Reost Message #11. Iatrogenic (doctor caused) Illness

[Guest guest]

Gettingwell , califpacific wrote:

Iatrogenic Illness: The Downside of Modern Medicine

A White Paper by Gary Null, PhD & Debora

Rasio, MD

Copyright, 2000

 

Note: The information on this website is not a substitute for

diagnosis and treatment by a qualified, licensed professional.

 

During the past century, a medical establishment has evolved

that has made itself the exclusive provider of

so-called scientific, evidence-based therapies. The paradigm

used by this establishment is what we call the

orthodox medical approach, and for the first 70 years of this

century, little effort was made to challenge it. In

the past 30 years, however, there has been a growing awareness

of the importance of an alternative

approach to medical care, one that, either on its own, or as a

complement to orthodox medicine, emphasizes

nontoxic and noninvasive treatments, and prevention

 

Unfortunately, this new perspective has been fought

vigorously.

We've been told that it's only the treatments

of orthodox medicine that have passed careful scientific

scrutiny involving double-blind placebo-controlled

studies. Concomitantly, we've been told that alternative or

complementary health care has no science to back

it up, only anecdotal evidence. These two ideas have led to

the

widely accepted " truths " that anyone offering

an alternative or complementary approach is depriving patients

of the proven benefits of safe and effective

care, and that people not only don't get well with alternative

care, but are actually endangered by it.

 

By getting society to accept these precepts, orthodox medicine

has maneuvered itself into being the sole

provider of information about disease and its treatment, and

has taken charge of curricula, accreditation, and

insurance coverage in the health care arena. All 50 states

have

enacted strict proscriptions at the state

medical board level against using so-called unscientific

medicine, meaning anything that is not, according to

the orthodox consensus, common-use medicine. Hundreds of

physicians have been prosecuted and punished

for not confining their treatments to the accepted paradigm,

some to the point of having their licenses

revoked, being imprisoned, or suffering bankruptcy. And it has

been of only secondary importance whether or

not their patients have claimed to benefit from their

treatments. The prosecutors-the state attorneys general

working hand-in-hand with state medical boards and

" anti-quackery " groups supported by pharmaceutical

interests-have influenced such federal enforcement agencies as

the FDA, the USDA, and the Justice

Department. They've also influenced such bodies as the

National

Institutes of Health as to which modalities

receive funding and get incorporated into the standard medical

model, thus perpetuating the status quo.

 

It is the purpose of this review to question the status quo.

Specifically, we'll be looking at a variety of

areas-cancer, heart disease, mental illness, obstetrics and

gynecology, psychiatry, etc.-and asking some basic

questions:

 

1. Are the orthodox medical modalities safe and effective,

i.e., have they been proven so by qualified

science?

2. If they have not been proven safe and effective, then what

are the risk/benefit ratios of using these

modalities?

3. What are the costs, in terms of morbidity and mortality, as

well as dollars and cents, of using these

modalities, both to the individual and to society as a whole?

 

After a careful consideration of the answers we can determine

how much of the existing mainstream medical

model should be supported, and how much should be rejected and

replaced with new approaches.

It is vital to note that all the studies referred to here are

from mainstream medicine's own respected journals,

such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, the

New England Journal of Medicine, and The

Lancet. Thus this white paper's criticism of the various

therapies comes not from the " alternative " world but

from the very heart of orthodox medicine itself and from

researchers using the gold standard of rigorously

set-up controlled studies. So there is nothing subjective or

political about the conclusions. Also, I should

mention that this work was done over a period of eight years,

during which time over 10,000 studies were

analyzed. The studies contained herein are just samples; many

more could have been included but were not

because of space considerations.

 

With more than 5000 physicians questioned, it is apparent to

this author that the vast majority of medical

procedures are done with the belief that they are safe and

effective, rather than with proof that they are.

Even after procedures and medications have been shown (a) not

only not to work, but (b) to cause injury and

death at a statistically significant level, they continue to

gain in popularity and use. This is one of the reasons

we have not had greater gains in combating the major diseases

in recent decades. And it is also why there is

an urgent need for physicians, legislators, journalists,

funding agencies, curriculum developers, insurance

companies, and peer review systems to take note of the

substantial gaps in primary chronic care, and find

better approaches.

 

The facts here speak for themselves. We are a society that

states that we live by the gold standard of

scientific research, but this report shows that statement to

be

at odds with reality. It shows that we are

routinely causing iatrogenic conditions and unnecessary

suffering-not to mention wasting vast sums of

money--through a systemic negligence of the facts. This

situation must be challenged, and remedied.

--- End forwarded message ---