 1884 by Whiting. The three main findings by Professor Rustum Roy on homoeopathic remedies, are:

 

i. “Homoeopathic remedies are spectroscopically distinct from the original solvent (water/ethanol).”

ii. “Different potencies can be distinctly distinguished by the UV-VIS and the Raman spectra.”

iii. “Nat Mur and Nux Vomica are distinctly different while the same potencies with different succussion also show a clear evidence of difference in the structure of the individual samples.”

 

5.2. Finally, modern medicine has advanced greatly with the aid of the natural sciences. It is my opinion that the most successful aspects of modern medicine are emergency medical and surgical interventions, anaesthetics and the technological investigations. Morphine works in real-life, so does lignocaine, anaesthetics and many other drugs. However, modern medicine has enormous (irresolvable) shortcomings, for which, for instance, homoeopathy has solutions. We are urgently and undoubtedly in need of justice in health care.